Note: Thank you for all of the awesome ideas … none of which I'm using this week, but some of which will show up in the future. I appreciate all of the suggestions and they're all on my list, some just take a little longer to make their way into a story. Feel free to keep them coming!
And now for something completely different, and yet mostly the same.
What if: there was such a thing as magic?
AU? Yes
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I was a happy kid, for the most part. I loved my parents, and they loved me. Yeah, Mom seemed to get hurt a lot and Dad fell asleep on the couch long before I had to go to bed, but when I was little, I just thought that's how everybody lived. It wasn't until I was eight and got sick in the middle of the night that I realized that Dad was the reason Mom always had a limp or a bruise or a pinched look on her face.
I was nine when he hit me for the first time. Mom was working late, and I knocked over a glass of milk.
The next day, I was the one walking with a limp.
It became a regular thing – make a minor mistake, get the shit kicked out of me – and it was almost a relief when Pops found out. He bundled Jared and me into the back of his station wagon and took us to that magical house where he lived with Grams.
And it was magical. The air hummed with electricity, colors were brighter, and I found myself singing while I got ready for school.
It was like living in a Disney cartoon.
I still saw Mom and Dad. They came for Sunday dinner every week, and Mom made a point of doing something with me and Jared during the week. I took dancing lessons with her, and she and Jared did an art class. I'm pretty sure I enjoyed the dancing more than Jared did the art.
It was bittersweet. I was happy to see her, but I couldn't understand why she chose Dad over me and Jared.
I still don't really get it.
As conflicted as I was about my parents, I had no confusion at all when it came to Pops and Grams. They saved me, and I would have done anything for them. Grams would make my lunch, often with a little note that I never let my friends read. Pops let me help him fix his old car, and even took me out on a deserted little country road and let me drive it long before I should have been behind the wheel.
And on my twelfth birthday, Pops sat me down and gave me the talk.
Not about sex – we'd already had several talks about that, and I understood the mechanics, if not the emotional baggage that went along with it – but the other talk, the one everyone in my family got when they turned twelve.
The talk about magic.
Don't get me wrong – no one was huddled around a cauldron, pouring in eye of newt or hair of bat. I'm not even sure what a newt is. We didn't ride broomsticks or speak nonsense while we waved around sticks. That wasn't how it worked.
What we had was different. The way Pops explained it, we each would meet someone special, and when we did, we'd be able to do things we couldn't do on our own.
The cynic I was at twelve thought he was talking about love, but that's not what he meant. It wasn't about soul mates or romance. It was a connection, and that connection unlocked abilities that we didn't even know we had.
For Pops, Grams was the one, which is why their house always seemed so special. Having her around made him stronger – not just mentally, but physically. He walked like he was twenty-two, even though he was more than double that. It also gave him limited telekenesis, which explained why he never got his slippers wet when he went out to get the paper on a rainy day.
For my Dad, his person was his best friend, James. They met in high school and became fast friends.. James was the best man at my parents' wedding. And when Dad went to Vietnam, James was right there with him.
Except James didn't come home.
Based on some of the shouting I'd heard in the middle of the night back when I still lived with my parents, I suspected visions had been one of the gifts Dad was burdened with.
My Aunt Sue's person was her business partner, Chris. Sue had struggled as a young adult – a troubled marriage, job loss, bankruptcy – but when she teamed up with Chris, everything changed. The business took off, became bigger than she'd dared to dream. She met Uncle Martin, and they built a happy life together.
After that talk with Pops, I fully believed that I'd meet someone, and it would happen for me, too. All throughout high school, I expected my person to be right around the corner.
It didn't happen.
I joined the army, still with the thought that one day I'd meet that one person and feel a click as the magic woke within me.
It still didn't happen.
I met Rebecca once I was back on American soil. I really liked her, even thought I wanted to marry her. I would have, if she had said yes. She wasn't the one who'd unlock the magic, but that was OK – finding that connection in a romantic relationship was rare.
I was still in the army then, going to school part time, playing pool every weekend. I didn't even tell her what Pops had told me so long ago. I figured she'd think I was crazy. Looking back, that was probably a sign I shouldn't marry her, but at the time, all I knew was that I loved her. When she said no, it hit me hard.
