A Bride for Booth
By LizD
Written May 2010 - July 2010
Chapter 8
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Late August
"OK Agent Booth," Sweets said. "You have been cleared."
Booth surveyed the letter he had been handed. "Ya know Sweets, I didn't think I needed to have my transfer back to major crimes approved by you, is there something you aren't telling me?"
Sweets could still be intimidated by Booth. "Well ..."
"I was under the impression that what we discussed in these ... sessions was confidential."
"To a certain degree it is. But I have a responsibility to the FBI and to the other agents to make recommendations based upon these sessions."
"Was there ever a concern?"
"Need I remind you of your past, Agent Booth? The ice cream truck? The brain tumor? The events in -."
"No Sweets, I think I know my own history."
"So does the FBI. So you must understand why I was asked for my recommendation."
"Yeah, fine ... whatever Sweets." Booth got up to leave.
"This does not mean that we no longer need to meet, Agent Booth."
"Gonna be hard to find the time," Booth said with his hand on the door. "How about I call you?"
"How about you don't make your sessions and I call the director and he pulls your badge and gun."
Booth raised himself to his full height and loomed back over Sweets. "Is that a threat?"
"An observation and a promise - a condition, if you will."
"Yeah, you are good at observing - though your promises are pretty weak."
"This is also an observation and a promise ... you have some unresolved issues as pertains to me. Your anger and animosity are evident in your tone of voice, your word choice and you body language. Until we work through that, we cannot approach the termination of these ... sessions."
"I thought these sessions were about me - not you and me."
"It's complicated."
"So what, we have to be friends?"
"Not in the least, but mutual respect would be appropriate."
Booth nearly laughed. "Then I guess you better keep Tuesdays and Thursdays at noon open for me for a long damned time." He started to leave.
"Why me, Booth? Why did you choose me? It wasn't mandated by the FBI, so why me? There are other psychologists. There are psychologists that are outside the FBI which would be much more conducive to keeping your confidentiality. So when you decided to talk to someone, why did you pick me?"
Booth took a deep cleansing breath. "Frankly, I knew I wouldn't have to rehash my history and I knew that you would never be able to get me to say or do anything that I didn't want to do."
"So I was easy and you could manipulate me - intimidate me."
"Your words, Sweets." Booth left. He hated his sessions with Sweets. He knew too much, so he asked some pointed questions. But beating him up, bullying the poor kid was really beginning for feel spiteful and unproductive. He had hoped he could stop now that Elizabeth was gone, but apparently that wasn't going to happen. He still wasn't sleeping, but the dreams were less debilitating. Maybe he should open up to Sweets.
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Booth was back, Baby. Back in major crimes. He didn't get an office, was stuck in the bull pen. He expected that he would have to prove himself again, but it wouldn't be long before he was back one hundred percent. They partnered him with Perotta. He would have preferred to work alone, but at least it gave him an easy excuse for why he wasn't working with Brennan. The squints at Jeffersonian lab had been working with various agents. They weren't just for Booth any more. However, it was a given that he and Brennan and the rest would be working together in some way or other. He needed to give her the heads up, but didn't want to do that at the lab or just arrive at a crime scene. He found her coming out of palates. How he knew that she was in palates just proved that he still had it.
"Can we get some coffee, juice or something?" he asked.
She resisted. "I need to get back to the lab."
"Five minutes ... just some coffee." He nodded to a coffee cart on the side of the street suggesting that they could talk on the street, on a bench, something quick.
She wasn't sure she wanted another confrontation with him, not after her last encounter with Elizabeth. "Ok."
He ordered her coffee for her just as she had always taken it. It was nice that he remembered, but she didn't drink coffee much anymore. They took a bench away from the street and sat with as much space between them as they could get. "I wanted you to know that I have requested a transfer back to major crimes and it has been approved." He waited for a reaction though he didn't really expect one. "Perotta is my partner." Again he waited for a reaction, but none came. "I'm not sure how much we will be working together, but I wanted you to hear it from me."
"I understand." She nodded. "I have been offered a position at Stanford."
It hadn't occurred to him that she would leave again. "And you are considering it?"
"I am ... I trained to be an anthropologist, not a forensic scientist for the FBI."
"You can be anything you want to be, Temperance."
Every time he used her name it hurt her. Why didn't he call her Bones anymore? "That is nice of you to say."
