Fic: all's fair in
all's fair in
bones ; booth/brennan ; 3,221 words, PG
don’t call it an identity crisis. they write songs for that. the boy with the answer.
notes: I said to torigates that I was going to wait for the finale. But I didn’t. That seems to happen a lot. Anyways. Enjoy!
-
She drops her keys at the door.
Her hand is shaking. Sometimes she forgets that details are small.
Booth brings breakfast. He’s at the door just as she’s getting ready to leave. They were supposed to meet at the diner.
“It was crowded,” he says and holds up a bag of food, coffee tucked in his other hand, and it makes her laugh, just a little bit. “It was quicker to get in line,” he says too.
She shakes her head but steps back to let him in. She slides out of her coat and follows Booth to the kitchen, watching him as he sets up breakfast. His coffee, her coffee, toast and eggs, it almost makes her laugh again; they are creatures of habits, she thinks too.
“And I was trying to avoid Sweets and Daisy,” he adds.
She catches the lie and smiles. It was coming. “I’m fine,” she murmurs.
The night before is still in her head, the pseudo-celebration between all of them, the end of the trial; everyone else is relieved. But she stands somewhere behind that and feels too much like she’s going backwards, too far backwards, for her to even reason with anything. She’s lost something.
But she ignores the feeling and sits next to him, on one of the stools and in front of the television. He passes her a coffee and she turns the television on. The news fills the room and Booth’s mouth curls slightly, shaking his head before looking at her.
“You weren’t okay last night,” he says, and this was coming too, she knows, looking away and trying not to listen to the softness of his voice. But she needs him to be Booth too, she thinks, and there’s no happy medium.
She reaches for a napkin. Booth passes her a fork.
“I was tired,” she murmurs. “It’s only natural, considering the kind of stress that I and everyone else remained under. It was for quite an extended period of time.”
“I know.”
He sounds like he doesn’t believe her, but she ignores it. They’re quiet and she ignores the news too, her gaze wandering around her apartment. She can’t remember the last time that she’s really been home and so steadily home, without the necessity or desire to leave again. It’s her space, it’s always been her space, but somehow the distinction is gone too.
She doesn’t know how to talk about it either, to anyone, to know that it’s not there and not have it. It’s like pieces of herself are slowly leaving her, and it’s change, it’s definitely change, but she doesn’t know how to hold on either.
“You look tired.”
Booth takes the lid off of her coffee, then off of his own. She smiles softly.
“I mean, I’m not trying to pick at you or anything,” he adds.
Brennan looks up at him. “I slept some, last night.”
“Good,” he nods. Not enough, she expects him to say. He studies her and then looks down at his coffee, brushing his fingers along the rim. “I - I’m worried about you. I know what you’re going to say, and I get it, I get that you don’t want me to be. But let’s be real here, Bones, there’s never a time that I don’t worry about you. I want you to be okay.”
“I know,” she says. You’re better at this, you’ve always been better at this, she wants to say too and keep telling him.
But she always wants to tell him, needs to use it as an excuse instead of opening up the conversation. She knows where they’ll go if the conversation opens and it scares her, scares her too much. She used to know how to look forward to these things. She doesn’t like the place she’s in.
Reaching for her coffee, she brushes her fingers against the rim. She takes a sip and it burns, lapping at the roof of her mouth. She tries to swallow. It hurts.
“I used to have an immense joy for what I do. Of course, I understand why that’s possible, the underlying chemicals in my body to that arise and arouse - ” she bites back a grin when Booth blushes at her attempt to lighten the conversation, continuing, “ - the point is that I understand what I do, and what I do has always been a focal of my identity.”
She’s serious again, shaking her head. Booth touches her arm.
“You’re not losing,” he says.
“I don’t know,” she murmurs. “I feel as if I am.”
She wants to believe him. He smiles and leans in, brushing a kiss against her hair. She lets him too, lets him and tries not to think about it. She likes how it feels though, when he’s close and when she can let him be close.
Somehow, she lets herself lean in. She puts her coffee down too.
“You’re you,” she tells him. “You’re you and you’re comfortable with that, you’re comfortable knowing yourself through any sort of event or trauma, any change and when things decide to stay the same. I do not have that Booth, I do not know what’s like to have that at all.”
