Bones Fic: six days later (2/2)
(back.)
8.
When she gets to Booth’s, she’s already aware of the fact that she’s one of the last people to come see him at home for the second time within the week.
She knocks on the door and ignores the thought, even as it continues to crawl all over her mind. She’s picked something to obsess over again, and it’s all part of this idea that she’s trying to cope. At least, she thinks, this is what Sweets has been trying to get her to admit.
The door opens.
“You’re early again,” he says. He grins too, as he’s teasing her. “I have to say - color me impressed, Bones. And you’ve gone and got me pie.”
“I didn’t forget.”
She holds up a bag in her hand. The diner is an easy stop before his place. It’s a strange sort of peace offering as Booth opens the door wider to let her in. She follows him inside and hands him the bag.
“How’s everybody at the office?” he asks.
“That’s a silly question,” she says. “But everybody’s fine,” she catches herself. “We’re doing some cleaning and retagging and I have new graduate students who are less than remarkable but - oh. Sorry.”
He laughs.
“Sorry?”
She shakes her head. “I’m - I’ve been drinking too much coffee.”
He looks surprised when she tells him. It’s merely another way of saying she’s had a long week without admitting to it. She’s gotten better, she decides, at structuring her response in the same fashion as Booth. She gives something but she doesn’t give too much away.
It seems to work.
“You’ve given up on tea?”
She’s surprised when he asks. It’s a silly feeling but he’s remembered something completely mundane about her and it just feels like he’s Booth. She even tries to remember what exactly she told him, or the conversation that might’ve started the memory. That’s the other thing - she’s beginning to think in memories, in the past moments and the smaller things, things that she’s said to him.
It’s irresponsible to think that they both pull and weight, but she can’t help but look for some alternatives, something to say that she’s got a lot to offer for him as well. This is becoming about what she can and cannot give him.
“No,” she says. She clears her throat, forcing herself to laugh. “I guess I’m just taking a temporary break.”
He leads her into his living room. It looks the same to her. The television is on. There are neat piles of books and magazines. She spies a baseball mitt on the couch and thinks of Parker. Booth heads to the kitchen and Brennan finds herself hovering around the couch.
“Beer?” he calls.
“Yes, please.”
She reaches for the baseball mitt. When she turns it, a ball slips and falls into the couch. She frowns. Her fingers brush over the stitching. The mitt seems too small to her, for whatever reason.
“I can’t really drink them yet,” he calls again. His voice echoes from the kitchen. “But they’re there, so you know. I want you to enjoy them for me.”
“I can enjoy your beer,” she calls back.
She carefully returns the mitt back to its place on the couch. Her fingers brush lightly over it again and she arranges it so that it looks like it hasn’t been touched. She forgets the ball on the floor.
“You’re rearranging,” she observes, and looks to a few chairs that she doesn’t recognize. She should, she thinks. She feels nervous in his space, anxious because it seems both new and old to her.
Booth reappears with a beer in his hand and joins her as she stays standing by the couch. She lingers awkwardly and takes the beer when he hands it to her.
“Yeah,” he nods. “I’m trying to -” he pauses, and then shrugs, “I don’t really know. New start? Old start? I haven’t decided what to call it. I’m trying to do all the things that I know that I would do, just haven’t got around to it.”
“Well, that’s ridiculous.”
The corners of his mouth tug. “You would say that,” he murmurs.
They both look around now. Booth bends and picks up the baseball. There’s an odd smile that briefly fits itself across his mouth. She settles back against his couch then, sitting perched on the end of the arm.
“I never understand why people re - redecorate. I suppose it’s a natural human component that is just, well, another assurance that we’re habitual.”
“You’re about to ramble.”
“I’m stopping.”
He laughs. She decides to ask something easy.
“Was Parker here?”
“Yeah,” he nods. “For a few hours - Rebecca’s not entirely comfortable leaving with him with the state of my… my state, I guess. She just worries. She worries a lot. Parker’s getting older and -”
“He’ll be back,” she murmurs, touching his wrist. She’s reached forward without noticing, as if it were a habit.
He looks at her, surprised. He nods slowly and then looks away, swallowing. She pulls her hand back and rubs it against her hip. She wishes they would stick to the easier things, like work or like how he’s feeling.
“Anyways.” She clears her throat, and lets the beer rest against her knee. The glass is cool against her palm. “Have you had dinner?”
“I’m going to have pie.”
He’s grinning, as she gets serious. He’s trying to lighten the mood and she wants to talk about what he needs, what she can do for him. It takes her mind off of other things, things that they do need to talk about.
“Don’t worry about me too, Bones,” he teases.
She blinks. “What?”
“You,” he says. “You’re worried,” he quips. It’s half-hearted but he still smiles. “I don’t need you to worry, I need you to be on my side, you know? You’re always on my side, Bones.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” she mutters.
“I’ll be at a hundred percent faster than you think.”
