A Bride for Booth
By LizD
Written May 2010 - June 2010
Chapter 5
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Early August
She felt him there before she saw him. There wasn't another physical presence on the planet that elicited such a profound sense of joy and fear, hope and pain. "Booth." She turned to see his silhouette in her door.
"Took a chance that you would be working late," he said softly and stepped into the dim light.
His face was drawn and dark. He looked weary. Her only thought was to protect him, help him, take a way his pain. "Yes, yes," she said struggling not to say more.
He had something important to say to her. Something he needed her to understand but he had no idea how he was going to broach the topic or what he was going to say to get through. He still wasn't sure if it was something he wanted to say, something wanted her to hear, or if it was something that just had to be done. "May I interrupt you?"
"Of course." He never needed to ask that, he never had in the past. She was freshly reminded of the distance between them, a distance that was felt more deeply the closer he was to her. She got up and moved away from her desk. "Drink?"
"No thanks, don't drink much anymore." Booth had lost the taste for alcohol too. He watched as she moved to the shelf to retrieve the bottle of Scotch - his preferred brand - it was unopened and dusty as if she were waiting for him to open it.
It had been weeks since their conversation in the Jeffersonian Gardens. To open the lines of communication, she had emailed him regularly; daily, sometimes twice a day if she got a response. Just as she had done when she first arrived in Indonesia, just as she had done after he sent her away from his recovery. The recent ones had been filled with information about the cases she was working. Her main purpose was to get him comfortable again corresponding with her and she thought the topics of the emails would be a good icebreaker. It was probably against some law to discuss the cases over email, but she was willing to risk it. She was careful not to mention names, places or specifics, but gave him enough to be interested in the outcome. He did respond with some good ideas. He helped to turn the direction of a couple of investigations that netted the arrest of the killer. One of those arrests was that day.
"Yes, but we closed a case, it is tradition," she said. He shrugged an acceptance of the offered drink. She poured, handed him the glass and touched hers glass to his. "Thanks for your help," she said. He smiled slightly and wet his lips with the liquor without actually drinking. He didn't feel he was that much help. The larger problem for Booth was that he had begun to look forward to her emails every day - too much - hence the reason for the midnight visit. The work he was doing with Counterterrorism was important and very necessary, but it really was not his style. Her emails were shifting his focus, turning his head, distracting him from the work he had chosen. It was becoming too much for him and he had to put a stop to it. He also discovered that he was thinking about her more, about their past, about all that had been lost. Also very distracting. It made it difficult to stay focused on Elizabeth.
She sat down on the couch. "Tell me about your work."
"Not much to tell really. Lots of data, collating, reviewing, reading between the lines, interpreting motive and actions from emails, wiretaps, travel docs. Pretty dry. Spend most of my time on my butt in front of a computer. I am not a desk guy – but it is nice not to worry about being shot at." She nodded not saying that she was also grateful that he wasn't putting himself in unnecessary danger. "So you aren't going into the field with Perotta, huh?"
"No, I have no interest." She took a long pull on her drink.
"Really?" He wondered if it had something to do with him or if she was still feeling the disillusionment that prompted her to head to Maluku in the first place.
"Really - and Agent Perotta has no interest in working with me beyond the lab." There were so many other reasons. Perotta didn't have her back. Perotta didn't value Brennan's contribution. Perotta was not dedicated to finding the truth; she just wanted a conviction. Of course Booth was the only reason she wanted to go into the field in the first place was a factor. And without him her heart wasn't into it. In conclusion, without Booth, she wanted nothing more than lab work, and without him the lab work was getting tedious. "Have you considered returning to major crimes?"
"No," he stated unequivocally but it was a lie. "I have thought about quitting altogether." Also a lie.
"Have you?"
"I am considering a move to San Diego." That was the truth. Not serious consideration, but it was something that Elizabeth had thrown out there.
Brennan felt the dull ache in her heart deepen. "San Diego?"
"Elizabeth's family – a mother, a sister and a sister-in-law from her first marriage – live there."
"I didn't expect that you would move away from Parker."
"Rebecca and I are talking about changing the arrangement. Her husband has an opportunity in Canada. Parker would come spend holidays and the summers with me whether I am in Washington or California. Ultimately it would be more time together."
"I can see the advantage to that."
"Nothing has been decided," he hedged.
Brennan drained her glass and refilled it. "We are working on an interesting case that I haven't told you about yet," she said talking very quickly. She moved to her desk to grab the file. She babbled on for many minutes outlining the case. Booth talked over the evidence they had discovered and what was missing. He gave some insight, but it really was nothing that Brennan hadn't thought of. "Good idea, wish I thought of that," she grinned.
