Mid November. 1 month since that Wednesday
A cold northern wind had been blowing all day, but it was surprisingly cozy in the lounge high over the forensic platform. Brennan, Cam, Angela, Hodgins, and Clark were sprawled on the sofas waiting for O'Brien to drive over from FBI Headquarters for their celebratory drink following the closing of the latest case. A confession had been obtained and the arrest made. One more murderer will be behind bars and the additional lives that they may have taken in the future have been spared. Sometimes in the heat of the investigation, they lose sight of that goal. But that's why the celebration at the end is so necessary. They have to remind themselves that, while it was impossible for them to save the life of the person they came to know so intimately on the forensics platform, their remains spoke to the people best equipped to hear them. And those talented scientists used that information to find justice for the deceased. And quite possibly saved many more lives. Because one thing the investigators have learned is that a person who takes a life rarely stops at one. When O'Brien arrived in the lounge, the champagne corks were popped and they all relaxed and shared in the celebration.
This was the sixth (or was it the seventh?) case the new team had closed. They couldn't agree on the number because did you really count the cases? They just knew that the new arrangements were working well - like clockwork actually. Brennan spending more time in the lab was paying dividends. Not only was she there more often working with the interns on the case in front of them, but it also afforded her time to work in "limbo" to identify some of the countless remains housed in the Jeffersonian. She was actually seeing it make a small dent in the number of unidentified remains, although there was no expectation of ever clearing the backlog because new remains arrived on a weekly basis. She found that O'Brien was a very good investigator. He didn't have the natural instincts that Booth had, but because there were often two investigators (O'Brien and a junior agent - he rotated them very much like Brennan's intern rotations), they got the job done. Brennan rolled her eyes. It figured it would take two agents to replace one Booth. And then there was the fact that there wasn't that crazy sexual attraction between the partners that Brennan would never acknowledge, but she knew was there. She saw it. She felt it. She lived it. Brennan and O'Brien just got the job done. It wasn't as much fun. It wasn't a roller coaster. They didn't go home every night all hot and bothered. But they got the job done. What more could you ask for? You want fun? You want a roller coaster? You want to be all hot and bothered? There's plenty of hours left in the week to do all that. Booth had spoiled her by bringing too much fun to a job that she had always taken so seriously. So they got the job done. And O'Brien reminded them regularly about why their work was so important. That was the unique clarity he brought to the team. And they were better for it. So, one more celebration this evening and on to the next case whenever it came. But they always came, no worries about that. And who knew how many lives they would be saving with the next case?
Booth was also celebrating the closing of a case that evening. He was now working more traditional murder cases, the kind of murder cases with a fresh body. He didn't have the team of forensic anthropologists to pour over the bones, but relied more on the doctors doing autopsies. These were often harder to solve without the minute inspections of wounds on the cleaned bones, but he often had more toxicology reports, stomach contents, liver and kidney biopsies to use than they did over at the Jeffersonian. He also worked mostly alone on the investigations. This took him back to how he worked before teaming up with Bones, and he fell naturally right back into his old routines. He didn't know if his solo investigations worked better or worse than the dual ones with Bones. But he just told himself that "It is what it is" and got on with it. Because he no longer had a team around him, his celebrations were like his investigations - solo. They usually consisted of sitting next to the end table near the door of his office and drinking a scotch, neat. Although he and Bones had usually gone to Founding Fathers to celebrate closing their cases, he did remember one night of challenging Bones to a scotch drinking contest in this exact spot. See? She was out of sight, but still not out of mind. And Founding Fathers? You know how people who get a divorce find that they have to split up their friends? The wife takes these friends, the husband takes these. And never the twain shall meet? That was Founding Fathers. He wasn't sure who got it in the divorce. And he wasn't going to ask. He just avoided it like the plague.
And Hannah? Was Hannah happy? He wasn't quite sure. At the end of that weekend when they made the decision that he would split from his partnership with Bones, he felt a lightness when he was falling asleep on Sunday night. The decision had been made. He was going in the next morning to get the ball rolling. And this would be the catalyst to make everything right in his relationship with Hannah. But by Wednesday afternoon that lightness was nowhere to be seen. Did it never return because of the horrible scene that played out in his office? Because of the blasé reaction from Hannah that evening? Surely a week or two later when the dust had settled, the lightness would return and their relationship would start to soar toward those 30, 40, 50 years he had always envisioned? But he was beginning to realize that the things they always fought about had nothing to do with Bones. There was one area of their lives together that was spectacular - their sex life. No matter how much they argued that day, the sex solved all of their problems and they fell asleep happy in each other's arms and dreamed happy dreams. But the next day it would be something new to argue over. It never seemed to be the same thing. Something new every day. And it was never about Bones. It had often ended about Bones because Hannah would decide that the reason they couldn't agree on anything had something to do with him spending so much time with her. So now Bones was out of the picture, but the disagreements never stopped. Well, that wasn't exactly true. They did have their good days, and they were glorious, and made it all worthwhile. But the problem was that he had destroyed his relationship with his partner, hurting both of them badly in the process, and nothing had changed between Booth and Hannah. They had about the same number of good days. They had the great sex. They had the same arguments. The only difference was that Bones didn't get thrown into the arguments at the end of the day. All that pain had accomplished exactly nothing. But Booth had high hopes for the approaching holiday season. Hannah LOVED Christmas. It was her favorite time of year. He was working on plans to try to make it a magical month for his girlfriend. A weekend trip to New York City to see the holiday lights and the Rockettes. Decorating his apartment with a real tree and hundreds of twinkly white lights all around the room. A possible sleigh ride in the snow. He was making lots of plans to really show her how much he loved her. But a nagging thought kept hitting him when he was least expecting it. Was he trying too hard to prove to her that he had moved on from Bones? Hannah knew that he had not seen her in the last month. But what she didn't know was that he thought about her. .time.