He’s serious too, as if he were trying to make a point. She knows he’s never been one to let people worry about him, whether it’s her or his friends. It’s how he views responsibility in a way. This is something she understands.
“These things take time,” she points out.
“What does?” he asks.
“Recovering, Booth,” she says. “Recovering from major surgery. From a health scare, from a - I want you back, you know, but I’m not going to work with you if you rush it. This is something you can’t rush.”
“I’m not rushing,” he mutters.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to say,” she snaps.
Her eyes widen after she catches herself. His gaze is unreadable. Her fingers tighten over her beer and the sorry is too slow as it climbs her throat. She should’ve had said anything, she thinks.
“I’m sorry,” she says then.
The apology tastes fun in her mouth. She shifts into the corner of the couch, her shoulders slumping into the pillows. It’s easier to look away from him.
“I was pushing,” he says to himself. It’s as if she’s not supposed to hear him but she does and she says nothing, watching as he touches her arm. His fingers linger over her jacket. She’s yet to take it off.
His hand drops.
But he sits next to her then, close, and the cushions of the couch sink under their weight. He doesn’t touch her again. She doesn’t expect him too.
There’s a sigh. Booth shifts.
“I’m - let’s just sit here, okay?”
“We’ll just sit here,” she echoes. It’s easier for her.
9.
In her office, the table of bones has been moved.
A week later has left the project abandoned. It’s the nature of the beast, she keeps telling herself. There are just other things to do.
Sweets sits across from her as she leans against the desk, studying the remains of her office. There is furniture here and there. Her computer is on and there’s work waiting for her. She’s trying not to think about the night she had at Booth’s, where conversation was the most abrupt its been since the two of them met.
“Is he angry with me?” she asks then.
Sweets eyes widen. “What? Booth?”
He stares at her too. She shrugs, as if she were trying to be nonchalant about it. But it seems to be the only thing that stays with her after talking to him.
“It’s not a ridiculous question,” she says. “I mean, I suppose the logic behind it is even inferred in the recovery process. But is he mad at me? Has he said anything to about being mad at me?”
“I -”
He shakes his head.
“I can’t tell you that,” Sweets says slowly. “You know that,” he adds. “But I mean, I haven’t - at least, I don’t think there’s anything to be worried about, Dr. Brennan. Are you worried?”
“I don’t know.”
She stands only to sit again. Behind Sweets she watches the lab as it unwinds into another hour of day-to-day activities. She doesn’t see Cam or Angela, or Hodgins yet; there seems to be a collective effort to give her space. She gets it too, but at the same time, she wishes that she could understand how to reach out to the others.
It’s become completely clear to her that Booth, over the years, has served as some sort of buffer between her and the others. Or a translator, she thinks. If she wants to get into the fundamentals of a friendship, she points to Angela. But her relationship with Booth seems to be better with keeping it undefined and maybe this is another problem.
“I did the right thing,” she murmurs finally.
This isn’t to him, and Sweets seems at ease with letting it go. If she were paying attention, it would surprise her. Instead, he gives her a warm smile. It looks too easy for him.
“His memory is improving.”
Sweets is placating her. The way he says memory is drawn out and punctuated. It rings in her ears and she shakes her head.
“I did the right thing,” she repeats. “He’s recovering and then he’ll be back and then things will be - things will be right again.”
He nods. She tries to remember if she called him or if just showed up. She’s long past the point of shaping some sort of explanation as to why she’s started to seek him out regularly. It works for her, here. This is the best she can do.
“He’s a strong guy.”
“I know.”
“You too,” Sweets murmurs, adding.
She frowns. He shrugs then.
“You’re a tough lady, you know,” he says, and then blushes too. The words fall awkwardly and he looks away. “The two of you are really funny like that, completely unaware of - I’m pretty sure you’re going to get through this and be fine. And if not, you’ll work at being fine. It’s what you do, you’re Brennan and he’s Booth.”
She watches him then. The corners of her mouth turn, and she’s smiling a little, shaking her head even.
“You’ve thought about this,” she tries to tease.
“I’m in the middle of re-edits,” he quips.
She doesn’t smile again but stares at him curiously even as the smile sort of fades. He’s still blushing, and she’s trying to place him somehow, just to see how he fits in all of this.
“I just worry,” she says quietly, firmly. It’s an admission and she looks away, flushing just a little bit.
“I know.”
It’s then that he stands and straightens. He seems like he fits in her office, an odd thought for her all the same. She’s getting too used to this. She wonders if that in itself is telling her that this has stopped being a good idea.
“I would be concerned if you didn’t,” he says.
10.
It’s a distraction, at best.
“This is nice,” Max tells her, when they sit. “We haven’t done this in awhile, you and me. Go out, have dinner, sit around and catch up.”