Booth smiled with her knowing that she had already thought of that and they were working on it. "You are becoming - always were, I suppose - a first rate detective." He felt himself being drawn to her.
"Learned from the best," she stated. She touched her glass to his again. This time Booth actually did drink. He needed courage to do what he had to do. He just didn't know how to broach the subject.
"So what is going on with your ... what is it a paper, journal article ... comic book?" He let a cute teasing smirk edge his lips. "Temperance Brennan, Tomb Raider."
"There were no tombs," she defended and then realized he was joking. "It will be published in October."
"And your findings?"
"Profound, but not as defining as I had originally hoped." She didn't need to go into too many details. If he really wanted to know he could have read her emails of the past year - though many of them were still sitting in her draft folder. Rather than send them, she had kept them as her personal journal. If he had read them closely, he would have noticed that many of her comments described a shift in her attitudes and opinions about interpersonal relationships. He probably hadn't read them.
"Well I'm sorry. A lot of work went into that." She nodded but wasn't thinking about the work as much as the time it took away from other people and things. "And what about another novel? Do you have another one coming out any time soon? Met a kid the other day who couldn't stop talking about your work."
Brennan looked down. How could she tell him that she was working on the Final Kathy Reichs/Andy Lister book? She started writing novels after she met him, how would he view a final novel? How did she view it? When she started this last one it was a cathartic way to help her accept that Booth had moved on. What would he think if she killed off Andy Lister? "I am working on something, but my editor says she has lots of notes, so it will be a while yet." There were no notes; her editor didn't know that there was a new book. No one knew.
"I look forward to it." There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. It was time he got to the point. "So ... I am having sessions with Sweets - at Elizabeth's request. Well she didn't pick Sweets, but she wanted me to ... well you know."
She leaned back; her shoulders dropped and she couldn't hide the disappointment on her face. She thought they agreed that he would talk to her. The fact that he hadn't contacted her in all that time was just .. well it was something she didn't think about. They were conversing through the cases - just like old times (sort of). "How is that going?"
"He is still a kid, but I just couldn't see breaking in a new shrink."
"Sweets - in fact - is a psychologist, not a psychiatrist - so he would not be considered a shrink."
"Well whatever he is." Booth moved off the arm of the couch and sat closer to her. She turned to face him. "It has been about three weeks so far ... six sessions ... so nothing much. He has some ideas about the insomnia that might help."
"You are still suffering from insomnia?"
"It happens," he said meaning that it happens to survivors. The fact that she knew about his insomnia was annoying. How much had Elizabeth disclosed? "Sometimes I get less than an hour's sleep a night. Makes it a little hard to focus the next day." Still, he wanted her to know about him but not too much.
"What do you do when you can't sleep?"
"Usually I just lie there looking up at the ceiling. If I get out of bed it wakes Elizabeth up - no reason for us both to lose sleep."
Brennan looked away forcing the image of Booth and Elizabeth in bed out of her mind. "I am typically up at 4AM most mornings. It's when I get my writing done."
"Suggesting that I should write a novel?" he smirked at her with the trademark sparkle in his eye.
"I'm sure you have a story or two to tell," she answered back steadily. "It is very cathartic, even if you don't intend to publish."
"Yeah, but I don't write so good." He smiled. "Could use a ghost writer..."
It sounded like a request, but Brennan didn't respond. She had another question in mind. "Do you think about the incident when you lie awake at night unable to sleep? Do you feel responsible for those soldiers' deaths?"
And there was his opening. How could he have ever doubted that she would give him one? He was sorry for what he was about to do - or he would have been if he was actually aware of what was about to happen. "There you are!" he snapped with too much anger in his voice. He got up and moved away. "That's the woman I fell in love with. I was wondering if I had killed you too."
"I don't understand."
"Temperance Brennan you are the most direct, intrusive, unrelenting person I have ever known. Tenacious! Insensitive! Exacting! Yet you haven't asked me a direct question since I woke up in the hospital; at least not until this moment. I thought I had killed you too."
She felt attacked. "That doesn't answer my question."
"No, I suppose it doesn't. The obvious answer is yes, when I can't sleep at night I replay the incident – as you so adroitly refer to it. I call it a bombing. I replay that and seventy-three other incidents like it in my head over and over and over again. And before you ask, yes my count is up to 74." He finished the scotch and put the glass down roughly not really paying attention to his math. "Some shows should never go into syndication." His anger was building, something he rarely allowed himself to feel, much less express and never with anyone else. Brennan, without meaning to, pushed the right button at the right time to serve his purpose. She would be the one to suffer for it. That was not his intent, but it would serve his purpose.
