Bones Fic
Title: Twelve Things Seeley Booth Knows About Temperance Brennan, and One Thing He’s Still Figuring Out.
Author: britishwannabe1
Pairing: Booth/Brennan
Rating: T
Spoilers: General, Season Four (including Cinderella in the Cardboard and Mayhem on the Cross)
Word Count: 1553
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Summary: Booth knows Brennan better than anyone, but this doesn't mean he still doesn't have questions.
1.
He knows that she wants to believe in love.
She tells him one night in his apartment that she’s jealous of the people around her because they want to get lost in someone; they believe love is transcendent, eternal. He has never seen her so willing to divulge her feelings before. She looks broken. She looks like she doesn’t know if she wants to be fixed.
She looks like she wants to believe in love.
The funny thing is, he knew this about her already.
2.
He knows that the main reason she became a vegetarian was because her mother was killed like an animal.
She never says so, but whenever he gets a hamburger at the diner, she immediately starts going off about how concentrated animal feeding operations are a huge source of pollution. Sometimes he stares at her while she talks. She asks him why he’s looking at her, but he just shakes his head and finishes his fries.
But one night, he decides to get a salad, just for her. She looks at him oddly, as if trying to dissect his decision. He just smiles at her, and she doesn’t question him. He doesn’t know if it’s a coincidence or not, but she seems even more talkative during their conversation that evening.
3.
He knows that the necklace with the red, black, and white beads is her favorite. She wears it at least once a week, sometimes two days in a row. He notices that she always touches it unconsciously, as if there are memories associated with the piece of jewelry. She’ll get that far-away look in her eyes, the sad little girl expression. And then it’s gone as soon as it came.
He asks her one day where she got it from. She tells him El Salvador. He’ll have to ask her one day what happened to her in El Salvador.
4.
He knows what her name means.
The virtue ‘temperance’ means ‘moderation’, amongst other things. He finds this to be extremely ironic. There is nothing moderate or self-restrained about Temperance Brennan.
She is extremely smart.
She is extremely brilliant.
She is extremely rational.
She is extremely empathetic.
She is extremely precise.
She is extremely emotional.
She is extremely beautiful.
Her other name was Joy. He doesn’t find this ironic at all.
5.
He knows that there is something more human in her than in other people.
He looks at her as she rebuilds a skull from tiny shards. Utterly focused and devoted, she puts her entire self into reconstructing those minuscule pieces of matter so that they form something whole, complete, recognizable.
He looks at her as she rebuilds a skull from tiny shards. Her intensity blocks out the rest of her existence; there is nobody else in that room, not even herself. It’s just her knowledge of bones, and a skeleton. Both depend on each other, a symbiotic relationship that echoes vibrations from the families of the victims to the tragic past of the doctor who pieces the fragments into identity.
He looks at her. He knows that other people are not like her. She is the product of a more special history, the kind that involves suffering and heartache. Nobody is as dedicated as her. That kind of dedication has to indicate some traumatic past. A happy person who has no knowledge of life’s ignorance could never even begin to emulate the experiential brilliance that is Temperance Brennan.
6.
He knows that sometimes the dark scares her.
She falls asleep on his couch one night, and he notices that she twitches when he switches the lamp off. Somewhere beneath her eyelids, the air has become ebony.
She was buried alive once. Before that she was locked in a trunk for two days. Yes, Temperance Brennan is familiar with darkness surrounding her; in many ways, it haunts her in all aspects of her life. The dreariness of dead souls, the depression that comes with sifting through human wreckage in mass genocide. She says her job is not morbid. He believes that she believes it.
But when he switches off the lamp, he can’t help but want to turn it back on for her. Just in case she wakes up in the middle of night and can’t remember where she’s at.
7.
He knows that she makes attempts to assimilate herself into modern culture. He also knows that she eventually decides that being herself is the only way she can be.
One day, he finds a copy of People magazine sitting on her desk. Later that day, he sees it in the wastebasket.
He’s proud of her. If she was anything less than herself, he would not find this world half as interesting. Besides, Temperance Brennan may have insecurities, but she’s still the most confident person he knows.
Now he regrets saying that she needs to thumb through a People at the checkout line.
8.
He knows that her favorite flowers are daffodils.
When they go to buy flowers for her mom’s grave, she lingers around the yellow flowers for awhile. She touches them gently, as if connecting with something beyond her reach. Then she turns away.
She is far too rational to buy her favorite flower for someone else’s headstone.
The next day he goes to her apartment to drop off some paperwork. He sees yellow flowers in a vase on the counter, next to a copy of Journal of Forensic Anthropology.
For all her cynicism, he knows that she still sees the world for its beauty more than its destruction.
9.
He knows that she’s an intellectual genius. But he also knows that more than anything, she is hard-working.
Like all doctors, Temperance Brennan has ‘the wall of degrees’ in her office. Sometimes while he’s waiting for her to finish putting flesh-markers on a skull, he stares at the wall. It never fails to impress him; pride swells up inside of his soul. This is his partner. And she is the best in her field.
She has defied statistics, disapproved the social acceptance that a foster child is always doomed to a life of insignificance and destitution. He’s an FBI Agent, he knows these facts. It’s his job to use these facts to understand people.
Her drive is utterly selfless. She is the strongest person he knows.
Yes, she is super smart. But this is not the first adjective that jumps to his mind when he thinks of words associated with this woman. She is by far, the most courageous person he has ever met.
10.
He knows that she has a goofy side.
It comes out in intervals. Sometimes it manifests itself through her love of music. Dancing to ‘Hotblooded’ in her apartment still replays in his mind, as does what occurred right after.
Sometimes it manifests itself in her love of knowledge. He cannot count the number of times he has seen a giddy expression on her face when she learns something new.
Usually, it manifests itself when she feels like she has done something right. One night he goes to her for advice on a situation with Parker; he’s still worried that he could be a better father. When it comes to children, she always knows what to do.
When he accepts her advice, she gets a small, but joyous smile on her face. It’s such a fleeting, yet goofy expression. It causes him to lightly chuckle. She asks him why he laughed.
11.
He knows that her eyes are the exact hue called ‘carolina blue’.
He has stared into them too many times, he can’t not know this.
12.
He knows that her Christmas gift to him is the most meaningful gift he has ever received.
He had given her a decorated tree to complete her Christmas celebration with her family. The next day, she drops by his apartment to give him his present.
When he opens it, it is a figurine of St. Joseph. She tells him that she learned St. Joseph is the patron saint of social justice. She tells him that she thinks he is, in his own way, very much like St. Joseph.
He is at a loss for words. So he simply looks at her, and says ‘thank you’, with all the heart he could muster in his quivering voice.
13.
He knows that he is waiting for her; the only thing he cannot figure out about her is if she is waiting for him too.
There are moments---- their relationship is made up of them---- when he thinks she has pulled down her oblivious walls and is challenging him.
"You heard me but you just didn’t understand me."
"Yeah, I wonder that about you all the time."
He still can’t figure that out. Then sometimes she’ll get that coy and knowing smile in her eyes. Or she’ll be broken down, like that night in his apartment when she fell asleep in his arms, wondering if love would ever be something she could attain. But then in the next moment, she is Dr. Temperance Brennan again, and her mind’s pictures are only in black and white.
But one night, she gave him that look again, the knowing one. And he had to find out.
So he kissed her.
And guess what?
He got his answer.