In The Blink Of An Eye Chapter 13, a bones fanfic

In the Blink of An Eye

By LizD

Winter 2011

Chapter 13

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

It was close to six in the evening. Brennan was working alone in her office; the rest of the Jeffersonian crew was headed home. The autopsy lab was kept under wraps; no one was allowed in (very hush, hush). The body of Ephraim Cohen had not arrived as yet; it would be there before midnight. He had been taken home to Florida to be buried. Cam had left a few hours before to get some sleep, but promised to back to start the autopsy for Cohen when he arrived. She had encouraged Brennan to do the same. Brennan would leave shortly to go home and shower and maybe a short nap. She was reviewing the information that Angela had put together form the information from Lacey Carroll. She was now in protective custody.

"Temperance?"

Brennan looked up and saw Hannah standing in her doorway. She couldn't read her expression. Even if she was good at reading expressions, it would be hard to know what she was thinking. "Hannah, I don't believe we have much to discuss."

"So, Seeley told you," Hannah said walking into the office. "It figures that you would be the first call."

"I don't know to what you are referring. Booth has told me nothing as pertains to you. We have been working the murder of - we have been working a case since last we spoke."

"Oh, well ... if that's how you want to play it." Hannah sat down. "Seeley and I have agreed to go our separate ways. So ... you win."

Brennan shook her head. "I fail to see how I am a factor at all."

Hannah shook her head and smiled. "I wanted to hate you. I wanted to be angry with you. I wanted to at least dislike you. But I can't."

Brennan didn't respond.

"This is really you, isn't it? It is not some act."

"I don't know what you mean."

"You ... this, this ... super scientist ... FORENSIC ANTHROPOLOGIST with her nose stuck so far into the study of life from death that you don't have a life of your own. LIVE, Temperance. Life is about living. Put down your analytical side and just feel. You have so much going for you; you can have so much more."

Brennan bristled under her analysis.

"Seeley loves you. You love him. Go make babies and have a life together."

"He chose you," Brennan stated.

"What? When?"

"He chose you," she repeated. "I suggested that I had deeper feelings for him six weeks ago, and he chose you. He said he was in love with you. That you were not a consolation prize."

Hannah sat up. "He said that? In those exact words?" Brennan nodded. Hannah looked down for moment. "He never said a thing to me?"

"Why should he?" Typical Brennan question.

Hannah almost laughed. "You, supposedly my friend, his partner, makes a play for my boyfriend and you think that I shouldn't know about it?"

"I don't know exactly what you mean by 'makes a play for' but I assume he didn't discuss it with you because it wasn't important to him."

"Or it was so important that he was hiding it from me."

"Why would he do that?"

"To protect himself. To protect you. Maybe to protect me - I don't know." She shook her head. "I thought you were my friend, why would you do that?"

"To be truthful, he was there when I realized my mistake and regretted my choice. It felt right to tell him."

"Mistake? Regret? What are you telling me?"

"A year ago, after discussing Dr. Sweets' book about our working relationship in which he concluded that Booth and I were in love with each other..."

"Lance wrote a book?"

"Yes, but it was based on an erroneous assumption."

"Which was?"

"That the murder of Cleo Ellers was the first case we worked together and that we had never kissed."

"What the hell kind of Shakespearean Tragicomedy did I step into here?" Hannah threw up he hands. "I never knew any of this."

"Be that as it may, after that meeting with Dr. Sweets, Booth suggested that he wanted a sexual relationship with me. This was a month before I went to Maluku and he went to Afghanistan. At the time I rejected him. I have since come to realize that that was a mistake. I understand that I missed my chance and I will adapt."

"Wow." Hannah got up and moved across the room. "I mean ... WOW." She ran her hand through her hair.

"That night Booth stated that he had to move on," Brennan went on. "That he had to find someone who will love him in fifty years." She swallowed hard. "He found you."

Hannah smirked. "Yeah. He found me." The truth was Booth wasn't looking when she found him. She pushed everything in that relationship from the first time under the fig tree to following him to Washington, DC. She sighed and sat back down. "So why would you tell him that you regretted your decision?"

