Note: Apologies for the long absence. I'm back now, though.
What if? Brennan were a spy
AU? No (as in I'm not contradicting anything in canon, so this could be true. But it probably isn't.)
BbBbBb BbBbBb BbBbBb BbBbBb BbBbBb BbBbBb
Years later, when she had become the great Dr. Temperance Brennan, she'd advise her grad students that college was a time to experiment, to find out who you were without the expectations of parents or teachers or the friends you've known since you were four, but when she was a college student, she was too worried and scared to do anything other than what she needed to do to survive.
She spent undergrad focused on her classes, determined to do well enough to keep the scholarship that was paying her way. In her free time, she worked in the school library or tutored other students, trying to bring in enough to pay for the expenses her scholarship didn't cover. By the time she graduated, she knew a lot about anthropology and little about her fellow students. They were too frivolous and complacent to interest her, and she didn't like to make time for frivolity.
Just before graduation, she learned she had received a prestigious position working on a dig in Tibet. She was reviewing her notes the day before her last final when a rather handsome man slid into the chair beside her. She'd learned the art of rebuffing people who could distract her from her studies, so she kept her eyes on her paper and took an absent-minded sip of her coffee, grimacing when she discovered it was cold.
The man leaned back in his chair and she could feel his gaze on her face. "You can call me Dan, Ms. Brennan", he said.
At the sound of her name, Brennan's head snapped up. He was as attractive as she'd thought, and his lips were curved in an amused grin. "Do I know you?" she asked.
He shook his head. "Not yet", he answered. "Ms. Brennan, have you ever thought about serving your country?"
BbB
As soon as her final was over, she was on her way to two weeks of intensive training in communications and self-defense. When she finally fell into bed at night, she was sore, exhausted, and exhilarated.
The months in Tibet were fruitful, both in what she learned about anthropology and in what she was able to gather for what she'd taken to thinking of as her side job. She was good at listening when people thought she was absorbed in her work, and if one of her Chinese colleagues hadn't seen her casually slip a note to her contact, it would have been uneventful.
Even with the days she spent evading the soldiers the Chinese government sent after her, it was the best summer she had in years.
She started grad school as planned in the fall, and she got used to coming home to a cryptic note or a bouquet of flowers with instructions on where to meet. She was sent to projects in India and Egypt, Rwanda and Costa Rica. Over time, she learned how to be more effective, how to be better, how to recognize the electric hum of her nerves a second before the rational part of her brain realized she was in trouble.
She finished her Masters, and her first PhD, and started looking for a place to work where she could do important, valuable work. She found it at the Jeffersonian Institute.
BbB
He walked into her classroom and her nerves came alive in that particular way that told her she was in trouble. She'd been attracted to Dan, and to Michael, but this was different.
Better.
They worked the case together, and she found herself respecting his passion for his job, the persistence that kept him trying to find the young girl's murderer long after everyone else had given up.
And then he fired her for punching a judge, and she realized that if they didn't work together, there was nothing keeping them from sleeping together. (She'd never minded having intercourse with coworkers, but he seemed to have some sort of hang-up about it, and she did have to admit it could make the workplace unpleasant.)
They kissed in the rain and she realized it was different.
Terrifying.
Not the sort of decision she should make after too much tequila.
That was the beginning of the end. They fought, and she slapped him, as if she were a character in one of those 80s shows her mom used to watch after she was supposed to be in bed. She told her assistant to screen his calls and went home to mope in private.
On her doorstep was a bouquet of flowers. She decoded the message and started packing for Guatemala.
BbB
On her way back from her third trip, he had her held for questioning. It was an unbelievable abuse of his powers, and she was furious – so furious that she didn't even remember that Angela was still waiting for her at the airport until they were halfway to the crime scene. Even as she snapped at him, though, she could feel the tingling awareness that meant he was near.
It still felt dangerous.
Reluctantly, she agreed to work with him again, and before long they were partners. It was ... nice. Angela was a good friend, but Booth felt safe, like she could trust him with all the stuff she didn't trust to anyone else. She told him about her parents,and when her assignment in New Orleans went horribly wrong, he was the one she called.
He helped her find her mother's murderer, and he was there when she heard her father's voice for the first time since he went Christmas shopping and didn't come back.
She told herself she was giving up her side job because she was becoming too well known, but she knew that wasn't the whole story. Part of her no longer wanted to pack up and leave on a moment's notice.
And then one day he asked her to give them a shot, and she realized that that hum, that electric awareness of danger, didn't mean she was the one who'd get hurt. She said no, and it damaged them, so badly she wasn't sure they'd ever recover. The chance at a year apart was a gift.
Three days before he left for Maluku, she got home to find a bouquet of flowers on her doorstep.
BbBbBb BbBbBb BbBbBb BbBbBb BbBbBb BbBbBb
The down arrow key on my laptop hasn't worked for at least two years, so now my laptop has taken to scrolling down randomly. Do you know what's not helpful? Having the cursor skip to another line (or two or three) mid-word..