What He Offered

Chapter 6: Calamity Aftermath

Brennan couldn't put the page down fast enough. It landed face-side-up and askew on top of the otherwise neat pile of paper she'd been amassing. She raised a hand to her face, and felt the flush along her left cheekbone. How apposite: his red cheek then, her red cheek now. She hadn't so much as left the Hoover building that day when the adrenaline surge that had swept her up like a tsunami ebbed away entirely, leaving her unsteady on her feet, shaking and weak. She had sunk down on the exterior concrete stairs, her heart pounding, trying to stem another rising tide, this time of tears.

Her wretched temper! She had heard it said that most children pass through a period known as the "terrible twos," but she had been terrible from birth and had never looked back. She had driven first her parents, and then her schoolteachers, to distraction with her stubbornness, hostility and tantrums. The school psychologists diagnosed her as having "anger management issues," arising from the fact that she was not simply smarter than her age-mates, she had an IQ higher than most of her teachers. No one could keep up with her intellectually, and she was bored, restless and frustrated at the others' inability to understand what she was trying to communicate. Brennan remembered vividly a day in second grade when, during art period, she had drawn a beautiful air-borne craft and had proudly written beneath it "zepplin," only to have her teacher stand over her shoulder and instruct her, kindly, to change the word to "blimp." Tempe's response had been to tear her paper into tiny little pieces and to send those pieces flying. It had meant a trip to the principle's office yet again.

The schools' administrators had all conceded that Tempe was a child with special needs, and deserved to be in a talented-and-gifted program, but funds were perennially in short supply, and it was felt that providing specialists for developmentally-challenged students was a higher priority than enhancing the education of those who already possessed significant intellectual advantages. They recommended that Tempe be sent to private school, or that her parents expose her to additional educational opportunities, perhaps through local museums or libraries. In the end, it had been Max himself who had taken Tempe under his wing, and introduced her to the fascinating worlds of science and mathematics. Her father, who never talked down to her, never imposed his own interests, never dismissed her questions. Her beloved father, who left her…

To be fair, Max couldn't have known that he'd be leaving her in the care of a series of foster fathers who would find her completely unintelligible, who mistook her unwitting tactlessness for disrespect and her serious questions as challenges. He thought he was leaving her to the kind supervision of her brother, and if Russ didn't always understand her, at least he would never have grabbed her roughly by the upper arm, jerked her from her seat at the dinner table, frog-marched her out of the room and slammed the door in her face, yelling, "Go to your room, and don't come out until you learn some manners," or something equally baffling.

And, Booth couldn't have known that, in succumbing to his own frustration with her, he'd evoked the parade of fathers who had gravely disappointed her. He had been right to say, "I'm not your father," but in that moment, he had been the perfect stand-in for all those other men, and she had lashed out at him with all the fury she'd bottled up over the years. "I hate you," she had told him, the whipping boy for all those men beyond the sound of her voice. "And, I will never work with you again!"

She resigned herself to reading in the subsequent pages that, after Calamity Day as he phrased it, she had refused to take his calls for over a year because she despised him. If so, he would be wrong. What did people say…? It's not you, it's me. She thought she had that right. The truth of it was, she hadn't wanted to see him again because, on the one hand, she was ashamed of her actions, and, on the other, she feared the powerful pull he exerted on her.

She sighed, and resumed her reading.

A Tale of Twin Booths, cont'd

The calamity, besides being unfortunate in itself, had the additional unpleasant consequence for Vic of resonating with their childhood traumas. As with their mother's departure, Vic was caught entirely off-guard by Brennan's abrupt refusal to collaborate on any future investigations; given their spectacular initial success, he had taken it for granted that they had a long, productive association ahead of them. He also couldn't fathom what had caused her overnight change of face. "I just don't get it," Vic would say to Tim. "One day, she's a sex kitten, purring and playful, and the next, she's a feral cat, all snarls and sharp claws."

Tim shrugged. "It's like you told her: she's cold-hearted."

Vic laughed wry. "That's what you always say about me."

"Yeah, well, the two of you are a pair."

"I wish," Vic sighed. "Tim, tell me the truth: was it something I did? Did I drive her away somehow?"

Vic indulged in introspection so rarely that Tim was speechless for a moment. Then, seeing that his brother was anxious for an answer, he said, "No, Vic, it wasn't your fault. You didn't do anything wrong."

"Because, you know, looking back…" He couldn't quite meet his brother's eyes. "I could be a real bratty kid sometimes. I didn't mean anything by it, but I was headstrong, and disobedient, and, if I didn't get my way, I made a God-awful fuss. Remember my melt downs?" He stopped to clear his throat. "You think maybe that's why Mom left?"

Tim swallowed hard, and blinked back tears. "No, Vic. If one of us was to blame, it was me. I was always hanging on her skirt, wanting her attention, crying at the smallest cut or scratch. She couldn't get anything done with me always underfoot. It was me." His voice cracked dangerously on those last three words, so he took a moment to collect himself. He had a question of his own to ask, and, as his twin was scarcely ever in a sharing frame of mind, he knew he had to take advantage, but getting the question out was hard. "You thought it was me, too, back when it happened, right?"

Vic let out a short laugh, completely devoid of humor. "Oh, yeah, big time. And, don't pretend you didn't blame me right back. You thought I was the devil's spawn. Don't deny it!"

"I won't, then. I feel bad about it now, though, hating you then. You were just a kid, doing kid things. We both were."

They subsided moodily into private thoughts, each reliving in memory aspects of those hellish days. After a fairly long silence, Vic took a final swig of his beer, set the bottle down on the end table, and said, "Tim… Temperance Brennan, she remind you of anyone we know?"

Tim didn't try to hide his grimace. "I make it a point to think of that woman as little as possible."

"Yeah, yeah, I get you don't like her. Answer the question."

"Well, give me a minute, then." He flipped through his mental photo album for pictures of Brennan: lecturing at the university, standing in the bull pen delivering her incredible findings, her pony tail swinging as she preceded them down a dark corridor, her fist smashing into the judge's nose once, and then again, her hand slamming into Vic's face… Tim felt his jaw go slack.

"You see it now," Vic said, with a satisfied nod. "Let me tell you, when she socked me like that, clear out of the blue, all that rage, that invective, it was Dad all over again. I went from flame to ice to flame again, all in short order."

"I'm amazed you didn't take her head off!"

"It was the shock, I expect. Paralyzed me. Used to happen with Dad, too."

"Jeez, Vic…" Tim was at a loss for what to say. Eventually, he settled on, "Well, one good thing came out of it, at least: it got her out of your system."

Vic snorted, grimly amused. "You'd think so, wouldn't you?"