Fic: An Arbitrarily Chosen Date On Which We Mark The Passing of Time. II
In case you missed Part One
One. (Paper or Cotton)
(Because we're back here again.)
It is important to understand that unlike numbers Two, Three and Four, number One does not represent an anniversary.
But it does represent a milestone.
(A big marker.
A rock, like a symbol of strength.
Something you can build a house on.)
And you see, no one (other than those directly involved) really knew that much about the events of number One until the era in which numbers like Five and Six fall.
So it fits here. With the Fives and the Sixes.
Because this is not a beginning.
It is a milestone.
("Look Booth, I know you've got more to deal with now, but we need this, we need her. You were the one that brought her in in the first place."
For the moment, he's taking the big new job, lot more to deal with line and running with it.
Far.
And fast.
"What about Bradbury? Maybe she'll like Bradbury."
"Are you kidding me? She basically told Paul to get fucked, so I don't see while she'll get on any better with him."
"Yeah." He's... resigned. Or something. He doesn't have as much fight as he thought. "I just... I know we got through that first case alright, but I just don't think she's gonna want work with me either."
"She wrote a fucking book about you. She can't hate you that much."
"With all due respect sir, I really don't think the book is about me."
He takes a moment to reflect upon a particularly memorable scene from Temperance Brennan's debut, wherein characters Andy and Kathy take an opportunity to get to know each other a little better in an FBI interrogation room.
Yes, he's fairly sure that her book is in no way about him.
"Oh come on, we all did the math, books take a while to write Booth. And she nearly broke Stewart's arm, so it's definitely not him she wants to screw up against a wall somewhere."
So. Apparently his boss's boss's boss has read it too.
"Whoah. I, ah... I mean, I can assure you that nothing like that happened when we worked together."
Except, well, that's not entirely true.
And, he's fairly sure this is why he is trying to tell his boss that he shouldn't work with Temperance Brennan.
"Christ, I know that, she's fucking crazy. But clearly, she has a bit of a thing for you. And I need you to use that and get her back on board."
Ignore urge to lunge at Boss.
Ignore urge to bang self over head repeatedly until need to defend Temperance Brennan to Boss dissipates.
"I ah... It's just-"
But what can he say?
Yeah, so, she didn't break my arm during the case but there was that time we maybe, possibly almost had sex.
But you know, we didn't.
And then she hit me.
Really hard.
He's got nothing. "Okay. I'll... try."
"Attaboy. Now get outta my sight.")
But he'd always kind of known that it was going to be like this. He'd always kind of planned for it.
Planned to see Temperance Brennan again.
It's just not quite that easy.
Nowadays he's a big fish - he's Special Agent in Charge Seeley Booth. With his predecessor side-shuffled to some back het position in the middle of nowhere courtesy of an abysmal solve rate, underperforming agents and generally low morale, he's supposed to be making things bright and shiny and happy again in the world of the FBI DC field office.
Apparently this involves making nice with a woman he's not spoken to since she assaulted him in said DC field office almost a year ago.
So, if the whole brain twisty sometimes-thinking-about-talking-to-her-again thing wasn't enough, now he's got career shit bearing down on it too.
Oh and also, she wrote a book about him.
(Or at least, there was that one time she worked on a case for the FBI. And that case just happened to be with him.
And ten months and (for the purposes of this conversation) no cases later, she produces a book.
About a forensic anthropologist fighting crime with a hot shot, former defence-forces FBI agent.
Yeah.
Whatever.)
So he's really gonna have to do this.
Right.
To be clear, he is not having a good day.
The not-good day does not begin and end here however.
His fingers are... itchy.
Five years later (the time with Fives and Sixes), three people will briefly discuss what it was that happened in these weeks.
They'll do so only briefly because at this time of said discussion, these events have only a cameo role in a bigger, more interesting tale that is to be told.
But you already know that story.
It's this story you want to know more about.
He'll say, "Well he- he still thinks that we slept together."