"I don't know what that means."
"Reruns?" He started to explain and then waved his hand to show he wasn't going to bother. "Do you want to know what I think about? What I think about as I lie there in the dark keeping as still as the grave? I think about the split second before I gave the order. You knew that, right? Since you read the After Action report, you probably know more about it than I do. So you know that I gave the order to intercept that truck. I gave the order that sent six men, six kids – kids who trusted me to lead them, teach them, help them stay alive - I gave the order that sent them to their deaths." She nodded. "I gave the order!"
"By doing so you saved hundreds of lives, Booth. If that truck had been allowed to cross the barricade all those civilians, all the military personnel working there would have been killed - including your men. Including you!" She nearly broke down. "You saved hundreds of lives."
"I know it was the right call – you don't have to tell me that. I know. I was there. I gave the order." He tried not to tell her the next part, but he had to tell someone. "The split second before I gave the order I saw your face – your beautiful, haunting face. I saw your eyes pleading with me. I heard your voice begging me not to be a hero – and I hesitated. I hesitated. Do you understand?" She shook her head. "Neither do I. I don't know what it means. I only know that a soldier, a leader of men can't hesitate. My last thought as we rammed that truck was that I didn't want to die. That I couldn't die. You had told me not to be a hero so I would live. You told me not to die."
"I am very happy that you didn't." She was reminded of how close he came to dying. How far away she was. How helpless she felt all the time.
"Yeah, well … those six boys wanted to live too. Those six soldiers had fathers, mothers, wives and children at home that told them the same thing – don't be a hero, stay alive and come home. But somehow I lived – only me. Was it by luck? Random chance? Or was it by force of will? The unmovable, impenetrable, unrelenting force of Temperance Brennan?" She shook her head not understanding how he had mixed her up in the incident. "I don't know – but I lived and those kids didn't." She didn't know what to say or what to do. He was clearly upset and it felt like he was blaming her. "I saw you. I hesitated. I lived." They weren't facts, rather interpretations of events, but they certainly weren't cause and effect – at least not in any scientific way. Clearly Booth was not being scientific.
"What does Sweets say?"
He laughed out loud. "Are you kidding me? I haven't told Sweets that? I won't. I won't tell anyone – and neither will you," he warned. "Right?" he pressed. "Neither will you … no one." She nodded her understanding implying the promise to keep his secret. "Say the words, Temperance. Promise me."
"You have my word," she said evenly. "But shouldn't Sweets know if he is helping you work this out?"
"There is no WORKING THIS OUT. This is something that you just live with – that I just live with. There is no amount of SPIN or perspective that Sweets can toss at it to make it easier to bear. And second of all – hell no, I am not going to tell Sweets – would give him fodder for a sequel to his damned book."
She wanted to tell him that Sweets hadn't published the first one, but it didn't matter. He probably already knew. The damage was done. "Why did you send me away? In hospital, why did you send me away and stop communicating with me?" She didn't know where that question came from, but it has been hanging around the edges of her mind for a very long time.
His eyes darkened. This was a question he expected and he had an answer. "Of all the things I wanted from you … for you ... with you … I never wanted your pity."
"Pity?"
"When I asked you – as directly as I knew how – for more - more than our working partnership, you turned me down with some pathetic excuse about protecting me. When I was lying in that bed, unable to move, never expecting to walk again – I knew that if I asked again, you would say yes. I knew that if I said nothing, you would ask. That is not love. That is pity. I don't want your pity."
Brennan stood up. She wanted to be mad. She wanted to scream her anger, but she controlled it - as per usual. "You know that I don't like psychology. You know that I don't read people, not like you do … but that … that pity you saw … that was projected." She took a breath. "That pity was from you, not from me. And you are wrong. I would have done and still will do anything for you but I can't give you the kind of life that you seek – not like that."
"How do you have any idea what kind of life I seek? Have you asked me?"
"Monogamy, commitment, marriage, children, 30, 40, 50 years - You have told me countless times – and your choice of Elizabeth is proof that that is the life you want."
"You could have stopped that," he stated. "One word from you could have stopped that before anyone got hurt."
"All I have ever wanted is your happiness."
"You should have trusted me to know what would make me happy."
"You should have trusted me to know my limitations."