"Ok look ... this isn't going to work." He shifted his position so he could face her. "I don't do the egg shell thing ... well I do ... but not well. In all likelihood we will be working together in some capacity."
"Not if I take the position at Stanford, and there will be lectures and other opportunities I can take."
He was annoyed. He needed to apologize, but the words and the sentiment wouldn't come. "Look Temperance there is no reason why we can't work together."
"I disagree," she stated coldly. "It is naive to think that the events of the past year, the time apart, the things said, the things not said can just be ignored or won't have an effect on a partnership, a friendship or any kind of working relationship. The last time we spoke you made that pretty clear."
"Well, I was wrong. We can work together. You don't have to go to Stanford."
"You stated that working with me affected your relationship with -."
"Elizabeth broke off the engagement," he announced.
"I'm sorry," she said sincerely.
Her sincerity softened him a bit. "Ya know, I am too ... but not enough and not for the right reasons."
"I don't understand."
"She was good for me, but I gave her nothing."
"I don't believe that."
"I wanted to move on so badly ... to get it all behind me ... it was selfish, inconsiderate – to her, to me and to …" He looked at Brennan wanting to say that it was inconsiderate to her as well, but he wasn't sure how she would take it. "I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought it would make a difference."
She wasn't sure if he was referring to getting past the injuries he suffered, the guilt he carried because of the incident or something else, maybe something that had to do with her, maybe all of it was so tied up together it was hard to pick out one thing. "Marriage would make a difference."
"You don't believe in marriage, long-term relationships, committing to someone for the rest of your life."
"I never said that."
"Repeatedly," he almost laughed.
"Well, maybe I did." Was it important to point out that her feeling may have changed on the subject? No, no it wasn't. "But you do."
"I'm not so sure any more." He paused looking for the right way to explain something that he wasn't sure he fully understood. "Maybe I finally agree with you. Maybe some people – maybe I am just not supposed to have that … that ... you know, American Dream ... more of an expectation. What did you call it a societal imperative to keep the masses in line."
"I don't believe I ever said that, I don't recall thinking it." She turned to look at him. "So now you believe that marriage is some sort of decree used by society to keep the individuals subservient? That doesn't make sense." That wasn't what he meant at all. "Why are you saying this?"
"All I am saying is that marriage and I are clearly not a good fit."
"You can't conclude that after one experience with being engaged?"
"Don't forget Rebecca," he pressed. "And you."
"Me?"
"And the rest," he added quickly as not to dwell on the state of their relationship. "Basically I can conclude that after twenty plus years of pretending that marriage was the goal and having nothing to show for it. In fact I have done everything possible to not meet that goal."
"I don't understand."
"I don't either; I mean I don't know why. I just know it's true. Sometimes facts have to be accepted whether you want to or not; whether you know the reason or not - you taught me that."
She shook her head. He was making huge intuitive leaps. "How did this theory come to you?"
"It was something Sweets said about choices. About the choices I have made in life in terms of careers and the women that I ... I have relationships with. I continue to choose careers and women that are not conducive to the 2.5 and a dog."
"2.5 and a dog?"
"You know: the white picket fence, minivan, soccer practice and meatloaf night – you know – normal." Brennan shook her head; she didn't know what normal meant. "Doesn't matter. Bottom line is that I choose jobs and women who are unavailable or uninterested in one way or the other in that life. That has to say more about me than the jobs or the women. I am the common denominator."
"That is a reasonable conclusion." She considered for a moment. "However, Elizabeth can change that. You changed your career to be more stable and you chose a woman who you could have the picket fence, the dog, the meatloaf."
"And yet I let it slip through my fingers," he stated. "Look at me now. Back in major crimes and alone - also my choice." He glanced away briefly. It was actually Elizabeth who left, but he did nothing to stop her.
"I am sure that if you open a line of communication with Elizabeth you could get her to change her mind."
"Yeah, cause I am so persuasive like that," he joked. "In the end, she is still in love with her husband."
"Husband?"
"So maybe she was another choice that was safe."
"Husband?" she asked again.
"He died six years ago in Iraq. She talks to his family every day, more than she does her own. That is where she is right now, with her sister-in-law in San Diego. I am not sure why she said yes to me, but it has been clear for a very long time that neither one of us were going to follow through. We were just going through the motions and pretending that we could each move on together." While that wasn't exactly true, it was a way of interpreting the past few months to support his new theory about why he and marriage were not meant for each other.
