Do not adjust your screen. This is, in fact, a Bones!Fic~ Part 1
Title: (That’s Me In The Corner) Losing My Religion (Part 1/?)
Author: Anna (bite_or_avoid)
Pairing: Booth/Brennan
Rating: R
Word Count: This part: 6,636
Disclaimer: Not mine
Spoilers: Through the Season 5 finale. Since I started this back in May, anything that coincides with Season 6 spoilers is purely me being psychic :P And, to be honest, the premiere will most likely turn this into AU anyway.
AN: Major thanks to fauxmaven, for sharing her knowledge, and my uber-beta extraordinaire tempertemper77, who has tried to convince me that I did not lose my mojo. As a sidenote, there is a Brennan-centric companion piece to this that has been planned from the get-go. I just don’t know how long it will take for it to get written.
They never make their meeting at the coffee cart.
He walks the length of the Mall alone, getting reacquainted with what he’s given the last year fighting for. Stops to pay his respects at the Korean War Memorial. He stares at the casualties of war made immortal in letters on granite and thinks about Pops; he’ll have to bring him here, soon, because there’s so little time left. The glint of silver in the sunlight proclaims “Freedom Is Not Free”, and no one knows this better than Booth. He’s paid its price; would pay it again, a thousand times over if he had to.
But how he wishes he hadn’t had to.
He strolls alongside the reflecting pool. A light breeze ripples the surface of the water, distorting his image, but it doesn’t matter. It’s been a long time since he recognized himself anyway. He wonders if she’ll have a hard time recognizing him, too.
Their bench sits empty in the midday sun. He smiles at the memory of her lips against his skin, even her adamant denial at kissing his hand somehow laced with intimacy. And he can almost hear her voice.
We’ll hold. We’re the center.
He’ll never forget the unexpected jolt at hearing her refer to them as parts of a whole. No lecture on how we’re all a single functional entity on our own. Just a simple acceptance of his claim to them as a unit that should never be divided.
But it had been. The center broken from the inside and the pieces it anchored scattered to the four winds. If anything can be salvaged now, it’ll start here.
Still, after everything that’s happened, he doesn’t expect to see her today.
*
*
*
A lot can happen in a year.
He breathes in the arid air, squints up against the merciless sun, wipes the sweat off his brow. He feels raw, savage. Bones would tell him that it’s anthropologically inevitable, Booth, that an alpha-male such as yourself would adapt to his surroundings in this fashion.
He doesn’t want to adapt. What’s more, he doesn’t want to be one of her anthropological inevitabilities.
But he is. The sand and the mountains and the blood are embedded within him, like metaphorical marks on the heart, or etches in the bone.
He thinks of how careless they were, he and Bones, bartering for time by living in limbo. Thinking they were protecting each other from each other. Like tip-toeing around the freaking brontosaurus in the room would keep them safe somehow. He gets now that if he hadn’t pushed the issue, Bones would have been content to forever reside in that realm of unexplored possibility between them, if it only meant that she wouldn’t lose him. And he probably would have let her. But it all blew up in their faces anyway, and there’s a kind of karmic justice to that. Talking about a whole damn year like it was nothing; like a second couldn’t mean the difference between life and death. With all that this world had taught them both, how could they have ever taken any moment for granted?
He shakes his head to clear it and counts the days until home. Until a little boy who couldn’t possibly understand what he was asking his father to do is back in his arms. Until good old American beer and a burger that doesn’t taste like rubber and a Flyers game on the tube. Until the faces of the dead stare up at him from the sure strokes of Angela’s pencils, and not from beneath his own hands. He counts the days until a reflecting pool and a coffee cart, and it sustains him. But the truth is he doesn’t know if he should be counting forwards or backwards; if each new day is bringing them closer together or farther apart.