And she'll say, "We're not in love with each other. It took us a year after we kissed to be in the same room together - right?"
And it is here that you need to pay attention. That part where he replies, "Oh! ... A-absolutely. Right. No kissing, no nothing."
See? See there?
He stumbled.
He did.
(And while you think it could have something to do with the earlier part of her statement, it has as much to do with the latter.)
Because it was a year. Just not quite the same year that she's thinking of.
(His is about four weeks shorter.)
He isn't lying, he's just rounding up.
And it's probably not worth mentioning. An insignificant detail. There will have been enough revelations for one afternoon and he'll feel there is to be no point in making room for another.
But it matters more than you think.
His first mistake was calling.
(Yeah, that should teach him to be a coward.)
Having now developed a somewhat... terse relationship with Dr Brennan's assistant, he knows he's getting nowhere over the phone. He knows if he's going to get anywhere that he's going to actually have to see her.
He just, ah, needs to calm his nerves a bit first.
(Yes, of course, it's just therapeutic.)
And if he's been able to go for a whole year now without gambling, he'll be able to handle himself just for a few hours if he's only here to take the edge off.
This is the logic that has him standing in front of a familiar pool hall, some time before noon, gently fiddling with a poker chip in his pocket.
Just looking.
For days, his fingers have been itching. He just wants that to stop.
He just wants to feel powerful.
Like a winner.
And then he can go and see her and get all this work stuff out of the way.
Yep.
He's fine.
He can't decide if the view from the Jeffersonian Institute's high-flung catwalk makes him feel more like God or an anthropologist.
From where he is standing, he can observe without participating. He is able to separate himself from the collective experience.
He can see them, all of them, each happy person that makes up the staff of the Jeffersonian Medico-Legal Lab. He can see what they're doing, even how well they're doing it.
But he is by no means a part of it.
Whichever one it is, whether he be deity or scientist, from here he can watch without any of them really knowing he's watching.
It's making him feel... powerful.
(He's still holding onto that poker chip though.
Just in case.)
Booth leans back off the railing and casts out another glance across the space, a smirk growing on his features.
Because the remarkable thing about his chosen location is what he can see.
The ebb and flow of the lab below him.
Constant motion, people doing important things.
But even more interestingly, what he's been able to see is Doctor Brennan powering around her workspace, purpose-driven and focussed on the task at hand.
He's seen her give orders, deal in instructions. She has authority and determination and high expectations of everyone, but he can see it (it's just another thing he sees), the way she still has the unwavering respect of the lab and of its people.
Just in this short window of observation he's been privy to the way she can go from So Smart It Will Boggle Your Mind to I don't know what that means so fast it'll give you whiplash.
And you see this, all of these things that he's been able to observe are why he has come to the conclusion that Temperance Brennan is the kind of person who can write a book that is so clearly about her life and have it not be about her life.
He's not claiming to be an expert on the inner workings of Bones, but he quietly likes to think he has some advantages when it comes to understanding how she works. And all afternoon he's been watching, just observing, considering, furthering his data intake - like a science.
He's applying himself to the science of Temperance Brennan.
And the conclusion?
She quite simply doesn't realise what her book means.
And, he supposes, all that really matters is what she thinks.
Yeah, they're going to work together just fine.
As she sets a tray of what must be bone shards upon a workbench, reaching for glue from across the table, she pauses when her artist friend passes along of the front of the platform, a big bouquet of flowers in her arms.
And it's here he sees something else.
Something important.
(More important than the stuff about the book.)
The flowers are an arrangement of vivid color and from where he stands he can see the way she falters from her work just a little bit, and then there's the smile that just plays around the corners of her mouth.
He recognises that smile.
And he files the information away somewhere in his brain.
(Daffodil, daisy.
You can work out where Jupiter came from yourself.)
It carries over the lab on a lull in the ambient noise. "Nice flowers Ange."
Angela smiles, says something about a Hodgins and pollen and an experiment and continues on. Brennan turns back to the glue and her tray of bone pieces.