“That’s not true -”
Her eyes are burning and she looks away. “I have always had what I know to be - it’s - I’ve -” her throat catches and she stops for a moment, putting her coffee down and picking up the dishes again. She doesn’t look at Booth. “I think,” she says, “I think I’ve made what Sweets would call the wrong metaphorical turn somewhere back.”
“You mean regret?”
“No,” she says. “I don’t mean regret.”
They’re quiet. He looks worried. She feels guilty. She feels really guilty, as if she’s let him down again, as she’s lost this too.
She thinks back to their conversation before, when he looked at her and told her how he felt, how they should feel. She’s never been unsure, that kind of uncertainty has never existed in her life; she knows she loves him, she knows she can love him, but with the loss of this identity that she has, or the mere fact that it’s slipping, everything scares her even more.
Looking up at him, she reaches for he coffee again. She frames the paper cup with both of her hands and pulls it to her mouth. She doesn’t drink but she hovers.
“I should go. Parker.” Booth stands. He smiles too, touching her shoulder. “He’s got a soccer game and then he’s making me decide if we’re going to get milkshakes or ice cream, which is a hard decision, as you know.”
“I know.”
She stands to follow. She keeps her coffee close, her finger tight around the cup. Her lips press against the rim again and he turns to her. He leans down and brushes his lips against her forehead. He lingers and she lets a hand rise, press into his jacket, and brush against the leather slowly and thoughtfully.
She sighs. “You worry too much,” he says softly.
He draws back then, heading into the hall as she leans into the doorframe. Brennan catches him hesitating but says nothing.
When the door closes, she leans against it. There’s nothing more to say, she thinks.
Angela meets her for lunch afterwards. The restaurant isn’t crowded. Brennan is late and sits across from her without taking her jacket off. She has to talk to someone, she decides.
But she takes a minute, picking at the silverware. Her fingers push at the pieces and Angela sighs, reaching for them and pulling away from her. Brennan catches the ring, the slight glint that it takes under the weight of the window light. Angela always picks the window seat.
“What’s going on?” Angela asks too. She frowns, worried, and then quiets when their waitress comes with their menus. “You have that look, Bren,” she says.
“Nothing,” she murmurs, she smiles too as if to reassure her friend, picking up a fork and straightening it over the table. “Nothing is … going on. I’m thinking.”
It’s hard to tell other people, knowing that there are people that she has to tell, people that she wants to include in this. The fact is simple: there are decisions to be made, with or without Booth, with or without Angela, with or without her father. She recognizes that they are people who have always had some tremendous effect on her, good or bad, right are wrong. It means too much.
She’s supposed to be the one with everything together.
Reaching her menu, she opens it and studies the list. She doesn’t really pick anything but feels Angela watch her. The two of them are quiet and she’s listening to the restaurant noise. Half-full, there is still a rise and fall of voice, some people laughing, some people leaving. She watches a couple hover over a table and then turn to leave.
“You know I’ll support you in anything you do,” Angela tells her. She leans into the table, reaching for the fork. Her fingers pluck it from Brennan’s hand. “Sweetie, I mean it. Whatever’s going on in that head of yours, I’ll support you.”
“Thank you.”
Angela smiles softly. “He’s going to too.”
She looks up at the other woman. Booth, she thinks. Angela looks at her and she can’t stop thinking about Booth. There’s that smile again, the one that Angela has and that Brennan knows she’s being obvious.
“Isn’t that why you’re avoiding him?” she asks, and asks gently. Brennan’s eyes go to the ring on her finger and she can’t help but feel this pang - of regret, maybe, of envy, of course. She has things that she’s never been able to think about for herself. She doesn’t know how to think about these things for herself.
“I’m not avoiding him,” she says and she tries to mean it too. She bites her lip. “Is that what he told you?”
“No,” Angela laughs. “He didn’t. But you two have this - it’s like watching mom and dad trying to work something out and - no, not a good example.”
“Mom and dad?”
Her friend smiles. This time, last year, Brennan remembers thinking about children, about her child, about a child with Booth. That smile was there too, she thinks. It’s even scarier.
“We know the two of you,” she says. “All of us,” she says too. “We may not know exactly what’s going on, we may let Sweets talk too much, but, and the point is coming, I promise, when the two of you worry about each other, it’s like nothing else is going on.”
Brennan is quiet. It’s never just been about her, or just been about Booth either. There’s still that underlying point where it’s the two of them, and nothing more than the two of them. She just doesn’t think she can give anything until she makes her own choices, until she gets back what she was supposed to be.