He thinks, in moments of ridiculous optimism, that the time away will be for the better. A new beginning, for both of them. But then he remembers how she’d looked at him with those unfathomable eyes, fear and vulnerability bleeding out around the lines they’ve drawn themselves into, and a much different thought is the one that takes hold. This is, very possibly, the end of them.
So he breathes in, breathes out, sheds the tender skin of partnerfatherbrotherfriend. It slips off easier than he expected; faster than it took to conceal himself inside it in the first place. He’s spent all this time atoning for what he thought was another life. Being back isn’t doing him any favors with the big man upstairs. Then again, maybe Sweets had been right after all about that deep reservoir of rage of his. Because in the time it takes for the earth to make a full revolution around the sun, he remembers one very important thing about himself.
Underneath it all, he’s still made to kill.
*
*
*
He tells them no, at first. No matter what’s going on between him and Bones, he can’t just pick up and leave. He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to leave his job, his kid, or his partner, no matter how badly he feels the urge to get away from her. Whatever sad excuse for a life he’s been living these past couple of months, it’s still his life to do with as he pleases. He won’t just hand that over to the military again. Not after how long he’s been trying to make up for the last time.
It’s that day in the park that changes his mind. When she broaches the thing with the Makapoopoo (he knows it’s Maluku. He just doesn’t wear passive aggressive well.) islands with that question in her voice. Like she’s asking his permission for crying out loud, when he already knows damn well what she’s decided. So, he promptly takes a lesson from Parker and informs her that he’s taking the job in Afghanistan. So there, and he figures that he might as well have stuck out his tongue for good measure if he’s going to be that childish about it. Beyond the knee-jerk response though, there’s this inevitability to it. A truth that he hasn’t been able to admit until now. Everything he’s done against his own survival instincts-barrelling on like nothing ever happened between them, staying close when all he wants is to pull away-has been for her. Because she asked him to and he would do anything for her. He would.
And it’s killing him.
As long as she’s there-close enough to touch, too far to ever reach-he’s stuck on instant replay. In this city, where every place he frequents is theirs. In this job, where he’s forgotten how to work without her as a partner. In this life, within which she is completely entangled. To get past this, to really get past this and not let it wreck them down the line, he needs a complete change of scenery.
So, for once, they’re in complete agreement. They need this. To find themselves, to find each other again. This is for the best. Because things have to change. They have to. And it’s all crystal clear for about a minute, until there’s a clench in his gut, like nausea. Indigestion, Bones would say. But he knows better. Knows it’s really his body’s rebellion against this decision he wishes he didn’t have to make. Still, he can’t unmake it. Not after you’re the one that needs protecting. Not after I have to move on, but not really being able to with any honest effort behind it. Not after holding her close and giving her the prom she’s never had. Not after knowing her in all the ways you can know someone, all the ways you want to know someone when you’ve always been aware of what they can be (are) to you, and still not have it be enough.
He can’t do this. Can’t ask her to stay, can’t be left behind.
He can’t stay where she isn’t.
Later, when he stares at his own signature just above the official seal, the hand that performed the familiar motions hangs heavy. Of the millions of documents he’s signed in his lifetime, this one feels somehow… final. Undoable. Like he’s just broken a promise he’s been making every day for the last five years.
*
*
*
Most of the time, it isn’t half bad. He’s honored to be serving his country, to be furthering the cause of freedom. He wishes the world could be as black and white as Parker saw it that day in the car, but he’s used to making tough choices. Used to the concept of killing one to save a thousand more.
So, he teaches them all about wind trajectories and harsh field conditions; tracking and detaining and interrogating. Teaches them about making that kill shot from fifteen hundred feet. About tempering knowledge with instinct to find the balance that keeps you alive. The kids look at him with awe and respect and a little jealousy, and it makes him feel proud.
And old.
He studies their fresh young faces-eager to please, eager to prove themselves, eager to kill-and doesn’t want to be who they look up to. Doesn’t want to be responsible for their lives and deaths, for the cosmic balance sheets those who survive will carry. And the better they are, the harder they work, the more they impress him, the more he doesn’t even want to know their names. Because in each satisfied smirk he sees a Teddy Parker; in each brilliant idea, a Zack Addy.
