Sabbaticals - 12 weeks
By the time Booth finished reading the email, tears were running down his face. 'She's in love with me. She's been in love with me for years and couldn't trust herself enough to tell me.' He couldn't believe what he had just read. Everything he had dreamed about, almost from the moment he met her, just came true with this email. Of course he still loved her. He had never stopped. He thought he was going to have to tuck those feelings for her into a lonely corner of his heart for the rest of his life so he could move on and find the life he longed for. But now…He couldn't remember the last time he felt this much joy.
And then, suddenly, his stomach lurched. Hannah. The woman he has been trying to forge a relationship with for the past month. The woman who left his bed less than an hour ago. He sat back in his chair and, as he looked back at the computer screen, the tears began again and the words that she had written to him blurred.
He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. The choice between Hannah and Bones? Of course it would be Bones. Every. Single. Time. He wanted to love Hannah. He had hoped that she would fill that hole in his heart when he packed his feelings for Bones back into that corner. But he hadn't come anywhere close to that goal because she refused to open herself to him. She had certainly opened her body to him, but that was only a fraction of what he wanted from her. Her life - her past - her goals - her dreams. They were a closed book tied with barbed wire. He had planned to push her when she returned from her trip, but he had no expectations that she would let him in. He knew that it would be a make or break moment, but now it just didn't matter.
He was going to say yes to Bones. The joy surged through his body again. But there was a wariness. He knew that they probably needed to have the video call before Hannah returned, so he was technically still with Hannah. And he also knew that he had to tell Bones about Hannah. They had to start this out on the right foot, and keeping a secret like that was unfair to her. But how would she take it? The fact that he is right this minute in a relationship with another woman? He would have to broach the subject very carefully. Make sure she knows that he has never been in love with Hannah. And that he was very close to breaking it off even before receiving this email.
He got up from the desk and decided he needed some fresh air, so he pulled on a jacket and walked out into the cool desert night. For the next few hours, he wandered around the camp and his emotions were all over the place. He eventually became tired and lay down on a bench in the outdoor exercise area and fell asleep. He awoke a few hours later and looked at his watch. It was 5:45AM. He knew Hannah and the other journalists were leaving at 6AM, so he decided to wander over to their area. When he saw the trio headed across to their vehicle, he stepped back into the shadow of a building, berating himself for being there. 'What? Were you planning to walk up to her right now and tell her that the woman you love has contacted you and you're dumping her?' He watched her long, gorgeous blonde hair bouncing as she walked, and her lithe body that he knew so well, turning back and forth toward her two companions as they joked with each other. As he saw them enter the vehicle, he quietly bounced the back of his head against the building to punish himself. 'Idiot.'
He knew what his subconscious was trying to do. If he could break things off with Hannah before the video call with Bones, he could go into that call unencumbered. But it wasn't feasible. He knew he could never do something like that to Hannah just as she was leaving on an important business trip - she deserved better than that. After the cars were out of sight, he began walking back toward his quarters.
He decided to reply with a short email. He would tell her how thrilled he was at the revelations in her email, and that, of course, he was still in love with her. But that there were some things they needed to discuss to clear the air. He would suggest that they have a video call this evening. He checked the time zones and found that Maluku was 4 1/2 hours ahead of Afghanistan. He gave her the number to call and proposed that she call him at 10:30 her time, which would be 6:00 his time.
It took him almost an hour to compose the short email because he thought it important that he get the tone and the words just right. When he finished, it was 7AM, the time he would normally start his day. But he was exhausted from the emotional night he had spent with only a couple hours of sleep, and he knew he had a lot to think about before the video call. So he walked out to catch the soldier who was his 2nd in command and told him he was under the weather and needed to take the day off. He went back to his hooch and collapsed on the bed, falling asleep the minute his head hit the pillow.
He woke up just before noon and, after pacing around his cabin, decided he needed to get outside. He didn't want any questions about why he wasn't working, so he walked to the gate and then headed to the village. Halfway there, he knew exactly where he was going and skirted around the village, right to the fig tree. He sat down in the little cocoon under the tree and tried to gather his thoughts.