She closes her menu then. Their waitress still hasn’t appeared. It makes Brennan nervous and anxious. This is talking to Angela, and it’s different talking to her; they are supposed to talk about these things, over and over again, until it’s better and it’s right, or it can try and be right.
She doesn’t want to lose this either, she thinks. She’s worried.
“You and I have had this conversation - I don’t know, at the very least, once a year.”
Angela laughs softly. “I mean, what are friends for?” she teases too.
But Brennan is serious. “This is true,” she agrees.
Her friend doesn’t laugh. Her smile fades too and the two of them stare at each other, then look away. Brennan reaches for her napkin, but doesn’t pull it to her lap. She keeps her hand around the fabric, her fingers picking at the ends. She can’t look at Angela like that, she thinks. Or the ring, especially the ring.
But she’s happy for her friend, she tells herself. She’s happy for Hodgins, happy for Booth and everybody’s health, everybody’s family. These are things that she’s been putting off, putting off touching and talking about, pushing off with people knowing and understanding.
She looks down to her hands and her fingers are trembling, slightly, but just enough for her to catch. She remembers what it was like to be on the stand.
“I know I’ve come to the point where I keep seeing things and they get into my head, and then I can’t unsee them,” she says quietly and Brennan straightens in her seat, “It’s hard and it scares me, it makes me angry, and it makes me doubt and hate the things that I do, that I love to do.”
“But you still do them,” Brennan says slowly, and she’s jealous, trying to hold them back. Booth does this. Angela still does this. She’s trying to remember where she fits between everyone, with everyone.
They talk about the things that she’s seen, it’s either assumed or no one knows how to ask. She’s okay with that too. She just can’t have that anymore.
“I admire that,” she says, “about you.”
Angela smiles, but Brennan looks to the window. It’s just easier. She’s not looking for someone to say that it’s okay, that it’s going to be okay. She needs to have time. She keeps coming back to that.
“It’s -”
Angela stops though. The waitress comes to take their orders, finally. The two of them smile and it’s almost like business, quiet and careful. When she leaves though, Angela leans forward and takes Brennan’s hand in hers.
“You’ve never let yourself have those moments, sweetie. You’ve never let yourself stop and breathe. Good or bad, maybe it’s time that you do.”
Brennan bites her lip. “Maybe,” she says.
The lights are on over the door. She breathes before she knocks. She’s rushing into this, she thinks. This is not what she wants to do.
But Booth answers the door.
“Hey,” he greets. Parker is in his arms, fast asleep and tucked into his neck. She smiles and he smiles, stepping back to let her in. “You okay?”
“Yes,” she says.
They stand in the hallway. He mouths that he’s going to take Parker to bed and she nods, moving into the living room. She stands over the couch, hovers, but doesn’t sit. She moves into the kitchen, but then stops herself. She’s nervous.
“I’m fine,” she says out loud, to herself, softly and trying to be certain. Her throat is tight and she rubs her eyes. There’s more to be said, she thinks.
When Booth comes back in, he’s brushing his hands against his jeans. He stands and watches her for a moment, but looks away when she meets his gaze.
“Want a beer?”
“No, thank you,” she says. She sits, peeling off her coat. Her fingers curl around the collar and she straightens it over her lap. “I just wanted to see you.”
“See me?”
He’s smiling and she laughs, softly, pulling herself into the corner of his couch. Her jacket drops over her knees but she doesn’t notice as he sits down.
She watches him as he settles, pressing his elbows into his knees. He rubs his eyes and he looks tired, she thinks, more so than she’s seen him in a long time. There was the week, there was this morning; it’s like he understands that they’re changing too, or that they’ve changed, that she’s missing something.
Maybe he knows that she can’t be what he should have. That scares her, that scares her so much, knowing that it’s entirely possible that Booth would and could have a thought, a moment where he realizes that he can have better than she is. He deserves it too, she thinks. He deserves more than she is.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do yet,” she says finally, slowly.
“That’s okay,” he says.
“No,” she says. “Not for me.”
She reaches for his hand. Her fingers curl in his and she pulls them into her lap. She keeps a tight grip, her fingers running against his knuckles. They’re rough, coarse, and she can name all the bones, his bones, in her head, back and forth and up and down. There’s an intimacy in that, in knowing that, but that’s as far as she’ll let herself go.
Then she lets go of his hand. “I don’t like change.”