It's not like he understands why she smiled that little smile.
(But he will, one day.
One day he'll know it's because her mother always had daffodils in the house in the spring time.
That the smell reminds her.
But until then, it's just enough for him to understand that that little smile means something... good.
Because from now on, he'll be seeing it a lot more.)
Booth decides to watch a little longer.
But here's the thing.
That afternoon in the Jeffersonian, she saw him too.
Or at least, she's almost sure she did.
And here's how you know:
When they talk about it, with the Fives and the Sixes, she'll say, "It took us a year after we kissed to be in the same room together - right?"
And she checks, she turns to him and she checks that she's correct.
Temperance Brennan never has to check if she's correct.
To Temperance Brennan, when something is a fact, it is a fact. Set in stone, universally agreed upon, no confirming or cross-checking.
Which means this cannot be a fact.
Because this time, she's not sure. Because that day, she's pretty sure she saw something and she kind of... wonders.
(Not in a consuming fashion. It's not something she thinks about always. In reality she doesn't even think about it a lot. But as is always the case, thoughts turn over in her mind in an almost constant fashion and sometimes, on a rare occasion, this one is just there.)
She's doing a skull reconstruction, by hand picking each of the pieces, moving them from her tray to her desk and fitting them together. Making a face.
It's the sort of thing she should Zack doing. It's the sort of skill he needs to learn and she knows this, yet she insisted specifically on taking the job as her own.
Because she likes putting the skull back together.
It helps her clear her head.
And while it is a general rule that she dislikes metaphor, the only way she's found to describe the recent type of thoughts inside her head, is loud. Metaphorically loud, up in her ears, oscillating inside her brain. All of those scientifically impossible things that she scoffs at, out of the mouths of other people.
She takes quiet comfort in the fact that at least she knows, still, that it sounds ridiculous.
And so piecing the humpty-dumpty skull back together is helping her sort through these loud thoughts.
It definitely about Pete. There's definitely something... very not right there.
When she thinks about him, even when she's with him, she finds it hard to define the emotion she experiences. She's fairly certain, whatever emotion it may be, it's not the right one.
She struggles with how it is she's come to know what the right one is.
Not helping is the fact that she's fairly certain their relationship has continued for an amount of time that can be classified as long. This is not a state that she has the means to deal with. This is not a state that she wants the means to deal with.
And yet somehow, in spite of all of this and without her direct consent or even really her knowledge, most of his earthy possessions are now to be found inside her apartment.
Her apartment, thankyouverymuch.
His stupid TV in the living and his stupid socks in her bottom drawer and his stupid corn chips in her cupboard.
She's not sure she wants them there.
And then, just to make things in her head a little bit noisier, there's Agent Booth.
Special Agent Seeley Booth of the FBI.
But this is definitely not about Booth.
She should've expected it really, after it ended so disastrously with the string of other (may they be, incompetent) agents. Of course they'd try sending the guy she's already closed a case with successfully.
Of course she'd have to deal with him again.
Of course.
He's been calling with a degree of regularity and she's told Zack not to pass along any of his communications.
Of course this isn't going to work for much longer.
But this is definitely about Pete and definitely not about Booth.
So she's sliding pieces of bone together. Finding commonalities in fault lines and breaks, matching one edge with the other when on a breath, she tips her head up towards the roof.
And she sees him.
At least, she thinks it's him.
Maybe.
(Statistically, the human brain is more likely to project a familiar image onto an unclear object.
And she has been... not thinking about him.)
Booth. Up high. Far away. His attention absorbed elsewhere by the activities of her lab below.
At a distance, she thinks he sees him smiling.
Of course.
It alarms her somewhat that her body's natural reaction to this set of circumstances is the rapid secretion of adrenaline. A fight or flight response.
In the presence of epinephrine, her heart rate accelerates (she can feel it) and her feet get antsy, itchy.
But then, in a moment, it's like the loud is receding. Like she has more room to think in her own head.