"As I said, he was there when I realized my mistake. If he hadn't have been, I probably wouldn't have said anything."

Hannah shook her head. Thinking back over the past six week she could see that Seeley had been acting differently. He was withdrawn, distant. He had been evasive about Temperance; didn't bring her up in conversation or suggest doing anything socially. Before that Brennan was a household word; at least since she came to Washington. Since then something Brennan had said, done or believed was in every discussion - except when they were in bed. Then he was pretty focused on her body and his. She started to wonder if the sex has been so great because it was just about two bodies finding pleasure. It sure as hell wasn't making love - at least not like she remembered it.

"Well, men are idiots and Seeley is nothing if not a man. He was wrong. I am - I was the consolation prize. You're the goal, the gold medal, the blue ribbon, the Stanley Cup."

Brennan couldn't agree. "What do you assume that Booth does not know his own mind?"

"What do you assume that he does?" Hannah picked up her bag. "Ask yourself this - how long before Booth suggested that you two cross that line had he been thinking about it?"

"I have no way of answering that."

"Well, if I was a betting woman, and I am ... I would bet he had been thinking about it since the first time you kissed - or maybe it was the day he first laid eyes on you. Destiny. So why would he keep his mouth shut for five years?"

"Six."

"Whatever." She walked to the door. "Do me a favor Temperance and do all the other men and women that cross yours and Booth's paths - get it together. It may work, it may not - but until you two try - you will only be hurting yourself and anyone else who is stupid enough to get between you. Take care of each other, OK?" Brennan nodded slightly. "I am headed off to find my own adventure and with any luck I will find another Seeley, but one who loves me and no one else."

"I was your friend, Hannah. Because of you, not because of Booth."

Hannah nodded. "That is probably true."

"I'm sorry if I hurt you or ruined your relationship with Booth."

"It happens. I don't think you would ever intentionally hurt anyone, but that is the problem with love. The heart wants what the heart wants. You can't logic yourself into or out of it. Good bye, Temperance."

"Good bye, Hannah."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Joe, the security guard, insisted on walking Brennan to her car. After her conversation with Hannah, Brennan needed a long hot shower and a power nap. There was work to be done. What happened between Booth and Hannah was not her fault nor was it her business. The only nagging question she had (other than the one Hannah left her with) was why Booth hadn't said anything. They had been pretty focused on finding Rebecca's killer so maybe he just forgot.

As Brennan approached her car she noticed a note tucked under the wiper. Joe chatted beside her about something or other, she had tuned him out. Brennan stopped and started scanning the parking lot. It took Joe a few more steps for him to notice but when he did he was on hyper alert.

"What is it, Dr. Brennan?"

"There is a note on my car." She gestured to it. "No one I know would do that."

"OK ... OK ... stay back ... get behind that pillar. I'll get it."

"Joe, please." She walked by him and pulled the note off her car. It was folded over once. She opened it. In big red letters is said:

BACK OFF!

Joe was by her side in a moment. "What does that mean? Who would have left that? What are you supposed to BACK OFF of?"

Brennan again scanned the parking lot. "We need to go back inside."

"Right." Joe had his gun drawn and was holding it in two hands pointing toward the ground but ready to aim and fire if there was any danger."

"You need to lock down the garage. No one in or out." She stated firmly. "I will call the bomb squad."

Joe was shocked. He was about to question the need for the bomb squad, until he looked at her face and saw the cuts and bruises there. "Right. Right away."

Brennan looked back at the note and then scanned the garage again. Nothing stood out, but she felt she was being watched.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

A/N: Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I know we all thought Hannah was really gone before, but I thought she needed to say something to Brennan. OK ... now you can start the celebration in earnest. She is really gone. For good. Her memory will linger, just like cheap perfume, but she is gone-gone now.

So, Brennan ... note on car ... that's can't be good ... he knows where she works, what she drives, mabye he is even watching her. Hmmmmmm ... not good at all. BACK OFF? Not bloody likely. Isn't that what he said to Rebecca? Didn't turn out so well for her. DUN. DUN. DUUUUNNNNN.