When he calls, after she meets with Sweets, she finds herself agreeing to dinner with her father. It’s something that they’ve neglected to make a steady habit of, nothing to do with everything that’s going on and more to do with Max and his need to find some sort of place for his life.
She still shrugs. “We’ve done this twice.”
“We should do it more,” he says.
He’s giving her that smile, the one that she can’t decide whether it makes her suspicious or uneasy. He’s her father and coming to terms with this is a separate issue all together. There are question and answers that they might never get to. She doesn’t let herself be surprised.
“You’re busy,” she murmurs.
He chuckles. They are in a restaurant downtown. Three stars or four stars, Brennan told him that she would be fine with just going to the diner. It’s become a comfortable place for her even.
But Max has insisted instead that they find somewhere for them, something that’s just theirs. While she understands what he’s trying to do, she’s not entirely sure if she’s comfortable with the assumption that she’s ready to speed up the mending of their relationship.
“No,” he says. “You’re busy,” he points out. “I’m settling in. We should be talking like old friends at this point, you know?”
“You’re my father.”
“Yes.”
“Not my old friend,” she says.
“Well.”
He shrugs, and then changes the conversation, walking her into familiar territory. She watches him as he smiles too and studies his mouth, even, as he asks the question that everybody’s been asking her as of late:
“How’s Booth?”
“Out of the hospital,” she murmurs. “Since last week,” she adds. “He’s doing much better than before.”
“I can imagine.”
She shrugs. “The doctors said that he’s already recovering faster than anticipated. I suppose it all depends on how he takes it, and what he wants to do as a result of everything.”
“You’re worried.”
Max is pointed about it. She is not surprised. The thing about Max, and what she’s started to really appreciate about her father, is that he doesn’t beat around the proverbial bush. Max is interested in keeping things to the point. Sometimes though, she tries not to wonder if he’s doing it to please her.
“No,” she says slowly.
“Sweetheart, I’m your father.”
“What? Is that going to be the thing you say when I don’t tell you what you want to hear?”
He looks at her.
“Sorry,” she mumbles. She rubs her eyes. “It’s been a long week. I didn’t mean to sound like that.”
“It’s okay.”
She shakes her head.
“I am worried.”
She’s suddenly candid because it’s just easier to talk about Booth, about the recovery in itself without giving away anything too intimate.
“It’s a long process,” she says slowly. “It’s something that I don’t - I worry that he might rush because Booth is Booth and the job is something that’s really integral to him.”
“Of course,” Max nods.
She worries that he’s going to push and she’s not going to be able to do something about, for him and to stop him. She worries that she’s going to be what he needs, like the way Booth has always been instinctive with the things that she needs. The thoughts are the same, as they were when this began and as it continues; the part that scares her, however, is how fast and more aware she’s starting to stay as.
“But he’s Booth, you know?”
She finishes, and leaves it there. She picks up her glass and finishes off some of her water. She doesn’t wait for Max to get it.
Max still takes the conversation elsewhere.
11.
There is a knock on the door that startles her, late into the evening after her dinner with her father and a quick stop at the lab.
The music that she puts on does nothing for her nervous, or the anxiety of the evening. It has nothing to do with her father but the long list of thoughts that she’s been carrying around for most of the day. She doesn’t bother fixing things around her apartment. She’s still dressed for dinner and kicks her shoes off before she reaches the door.
She opens it. Booth is standing there, watching. Her eyes widen. He shivers a little and then smiles. She looks around for someone else, but the hallway is empty.
“Booth?”
She frowns.
“I can’t sleep,” he says and smiles sheepishly. “Or, well, I couldn’t sleep. Or I was asleep. It’s really all of the above so I decided to come over here and hope that you weren’t sleeping.”
“You can’t drive, Booth.”
“Cab,” he says simply.
He shifts from foot to foot. Her hand curls around the doorknob. She looks at him, then back inside her apartment. There is music on low. She was going to make some tea. She could invite him in for that, she thinks.
Booth is not a tea drinker, she reminds herself. The thought is almost comical and she shakes her head. She gives him a tight smile instead.
“Is everything all right?” She clears her throat and then smiles, stepping back to let him in. He slides out of his jacket and hangs it over the coat hanger. The motion itself is familiar.
He watches her as if he were waiting for an acknowledgment.
“I mean,” she says. “It’s late.”
He shrugs, and then laughs. He moves around her apartment without that unfamiliarity that she tries and prepares herself for.
“Fine and dandy, Bones. Everything is right as rain. Well, not everything. I almost had a beer today but then had to put back because I’m on all these medications that wouldn’t be so great, in the event that I had a drink.”
“Okay,” she nods.
He steps in front of her then, walking into the living room. He heads to her music collection and then stops. His fingers run against the spins of a few CDs. He pulls back and then moves to her couch, then walking into the kitchen. He looks around and then smiles, satisfied.
She frowns, wrapping her arms around her chest.
“Cam found Jared.”