She admits it, just like she did the night before, right after everybody left. She’s telling him because he’s the only one she can tell without thinking about it.
His gaze softens. “Nobody does, Bones,” he tells her.
“I think -”
She stops and closes her eyes. Her hand comes to her face, her fingers pressing into her skin. She rubs lightly, sighing into her palm.
“I think,” she says again, “something is going to. Something has to.”
“You’re not happy,” he murmurs.
Her hand drops. She looks at him, softening.
“I don’t know.”
It’s not the first time she’s heard herself hear it, or the last, she assumes, but it feels different telling him. It’s not her really telling him or really pulling away, she’s open and she’s giving another little part of herself.
She’s sad, she thinks. Everybody is moving along, further into certainty or finally obtaining that certainty. Booth got it when he told her the truth that night.
Her mouth opens. He shakes her head.
“I want you to be happy,” he says, and she knows that he’s said it to her before, many times, over and over. But it’s one of those moments where it’s good to hear, where she needs to hear it, even though it’s for the moment and moment alone.
Her throat tightens though. She tries to look away, but he leans closer, reaching forward and brushing his fingers against her face.
She can’t keep taking from him, she decides. She still leans into his fingers and her eyes close. Her throat and her lips purse, and just as she sighs, she thinks about him kissing her, kissing her and not stopping.
But she remembers Parker, and his weekend with Parker, gently pulling away from him and standing. Her jacket drops to the floor and she hesitates, just before she leans over and picks it up.
I should go, she nearly says. Her fist closes around the collar and she smiles at Booth, awkward and almost shy. He nods and there’s no expectation, not from the way he looks at her. It makes her impossibly sad and maybe even more confused. She doesn’t touch it. She doesn’t tell him either.
Instead, she touches his shoulder. He doesn’t stand yet. Her hand doesn’t shake. She lets her fingers flex over his shoulder and she waits, just in case, but they don’t shake and she breathes. It’s small, brief, and maybe he sees her, maybe he doesn’t. She doesn’t let herself think about it.
She can have the minute. She lets herself take it. And maybe, there’s a place to start in that. She pulls her hand back and then steps away, closer and towards the door.
‘Thank you,” she says. Booth nods but doesn’t smile yet.
In a minute, he’ll walk her to the door. She knows he means it.
bones ; booth/brennan ; 3,221 words, PG
don’t call it an identity crisis. they write songs for that. the boy with the answer.
notes: I said to torigates that I was going to wait for the finale. But I didn’t. That seems to happen a lot. Anyways. Enjoy!
-
She drops her keys at the door.
Her hand is shaking. Sometimes she forgets that details are small.
Booth brings breakfast. He’s at the door just as she’s getting ready to leave. They were supposed to meet at the diner.
“It was crowded,” he says and holds up a bag of food, coffee tucked in his other hand, and it makes her laugh, just a little bit. “It was quicker to get in line,” he says too.
She shakes her head but steps back to let him in. She slides out of her coat and follows Booth to the kitchen, watching him as he sets up breakfast. His coffee, her coffee, toast and eggs, it almost makes her laugh again; they are creatures of habits, she thinks too.
“And I was trying to avoid Sweets and Daisy,” he adds.
She catches the lie and smiles. It was coming. “I’m fine,” she murmurs.
The night before is still in her head, the pseudo-celebration between all of them, the end of the trial; everyone else is relieved. But she stands somewhere behind that and feels too much like she’s going backwards, too far backwards, for her to even reason with anything. She’s lost something.
But she ignores the feeling and sits next to him, on one of the stools and in front of the television. He passes her a coffee and she turns the television on. The news fills the room and Booth’s mouth curls slightly, shaking his head before looking at her.
“You weren’t okay last night,” he says, and this was coming too, she knows, looking away and trying not to listen to the softness of his voice. But she needs him to be Booth too, she thinks, and there’s no happy medium.
She reaches for a napkin. Booth passes her a fork.
“I was tired,” she murmurs. “It’s only natural, considering the kind of stress that I and everyone else remained under. It was for quite an extended period of time.”
“I know.”
He sounds like he doesn’t believe her, but she ignores it. They’re quiet and she ignores the news too, her gaze wandering around her apartment. She can’t remember the last time that she’s really been home and so steadily home, without the necessity or desire to leave again. It’s her space, it’s always been her space, but somehow the distinction is gone too.
