Bones Fic: when living again
when living again booth/brennan, pg.
after faith, it’s about learning how to tell each other stories again. general season six spoilers. 3,143 words.
notes: It’s been awhile, Bones fic. It’s been a long while. But yesterday was torigates’ birthday and I love her and she’s awesome and the magic just happened. So happy birthday again, my dear. I love you and I hope you have a wonderful rest of the week.
-
Most mornings Booth remembers the desert, the high sun and the heat, the way the light burned and stretched into his skin over pounds and pounds of heavy uniform. His ears ring too; they are ready for the slightest shift in sound and in sight because of training, and what training is supposed to do.
Most mornings he lets Brennan buy the coffee. Sometimes he’s ready to tell her this.
They go to the doctor’s together. This is a routine checkup and Brennan sits in the waiting room, next to him and with a magazine in her lap.
She is not supposed to be here. Booth knows this. Booth doesn’t care. He invited her halfway back to the office, in between talking about the victim and trying to understand why she’s talking weapons and the tibia.
But he has his hands on his knees, and his knees are jittery as he rocks his legs up and down for waiting. He looks around. There are too many seats that are empty and the nurse at the window keeps watching them. He hates when the nurses like to watch them. The window is the only one in the room.
“I think I read this the last time,” Brennan says, and he’s started, just as he catches her watching him. She holds up the magazine. There’s an article and a picture, a wide picture of the desert and a few guns.
“That?”
He points. She nods and folds half of the pages, tucking them over her knees. He watches her fingers brush over the pictures.
“Yes,” she says. “Or another magazine like it, as it’s all the same; policies, politicians, and the things that they’re completely unable to accomplish. This is why I never like going to events.”
He’s amused.
“They’re politicians.”
He doesn’t mean to mutter but he does. He looks at the picture and looks away, moving back to watching the nurse. She’s disappeared from the window and there is a stack of files in her place. Booth looks back to Brennan again, over at the article and the picture.
There are things that she knows, assumptions and things that he’s sure she’s seen; with what happened months ago - nearly a year, he thinks - he’s worried about what he’s told her already and what he hasn’t. There are pieces that he seems to know instinctively and the gray areas that sort of slip. He should know better too. He should know how to know better.
“Are you nervous?”
His hand drops over the picture, pushing it down so that he can see the words. He’s not really pay attention though.
“It’s routine, Bones. Routine checkups don’t make me nervous, they make me careful, and I like to be careful. I have to be careful.”
“You’re doing well.”
“Thanks,” he says. He studies the magazine as she turns the page. Her fingers cover an article caption. “It’s routine,” he repeats and says it like he believes it, that he wants believe it because there is too much of him that doesn’t want her to worry. He’s better at that.
“I know.”
They’re quiet. Booth really doesn’t turn away. His mouth is dry. He wants water and there is a cooler in the corner. It requires him to get up. His knees start to shake again.
He sighs. “It’s about the war,” he says and points.
“Yes.”
“These pictures are … ” and he stops because he can’t say anything, he never says anything about these things, “Yeah, they’re pictures.”
“They are pictures,” she says.
She’s serious too. He wonders what she might say if he told her; there is the desert and then there is the desert, but Brennan really doesn’t talk about most things either. It’s like everything that happened, this year and back, is making him second-guess the rest of his worries.
He’s never not thought about what she would do if she knew. It’s no more about what he might do if Brennan knew everything. He doesn’t know how to understand what it might mean should she know everything.
But he catches the nurse as she reappears at the window. She smiles at him. He smiles back at her. Brennan closes the magazine and tosses it off to the side.
He looks at her, waiting for her to say something. She looks back at him. His legs stop moving. He presses his palms into his knees. Their caseload, he reminds himself, is finished for the week. She doesn’t turn away either. He wants to be able to expect her too, but she doesn’t and he thinks about it again, thinks about those times and being serious with her, how much safer the little things are - more than whatever one else thinks they are.
She reaches forward too then. Her hand covers his and he turns his hand up, his palm pressing into her. It’s instinctive and he stares at her hands, waiting and watching and wondering if it’ll ever feeling something other than their hands. He knows he doesn’t want it. He doesn’t know anything other than that.