Brennan’s throat tightens. She walks into the kitchen, after him. She tries to gather her thoughts. She swallows and reaches for her teakettle.
“That’s good news,” she says. “Have you talked to him?”
“No.”
“I know I should have asked,” she says.
But he stops her and smiles, shaking his head as he picks up her saltshaker. He examines it, passing it from hand to hand. He’s restless, she notices. It’s different from the kind he’s admitted to.
“It’s fine,” he says. “Jared’ll come back. I’m sure, at some point, there’s going to be a whole list of people that come after awhile. It’s how these things work, or at least, this is what I remember with my granddad.”
He seems completely fine with the idea that Jared isn’t in town. She doesn’t buy it, or doesn’t want to buy as Booth and family are two things that she cannot separate in her mind.
There’s something that seems forced about this visit too, something that she doesn’t know how to bring to surface. It makes her nervous, incredibly nervous, and she worries even more.
“Do you want to sit down?” she asks.
“You’re standing,” he points out.
“But I’m asking you if you want to sit down.”
He shrugs. She moves to her sink to distract herself. The lid to the kettle is pulled off hard and her fingers drop it to the counter. It clatters loudly and she fills the kettle up with water.
“I mean, you’re here and I think I’d prefer if you’d sit. You’re jittery. So either you’ve done something or - I don’t know.”
He laughs. The sound is sharp and misplaced. She can’t help but assume that tonight, or even the day, is one of those bad days. She wants to ask all sort of questions but bites back, keeping herself calm.
“Well,” he says, “I don’t want you to feel like you have to sit down too. You look sorta nervous, Bones. I hate when you look that way.”
“Sorry?”
“Because then I think it’s mean, which is really stupid and yeah, I know we’ve been partners and friends for years now, years, which is sort of the reason why this is all really, really hard.”
She blinks. “Booth?”
She doesn’t understand where he’s going with this. The pitch of his voice goes from high to low, to husky and then sharp. Her stomach tightens with knots and when she places the kettle over her stove, she forces herself to take care to pay attention to the buttons.
“I just kinda wish you wouldn’t worry about me so much, I guess is what I’m trying to say because you look different and I don’t want to be responsible for making you different when it’s not in a good way.”
“I’m fine,” she says quietly. There’s a sharp taste in her mouth and when she looks down, her hands are tightening around the counter. She pushes back and turns to find a mug.
She feels guilty again, without really being able to pinpoint or structure it in such a way that she can understand. She’s stunned too, sure that this is just another thing to add to her list of things that she needs to be better with.
“Really,” she adds. “I’m fine.”
He snorts. He joins her at a separate counter and reaches over her for one of the mugs. He pulls it down and hands it to her. She takes it from him and their fingers brush lightly.
“I worry too, you know.”
“You shouldn’t,” she says quickly. “You should be focusing on getting better and getting back. Your healthy is the most important thing.”
“My priorities haven’t changed, Brennan.”
There’s such a strange feeling inside of her when she hears him call her Brennan, not Bones or even by her first name. In fact, she’s long since abandoned her first name to family outings and stray memories. Sometimes, Angela might say it or she’ll be in some sort of formal occasion.
But it doesn’t feel right, as Booth says it.
“I didn’t say that.”
She stares down at the mug in her hand. “I didn’t say that,” she repeats.
“Just - tell me something,” he says. “Anything, I don’t care. I just - with everything else, I understand that I’m going to have to work to get back and up to par. I get that. I even understand that seeing my kid is going to be a little harder as I recuperate. But you’re you.”
She swallows. This is the part where she should reach for him, she thinks, or he should reach for her. There should be some sort of affirmation that the two of them understand this point. This is how it’s supposed to work.
But he doesn’t reach for her. She pulls away to move to the stove.
He sighs then. It doesn’t reassure her, but he seems content to stay where he is, with her and in her apartment. He shouldn’t have to reassure her, she thinks.
Still though, he doesn’t disappoint.
“You’re you, Bones, and I need you to be you. Just be you.”
They stay quiet, after.
12.
“I have a question.”
She’s suspicious, mostly, when Sweets shows up to her office unannounced. She could liken it to a concerned friend, but even that idea stands better if she were to invite him to the diner or they would meet somewhere else.
But as she goes through some candidate files for her graduate program, they rest on a separate table, the one between the couch and the two chairs by her desk. She meets Sweets’ gaze at the door.
She frowns. “I wasn’t planning on seeing you today, Sweets.”
“I know.”
He smiles too and almost instantly, she thinks about his book. There’s been talk about rewrites and more rewrites. He has mentioned nothing of either and she guesses that it’s just been another casualty of the summer.
He steps forward.
“But hear me out, okay? I know you’re busy too, and I do have to get back - it’s just that a lot of things are bothering me and I figured, since you and I are getting really good at talking, I might share with you this time.”
“I don’t follow,” she murmurs.
“Hear me out,” he repeats.