By the time Parker was born, I'd pretty much given up on magic. Let's face it, it's a big world. What are the odds that I'd meet the one person who could unlock it?
And then, one day, I walked into a lecture on removing flesh from bones, and I felt a surge of electricity go through me.
It was just like being home with Pops and Grams, back when Grams was still alive.
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I was on fire during that first case. Somehow, I knew just what to say, just what to do, even though the electrical surge that was going through me was like nothing I'd ever felt before. The world seemed brighter, I could focus better than ever before, and some of the pieces of the puzzle slid into place much easier than usual.
And then there was her. Bones. She was so good at her job that she made me want to be better at mine, and it was clear that she cared deeply about the murder of a girl she'd never met.
I liked her, and I wanted her, and I was afraid of messing everything up.
Caroline insisted that I fire her, which I did – after way too much tequila. She didn't seem upset. On the contrary, she invited me to go home with her.
No way was I saying no.
And then she kissed me and left me standing in the rain. When her taxi turned the corner, the charge that was running through me dropped, just a little, and I considered going back inside, maybe playing some pool.
I decided against it. After being around her, gambling lost its luster. I went home alone and fell asleep on the couch.
I woke up, sure that she was somewhere dangerous, in a pit full of bodies. It was terrifying, but when I called the Jeffersonian, she was at her desk.
Caroline changed her mind, and I convinced Bones to help me again. The electricity surged within me again, and between the two of us, we got the killer.
There was a price, though, and she refused to talk to me again, even told her assistant to stonewall me.
And two, maybe three, times a week, I woke with a picture of her in my head. Sometimes, she was in the pit again. Sometimes she was at that space station she calls a lab. A few times, she was naked, in bed with some jackass.
I would have preferred the pit.
I missed her, and I missed that tingling awareness of the magic in the universe, and I didn't know how to fix things.
And then the energy that had been flowing through me died down so much I thought it might have stopped, and I got a notice that she had left the country and flown to Guatemala.
She was gone for two months, and my sources told me she was identifying victims of genocide. The dreams about the pit stopped, and so did the dreams of her with the jackass. In their place, I started dreaming about sitting across from her at Wong Fu's, holding my weapon on some guy bleeding from a gunshot to the leg, sitting at a bar knowing I was missing my flight to Jamaica.
I could tell the second her plane landed. I could feel every cell of my body wake up in response, I called in a 'hold for questioning' request to Homeland Security and went to pick her up at the airport.
That might have been a mistake.
I was determined, though. I needed her to be part of my life, and I was willing to do whatever it would take to make that happen. I promised her full partnership in the case, left her at the lab, and … went home to Tessa.
Yeah, I know, but the thing is, I didn't need Bones to be my lover. I just needed her to be part of my life, and if adding sex would mess that up, I was willing to make sure that sex would never be part of the picture.
Having her back – not just in DC but in my life – made the dreams stronger, and I developed a foolproof ability to tell when someone was lying. No, it wasn't just an unconscious ability to read body language and other physiological indicators – it was magic, and it was incredible. Between Bones's brains and my ability to read people, my solve rate went way up. I got an office and a promotion, and I got to see Bones whenever I wanted.
And then I started dreaming of a warehouse, with dogs snarling in the background; Bones beside a marble grave marker; and a boat, improbably named "The Temperance".
Time went on and we grew closer, but not too close. I kept a distance, told her we shouldn't cross that line, and she understood. I think we'd both come to value our friendship too much to risk it on an affair that would probably burn too hot to last.
I dreamed of mistletoe, and teeth used as shrapnel, and Bones dancing and singing on a stage; of Bones peering at me through some ridiculous glasses and a body in a vat of wine; of the bright lights of an operating room and Sweets slumping back into his chair.
As it happened – because my dreams were nothing more than glimpses of the future – I felt that buzz, that heightened awareness of the universe and my place in it.
At least until the dreams stopped, except for that final scene – Sweets, slumping back in his chair. It was almost like there was no future after that – but that didn't make sense.
And then that happened, too, because I'd failed to keep my distance, to stop myself from falling in love with her. I gambled, and I lost.
That night, I dreamed of Bones, holding a giggling little girl.
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Thoughts?