When they finally call him, Brennan smiles a little. “You are going to be fine,” she murmurs.
When everybody knows, it becomes harder to hide. They don’t talk about these things. Brennan knows what she knows. Booth knows what he knows. This is how it’s been for years.
He finds Cam late in the day in her office, because it’s Cam when there’s something to say.
“Give me a minute,” she says. She’s cradling her phone over her shoulder and half-smiling. He thinks Michelle and smiles back at her, leaning against the frame of her door.
Behind him too, the lab stumbles into a warranted silence. People are leaving. Brennan is off somewhere with her grad students, or army of assistants, and it’s the kind of day that he expects himself to be back at his office, walking over paperwork and calling his son.
But things are sticking with him, and sticking with him too much. Booth hates when things stick with him this way.
“I think about telling her,” he says, just as Cam gets off the phone. He forgets to ask about Michelle and Cam sits back, leaning against her chair. Her legs cross and she smiles, almost in amusement, and Booth can remember why it was that he loved her and how.
Cam studies at him. “Telling her?”
“Yeah. I guess. I don’t know. I think about a lot of these things lately. I’m still trying to get back to a hundred percent. There is Jared getting married and there’s … of course, I think about telling her.”
There is a sudden smile from Cam. He smiles too, but looks down. He listens to papers rustle in front of him and the click of Cam’s heels as she steps up. She walks to him and stops, leaning against the doorframe with him and looking back out and into the lab.
“Are you?”
She asks gently. He shrugs and sighs. He crosses his arms against his chest and drops his head back against the frame.
“You’re going to tell her,” Cam says and it’s not a question, but more of an understanding. She turns back to look at him. “Are you ready to?”
“No,” he says quietly. This he means.
There is a night where he decides to do it. There is beer on his kitchen counter and half-empty cartons of Chinese takeout as he empties rice onto his plate.
“You know there’s a lot we haven’t talked about.”
He says it slowly, sneaking a glance at Brennan. She seems undisturbed and moves in his kitchen like she knows it better than he does. She grabs their beers and napkins, pulling packets of chopsticks into her mouth as she carries things into the living room.
When she comes back, he stares at her. She shrugs.
“Talked about?”
“Yeah,” he says and it’s like he’s fishing for his own excuses, “you know, stuff. I mean, I’m not saying we’ve got to talk about it, Bones, I’m just saying that there are things that we just haven’t -”
“Talked about,” she finishes.
It’s then that he hears the television. He doesn’t remember who turned it on. In the car, they were talking about Steve McQueen and her strange array of movies that she has at home. He remembers how long it took her to buy a television too. He loves these things about Brennan.
But he nods and figures that it’s over. He carries his plate into the living room and sits on his couch, at the edge while she follows. Everything else is on the coffee table, like usual, and Booth likes this part of their routine.
She sits after him. He hands her a beer.
“Okay, well -” her fingers brush over his knuckles, and he almost stops, watching her in confusion. “What do you want to know?”
“Know?”
“Yes.”
“It doesn’t work like that.”
His mouth curls and he shakes his head, looking down at his hands. He studies them, brushing them over his knees. This is a nervous habit; the motto is: keep your hands clean and your fingers ready, keep them straight and long and practiced for every situation. He hasn’t told her this. This is something he feels like she already knows.
“Why doesn’t it?”
He doesn’t answer. He shrugs. He refocuses his gaze on the television too. It’s the news again. There’s a weather report and murmur that says something like heavy rains.
He reaches for his plate and his chopsticks.
Brennan touches his shoulder. “I tell you things. You tell me things. It has never been anything but that. And if you don’t want me to know, I’m sure you won’t tell me. But it’s always worked well. Did I do something wrong?”
“Why would you?”
He puts his plate down. His eyes are wide and he stares at her, tense and feeling too guilty all of the sudden.
“You have that face, Booth.”
“Oh.”
He feels his skin flush and the corners of his mouth turn awkwardly. He smiles but then doesn’t. She smiles too, but it turns into a quick frown. This is the problem, he thinks.