She closes the files and straightens them over her lap. Later, she’s promised Angela dinner. It’s about trying to be better, Brennan finds herself facing. She’s hoping not to fall back on the conversation she’s last had with Booth.
Sweets starts again. “I’ve been thinking a lot about relationships, I guess.”
“Daisy?”
He looks over at her and then laughs. “Yeah, okay. I’ve been thinking a lot about me and Daisy.”
“Good for you.”
He seems to ignore her. He seems pleased. She tries to imagine Daisy and Sweets, but her nose wrinkles and the entire idea of projecting is something she’s never been fond of.
Sweets still grins. And when he starts to talk, she can hear the book, there and then page by page. She trusts him but then there things that make her uneasy. It’s like he’s trying to get her to admit to more than what she can give.
“Daisy.”
He shakes his head.
“The thing is, and I’ll even admit, Daisy and I often have these tiny, tiny issues that well, we don’t really talk about it. And I think about them all the time - kinda a job hazard, really. I just -”
“This isn’t about you and Daisy,” she interrupts.
“What?”
It’s almost funny how he looks sort of hopeful and now dismayed as she settles and waits for him to understand. It’s definitely about the book, she thinks. And even if it weren’t, what would she really say to him?
She’s amused. “I maybe of the school that psychology is a rather useless, if not unnecessary proponent of the scientific community. But I do know when you’re trying to play a game with me, Sweets. What is it? Reverse -”
“Psychology,” he says dryly.
“That,” she nods.
He ignores her again but takes a pause. He seems to be struggling with what he wants to say to her.
“I’m just wondering why the two of you still have this problem with communication.”
“Our communicating skills are perfectly fine, thank you.”
“I’m not saying they’re not.”
He walks to the couch, passing her. He leans over her desk, flattening his hands over the surface. She frowns as they stick to a few of her papers. She watches then as he picks up one of her paperweights to examine.
“Then?” she asks quietly. She’s serious, wary, and completely unsure with how to take this, if they keep on going.
She’s more comfortable with going to him. This is not on her terms.
“What are you saying?” she asks then.
“I’m saying that this is different,” he murmurs. “Something about this time is different, and whether you tell me or not, or he tells me or not, I’m just wondering why this is coming to surface all of the sudden.”
The words fall gently, as if to appease some sort of point that he’s trying too hard to make. She doesn’t want to answer any of his questions, all of the sudden, and looks to the files on her lap for some sort of escape.
She makes the mistake of looking up at him instead. “I don’t know,” she lies.
She forces herself to look away.
13.
The weekend brings an invitation to lunch at the park with Booth and his son. The parking lot is almost empty and she parks close to the shade, at a point where she can look for the two of them and closest to the exit. She’s late when she arrives, as the day starts cool down. She wonders if she should’ve brought something.
“Bones!”
Parker comes running towards her with a wide smile, waving excitedly. When he reaches her, she stops and he lunges forward, wrapping his arms around her legs. It surprises her.
Booth is behind him too, taking a slow distance. His hands are his pockets. He looks tired. Behind him then, a little farther away, she squints and sees a picnic blanket waiting for all of them.
“Hey,” she says, laughing softly. Her gaze turns to Booth as he reaches them. Her fingers brush shyly through Parker’s hair. “How are you two?”
“We’re great,” Parker chirps. “Daddy made lunch, and we’re going to hang out today here and play some catch. We tried to make you a dessert surprise too, but it didn’t work out.”
Booth looks over at them in amusement. “It was my fault,” he adds. “I forgot an ingredient, so we made a store stop.”
“Sounds great,” she murmurs.
He nods for them to head back to the picnic blanket. Parker breaks away and runs forward. He’s laughing, smiling, and Brennan catches Booth watching his son with a sense of relief that she doesn’t recognize.
It makes her think of their conversation, before all of this, and the conversations that she had with Sweets in the beginning; the idea of child is still something that she wants, something that is impulsive and frightening but at the same time something that’s been a decision that is hers. She wishes that she could bring it up with Booth again.
She doesn’t know how he’d take it.
“You look like you’re having a good day,” she says then.
He shrugs. “I’m happy he’s here. Rebecca’s running errands in the area before coming to get him. We walked here.”
“Ah,” she says.
He nods. Parker reaches the blanket first, waving back at them. She smiles shyly and then looks up, catching Booth watching her.
He relaxes a little bit.
“I had a doctor’s appointment in the morning.”
“How was it?” she asks, and she half-expects a response like cam took me or it was okay and to have him leave it at that. She doesn’t expect to be privy about this, unless he decides to tell her.
But Booth ignores the question.
“Been such a long time since I rode the metro,” he laughs lightly and shakes his head, “since I can’t do much of anything else yet. But I forget that you can see just about anyone there.”
“It’s the metro,” she says, shrugging.