He honestly doesn’t know which one he failed worse.
That’s the part that really gets him where he lives. Because, of all the issues already plaguing his mind, the absurdity of this one takes the freaking cake. He flips the old harmonica in his hand like that last uncashed poker chip; like the remnant of a past life that still tugs at his heart. It’s crazy, how he thinks more about it now than he ever has before. He thinks about the young genius that logic failed so completely. Wonders if the kid only told him about Iraq because he wanted to be stopped. To be told Don’t go. You’ll never be the same.
Wonders if the fact that he didn’t talk Zack out of it when given the chance is the reason Bones still blames herself for a failure that was all his.
*
*
*
He’s still mourning having to clean out his office when he finds her cleaning out hers. She moves with practiced ease around the room-stacking books, wrapping artifacts in pieces of newspaper-as Booth watches from the doorway. There has been a fog of melancholy settling over him ever since that day in the park, and in this moment the full weight of it is stifling. Brennan must feel it too, because she stops suddenly, a look of consternation crossing her face. It’s that expression he’s often thought of as her being lost in the tangle of her own genius. It makes his heart ache that he may never see it again.
He clears his throat, mostly to pull himself out of the funk. But her gaze snaps to him suddenly, and in her eyes he sees a reflection of his own fears.
“Whatchya thinkin’about so hard over there, Bones?” His voice carries a levity he hasn’t felt in a long time.
“Oh, just attempting to determine the most efficient way of packing the rest of my things. What are you doing here?”
“Had to pack up my office too. Came to commiserate.”
He plops himself on her couch with a dramatic flourish, and she grants him a small smile.
“Yes, it must have been very difficult for you. Rearranging all those files in such a way that Agent Perotta will be able to make some sense of them…”
“Hey, I had a system!”
“Saying I know exactly where that is, and then digging through all the piles on your desk does not qualify as a system, Booth.”
He opens his mouth for a witty response, then closes it again. A heavy silence falls between them with the sudden reminder that there was before, and this is after. They are not this comfortable with each other anymore. Brennan lowers her eyes to the book in her hands.
“It’s strange.” She sounds uncertain, and he knows she was going over more than packing lists in her head. “This is the opportunity of a lifetime. Yet it seems… less satisfying than I imagined, somehow.”
Booth suspects he doesn’t need to remind her of what she’s leaving behind. If she doesn’t get it by now, it’s too late anyway.
“Bones, you’re going to be stuck on an island for a whole year with Daisy. Anyone in their right mind would be less than satisfied by that.”
Brennan’s brow furrows. If it’s in offense on Daisy’s behalf or confusion at his sudden derailing of a serious- conversation opener, he can’t be sure.
“Miss Wick, although at times overly enthusiastic, is extremely competent.”
“So, what’s the problem? Afraid one day you’ll snap and smother her in her tent?”
“I must admit that I have imagined forcibly silencing her on more than one occasion. But that’s not it. It just…”
He stands up, taking a step towards her.
“It just what, Bones?”
“It just… feels wrong in a way I can’t quantify.”
The action is fleeting; subconscious to the point that he doubts she even registers having done it. But he’s devoted so much time to studying people, to studying her, that it doesn’t go unnoticed. His eyes follow to where hers had flickered-to the open box with a life packed neatly into its corners-and the picture frame he sees on top might as well be a signed confession.
“You wish it was Zack.”
She doesn’t answer in words, but in that broken look that’s become far too familiar. His façade of control cannot stand in the face of her anguish. He closes the distance between them. As her forehead comes to rest against his shoulder with a trembling sigh, he wonders how he’ll ever be able to let go.