When he knows, he knows. When he doesn’t, he always assumes she doesn’t know too. It’s part of the recuperation, he wants to claim, but then there conversations that come back to him and the warnings of other people that stick with him too. It’s always relative, they say. But he still feels things as they start change.
Brennan then pulls her plate into her lap. She reaches for her a napkin, but doesn’t start to eat. She still studies him.
“So what do you want to know?”
He shakes his head.
“Do we have to do this now?”
“You don’t want to do this now,” she says slowly and seems confused. He feels guilty then and thinks that he may want something too soon. This feels too familiar as it is.
She almost accepts it. He waits.
“We always talk, Booth,” she says too.
“No,” he says. “I just - I just don’t want you to think that I’m hiding anything from you. I’m not hiding anything from you. I don’t want to hide anything from you. It’s just - there’s still a lot we have to talk about.”
“I understand.”
He nods. He doesn’t really believe her. He could fill this with that time that he almost lost his life too, on a boat and in the middle of nowhere. She knows this. They don’t really talk about this too much. What’s said is said, what’s done is done, and these are then unspoken things that he really needs from Brennan and that he knows she gets.
“I know about your dad.”
It spills and the heat from the plate in his lap is starting to die. He picks it up and lets it rest on his palm, picking at his food.
“I know -” she hesitates, swallowing, “I know about Gramps now. I know about you going to war.”
She stares at her beer and frowns. He tries to take a bite of his dinner.
“I know about your mom.”
Booth says it slowly. Brennan’s mouth opens and closes.
“I know about Parker.”
She looks away.
“Is there more to know?” she asks too, and it seems such a strange question to him, even though it’s the right question and he should follow it with something that holds true to what else she might now.
But it’s the right part to think about the things he does want to tell her; the army stories - and when he can think about them, he can think about them - the way the dust settles in his mouth like a ghost and the way his gun feels heavy every time he picks it up.
There are things that everybody knows about him too. It’s the passion for his country, his son, and that sense of belief that makes him who he is. It’s the memory of the surgery too. There is still a lot to learn.
“Not right now,” he says and says it firmly. “Not that I don’t - I don’t know if I’m ready to say anything,” he finishes.
“I understand,” she says again.
“Why?”
It’s a simple question and he asks. Brennan looks surprised.
She doesn’t answer at first. He thinks about it again - there is still a lot to learn. He thinks about it again and again. There is still a lot to learn. But he can’t help but wait and watch, watch as her mouth opens and closes and then she smiles softly for a minute.
“I know that you’re a good man,” she says and there’s no hesitation, “and knowing that you’re a good man is really all I need to know. I know that you’re - you’re you and I know, I’m learning how to understand that. I know that understanding that is going to be difficult and that things are supposed to be difficult. I know and I understand that too.”
She stops and he’s learned to wait again, watch her for the things that she doesn’t say. He knows how to pick them out sometimes, other times he waits for her to let him see.
Here, she just sits. She sits and stares off to the side, her mouth curling and then relaxing. He thinks that it’s one of those times, one of those times that he understands what he means to feel like this about her and not have to say the words without failing to the notion that they still have too much to talk about.
It isn’t until she sighs that he realizes that she’s taken his hand without knowing that he didn’t acknowledge the gesture. He looks down to their fingers, tightly laced as her thumb slides slowly along the row of his knuckles. There are a few bruises but that was a case and that’s something they do talk about. Just not tonight, it seems.
Their plates are back on the coffee table, his nearly on top of hers. That happens a lot too.
“Thanks, Bones,” he says quietly and finally. He means it and doesn’t have to say anything more.
She simply nods. This is how he wants to kiss her.
It’s just that he never really knows how to kiss her. It’s also morning a lot more too. It’s time to stop for coffee instead walking into the diner and taking the time to sit at the counter because they’re regulars and sitting the counter in the morning is what regulars like to do.
There’s a case too. The news is on behind the waitress that pours Brennan coffee. Booth reaches for the milk and tries not to look.
“Long day today,” he says. The waitress smiles at them and leaves quietly. Brennan reaches for the sugar before he sighs. “We got a drive ahead of us, that’s for sure.”
“You said we’d be there by five.”