She stops herself for a moment and then sighs. She steals another glance at Parker, watching as he grabs a baseball mitt from the blanket and fumbles his hand inside. Booth chuckles a little and they reach the blanket. Looking up at him, she presses herself to smile.
“Max says hello.”
He blinks. “Max?”
“My father,” she corrects herself. Just in case, she thinks. “We had dinner,” she says, watching him as he processes the association. “It was nice.”
He’s hesitant, before he answers. She wonders what kind of day today’s going to be, or already is. She knows he’d put on a brave face for Parker.
“How is he?”
She shrugs. “He’s going out of town for a few months. Says something about traveling and wanting to see a few things - he’s promised to be really good about keeping in touch.”
“Did he ask you to go?”
She shakes her head.
He’s quiet. And then he smiles a little, watching as Parker tosses his ball high into the air. He’s moved to stand a few feet away from them.
“Would you have gone?”
She shakes her head. “No,” she says. “I want to be here. And it’s something he seemed to make a point of saying he had to do.”
“By himself?”
She shrugs.
“He says he’ll be back.”
There are aspects of her relationship with her father that is just as much of a learning process as all of this is. She’s told Booth before and here, she has no sense of what he recalls or what he’s not telling her.
“Maybe I should take one,” he says then. He laughs and shakes his head. He sits first on the blanket, leaning back to watch her.
“Take one?”
She stays standing, confused.
“A vacation.” He shrugs, and then sighs. “I don’t know. I feel - I feel ridiculously restless like this. I’m me but I’m not me at a hundred percent and I don’t know how else to put this to you, but I need to be.”
“I understand,” she says quickly. She half-hopes that he ignores her, or doesn’t catch it, and it’s the sort of thing that makes sense to her, a reassurance that she can somewhat assume the role of being there for him.
“You do?”
She nods.
“Of course. You’ve been through a lot, Booth. You’ve been through an entire ordeal and you’re -”
“You sound like the doctor.”
She sighs. She steps back from pushing a sense of understanding and abandons a response all together. She sits then, next to him on the blanket. Her legs stretch out and she presses her palms over her knees.
“My mom loved picnics,” she says absently.
She then shakes her head, even as Booth looks over at her in surprise. It’s the first time where she instantly recognizes it too, the way he looks at her and the way it seems like before, before all of this. She steadies herself away from the potential memory though.
“All I’m trying to say is that you shouldn’t be this hard on yourself. It’s going to take time, and while we all want you back and I know you want to be back, I would rather have you be better and back.”
He doesn’t answer.
Instead, they sit and they watch Parker. She abandons getting some sort of read on Booth. What scares her is that she’s gone back and forth, these last couple days, weeks even, with scrambling around and trying to find some sort of middle point. It’s not just about her and Booth, it’s about everything; there is her relationship with the others, with her family and her friends.
She doesn’t have a sense of stability. It’s not about whether it’s gone or not, it’s the fact that she doesn’t know how to push herself forward in order to regain some sort of momentum again.
“Should we eat, Dad?”
He slides his hands out of his pockets. There’s a smile and Brennan watches as he pulls Parker in between his legs, brushing a kiss into his son’s hair as the boy sits with the two of them. He sits on his knees and Booth smiles at Parker. She feels a little intrusive, the entire moment completely outside of her.
And maybe, maybe that’s the way it’s going to be, or it’s meant to be. There are other options, other choices that live in the back of her mind. She’s trying not fixate on a particular point. She’s not good like that. She doesn’t know how to pull herself away.
But Booth keeps his gaze with Parker, and the little boy is laughing as he tickles him. There are smiles and Brennan feels like a complete outsider..
“Yeah,” he says finally. “Sure. Let’s eat.”
She stays quiet, watching them instead.
14.
It isn’t until later in the week that she sees Sweets again.
As if it were a habit, she takes the elevator to his office. It’s easier in the morning, she decides. Nobody’s really here. The day is starting and she can get to the lab, and eventually Booth, as if it were all normal day.
But she reaches the door and sees Booth stepping outside. Sweets is smiling awkwardly and then stops. Booth’s gaze instantly meets hers and Brennan finds herself stopping in her tracks.
“Hey.” He frowns, confused. “What are you doing here?”
Sweets is watching them. Brennan just panics.
“I -” She tries to swallow back her surprise, and brushes her hands over her arms. She straightens. Booth straightens. She tries not to notice his discomfort. “I just had a few questions for Sweets,” she lies and looks down. “A few graduate projects that I might involve him - ”
But Booth cuts her off. “Oh, okay. I’ll leave the two of you to it then, I guess. See ya, Sweets. I’ll talk to you late, Bones.”
It’s abrupt and it completely takes her by surprise. She can only turn and watch him head to the elevator. He stops in front of it. His shoulders rise and she feels guilty, really guilty about lying to him.
With a turn though, Booth abandons the elevator and she watches as he moves to the door to the stairs instead.