He had less than six hours before the video call with Bones and he had a few things to decide, land mines to negotiate. The first was how he was going to tell her about Hannah. What that relationship was - which was going to be difficult, because he didn't really know himself. He had to make sure that she understood immediately that there was no choice for him. She was the love of his life and the moment he started reading her email and knew she felt the same, there was nothing to decide. She had to understand that he wasn't in love with Hannah. That he had hoped that he might be eventually. That he had hoped she might be his "moving on" person. And she had to understand that he had never once made love to Hannah. It was never more than sex. Surely, Bones would understand that.
Once he explained the situation with Hannah, there was nothing he would want more than to spend the rest of the video call talking about their past. How stunned he was by their first kiss in the pouring rain. How much he thought about her during that year before he kidnapped her at the airport and begged her to become his partner. The first time he realized he was in love with her. And then discussions about plans for their joint future.
But he didn't feel comfortable doing that on the call today. If he started moving forward with Bones before he was able to finish things with Hannah, it would be disrespectful to both women. He felt that Bones would agree.
So the goal was:
- Tell her he was still in love with her
- Stress that he wanted to move forward with her
- There was a complication - Hannah
- He didn't love Hannah, might have fallen in love eventually
- Had never made love to her - it was just sex, and they had shared nothing of their lives with each other
- He didn't feel comfortable talking about their future until he could finish with Hannah
- Set up a call for a few days from now and they could let the floodgates open – talk about their past, their future
He prayed that Bones wouldn't be frightened off when she learned about Hannah. He knew that the letter she had just written to him had laid bare her feelings in ways she had never allowed in the past. He was so worried about her reaction, but he couldn't not tell her. He just couldn't start their life together with a lie. He was just going to make sure that she was feeling loved and secure when they ended this first video call.
Now he had to think about what he was going to say to Hannah upon her return. That's one of the reasons he chose the fig tree for his deliberations. It held such vivid memories of their two times there, and he hoped it would help him come up with the right words.
He decided to start right in and tell her that the woman he has loved for years had contacted him. Tell her that this woman didn't think they could make it work, and that was one of his reasons for running away for a year. But that she has finally come to the realization that she can't live without him, and this is all he ever hoped and dreamed would happen.
He would explain to her that there was already a real possibility that he was going to end things with her when she returned from her trip. His family, his hometown, his work - they were all so important to him, and he just couldn't get her to talk about those personal things. That their entire relationship was just about the sex - he couldn't begin to love her because he didn't know her. And loving someone, making love to them, was so much more important that sex. This had been going on for a month now, and there was absolutely no forward motion with them. He would tell her that he was really sorry, but he had to follow his heart.
He knew she would interject her feelings and opinions - or maybe she wouldn't. Maybe she was feeling the same - that it had run its course. He hoped that was the case, because the last thing he wanted to do was to hurt her.
He wrestled over which of the two subjects to begin with. Maybe it would be better not to start with him throwing her over for another woman. If he started with the problems between the two of them, it might be kinder to her. He decided to wait until he was there with her and go with his gut. His gut rarely failed him.
He checked his watch and saw that he had just two hours before the video call. He wanted to go back, take a shower, and get ready for one of the most important conversations of his life.
He was sitting at his laptop at 5:50 waiting for her to initiate the call. His hands were sweating and he kept rubbing them on his pant legs. A couple of minutes before the top of the hour, the call came through. He took a deep breath and clicked the button to answer.
Her face appeared on the screen, and she looked fantastic. She had been living in the jungle for three months, so she looked tanned and…he tried to identify it…maybe "sporty"? No makeup, no fancy clothes. But she had never looked more beautiful. It took every bit of his strength not to cry at the sight of her.
But he saw tears in her eyes. She choked out. "Hi Booth." He answered tenderly. "Hi Bones." They just stared at each other for a bit. He finally spoke. "You look fantastic, Bones. I've missed you so much." She sniffed and wiped the tears that were staring to fall. "Oh Booth. I've missed you so much too. I'm so sorry. This schism between us is all my fault. I'm sorry that it took me so long to trust my feelings."
He jumped in. "No Bones. It's just as much my fault. I never should have sprung it on you that way. And it was cruel to expect you to give me an answer right then and there. I know you too well, Bones. You need time to consider such a major life-changing decision. I knew better than to rush you - and I rushed you. And, not a minute later, said I was going to move on. It was a cruel thing to do to you Bones, and I'm so sorry. I love you Bones. I've never stopped."