He nods. “Six, even.”
“Perhaps six is a better to arrive then.”
It’s like this, he thinks. There’s a body in the city. He’d rather drive into New York City, same coast and his car - anything to avoid the plane. Brennan knows this too. She digs into her coat pocket, handing him back his keys.
He smiles and his thanks is lost to the sudden burst of laughter that happens down the counter. There’s a couple sitting together, close and bent over their chairs in earnest. He looks back at Brennan and then sneaks another look at the couple, shaking his head. He looks back at the news, at the flash of headlines that says something about new war funding and talks.
“It will be nice to drive.”
He turns back and looks at Brennan.
“What?”
“Drive,” she says. “It will be nice to drive.”
“We always drive.”
“You like to drive.”
He laughs. She shrugs.
“Do you want to drive?” he asks.
She laughs now and is amused, shaking her head. There’s a smile because he’s teasing her and she knows he’s teasing her too; it seems strange for him to acknowledge it this way, but she’s Brennan and the way he understands her is to know how she allows herself to think.
“Drink your coffee,” she says.
He nods and they sit. Brennan studies the news. Booth studies the people around him. He wishes for something like the weather, something he could watch and make a comment on. They share too many normal conversations too and the truth is somewhere along the lines of not wanting to disrupt that either. This is what it is.
When he finishes, Brennan finishes her coffee soon after. Booth pays and Brennan rolls her eyes, slipping into her jacket with another glance at the television. He looks up too this time and sees a simple flash of green and gray, tan and the sudden shot of dust. Somebody down the counter laughs and says something like it’s too dry for flowers, silly even as it makes him tense anyway.
He picks up his keys and feels Brennan lean close to him. They both wave to the waitress.
“It’s going to be cold today,” she says too and he looks at her, watching as she catches him instead. She seems to soften, reaching forward and brushing her fingers against his collar. She picks at something and he tries not to look away; that would be the easiest thing to do.
He ends up looking away though. He pulls at his coat and pulls at his collar again, just after she drops her hand from view. He misses her hand.
“I like cold days,” he tells her. Most mornings he’s ready to.
after faith, it’s about learning how to tell each other stories again. general season six spoilers. 3,143 words.
notes: It’s been awhile, Bones fic. It’s been a long while. But yesterday was torigates’ birthday and I love her and she’s awesome and the magic just happened. So happy birthday again, my dear. I love you and I hope you have a wonderful rest of the week.
-
Most mornings Booth remembers the desert, the high sun and the heat, the way the light burned and stretched into his skin over pounds and pounds of heavy uniform. His ears ring too; they are ready for the slightest shift in sound and in sight because of training, and what training is supposed to do.
Most mornings he lets Brennan buy the coffee. Sometimes he’s ready to tell her this.
They go to the doctor’s together. This is a routine checkup and Brennan sits in the waiting room, next to him and with a magazine in her lap.
She is not supposed to be here. Booth knows this. Booth doesn’t care. He invited her halfway back to the office, in between talking about the victim and trying to understand why she’s talking weapons and the tibia.
But he has his hands on his knees, and his knees are jittery as he rocks his legs up and down for waiting. He looks around. There are too many seats that are empty and the nurse at the window keeps watching them. He hates when the nurses like to watch them. The window is the only one in the room.
“I think I read this the last time,” Brennan says, and he’s started, just as he catches her watching him. She holds up the magazine. There’s an article and a picture, a wide picture of the desert and a few guns.
“That?”
He points. She nods and folds half of the pages, tucking them over her knees. He watches her fingers brush over the pictures.
“Yes,” she says. “Or another magazine like it, as it’s all the same; policies, politicians, and the things that they’re completely unable to accomplish. This is why I never like going to events.”
He’s amused.
“They’re politicians.”
He doesn’t mean to mutter but he does. He looks at the picture and looks away, moving back to watching the nurse. She’s disappeared from the window and there is a stack of files in her place. Booth looks back to Brennan again, over at the article and the picture.
There are things that she knows, assumptions and things that he’s sure she’s seen; with what happened months ago - nearly a year, he thinks - he’s worried about what he’s told her already and what he hasn’t. There are pieces that he seems to know instinctively and the gray areas that sort of slip. He should know better too. He should know how to know better.