“You just lied to him.”
“I just lied to him,” she nods and it’s numbing, the sort of pull this idea has now. She’s embarrassed. She’s uneasy. None of it makes sense to her. Her eyes are wide as she turns back to face Sweets.
“Are you okay?” Sweets asks.
You just lied to him. It’s a ridiculous phrase, or even an implication. She realizes that she’s taken the action and it’s completely fallen apart, but her own reaction is something catches her off-guard.
She takes a deep breath. Stepping around Sweets, she slides her hands into her jacket and moves inside the room. She looks to the two chairs and then walks quickly, sitting on the chair that she understands as Booth’s.
“I should’ve told you,” Sweets adds, following her.
Brennan is too focused on the state of the office. Everything looks too neat. She recognizes the smaller things, from his coffee cup to the computer bag. There are magazines on the coffee table. The seat cushion is warm.
“Yeah,” she murmurs. “I’m fine - I’m fine. I mean, I’m not embarrassed to be here, seeing you. But I don’t see you without Booth. I mean, I get that he has to see you but I’m seeing you because -”
“You don’t have to explain.”
“I don’t know how.”
Her eyes widen. She listens to herself repeat the phrase. “I don’t know how,” she says. And then again, “I don’t know how.”
She looks to Sweets.
“It bothers me that I don’t know how.”
She takes a deep breath too. “I keep having people ask me how I am and how are things for me and it’s such a ridiculous notion, that I may have some sort of … I don’t know what to call it. They should worry about Booth, not me. I can take care of myself. I’m fine in these circumstances.”
“You’re allowed to feel something,” he says gently.
“I just lied to Booth.”
Her voice is sharp.
It’s a common fact that is known around her friends, even her family to a certain degree. She’s just always prided herself on facts, facts as they shift and shape the promise of certain events. Facts are what got her through certain periods of her life. It’s just how it is.
But looking down at her hands, she’s stunned. She’s completely disconnected from the feeling of observation or the power being able to push separate herself from the moment. She can’t.
All she knows is that Sweets is watching her, waiting. All she knows is that she’s just lied to Booth, a ridiculous lie that she doesn’t even know where it’s come from. It just happened.
She smiles tightly. Then, she shakes her head.
“I’m not a very good liar, Sweets.”
15.
She thinks about going to see Booth.
It stays with her throughout the day. She can’t focus on work. She tries to change dinner to lunch with Angela, but forgets about that too. In her office, the graduate work is completely abandoned. There are files and mail to just answer. There are people to call.
At the end of the day, she finds herself heading home. The drive is too quiet but she’s unfocused and unwilling to think about anything else. She tries excuses briefly: go to bed early, go for a run, or re-plan a meeting. Suggestions come and go, and as she parks her car in front of her apartment, she sits at the wheel and just stares.
This is a disaster.
Her seatbelt snaps off. It’s loud and she leaves her bag in the car, full of files that she’s probably going to miss for another week. She wraps her hand around her keys and heads inside the building.
It seems empty, the building and then the elevator, and she’s lost in thought. She hasn’t really spent much time inside of her place. For most of the summer, it’s been in and out of the hospital. She’s gone to Booth’s, then the office, and somewhere in between the two, she’s just come home to sleep.
When she steps off to her floor, she finds Booth standing at her door, a few feet down the hall. He’s leaning against the frame. There’s a crooked smile and she finds herself swallowing, caught somewhere between relief and apprehension.
Her keys nearly slip from her hand.
“Booth?”
He says nothing and she reaches the door, sliding the keys into the lock. She jiggles the handle and then steals a glance at him.
“You could’ve called,” she murmurs.
“You never lie to me,” he says abruptly. “In fact when you’ve tried to, it takes me all of five seconds to know because you’re not a liar, Bones, and I can’t figure out why you would lie to me.”
Her breath catches.
“I -”
She stops herself but he shrugs, following her inside when the door opens. She turns a few of her lights on, picking up the mail from the floor and walking into the living room.
Behind her, Booth shuts the door.
“I told you not to worry about me.”
He says it as if he much too much of it, and it’s the first time where the pitch of his voice wavers. She hears the sound go from high to low, then to just angry. She expects the angry. What she doesn’t expect is how unprepared she really is for it.
She swallows. “Stop it,” she says. “I’m not worried about you, I’m here for you. I went to see Sweets today because I needed to.”
“Because you can’t talk to me.”
“Booth,” she says quietly.
She drops the mail over her table. She shrugs out of her jacket and he shakes his head. The nervous energy is between them, fitted, and it’s like she’s suddenly started to stand with a stranger.
All of this has been too fast, too soon and sudden. Maybe, she thinks, it’s best for him to recover as himself, separately and way. At the same time though, she can’t accept the fact of not being there.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she adds then.