She doesn’t know how to talk about it either, to anyone, to know that it’s not there and not have it. It’s like pieces of herself are slowly leaving her, and it’s change, it’s definitely change, but she doesn’t know how to hold on either.
“You look tired.”
Booth takes the lid off of her coffee, then off of his own. She smiles softly.
“I mean, I’m not trying to pick at you or anything,” he adds.
Brennan looks up at him. “I slept some, last night.”
“Good,” he nods. Not enough, she expects him to say. He studies her and then looks down at his coffee, brushing his fingers along the rim. “I - I’m worried about you. I know what you’re going to say, and I get it, I get that you don’t want me to be. But let’s be real here, Bones, there’s never a time that I don’t worry about you. I want you to be okay.”
“I know,” she says. You’re better at this, you’ve always been better at this, she wants to say too and keep telling him.
But she always wants to tell him, needs to use it as an excuse instead of opening up the conversation. She knows where they’ll go if the conversation opens and it scares her, scares her too much. She used to know how to look forward to these things. She doesn’t like the place she’s in.
Reaching for her coffee, she brushes her fingers against the rim. She takes a sip and it burns, lapping at the roof of her mouth. She tries to swallow. It hurts.
“I used to have an immense joy for what I do. Of course, I understand why that’s possible, the underlying chemicals in my body to that arise and arouse - ” she bites back a grin when Booth blushes at her attempt to lighten the conversation, continuing, “ - the point is that I understand what I do, and what I do has always been a focal of my identity.”
She’s serious again, shaking her head. Booth touches her arm.
“You’re not losing,” he says.
“I don’t know,” she murmurs. “I feel as if I am.”
She wants to believe him. He smiles and leans in, brushing a kiss against her hair. She lets him too, lets him and tries not to think about it. She likes how it feels though, when he’s close and when she can let him be close.
Somehow, she lets herself lean in. She puts her coffee down too.
“You’re you,” she tells him. “You’re you and you’re comfortable with that, you’re comfortable knowing yourself through any sort of event or trauma, any change and when things decide to stay the same. I do not have that Booth, I do not know what’s like to have that at all.”
“That’s not true -”
Her eyes are burning and she looks away. “I have always had what I know to be - it’s - I’ve -” her throat catches and she stops for a moment, putting her coffee down and picking up the dishes again. She doesn’t look at Booth. “I think,” she says, “I think I’ve made what Sweets would call the wrong metaphorical turn somewhere back.”
“You mean regret?”
“No,” she says. “I don’t mean regret.”
They’re quiet. He looks worried. She feels guilty. She feels really guilty, as if she’s let him down again, as she’s lost this too.
She thinks back to their conversation before, when he looked at her and told her how he felt, how they should feel. She’s never been unsure, that kind of uncertainty has never existed in her life; she knows she loves him, she knows she can love him, but with the loss of this identity that she has, or the mere fact that it’s slipping, everything scares her even more.
Looking up at him, she reaches for he coffee again. She frames the paper cup with both of her hands and pulls it to her mouth. She doesn’t drink but she hovers.
“I should go. Parker.” Booth stands. He smiles too, touching her shoulder. “He’s got a soccer game and then he’s making me decide if we’re going to get milkshakes or ice cream, which is a hard decision, as you know.”
“I know.”
She stands to follow. She keeps her coffee close, her finger tight around the cup. Her lips press against the rim again and he turns to her. He leans down and brushes his lips against her forehead. He lingers and she lets a hand rise, press into his jacket, and brush against the leather slowly and thoughtfully.
She sighs. “You worry too much,” he says softly.
He draws back then, heading into the hall as she leans into the doorframe. Brennan catches him hesitating but says nothing.
When the door closes, she leans against it. There’s nothing more to say, she thinks.
Angela meets her for lunch afterwards. The restaurant isn’t crowded. Brennan is late and sits across from her without taking her jacket off. She has to talk to someone, she decides.
But she takes a minute, picking at the silverware. Her fingers push at the pieces and Angela sighs, reaching for them and pulling away from her. Brennan catches the ring, the slight glint that it takes under the weight of the window light. Angela always picks the window seat.
“What’s going on?” Angela asks too. She frowns, worried, and then quiets when their waitress comes with their menus. “You have that look, Bren,” she says.
“Nothing,” she murmurs, she smiles too as if to reassure her friend, picking up a fork and straightening it over the table. “Nothing is … going on. I’m thinking.”