*
*
*
The dull ache of her absence sets up residence inside him like a phantom limb. He’s so used to worrying about her-where she is, if she’s sleeping at all, whether or not she remembered to eat-that it takes a while to break the habit. But if there’s any reason he’s actually grateful to be back in the service, the unforgiving regimen fits the bill.
It’s easier to stop setting his internal clock by Bones time when he has to live on Army time now.
Of course, that doesn’t mean he stops worrying completely. He knows she’s okay, as news of her filters in through lines on a computer screen. Through Parker, boasting each postcard or artifact received as coming from the coolest place ever, Dad. Are there as many different kinds of birds where you are? Through Cam, who emails him every week without fail, and he can’t restrain a chuckle at the familiarity of his friend’s no-nonsense approach to life. Through Angela, who writes of Paris in broad strokes and bright colors, as if she could paint it for him to see across the miles. As if the exuberant artist somehow knows that her best friend took all the color from his world when she walked out of it. Pops sends him letters, none of this funny electronic business, Shrimp, and these people-they are his links to the world outside the walls of blood and sand. He loves them for the reminders of all that is good and beautiful and worth protecting.
After a while, his heart rate stops ratcheting up a notch while checking for emails from her that never come. He cannot begrudge her this; theirs is a mutual stalemate. The silence only serves to remind him how much there is left unfinished between them.
He writes to her anyway, though-letters and emails that he’ll never send, words that need to be purged from his heart before he can even begin to put the past behind him.
*
*
*
Booth turns towards the bar, his back to the table of merry squints. Theirs is a farewell celebration. His state of mind is more fitting for a requiem mass. He’s not sure how long he’s been there, nursing a half empty tumbler of scotch and replaying the last two months in his head, before someone taps him on the shoulder.
“You’re missing your own party, G-man.”
He lifts the glass for a long swallow. Angela settles in next to him, a sad half-smile playing on her lips.
“You and I both know that’s not gonna dull the pain.”
He grunts noncommittally. “Yeah, well.”
“Tomorrow is still day one of you back in G.I. Joe land, and Brennan still leaves next week, and a year from now everything will be different. No matter how many of those you ply yourself with.”
“Is there a reason you’re telling me this?” Glaring at Angela has never stopped her before, but he figures it’s worth a shot.
“Hey, don’t try to pull that macho FBI crap with me, tough guy! My father is much, much scarier than you.” She sighs a little, whatever nervous energy there was dissipating with her exclamation. “I just can’t believe you guys are really going through with this. I mean, Brennan… she’s doing what Brennan does; running away when things get too emotional. And that would be fine, except this time, you’re running too.”
He’s already had this conversation. About an hour ago. With Cam. He’s not in the mood to do it again.
“I’m not running.”
“Oh, please. Can you honestly tell me that you would have even considered this if she weren’t leaving too?”
The way she says it, like it’s a foregone conclusion that all his decisions are based on Brennan’s cues and that’s exactly the way it should be, makes this easier somehow. Clarifies how much he needs to just get on with living his own life already.
“What do you want from me, Ange? She’s going. I can’t… I can’t do this anymore.”
The artist beside him falls silent. He glances at her-at the way her always expressive face radiates happiness despite the current situation, at the way the dim light of the bar only accentuates the glow that comes from within-and can’t help but envy Hodgins.
“You’re right, Booth. You guys need some distance. It’s what we artists call perspective.” She nudges him with a wink. When she speaks again though, all trace of humor is gone from her voice. All that remains is tenderness. And hope. “But while you two are off on opposite sides of the world finding yourselves, don’t forget what you know in your heart.”
“I don’t know anything anymore.”
She grips his hand fiercely. “Yes, you do. You know. You’ve always known. She knows too, she just needs time to accept it.”
“Angela, don’t-”
“Just look at me and Hodgins. We hurt each other. Worse than hurt each other. If we can make it back from that and find happiness in a backwoods jail cell, then anything is possible.”