“No, no. I get it. I mean I wouldn’t talk to me too. I’m in and out, and it’s not a good feeling. I have good days. I have bad days. I remember things and then I don’t remember them - it’s like everything’s sort of just there.”
He rubs eyes.
“But you didn’t have to lie to me.”
She says nothing. She doesn’t know how to answer. It’s been a long year too, and she’s sure that however the memories have arranged themselves for him are different for her. She keeps thinking to herself that there is so much that he hasn’t told her and that she’s allowing this recovery process to be an excuse for her not to ask.
She’s spent a long time not asking things. She feels like she’s finally to the point where she can recognize the strengths and weaknesses of their relationship. A part of it though, a part of it is trying to pull her away from defining everything completely.
She’s scared.
“I didn’t mean to.”
She watches as he moves away from her, and then to her couch, sitting quietly. He’s watching her back. She’s put herself on the spot now.
“Lie to. Well, I suppose - the point is Booth, I didn’t know you were going to be at Sweets and it caught me off-guard.”
He frowns. She shrugs, trying to take some weight off of the moment.
“Clearly,” she points out, “it didn’t work out, lying to you.”
He laughs softly. “Right.”
She sits on the couch next to him.
Rubbing her eyes, she stares into the room. There are things that she keeps meaning to change, things that she keeps meaning to organize. The thing about her life is that she keeps coming to this point; it’s not about how many times she can tell herself, and then promise that she’s going to take care and solve things. This is something that keeps waiting for her.
She keeps letting it too.
“I don’t want you to worry about me,” she murmurs. “And I’m talking to you, I just - I’m talking to Sweets too. I can’t always depend on you, you know. It’s not fair especially when you’ve always been there for me in such a large capacity, you know?”
“That’s a stupid answer.”
She scoffs.
“You’re not even listening,” she tells him..
He smiles a little.
“I have to worry about you, Bones. Somebody needs to,” he says. “And it’s the sort of thing that’s not going to change, whether I’m at a hundred percent or not. You’re important. This is important. It’s just how these things work.”
It sounds so easy for him to say, and too easy for her to accept, both as something to appease him and something to appease herself. The entire framework of his words seems selfish to her and she tries to take it in such a way that she can avoid any attachment to this notion. It’s such an easy excuse but it’s completely unfair.
“You’re not hearing me,” she says.
She looks up, and then sighs, her fingers tugging at the watch around her wrist. They spread over her skin and she starts to count the tiny groves in the watchband. It’s become a nervous habit; standing up and sitting down, picking at her watch. Little things about her are even changing, changing faster than what she can keep up with.
“I’m talking to - I don’t - it’s not about you, Booth. It’s about me and what I can offer back. I suppose it’s hard to explain.”
“Try me,” he says quietly.
She’s silent. She studies him. He’s waiting for her to say something and she doesn’t know how to tell him that they’re not ready, she’s not ready, and none of this, if told now, is going to survive whatever happens next.
It’s the first time that last couple days, and then weeks sort of stand and present themselves as they were. She knows that she’s going to Sweets, or started going to Sweets, because something needed to make sense to her. This is about Booth too, how she stands for him and for him in her own mind.
But he’s watching her too, waiting. She doesn’t recognize the gaze on his face. She licks her lips, still silent as nothing comes to mind
“Look,” Booth tries again. “You can tell me.”
She leans over then and brushes her mouth against his jaw. Her lips are soft. Her hand curls lightly around his arm, over his jacket as she steadies herself against his side. She lingers too, just a little, and slides her hand through the crook of his arm, linking their arms together. Her head drops and rest awkwardly against his shoulder.
She tries to shift but his hand covers hers as it stays tucked under his arm. He keeps her there and she lets him.
“I think,” she starts finally, slowly. “I think there are a lot of conversations that we’re supposed to have.”
“I know,” he says.
“But I don’t know what those conversations are, or if I’m ready to have them - does that make sense? I’m trying make it make some sense.”
“Sure.”
For the first time then too, the words just come to her. They’re just as tired as she feels and on the couch, the weight over her body continues to sink. She doesn’t feel lighter but the uneasiness is gone and she anchors herself to the feeling of just her exhaustion.
“I just don’t want to disappoint you, Booth.”
She sighs.
He shakes his head. There’s a sigh and she feels his hand tighten around hers. His fingers slide through the groves of hers, and their hands link again. He squeezes her hand. Neither of them relax here.
“You’re not,” he murmurs.
When she looks up again, he’s smiling, just a little. She licks her lips and he’s leaning forward, pressing a kiss to her forehead. The action mirrors her kiss to her cheek and both feel like an apology, a long apology for something neither of them are ready to put words too.
They sit there then: her head on his shoulder, their hands linked tightly, and it’s the way that they lean into each other, into a corner of her couch. Neither of them says anything and she keeps his gaze, the corners of her mouth tugging into a tiny, shy smile. He nods first.
Finally, she allows herself to look away. “Okay,” she says then.