It’s hard to tell other people, knowing that there are people that she has to tell, people that she wants to include in this. The fact is simple: there are decisions to be made, with or without Booth, with or without Angela, with or without her father. She recognizes that they are people who have always had some tremendous effect on her, good or bad, right are wrong. It means too much.
She’s supposed to be the one with everything together.
Reaching her menu, she opens it and studies the list. She doesn’t really pick anything but feels Angela watch her. The two of them are quiet and she’s listening to the restaurant noise. Half-full, there is still a rise and fall of voice, some people laughing, some people leaving. She watches a couple hover over a table and then turn to leave.
“You know I’ll support you in anything you do,” Angela tells her. She leans into the table, reaching for the fork. Her fingers pluck it from Brennan’s hand. “Sweetie, I mean it. Whatever’s going on in that head of yours, I’ll support you.”
“Thank you.”
Angela smiles softly. “He’s going to too.”
She looks up at the other woman. Booth, she thinks. Angela looks at her and she can’t stop thinking about Booth. There’s that smile again, the one that Angela has and that Brennan knows she’s being obvious.
“Isn’t that why you’re avoiding him?” she asks, and asks gently. Brennan’s eyes go to the ring on her finger and she can’t help but feel this pang - of regret, maybe, of envy, of course. She has things that she’s never been able to think about for herself. She doesn’t know how to think about these things for herself.
“I’m not avoiding him,” she says and she tries to mean it too. She bites her lip. “Is that what he told you?”
“No,” Angela laughs. “He didn’t. But you two have this - it’s like watching mom and dad trying to work something out and - no, not a good example.”
“Mom and dad?”
Her friend smiles. This time, last year, Brennan remembers thinking about children, about her child, about a child with Booth. That smile was there too, she thinks. It’s even scarier.
“We know the two of you,” she says. “All of us,” she says too. “We may not know exactly what’s going on, we may let Sweets talk too much, but, and the point is coming, I promise, when the two of you worry about each other, it’s like nothing else is going on.”
Brennan is quiet. It’s never just been about her, or just been about Booth either. There’s still that underlying point where it’s the two of them, and nothing more than the two of them. She just doesn’t think she can give anything until she makes her own choices, until she gets back what she was supposed to be.
She closes her menu then. Their waitress still hasn’t appeared. It makes Brennan nervous and anxious. This is talking to Angela, and it’s different talking to her; they are supposed to talk about these things, over and over again, until it’s better and it’s right, or it can try and be right.
She doesn’t want to lose this either, she thinks. She’s worried.
“You and I have had this conversation - I don’t know, at the very least, once a year.”
Angela laughs softly. “I mean, what are friends for?” she teases too.
But Brennan is serious. “This is true,” she agrees.
Her friend doesn’t laugh. Her smile fades too and the two of them stare at each other, then look away. Brennan reaches for her napkin, but doesn’t pull it to her lap. She keeps her hand around the fabric, her fingers picking at the ends. She can’t look at Angela like that, she thinks. Or the ring, especially the ring.
But she’s happy for her friend, she tells herself. She’s happy for Hodgins, happy for Booth and everybody’s health, everybody’s family. These are things that she’s been putting off, putting off touching and talking about, pushing off with people knowing and understanding.
She looks down to her hands and her fingers are trembling, slightly, but just enough for her to catch. She remembers what it was like to be on the stand.
“I know I’ve come to the point where I keep seeing things and they get into my head, and then I can’t unsee them,” she says quietly and Brennan straightens in her seat, “It’s hard and it scares me, it makes me angry, and it makes me doubt and hate the things that I do, that I love to do.”
“But you still do them,” Brennan says slowly, and she’s jealous, trying to hold them back. Booth does this. Angela still does this. She’s trying to remember where she fits between everyone, with everyone.
They talk about the things that she’s seen, it’s either assumed or no one knows how to ask. She’s okay with that too. She just can’t have that anymore.
“I admire that,” she says, “about you.”
Angela smiles, but Brennan looks to the window. It’s just easier. She’s not looking for someone to say that it’s okay, that it’s going to be okay. She needs to have time. She keeps coming back to that.
“It’s -”
Angela stops though. The waitress comes to take their orders, finally. The two of them smile and it’s almost like business, quiet and careful. When she leaves though, Angela leans forward and takes Brennan’s hand in hers.
“You’ve never let yourself have those moments, sweetie. You’ve never let yourself stop and breathe. Good or bad, maybe it’s time that you do.”