This, she knows, is illogical. The release of adrenaline into the bloodstream prompts rapid vasodilatation of vessels to muscles. Subsequently, blood flow increases to the extremities, to arms and legs, to let her run or fight, to prompt action. She knows, in consequence, blood flow to the brain is reduced. That her capacity to think clearly and rationally should be lessened.
But somehow, suddenly, she thinks she might be looking at Booth and whatever it is about Pete she's been trying to work out just seems to make sense.
And she decides it might be time to get out of the country for a little while.
A day and a half later he happens across her name on a flight manifesto for a plane out of DC, followed by a string of stopovers taking her south.
South as in, Guatemala south.
Just for a second he smiles to himself (she always was one to surprise him) thanking his lucky stars that the return journey was in fact booked and paid along with the trip ex-DC, just twenty four hours before.
Temperance Brennan 1, Seeley Booth 0.
But as he prints the information from his screen and picks up the phone to call in a favour, he's thinking only one thing:
Not for long.
(You're wondering what happened.
In between the pool hall and the Jeffersonian.
What he did. (Did he gamble?)
How he ended up where he did.
As for the first question, the gambling - you already know the answer to that one.
You've known since the start of this story, since that first (/second!) anniversary.
When he was celebrating two years.
As for why that is? As for why he ended up at the Jeffersonian?
Well, the answer to that doesn't really matter.
It's not like he's going to do anything about it for another four and a half years.)
Six. (Iron or Sugar)
(Bitter and sweet.)
It surprises her and doesn't, when they arrive.
Surprises her, of course, that he was somehow able to arrange for her his little testament to their day. Somewhere in the middle of Afghanistan while she's in lord-knows-where Indonesia.
The rest, not so much.
(Because it's still their day.
Because they're still partners.
Somehow.
She knows this.)
It doesn't surprise her that his little card has few words.
Quietly, she blinks away a few stray and salty tears.
(Not too many.)
Entropy is a natural force that pulls everything apart, right down at an atomic level.
Pulling. Straining.
Not everything changes, Bones.
(She can hear it. In her ears.
Like he's there.
But he's not.)
Some things don't change.
Nine. (Pottery, China or Copper.)
(They're all things you keep in your home. On shelves and in cupboards.
Nine is for domesticity.)
"If you're not finished in ten minutes, we're going to be late." She tosses the instruction over her shoulder as she drops her own dish in the sink.
With a sigh and an affectionate eye roll her breakfast companion replies, "I know Bones. I'll be ready in time."
Brennan just gives him a look and shoots through to her bedroom, perching on the edge of the bed long enough to jam her feet into some boots.
She rushes back through.
"Whoah, Bones, you gotta slow down."
(He's so like his father.)
"I just-"
"We don't have to leave for like, what, twenty minutes? You're being all... jumpy."
"You don't want to be late, do you?"
"We're not going to be late." His eyes go wide on a smirk, imploring her to see his point. "Dad's plane doesn't land for ages."
She sighs and slinks into a chair across the table from where Parker sits.
"I'm just..." and then she smiles at her own enthusiasm, "excited."
He nods big, knowingly. "I know."
"You do?"
"Yeah. Dad's excited too, he said so on the phone last night."
She echoes him, her words warm, "I know."
"And when he gets back, he said we're going to spend the whole day doing fun stuff. And that I'm not allowed to do any science studying the whole time cause he says it's boring."
"I hope you told him he was wrong."
Parker laughs again, and for a moment says nothing, before eventually deciding on, "I told him it was more fun when you helped me."
"That is not the same thing!"
He hedges, "It's almost the same thing."
But the way he's smiling at her, and the easy way they've worked together the last few days on his schoolwork - she knows he really does have respect for her field. As far as a thirteen year old can, he understands that what she does is important.
(He's so like his father.)
Parker continues, "He really likes you, y'know."
Brennan's head tips to one side.
"He didn't say that part. But I know. When he talks about you."