“Are you nervous?”
His hand drops over the picture, pushing it down so that he can see the words. He’s not really pay attention though.
“It’s routine, Bones. Routine checkups don’t make me nervous, they make me careful, and I like to be careful. I have to be careful.”
“You’re doing well.”
“Thanks,” he says. He studies the magazine as she turns the page. Her fingers cover an article caption. “It’s routine,” he repeats and says it like he believes it, that he wants believe it because there is too much of him that doesn’t want her to worry. He’s better at that.
“I know.”
They’re quiet. Booth really doesn’t turn away. His mouth is dry. He wants water and there is a cooler in the corner. It requires him to get up. His knees start to shake again.
He sighs. “It’s about the war,” he says and points.
“Yes.”
“These pictures are … ” and he stops because he can’t say anything, he never says anything about these things, “Yeah, they’re pictures.”
“They are pictures,” she says.
She’s serious too. He wonders what she might say if he told her; there is the desert and then there is the desert, but Brennan really doesn’t talk about most things either. It’s like everything that happened, this year and back, is making him second-guess the rest of his worries.
He’s never not thought about what she would do if she knew. It’s no more about what he might do if Brennan knew everything. He doesn’t know how to understand what it might mean should she know everything.
But he catches the nurse as she reappears at the window. She smiles at him. He smiles back at her. Brennan closes the magazine and tosses it off to the side.
He looks at her, waiting for her to say something. She looks back at him. His legs stop moving. He presses his palms into his knees. Their caseload, he reminds himself, is finished for the week. She doesn’t turn away either. He wants to be able to expect her too, but she doesn’t and he thinks about it again, thinks about those times and being serious with her, how much safer the little things are - more than whatever one else thinks they are.
She reaches forward too then. Her hand covers his and he turns his hand up, his palm pressing into her. It’s instinctive and he stares at her hands, waiting and watching and wondering if it’ll ever feeling something other than their hands. He knows he doesn’t want it. He doesn’t know anything other than that.
When they finally call him, Brennan smiles a little. “You are going to be fine,” she murmurs.
When everybody knows, it becomes harder to hide. They don’t talk about these things. Brennan knows what she knows. Booth knows what he knows. This is how it’s been for years.
He finds Cam late in the day in her office, because it’s Cam when there’s something to say.
“Give me a minute,” she says. She’s cradling her phone over her shoulder and half-smiling. He thinks Michelle and smiles back at her, leaning against the frame of her door.
Behind him too, the lab stumbles into a warranted silence. People are leaving. Brennan is off somewhere with her grad students, or army of assistants, and it’s the kind of day that he expects himself to be back at his office, walking over paperwork and calling his son.
But things are sticking with him, and sticking with him too much. Booth hates when things stick with him this way.
“I think about telling her,” he says, just as Cam gets off the phone. He forgets to ask about Michelle and Cam sits back, leaning against her chair. Her legs cross and she smiles, almost in amusement, and Booth can remember why it was that he loved her and how.
Cam studies at him. “Telling her?”
“Yeah. I guess. I don’t know. I think about a lot of these things lately. I’m still trying to get back to a hundred percent. There is Jared getting married and there’s … of course, I think about telling her.”
There is a sudden smile from Cam. He smiles too, but looks down. He listens to papers rustle in front of him and the click of Cam’s heels as she steps up. She walks to him and stops, leaning against the doorframe with him and looking back out and into the lab.
“Are you?”
She asks gently. He shrugs and sighs. He crosses his arms against his chest and drops his head back against the frame.
“You’re going to tell her,” Cam says and it’s not a question, but more of an understanding. She turns back to look at him. “Are you ready to?”
“No,” he says quietly. This he means.
There is a night where he decides to do it. There is beer on his kitchen counter and half-empty cartons of Chinese takeout as he empties rice onto his plate.
“You know there’s a lot we haven’t talked about.”
He says it slowly, sneaking a glance at Brennan. She seems undisturbed and moves in his kitchen like she knows it better than he does. She grabs their beers and napkins, pulling packets of chopsticks into her mouth as she carries things into the living room.