He has to laugh a little at that. She smiles, one of those breathtaking smiles that can convince most people that anything really is possible, and brushes a light kiss across his cheek. As she pulls away, he can feel her eyes still on him. “Please, be careful, Booth. Be careful you don’t run so far that you can’t find your way back.”
He wants to protest again, to remind her and himself that he’s not running. But she’s already gone.
*
*
*
He spends a lot of time running. Sometimes he brings his iPod to blast the thoughts away, but more often than not the songs remind him of her. Of having to slap her hand away from changing the station, or explaining why Led Zeppelin tickets are something you definitely share with your partner, or all the times he wanted to hear her sing again but couldn’t bear to see the haunted look in her eyes if he dared ask. After a while he stops trying to fight it. His pre- Reveille jogs become a kind of Bones-therapy, something that he will never, ever tell Sweets about as long as he lives.
He thinks about change. About eye contact and evolution. About coffee and how entropy is a natural force that pulls everything apart at a subatomic level, and how he did make her fall without making sure he could catch her. About I knew, and the center must hold.
He doesn’t think about how everything happens eventually, because then he’d be forced to confront the fact that everything already happened, just not the way he’d hoped.
He thinks about how much she’s changed already in the time that they’ve been partners, and what it would take to get her to acknowledge that change within herself. Mostly though, he wonders about the changes she’s going through without him, and if the woman he will meet at the reflecting pool a year from now will be a stranger.
He’s not running to or away from anything; only counting the steps and trying to figure out where to go from here.
*
*
*
He heads outside for some much needed air after that display with Angela and her irritating insights.
In and out, in and out. Simply memorizing the way the D.C. air fills his lungs with the heartbeat of the city. There’s a stifling quality to it now, but he knows that it won’t be long before homesickness kicks in.
The door opens and shuts behind him, and Booth knows he doesn’t need to turn around. She’ll just stand there in silence with him if that’s what he wants. He turns around anyway.
And there’s this moment.
She smiles at him, and he smiles back, and they’re just them. Just Booth and Bones, without all the other crap. Just two people who have been on so many journeys together, and this is simply one more. For just that moment, nothing else matters.
Until it does. Her smile falls, and she steps toward him. He hates the hesitancy in her approach. Hates more that it’s his own behavior that makes her uncertain. She’s so self-conscious around him now; as if he were some ancient bone that she can neither put down nor grip too tightly for fear it will shatter into a million shards. So she clings to him, gently, tentatively, and it breaks his heart just a little bit more.
Except when she doesn’t.
Except when she’s not gentle or tentative, but careless and dense in that way only Brennan can be. He doesn’t know which to expect from her anymore.
That breaks his heart too.
“Are you leaving?”
He startles. Does she really think he’d go without saying goodbye?
“Nah, just needed some air.”
Brennan points back over her shoulder. “If you’d rather be alone, l can-”
“No, Bones, it’s fine. I’ll be alone soon enough.”
He doesn’t mean it as accusation, but guilt is written all over her face.
“I’m sorry. I just… I need time.”
He remembers standing in this exact spot, pleading with her not to make any decisions about the future. For all the good that did him.
“Is a year enough time?”
“I don’t know. I hope so.” She bites her lip, struggling with something. He knows before she speaks that she’s come to a decision. “But…. I don’t need space, Booth. I don’t want space.”
He hears the echo of his own words, a few feet and a million years from here, carried on a voice still raw from the sting of her doubt in him. He had thought that nothing could ever hurt him more. He had been wrong. Her doubt in herself hurts far worse.
He smiles sadly, grateful for the sentiment despite the lack of truth behind it. “Putting a couple of continents between us is space, Bones. A whole lotta nothin’ but space.”
She comes closer, the contours of her face soft and inviting. “No, I… I meant tonight. I don’t want any space between us tonight. I’d like to go somewhere. Just us. We can go wherever you’d like and talk about things, or not talk about things… I would very much like to be with you, the way we used to be.”