Her eyes were still teary and she was sniffing. "It's okay Booth. Because we're finally here. Can we just draw a line under it and start fresh? No more apologizing?"
He looked at her with sad eyes. "Yes, please. But…there's something important that we need to discuss first." She looked slightly startled. He took a deep breath. "Before I start this - please know that I love you. And we WILL be together. But I have to tell you something first. It's something that I could have kept from you because you are thousands of miles away and would never know if I didn't tell you. But this - you and me - is too important to start with a lie."
Now she was looking upset. "What is it Booth. Just tell me." He pursed his lips. "There's a woman, a reporter, who I've been seeing for the last month. Bones, I have to stress to you - I'm not in love with her. It's just been a sexual relationship. You know how we talked one night about the difference between sex and making love?" She nodded, but tears were starting to stream down her face. "That's all it is Bones - sex. I swear to you that I have never made love to her. I've been lonely and it had been two months since we left each other, and I hadn't heard anything from you. So, I felt like a free agent, and entered into this…whatever it is…with her."
"But please, hear me out. One of the things that has bothered me the whole time is that she won't talk about herself. She won't talk about her past - where she grew up, her family, where she has lived. And because she hasn't opened up to me, I haven't even told her about Parker. It's so strange, Bones. Because I have a photo of him on the wall above my desk and she's never asked about it.
She left this morning for a couple of days to do an interview, and I planned on talking with her when she returns. Before receiving your email, I had decided that if she wouldn't open up to me, that the relationship wasn't going anywhere, and I was going to end it. The moment I started reading your email, I knew there was no question. It's you, Bones. It could never be anyone else. When she returns in a couple of days I will tell her that, and I will be ready to give myself completely to you."
Brennan sniffed. "Has she been living with you?" "NO! No. She just comes here a couple of nights per week. I'm sorry to keep putting it so crudely, but it's just a sexual relationship. We rarely talk to each other. She's someone who just wants to have fun and live in the moment. It was fun for a few weeks, but you know me - it's not the way I want to live my life." Brennan nodded. "I understand Booth. What's her name?" Booth closed his eyes. "Do you really want to know? Won't it bother you?" She nodded. "Yes, I want to know. It feels necessary somehow. Is she pretty? I'll bet she's blonde. You've always been drawn to blondes."
Booth looked up to the ceiling and slowly shook his head. He chuckled as he looked back at her. "Oh Bones. I love you so much. Her name is Hannah. And yes, she's very pretty. And yes, she's blonde. But here's the thing. She doesn't hold a candle to you. There's pretty and then there's beautiful. You, Bones, are beautiful. Even sitting there in front of your laptop with no makeup, living in the jungle for three months. Your beauty is effortless - it's just you."
"Oh Booth. Now you're going to make me cry again." He smiled at her. "But this is a good cry. I can deal with this. And you know the thing you just said about me being drawn to blondes? I thought about that when I met Hannah. And I thought about how I had fallen in love with you - you're not a blonde. I've dated a lot of blondes over the years, but I was just waiting for you - you're the real deal."
Booth got a serious look in his eyes. "I would love to sit here and talk with you for hours. Talk about how we got here. Talk about our future together. But the reality is that I'm not comfortable with that tonight. I really have to end things with Hannah before we can talk about our future. It wouldn't be fair to her or to you. But I assure you, I will end it as soon as she returns to the base. I promise you, Bones. I won't let you down. I don't know what day she's scheduled to return, but it should be before the end of the week."
Brennan nodded, but he could see that her eyes were filling up again. He was also losing that battle. "I trust you Booth. It's taken us too long to get here." He nodded. "It has. Your love is such a gift to me that I won't do anything now to jeopardize our future together. As soon as I've talked to her, I'll send you a short email to schedule another video call. It will be the beginning of our life together, Bones. I feel like I'm dreaming." She smiled back at him. "It's been my dream too, Booth. I dream about you all the time."
They stared at each other through the screens and both pairs of eyes sparkled with unshed tears. "I love you Booth." "I love you Bones."