And then she's not sure what to say. She's not entirely sure this is even something she should be discussing with her partner's son over breakfast.
(It's this kind of thing where Booth usually keeps her right.
Another reason to miss him.)
Honesty, she decides, is the best policy.
"I really like him too."
"That's good. I like the way things are now." An unabashed smile spreads across his face, almost unaware of the way in which his words have buoyed her, reminded her that she's getting better at this.
The clock catching her eye again, she bounces from her chair, reaching over him to collect his empty cereal bowl. As she bumps him lightly on the shoulder and presses a kiss to the top of his head, she adds quietly, "Me too Parks."
Yep, she's definitely getting better at this.
Sitting squashed onto a cold metal bench, one eye on the flight arrivals board, she tests him.
"Ca?"
"Calcium."
"Ni?"
"Nickel, easy."
She lifts an eyebrow at his challenge, "What about Pb?"'
"Lead!" He laughs loudly, "I always remember it cause you told me they used to call it plumbum."
His laughter is infectious and her low chuckle joins his, so excited by this love for science she can see beginning to spark.
"Yeah? That's how I remembered it too! My dad told me when I was your age."
(This is how she knew that he'd want to share in one of her favourite little fragments of science.
Just as her father had, with her.)
She explains, "A lot of the symbols come from Latin like that, but none of them are nearly as entertaining."
"Oh yeah? What other ones?"
"Well, what element is Na?"
"Uh... Potas- No, wait, it's Sodium, right?"
She nods, "Right! And that's because in Latin they called it natrium."
"But that's boring."
"Well what about W, which element is W?"
"Um..." He looks at her for help, his mouth set to one side as he struggles for the answer.
Overcome with some kind of youthful enthusiasm she seems to draw from Parker, she pokes him and sticks her tongue out waiting for just a fraction of a second until he picks up on her hint.
"Tungsten!"
And it's all she can do to laugh at him some more, that delight that's so evident in his features, pleased that he's finally found the answer and happy to just to be silly with her, sitting in the middle of an airport like there's nothing else in the world going on around them.
"It's not Latin though. It's because they sometimes refer to Tungsten as wolfram."
"Wolfram. That's so cool. That's a good name."
It's here the notion strikes her that she could probably handle children, provided they were just like Parker.
She bites down on the subsequent wandering thought about dominant genetic traits and probabilities and Booth.
Pressing on, she asks, "K?"
"Aw, that's Potassium."
"What's Potassium?" an unexpected voice interrupts.
Her head snaps upward and she realises just how much her focus narrowed as she sat talking with Parker, how easily she was engrossed in their conversation.
(This surprises her.)
But then her eye's meet Booth's as he stands over their bench and then her legs are pushing her up, up out of her seat and her arms are twisting around his neck, welcoming him home.
And she feels it, even though it's entirely illogical and even though she can explain the physiological impossibilities of the mere suggestion, she feels a lingering discomfort in her stomach settle as his own arms come around her waist closing that last amount of space, and as his lips touch one side of her forehead.
His arms tighten some more, just for a second and she realises that he's glad to be home.
"We were just-"
"Too busy paying attention to each other to notice I'd made it back in one piece?" But his words are light, happy.
And then she's ploughing her face into his neck, doing that thing that Angela always talked about that never seemed to make sense until Booth, and she breathes deeply and it's just his smell and his arms and... he's there.
"I'm glad you're home," she whispers, he words muffled on the side of his neck.
"Me too Bones, me too."
And then he steps back, accepting a brief hug from Parker.
"Bones was helping me with science Dad, so I can be just as smart as her and beat stupid Amanda Young on our test next week," he explains, his words at a speed such that they run into each other a little.
Booth looks at Brennan, "I've been away a month and you already turned my kid into a squint?"
"He asked for my help," and she shrugs in time with his arm settling around her waist, propelling her forward, towards the exit.
Parker takes charge of the trolley confidently, following alongside and interjecting, "What's wrong with being a squint?"