His jaw trembles as he clenches it. In fact, his whole body feels like it’s shaking; like he’s wound too damn tight and about to burst. She’s offering him what he wants so badly-to pretend, to turn back the clock. But he can’t. He doesn’t know how to go that far back. And it makes him angry at her for being this way, for being her, for pushing him away with one hand while pulling him back into her orbit with the other in the same instant.
“That’s a bad idea. I should get home anyway. Early day tomorrow, you understand.”
He doesn’t mean to snap, but it comes out that way. She has no idea what she’s asking of him. His control is hanging by a thread, and if she keeps pushing…
“Let me come with you.”
“Godammit!”
The bus shelter once again bears the brunt of his emotions, and this time he hears the plexiglass crack beneath his fist. Brennan gasps and rushes at him, but he waves her away. He closes his eyes and breathes in, focuses on the burn and the blood working its way down his hand. He can feel her waiting for him, and almost laughs bitterly. They remain frozen in that tableau for what feels like an eternity. When he finally lowers himself to the bench with a sigh, she doesn’t wait for an invitation. She grabs his hand, studying it, flexing the fingers. Without saying a word, she wipes his bleeding knuckles with the hem of her blouse. He can feel fresh splatters of moisture on his hand, and knows that it isn’t the cuts weeping. Tugging his hand away from her ministrations, he wipes gently at a tear tracing its way down her cheek. The emotional rollercoaster of the last few weeks has finally caught up to her and, no matter how much he’s hurting, he can’t imagine how overwhelming being flooded with emotions you’re used to compartmentalizing must be. She rests her head on his shoulder, turns into him, and when she speaks he can feel her lips brushing against the crook of his neck.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please, Booth.”
He’s not sure what please is supposed to mean, or what she’s asking from him. But there’s only one answer he can give her.
“Stay,” he wants to say, but it comes out as, “No, Bones.”
*
*
*
He tries not to dwell on what could have happened that night if he had said yes.
It’s not what she was offering, but it’s what would have happened. Without the promise of eventually and no more hope of holding out for the whole enchilada like some romantic sap, there would have been nothing to stop him from taking whatever she was willing to give. Expect pride, maybe, but sinking into nostalgia with her was a risk he wasn’t willing to take. Besides, a night together wouldn’t change anything. Despite what his ego would like to think, her answer in the morning would have still been I can’t.
It’s only with twenty-twenty hindsight though, that he realizes it’s not about running away for her either. She had lost the person she thought she was supposed to be, and how could he fault her for going off to find her again? Tipping the scales of their status quo made her question herself in a way he never imagined. It would actually be funny if it wasn’t so tragic, what a huge miscommunication took place between them that night at the Hoover. His fault, really. After all that patient waiting, to go about it in such an asinine way. He heaped all of it at her feet without using any of the words that mattered. He didn’t tell her that it doesn’t make a difference if she believes herself incapable of giving him what he needs, because he doesn’t need her to be anything but herself. That he doesn’t want her to change. That he’ll prove it to her if she lets him. That he sees… knows… loves exactly who she is, and she does deserve it. That her (metaphorical) heart is all he’s ever wanted.
He counts all the ways he fucked up the highest-stakes game of his life. This feeling. This. He should have remembered it’s why he stopped gambling.
*
*
*
After the scene outside Founding Fathers, he doesn’t know how he’ll handle another goodbye, but letting her get on that plane without one is out of the question. It doesn’t matter that some snot-nosed brat won’t give him a day-pass. It doesn’t matter that he has to commandeer the Major’s Humvee and break every speed limit to get to the airport. All that matters is when he runs in there, half-convinced she’s already boarded and his “No, Bones” will be the last thing he’s said to her, her gaze meets his through the crowd. Like she’s been looking for him. Waiting for him.
All that matters is the promise of a year from now.
She asks him not to be a hero, not to be him. But that’s the whole point, isn’t it? He has to remember how to be himself without her.