When she comes back, he stares at her. She shrugs.
“Talked about?”
“Yeah,” he says and it’s like he’s fishing for his own excuses, “you know, stuff. I mean, I’m not saying we’ve got to talk about it, Bones, I’m just saying that there are things that we just haven’t -”
“Talked about,” she finishes.
It’s then that he hears the television. He doesn’t remember who turned it on. In the car, they were talking about Steve McQueen and her strange array of movies that she has at home. He remembers how long it took her to buy a television too. He loves these things about Brennan.
But he nods and figures that it’s over. He carries his plate into the living room and sits on his couch, at the edge while she follows. Everything else is on the coffee table, like usual, and Booth likes this part of their routine.
She sits after him. He hands her a beer.
“Okay, well -” her fingers brush over his knuckles, and he almost stops, watching her in confusion. “What do you want to know?”
“Know?”
“Yes.”
“It doesn’t work like that.”
His mouth curls and he shakes his head, looking down at his hands. He studies them, brushing them over his knees. This is a nervous habit; the motto is: keep your hands clean and your fingers ready, keep them straight and long and practiced for every situation. He hasn’t told her this. This is something he feels like she already knows.
“Why doesn’t it?”
He doesn’t answer. He shrugs. He refocuses his gaze on the television too. It’s the news again. There’s a weather report and murmur that says something like heavy rains.
He reaches for his plate and his chopsticks.
Brennan touches his shoulder. “I tell you things. You tell me things. It has never been anything but that. And if you don’t want me to know, I’m sure you won’t tell me. But it’s always worked well. Did I do something wrong?”
“Why would you?”
He puts his plate down. His eyes are wide and he stares at her, tense and feeling too guilty all of the sudden.
“You have that face, Booth.”
“Oh.”
He feels his skin flush and the corners of his mouth turn awkwardly. He smiles but then doesn’t. She smiles too, but it turns into a quick frown. This is the problem, he thinks.
When he knows, he knows. When he doesn’t, he always assumes she doesn’t know too. It’s part of the recuperation, he wants to claim, but then there conversations that come back to him and the warnings of other people that stick with him too. It’s always relative, they say. But he still feels things as they start change.
Brennan then pulls her plate into her lap. She reaches for her a napkin, but doesn’t start to eat. She still studies him.
“So what do you want to know?”
He shakes his head.
“Do we have to do this now?”
“You don’t want to do this now,” she says slowly and seems confused. He feels guilty then and thinks that he may want something too soon. This feels too familiar as it is.
She almost accepts it. He waits.
“We always talk, Booth,” she says too.
“No,” he says. “I just - I just don’t want you to think that I’m hiding anything from you. I’m not hiding anything from you. I don’t want to hide anything from you. It’s just - there’s still a lot we have to talk about.”
“I understand.”
He nods. He doesn’t really believe her. He could fill this with that time that he almost lost his life too, on a boat and in the middle of nowhere. She knows this. They don’t really talk about this too much. What’s said is said, what’s done is done, and these are then unspoken things that he really needs from Brennan and that he knows she gets.
“I know about your dad.”
It spills and the heat from the plate in his lap is starting to die. He picks it up and lets it rest on his palm, picking at his food.
“I know -” she hesitates, swallowing, “I know about Gramps now. I know about you going to war.”
She stares at her beer and frowns. He tries to take a bite of his dinner.
“I know about your mom.”
Booth says it slowly. Brennan’s mouth opens and closes.
“I know about Parker.”
She looks away.
“Is there more to know?” she asks too, and it seems such a strange question to him, even though it’s the right question and he should follow it with something that holds true to what else she might now.
But it’s the right part to think about the things he does want to tell her; the army stories - and when he can think about them, he can think about them - the way the dust settles in his mouth like a ghost and the way his gun feels heavy every time he picks it up.
There are things that everybody knows about him too. It’s the passion for his country, his son, and that sense of belief that makes him who he is. It’s the memory of the surgery too. There is still a lot to learn.
“Not right now,” he says and says it firmly. “Not that I don’t - I don’t know if I’m ready to say anything,” he finishes.