Brennan was still holding on to that ludicrous position. "Elizabeth is good for me," he stated as if convincing himself. Brennan nodded. "I am lucky to have her." He paced the room and ran his hands through his hair. "I don't deserve her. I have done nothing to deserve her." He paused stopping himself from saying the hundred or so things he wanted to say. "So you are the genius, tell me what I am supposed to do."
"You go back to work," she stated like it was obvious.
"Excuse me?"
"You keep talking to Sweets .. and you go back to work. Back to what you have been trained to do. The longer you try to be something you are not, the harder it will be to get the time and distance you need to get your faith back."
"So I am just supposed to fake it … fake it until I make it?"
"I don't know what that means." She sunk back down on to the couch.
"No, no you wouldn't." Booth's phone rang. Brennan checked the clock; she had lost all track of time. It was after one in the morning. Clearly it was Elizabeth calling. "Hi honey," he said gently. "I'm sorry. I should have called." He stole a glance at Brennan. "At the office. I got tied up with a few things. ... I'll be home soon. Go to sleep. I will try not to wake you when I come in. Ok ... Good night, honey." He snapped his phone shut and struggled not to look guilty. He had no reason to be guilty - at least not about Brennan, but he shouldn't have lied.
"Why did you lie about where you were?" she asked pointedly.
"There is no reason to bring her into this, Temperance."
"Into what?"
"Look, I know that you think just because you say something it happens. Just because you agree to feel a certain way that you just do - well newsflash, most people don't. You and me and the feelings that I have - had," he corrected. "Well they clearly had a huge bearing on the events of the past year - two years. Decisions were made and shit happened. Is there blame? I don't know, but bottom line - I haven't moved on - at least not completely - not yet. You are still in my head. You are in my -." He stopped again; stopped before he said what he was trying desperately not to say. "I can't keep doing this. You distract me. Make me lose focus - on my job, on Elizabeth, on my life. How is that fair? How is that fair to Elizabeth? To me? Tell me. What am I supposed to do about that, Genius?"
Brennan fought back the tears. He could not see; he could never know how much he was hurting her. Maybe she deserved it, maybe she didn't, but Booth was the only thing that mattered. He was in pain and needed to lash out, needed to lash out at her apparently. She could take it. From Booth she could take it. "Ok."
"Ok what? That is not an answer."
"I will stop trying to engage you. No more emails." There was nothing else she could take away. It was that last connection they had. "You are no longer working major crimes, you will probably move to San Diego, I will be out lecturing or will take a job at some other institution – we will cut all contact."
"I don't want that," he protested but it was exactly the outcome he had expected when he went there that night but he found that when it came down to it that was not what he wanted.
"I don't know how to do this," she said. "I don't know what to say or do. This is completely outside my experience and knowledge base. But it has to be done. You have connected me to the incident in Afghanistan -."
"Stop calling it an INCIDENT. It was a bombing ... say the word, Temperance. BOMBING."
"Bombing," she said as tears streamed down her face. "Somehow you have you have connected my parting words to you and that BOMBING and your survival. You are struggling with that. I can't help you. Maybe Gordon Gordon Wyatt or Sweets can help. But I can't. I don't understand. I hate psychology."
"Temperance!"
"Booth, it is the only way." She stood up effectively ending the conversation. "You need to go. Go home to your fiancée. Let Sweets help you. Forget about me and make a life for yourself. Be happy." She walked passed him out of the office. He tried to follow, but she disappeared behind some security doors – doors that he used to have a key to.
"Right, simple as that," he mocked. "Brennan says it and it is so. Thanks a lot."
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"I am sorry, Dr. Reichs. Agent Lister didn't make it," the doctor said. "He died early this morning. There was nothing more we could have done."
Kathy folded onto the floor. She couldn't cry. She couldn't scream. She was paralyzed. Dead? He was really dead? Her friend, her lover, her partner was dead.
{Exit} {Don't Save}
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A/N: I was recently reminded that PTSD is a very real and potentially very debilitating or life threatening problem for anyone who suffers from it be they soldiers in war or children of abusive parents or victims of violent crimes. As defined by the DSM-IV:
Posttraumatic stress disorder (post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD) is a severe anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to any event that results in psychological trauma. This event may involve the threat of death to oneself or to someone else, or to one's own or someone else's physical, sexual, or psychological integrity, overwhelming the individual's ability to cope.
I fear that I am devaluing the magnitude of such a disorder by using it as a plot device to advance a piece of fan-fiction. That I am somehow diminishing the military personnel who put their lives and mental health on the line to protect and defend. That is not my intent. If you or someone you know suffers from PTSD please seek professional help. Don't dismiss the potential good that can come from therapy as blithely as Booth does.