It’s all too much. The way she looks so open. The way she holds his eyes like she wants a word, a gesture, a reason to stay. So he lets go of her hand first, walks away first. If he lingers another minute, she won’t be getting on that plane.
He looks back, like an addict, for that last glimpse of her, and knows he can’t look back again. If he does, he’ll be trapped forever in that endless stretch of space between them. He’ll never be able to go forward, never be the man he needs to be to survive.
He turns away first, and doesn’t look back.
*
*
*
He dreams in shades of grey.
There are only three colors his mind can register now.
The blond of his son’s unruly curls. The cool blue of her eyes, made nearly translucent by their reflection off some distant ocean. The red of the blood that is forever etched into the crevices of his hands. He dreams of them each in succession; Parker and Bones and war, but the ones that linger are the nightmares that play out in front of his eyes. Sometimes though…
Sometimes his subconscious finds particularly painful ways of fucking with him.
Sometimes, her nails and lips are stained crimson; the ghost of another desert. The shade of her irises turns deep and hot, as his tongue and hands traverse her milky flesh. She moans, hitching her leg higher over his hip, and he’s not confused about what she wants when she breathes, “Please, Booth,” into the skin of his neck. He willingly obliges, stroking into her again and again with a fervor and passion that surpasses any biological imperative; that will prove to her once and for all what it means to be his. And always, always, his name leaves her on a gasp as she comes apart beneath and around him, pulling him with her into the abyss.
Sometimes, in the early hours of dawn, he can’t tell which aches more-his erection, or his heart.
*
*
*
Corporal Marks finds him just as Booth is heading to the mess for some noontime chow.
“Sarge, hey, Sarge!” The young man weaves through the throng of snipers with food set in their sights.
“Woah there, Corporal. Where’s the fire?”
Marks takes a moment to suck in a breath. “You’re needed over at SATCOM right away, sir. Some kind of emergency call from home.”
The kid doesn’t even have time to catch his bearings before Booth is off and running. He’s on autopilot, bursting into the communications office like a bat out of hell. It’s the middle of the night in D.C. Whether it’s Rebecca or Jared calling, the news can’t be good.
He practically rips the phone from the hand of a startled officer, heart thudding painfully in his chest.
“Hello?”
A voice crackles to life on the other end of a shaky signal. “Booth? It’s me. Bones.”
Beyond the alarm and confusion, a sudden warmth spreads through his chest. It means something that after all these months with no contact she still embraces the name he gave her.
“Bones? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. There’s nothing wrong.”
“It doesn’t sound like nothing. Did something happen?”
“Nothing happened, Booth, I promise you. I just…” She hesitates so long that he’s already halfway to Indonesia in his head
by the time she continues. “I just needed to hear your voice.”
He deflates, completely bewildered and a little bemused. The residual adrenaline coursing through his body is starting to cause a throbbing at his temples.
“You just…? You know, giving me a heart attack by saying it’s an emergency kinda defeats the purpose there, Bones.”
Her voice is reassuringly matter-of-fact over the tenuous connection. “It is highly unlikely that you would suffer an actual coronary as a result, Booth. Besides, it was the only way I could get them to patch me through.”
“How did you even get this number? It’s classified.”
“Cam. She said to tell you ‘you’re welcome’, but neglected to clarify why you should be thanking her.”
He chuckles wearily, simultaneously annoyed and grateful to his friend for meddling.
“Oh, I’ll thank her alright.” It’s starting to sink in that he’s talking to Bones. That she called him, right out of the blue. Presumably, just to hear his voice. “So… wanna tell me the real reason you called?”
“I had a… rather disturbing dream. I realize that it was wholly the manifestation of my subconscious fears as opposed to any prophetic vision. Even though it’s irrational and only appeasing for my own state of mind, I needed to make certain that you are alright.”
“Wow. I’m touched, Bones.” He makes it sound light, but there is no way in hell he’s taking this lightly. “So, uh… how are you? How’s your ape-man coming along?”