Booth's brows lift in Brennan's direction as if to say see? See what you have done? and she rolls her eyes in return, that feeling of warm settling right down into her insides as they pass through the big, big open sliding doors of the arrivals hall.
And she thinks this is my life now.
Some time later, (much later) after Parker has gone back to his mother's ready for school the following morning and as ready for his eighth grade science test as any kid has ever been, Brennan is curled into Booth.
As his hand trails slowly down her exposed shoulder, in a quiet voice he asks, "Seems like you got on pretty well when it was just you and Parks last night, huh?"
She smiles a little, and carefully responds, "I think we did alright."
"I know you did alright Bones. And I know you were... y'know, worried about it or whatever, but you didn't need to be, you did fine."
Her words are still careful, and she deliberates on how exactly to explain, "It's not that... I didn't want to. I was... concerned because most children tend not to enjoy my company. I didn't want him to be uncomfortable."
"But Parker isn't most children Bones."
"I know," she nods and continues delightedly, "He's actually quite a remarkable young adult. He's beginning to demonstrate an aptitude for science beyond that of the average child his age."
Booth laughs, "Of course that's what you'd be getting excited about." But then he adds, "Part of that comes down to you, you know- you're always helping him, encouraging him."
"Only because he's showing an interest. And because he has natural ability."
"Either way, together you do just fine. And I'm enormously glad cause it means you can do things like you did today - letting him stay overnight so he can come with you to the airport at the crack of dawn. It means we got the whole day together Bones, and you know how special that is."
"I know how much you missed him," she explains.
"Yeah, I did. But hey, that's not to say I didn't miss you just as much."
She just nods mutely in response, her eyes serious.
"Really, he thinks you're fantastic, I can tell."
And then any apprehension is gone and her smile becomes a playful smirk, "He said the same thing about you."
"Oh yeah?"
Her breathy yes in response is lost as he rolls into her, pressing attentive kisses along her neck.
As he leans in, he mutters, "He's right you know."
His lips then trail up, along her face before he leans in and murmurs into her ear, "For nine years."
"Surely... not... oh, not the whole time."
"Every goddamn minute Bones."
"Mmmm, thank you for the flowers."
And at least for a while, no further conversation takes place.
"I've been thinking-"
"As usual."
"Yes, well, in particular I've been considering your assertion that tonight marks the ninth anniversary of our partnership."
"In what way?"
"I believe your suggestion that we've worked as partners for nine years is incorrect."
"Why?"
"Because we took a year off. We celebrated a seventh year without actually working together during that period."
"You didn't seem all that bothered at the time."
"Well I had... other things to think about."
"You did, did you?"
"...Yes. And also, it would've been... awkward to have questioned the grounding of our partnership at that time."
"..."
"Why are you smiling like that?"
"I'm not smiling."
"You are! Look, like that, you're... smirking at me."
"I'm not. And frankly Bones, I'm hurt that you'd even think such a thing."
"I'm not questioning the value of our partnership Booth - I'm merely examining your facts."
"The facts being that we worked our first case together nine years ago."
"But during that time, there were extended periods when we weren't partners in any official capacity."
"Does that matter?"
"Yes."
"Well I say you're wrong."
"We've spent seven years working together for the FBI."
"Oh God, I just lost another year."
"You didn't! Booth! I'm trying to explain that-"
"You know, we had this argument before, and I remember winning."
"You did not."
"I did too. You asked me why it was I celebrated it that way, we talked about gambling and you gave in."
"I did not give in."
"You did. And you even agreed, on all the anniversaries after that..."
...
...
Safe to say, it takes a while.
Thirty, Forty and Fifty all sound the same.
...
"Do you love me?"
"Yeah. Do you want me to prove it to you?"
"Mm, if you're not too sleepy."
OMG it's done. Idea quite obviously borrowed from TWW fandom and am never trying to emulate the brilliance of Josh/Donna on my own, like ever again. Feedback is love :)