“I understand,” she says again.
“Why?”
It’s a simple question and he asks. Brennan looks surprised.
She doesn’t answer at first. He thinks about it again - there is still a lot to learn. He thinks about it again and again. There is still a lot to learn. But he can’t help but wait and watch, watch as her mouth opens and closes and then she smiles softly for a minute.
“I know that you’re a good man,” she says and there’s no hesitation, “and knowing that you’re a good man is really all I need to know. I know that you’re - you’re you and I know, I’m learning how to understand that. I know that understanding that is going to be difficult and that things are supposed to be difficult. I know and I understand that too.”
She stops and he’s learned to wait again, watch her for the things that she doesn’t say. He knows how to pick them out sometimes, other times he waits for her to let him see.
Here, she just sits. She sits and stares off to the side, her mouth curling and then relaxing. He thinks that it’s one of those times, one of those times that he understands what he means to feel like this about her and not have to say the words without failing to the notion that they still have too much to talk about.
It isn’t until she sighs that he realizes that she’s taken his hand without knowing that he didn’t acknowledge the gesture. He looks down to their fingers, tightly laced as her thumb slides slowly along the row of his knuckles. There are a few bruises but that was a case and that’s something they do talk about. Just not tonight, it seems.
Their plates are back on the coffee table, his nearly on top of hers. That happens a lot too.
“Thanks, Bones,” he says quietly and finally. He means it and doesn’t have to say anything more.
She simply nods. This is how he wants to kiss her.
It’s just that he never really knows how to kiss her. It’s also morning a lot more too. It’s time to stop for coffee instead walking into the diner and taking the time to sit at the counter because they’re regulars and sitting the counter in the morning is what regulars like to do.
There’s a case too. The news is on behind the waitress that pours Brennan coffee. Booth reaches for the milk and tries not to look.
“Long day today,” he says. The waitress smiles at them and leaves quietly. Brennan reaches for the sugar before he sighs. “We got a drive ahead of us, that’s for sure.”
“You said we’d be there by five.”
He nods. “Six, even.”
“Perhaps six is a better to arrive then.”
It’s like this, he thinks. There’s a body in the city. He’d rather drive into New York City, same coast and his car - anything to avoid the plane. Brennan knows this too. She digs into her coat pocket, handing him back his keys.
He smiles and his thanks is lost to the sudden burst of laughter that happens down the counter. There’s a couple sitting together, close and bent over their chairs in earnest. He looks back at Brennan and then sneaks another look at the couple, shaking his head. He looks back at the news, at the flash of headlines that says something about new war funding and talks.
“It will be nice to drive.”
He turns back and looks at Brennan.
“What?”
“Drive,” she says. “It will be nice to drive.”
“We always drive.”
“You like to drive.”
He laughs. She shrugs.
“Do you want to drive?” he asks.
She laughs now and is amused, shaking her head. There’s a smile because he’s teasing her and she knows he’s teasing her too; it seems strange for him to acknowledge it this way, but she’s Brennan and the way he understands her is to know how she allows herself to think.
“Drink your coffee,” she says.
He nods and they sit. Brennan studies the news. Booth studies the people around him. He wishes for something like the weather, something he could watch and make a comment on. They share too many normal conversations too and the truth is somewhere along the lines of not wanting to disrupt that either. This is what it is.
When he finishes, Brennan finishes her coffee soon after. Booth pays and Brennan rolls her eyes, slipping into her jacket with another glance at the television. He looks up too this time and sees a simple flash of green and gray, tan and the sudden shot of dust. Somebody down the counter laughs and says something like it’s too dry for flowers, silly even as it makes him tense anyway.
He picks up his keys and feels Brennan lean close to him. They both wave to the waitress.
“It’s going to be cold today,” she says too and he looks at her, watching as she catches him instead. She seems to soften, reaching forward and brushing her fingers against his collar. She picks at something and he tries not to look away; that would be the easiest thing to do.
He ends up looking away though. He pulls at his coat and pulls at his collar again, just after she drops her hand from view. He misses her hand.
“I like cold days,” he tells her. Most mornings he’s ready to.