Brennan flashed on her two conversations with Elizabeth; in the first she seemed genuinely concerned for Booth and in the second she seemed determined to hurt Brennan and claim Booth as hers. She wondered if Booth knew that side of Elizabeth. She wondered if he really knew what her feelings were. "I don't believe that. You are not the kind of man to make a promise and go back on it."
"No," he smiled thinking it was nice that she still thought that about him. "No, I would have gone through with it if she had pushed it. I would have been a faithful and conscientious husband, but that is not why two people get married. People don't stay with each other because they look good on paper. Look at Angela and Hodgins. They are a true love story and they don't make any sense."
"They do appear to be very happy and they did withstand a long separation only to find their way back to each other."
"Yes they did." Without thinking he asked his next question. "Do you think we can do the same?" He saw a terrified look on her face (or so he thought). "As partners."
"No," she stated almost too emphatically.
"Why?"
"Booth," she couldn't believe she had to say this out loud. "If you can find happiness and if that means we have to sacrifice our friendship – our partnership, I am willing to do that."
"I'm not."
"That has not been my impression for the past nine months."
"I know. I screwed up. There is so much I need to apologize for." Still not an apology.
"I won't come between you and Elizabeth," she stated. "Or any other woman that you feel you can make a life with."
"What are you saying? I just told you – she broke off the engagement."
Brennan shook her head. "You are still living together."
"She is in San Diego." He left out the part that the airline ticket was round trip and she would be back in four to six weeks.
"You can work it out - get married – be happy."
"First of all marriage does not mean happiness - you should know that."
"I don't want to go back into the field," she said definitively to end the discussion. "With you or anyone else so a discussion about reestablishing a partnership is moot." What she was really saying in too few words was that she didn't want to work with him, be his partner, if he was going home each night to a wife, fiancée or lover - not after everything they had been through, not with the feelings that were becoming impossible to deny.
"Look, nothing is going to happen today. Just think about it, OK? We will be working cases and if you think you want to join me in the field, then ... let's talk about it. Case by case, ok?"
"I won't."
"You might," he flashed her a charmed smile. "You were invaluable to our investigations and not just in the lab."
She nodded. "We were pretty good together."
"The best." His phone rang. "I need to take this."
"I need to get back to the lab."
"Right."
She smiled at him warmly. She wanted to applaud his decision even if that meant that she would have to leave, she was glad that he was trying to get back what he had before they left. It seemed like a better way to move on.
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Brennan had put the book away for a while after her conversation with Angela. Was there a way to give Andy and Kathy a happy ending? She needed time to think. It had been a couple of weeks since her confrontation with Elizabeth. Her words still weighed heavily on Brennan. Elizabeth had stated in the crudest possible way Brennan's worst fears. That whatever Booth was feelings was not love and never could have been. Further she implied that Brennan was unlovable. She tried to rationalize Elizabeth's comments and contextualize them in terms of a woman who was struggling in a relationship, but it was very unfair for Brennan to be the object of so much anger - Booth's and Elizabeth's. Andy and Kathy were not Booth and Brennan, but she still could not give them the sunset and the happily-ever-after that Angela wanted them to have. She just didn't have it in her. But maybe Andy didn't need to die.
She started the last chapter:
Kathy fired three shots in quick succession resulting in a tight cluster on the chest as she was trained to do. Lister would be impressed. She was becoming a more like a cop than a scientist. The man who shot her partner fell to the floor dead - presumably. He would never stand trial. He will never be held accountable for his crimes. The women he killed - their families will never know justice. There will be no jury of his peers, no appeals, nothing. He was dead. It was over.
Kathy sunk to her knees and then fell to the floor. The blood was draining from her body. The bullet must have nicked her femoral artery. No one knew she was there. There was no one around. She would die alone, but she had killed the man who killed her partner. That was enough – the ultimate sacrifice for her partner – and he would never know. No one would ever know.
Andy Lister opened his eyes. He was hooked up to monitors beeping out his life. "Kathy!" he called out. He sat up ripping off all the wires that were attached to him. "Kathy!" He tried to get out of bed, but fell to the floor. "Kathy!" he whispered before passing out.