“He is in fact a she.” That familiar scholarly reproach enters her tone. “And she is an interspecies hominid.”
“Yeah, okay. So, ape-woman, then.”
“Booth-”
“Bones, uh, running a little low on phone time here. Just tell me how you are.”
“I’m fine, really. The team here is very good, and the work we are doing is revolutionary. In fact…” She hesitates again, and he instinctually braces himself. If she’s decided to stay- “In fact, it is going so well that I may not require as much time here as originally anticipated.”
He can’t possibly be expected to wrap his head around the nonchalant way she drops that little bombshell. “What?”
“It is reasonable to anticipate that my research will be completed a couple of months ahead of schedule. If that is the case, perhaps you could-”
“No!” It comes out harsh; more forceful than he intended and the complete opposite of what he wants. But dammit, how can she be so good at offering him his heart’s desire at exactly the wrong time?
He can hear her suck in a startled breath, and softens his tone. “Look, I didn’t mean it that way. I’m sorry, Bones… I just can’t.”
There’s so much more than the Army’s wrath at a reneged contract at stake here, and a lack of any better explanation. He remembers her saying those same strangled words, and thinks he understands her better now.
It really is almost as bad saying them as it is hearing them.
“I understand.” Her voice is weak in a way he has only ever heard once before and never wanted to hear again. He curses himself once more for having broken them. “I’m sorry too, Booth.”
“Be careful over there, ‘kay Bones? I gotta go.”
He disconnects the call before he can say anything else he’ll want to take back. Because in this moment, there’s nothing he wouldn’t give to simply see her face.
Booth takes a deep breath and turns around. The guys in the room are looking at him strangely. He wonders if even they understand the magnitude of what he’s just done. He’s halfway down the hall before he realizes why they were staring.
His legendary, ever-steady hands… are shaking.
*
*
*
His hands do not waver as he squeezes off that fatal shot.
His earpiece crackles to life with, “Target hit confirmed, Wolverine,” and it’s another one to tip the scales against him.
He thinks he should be wondering how this harsh reality became once again embedded within the fabric of his existence; how the sanctity of human life became dependent on lines on a map, when his conscience had lived outside those boundaries for so long. But the truth is that he’s not the least bit surprised that it’s come to this.
This is the real reason they needed him, with his bad back and his scrambled brain and all his years out of commission. Because it sure as hell wasn’t to play commando with a bunch of eager kids who can shoot almost as well as he can. On some level, he’s always known that. It’s almost flattering in a way that they think so highly of him, the last of his breed of soldier.
Funny that they made a reformed gambler their ace in the hole.
Problem is he’s old enough this time around to understand that there is no such thing as victory in this corner of the world. If you’re really lucky, maybe you’ll get to cash out with your limbs and sanity intact. If you’re not… well, he’s seen enough to know that there are worse things than coming home in a body bag.
He wipes the sand from his pants and counts the men he has killed for a government he has no choice but to trust.
*
*
*
It is with more than a little dismay that he realizes he’s starting to feel his age. Joints pop and ache, his body finally protesting the way he’s pushed it to the limit all these years. He kneels anyway-sometimes with his eyes trained through a rifle’s scope, sometimes focused heaven-wards in the only act of contrition allowed to him in this accursed place.
Despite everything, he still prays. He prays that Stanton finds some humility before becoming a victim of friendly fire; that Ramirez will get his leave approved in time to watch his baby girl be born. He prays for Parker to be safe, for Pops to be healthy, for Jared to stay on the wagon and off the booze. And, even though he can practically see her eyeroll in his mind's eye, he prays Bones finds whatever it is she went halfway across the world looking for.
He doesn’t bother with himself; with a soul he fears is far past absolution. It’s easier to do what’s necessary if he leaves that part of his faith behind.
One step in front of another. Each shot, followed by the next.
He keeps moving, keeps counting, and doesn’t look back.
Part 2