Brennan bites her lip. “Maybe,” she says.
The lights are on over the door. She breathes before she knocks. She’s rushing into this, she thinks. This is not what she wants to do.
But Booth answers the door.
“Hey,” he greets. Parker is in his arms, fast asleep and tucked into his neck. She smiles and he smiles, stepping back to let her in. “You okay?”
“Yes,” she says.
They stand in the hallway. He mouths that he’s going to take Parker to bed and she nods, moving into the living room. She stands over the couch, hovers, but doesn’t sit. She moves into the kitchen, but then stops herself. She’s nervous.
“I’m fine,” she says out loud, to herself, softly and trying to be certain. Her throat is tight and she rubs her eyes. There’s more to be said, she thinks.
When Booth comes back in, he’s brushing his hands against his jeans. He stands and watches her for a moment, but looks away when she meets his gaze.
“Want a beer?”
“No, thank you,” she says. She sits, peeling off her coat. Her fingers curl around the collar and she straightens it over her lap. “I just wanted to see you.”
“See me?”
He’s smiling and she laughs, softly, pulling herself into the corner of his couch. Her jacket drops over her knees but she doesn’t notice as he sits down.
She watches him as he settles, pressing his elbows into his knees. He rubs his eyes and he looks tired, she thinks, more so than she’s seen him in a long time. There was the week, there was this morning; it’s like he understands that they’re changing too, or that they’ve changed, that she’s missing something.
Maybe he knows that she can’t be what he should have. That scares her, that scares her so much, knowing that it’s entirely possible that Booth would and could have a thought, a moment where he realizes that he can have better than she is. He deserves it too, she thinks. He deserves more than she is.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do yet,” she says finally, slowly.
“That’s okay,” he says.
“No,” she says. “Not for me.”
She reaches for his hand. Her fingers curl in his and she pulls them into her lap. She keeps a tight grip, her fingers running against his knuckles. They’re rough, coarse, and she can name all the bones, his bones, in her head, back and forth and up and down. There’s an intimacy in that, in knowing that, but that’s as far as she’ll let herself go.
Then she lets go of his hand. “I don’t like change.”
She admits it, just like she did the night before, right after everybody left. She’s telling him because he’s the only one she can tell without thinking about it.
His gaze softens. “Nobody does, Bones,” he tells her.
“I think -”
She stops and closes her eyes. Her hand comes to her face, her fingers pressing into her skin. She rubs lightly, sighing into her palm.
“I think,” she says again, “something is going to. Something has to.”
“You’re not happy,” he murmurs.
Her hand drops. She looks at him, softening.
“I don’t know.”
It’s not the first time she’s heard herself hear it, or the last, she assumes, but it feels different telling him. It’s not her really telling him or really pulling away, she’s open and she’s giving another little part of herself.
She’s sad, she thinks. Everybody is moving along, further into certainty or finally obtaining that certainty. Booth got it when he told her the truth that night.
Her mouth opens. He shakes her head.
“I want you to be happy,” he says, and she knows that he’s said it to her before, many times, over and over. But it’s one of those moments where it’s good to hear, where she needs to hear it, even though it’s for the moment and moment alone.
Her throat tightens though. She tries to look away, but he leans closer, reaching forward and brushing his fingers against her face.
She can’t keep taking from him, she decides. She still leans into his fingers and her eyes close. Her throat and her lips purse, and just as she sighs, she thinks about him kissing her, kissing her and not stopping.
But she remembers Parker, and his weekend with Parker, gently pulling away from him and standing. Her jacket drops to the floor and she hesitates, just before she leans over and picks it up.
I should go, she nearly says. Her fist closes around the collar and she smiles at Booth, awkward and almost shy. He nods and there’s no expectation, not from the way he looks at her. It makes her impossibly sad and maybe even more confused. She doesn’t touch it. She doesn’t tell him either.
Instead, she touches his shoulder. He doesn’t stand yet. Her hand doesn’t shake. She lets her fingers flex over his shoulder and she waits, just in case, but they don’t shake and she breathes. It’s small, brief, and maybe he sees her, maybe he doesn’t. She doesn’t let herself think about it.
She can have the minute. She lets herself take it. And maybe, there’s a place to start in that. She pulls her hand back and then steps away, closer and towards the door.
‘Thank you,” she says. Booth nods but doesn’t smile yet.
In a minute, he’ll walk her to the door. She knows he means it.