Fic: Love Is Not Transitory
Title: Love Is Not Transitory
Author: ladychi
Characters/Pairings: Booth/Brennan, Russ Brennan, Angela
Rating: All Ages
Spoilers: For 5x16 "The Parts in the Sum of the Whole", as well as the rest of Season 5.
Summary: Russ Brennan has always loved his sister. Even when she doesn't understand.
Love Is Not Transitory
Russ knew the instant she arrived.
She had a weird way about her, his sister. Stronger than steel but somehow too precious to handle, she met the world with fierce intelligence, daring it to stupefy her. Nothing did. Not physics. Not his baseball stats, not calculus, not the collected works of Rudyard Kipling. He loved that about her.
There were things, though, that Tempe just didn't get. And, as he swung the bat and it smacked satisfyingly against the leather of the ball, he knew that she had once again met something she didn't understand.
She stood at the edge of the field, her arms crossed over her chest, watching him with ice blue eyes that absorbed everything. When he dropped the bat and walked over to her, she uncrossed her arms and looked up at him with tears in her eyes.
“Hey, Tempe, what's wrong?”
She didn't speak, just launched herself into his arms. The other guys on the team started jeering, but Russ wrapped an arm around her and shouted over his shoulder. “Hey, shut the hell up, all right?” He turned his attention back to his sister. “What's going on, Tempe? Tell me, so I can help.”
“I - I don't understand,” she said in a broken voice. “Nobody likes me and I try so hard, but...”
“Tempe.” He pushed her away just enough that he would wipe her tears with his thumb. “You're just a little bit different, that's all.”
“It is very upsetting,” she said in that disconcerting way she had, “not to be accepted by my peers.”
“Nobody's accepted in middle school, Tempe. That's the way it goes.”
“Andy Fluger says that I'm creepy.”
“Andy Fluger deserves to have the crap beat out of him,” Russ said instantly, unwaveringly loyal. “I'll take care of that tomorrow.”
Tempe laughed. “Russ! No.”
“You're not creepy. He just doesn't know you.” Russ bent down and picked up his glove, swung the bat over his shoulder. “What were you talking about, anyway?”
“He asked what I was working on. I said I was doing an independent research project on the bones in the body, that's all.”
Russ started walking them back towards the house, his friends forgotten. “You learn anything cool?”
“Yeah.” Tempe's face brightened from the inside out, and Russ felt a surge of pride at how beautiful she was. He listened contentedly until they reached the house.
**
The phone rang shrilly and disrupted the quiet of Brennan's apartment. Angela put down the glass of wine and hollered down the corridor. “Do you want me to answer that, sweetie?”
There was no answer and so, with a shrug of her shoulders, Angela picked up the phone. “Dr. Temperance Brennan's residence.”
A moment of silence on the other end of the line and then, “Is Tempe available?”
“No, not at this moment. Do you want me to take a message?”
The man on the other line sighed. Angela could see him in her mind's eye, rubbing at his eyes to somehow relieve he pressure. “No, she won't... she won't take a message from me, anyway.”
“Who are you? Are you someone creepy? Because I have to tell you, Bren's a pretty scary gal, and if you're following her around she's likely to break your arm or something.”
The man laughed. “Yeah, I know all that. This is Russ. I'm... her brother.”
“Her brother? Are you sure you don't want me to take a message? I mean, she told me she hasn't got any family, so....”
“It's complicated. Listen, quick, before she comes back. Just tell me. How is she?”
“Brennan? Oh, she's fine. Extremely pissed off at one gorgeous FBI agent at the moment, but fine otherwise.”
“Her health is good and everything? I heard she's been out of the country a lot recently.”
“Just some jaunts down to Guatemala but Bren can take care of herself.”
“Oh. That's... that's good. Okay. I'm going to hang up now. Tell her I called, okay? And tell her happy birthday.”
“It's Brennan's birthday?”
“Yeah. Give her a hug for me, okay?”
“Yeah, okay.”
Angela put down the phone and raised her eyes. There, standing at the doorway, was Brennan. Her eyes were filled with tears, but she swallowed. “Was that Russ?”
“Yeah. He said to tell you hello. He wanted to know how you are.”
“He doesn't deserve to know,” Temperance said, evenly. She shrugged off the emotion as easily as Angela would have discarded a cardigan. Her spidey sense went off.
“Brennan, what happened?”
“Russ called. You answered the phone. I inquired who it was... end of discussion.”
“No, Sweetie. No it's not.” Angela reached for the bottle of red wine and refilled her glass and Brennan's, gesturing towards a couch. “Tell me what's going on here. I can see that it bothers you.”
“It's an old wound. Logically speaking, it should have... scarred over by now,” Brennan said, but she took the glass of wine anyway.
“Not if you keep pouring salt in it, it doesn't. You've got to draw the poison from the wound. Suck it right out and spit it on the ground, Bren.” Amused, Brennan's mouth lifted a little in a smile. “Ah, there you go,” Angela said, pleased. “Now. Tell me.”
“When my parents disappeared...”
“Whoa. Wait. Disappeared?”
“Yes. Disappeared. No one knows what happened to them.” Brennan was very calm. “They found the car but never... never anything else.” She took a deep swallow of the wine in front of her.
“Is that why you do this?”
“Do what, exactly?”
“Stare at corpses all day? To try and... atone somehow?”
“I don't put any stock in psychology. My interest in science was cultivated long before my parents disappeared.”
“Uh huh, I see.” Angela sat back. “What's up with Russ, then?”
“He was nineteen at the time. I was fifteen. He could have taken me in... taken care of me. They would have let him. But he... he just took off. That's what happened. He took off and he left me alone and now he doesn't get to know what I'm doing or where I'm going or how I'm doing. Because he took off.”
Angela reached across the sofa and grabbed Brennan's hand, squeezing it. “All right, Sweetie. Next time he calls, I'll tell him to go to hell.”
Brennan smiled weakly and put the wine down. “Did you want to hit the bars tonight?”
“Nah.” Angela let down her hair from the very elaborate hairstyle she'd spent hours on. “Let's just hang out here. We can watch one of those man-hating Lifetime movies and drink too much wine.”
The look Brennan gave her clearly communicated relief.
**
“Booth?”
He turned, flipping the poker chip, the sound of the carnival in the background. “Yeah, Russ?”
“I'll come up there. I'll help. I just have to know.... are you...” He coughed and looked up at the sky. “Listen, I know it might not sound believable, but I love Tempe like no one else in the whole world, all right? And I have to know that you're taking care of her.”
Booth recognized immediately the plea of the older brother, and his shoulders sagged. “Yeah, I'm doing my best.”
“It's just... she doesn't get it, sometimes.”
“Temperance is the smartest woman I know,” Booth countered.
“Yeah, she is. But it's not that she's bad with people, you know? She loves people. She loves more than... more than anyone I know. But she's always on the outside looking in cause something's just not... hooked up properly. She can't understand, sometimes.”
Booth stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels, refusing to look Russ in the eye. They were both evasive. Conversations this honest couldn't be had with eye contact. “She'll get it figured out.”
“But she won't, really.” Russ opened the gate and took a couple of steps towards Booth. “She'll get better, yeah. If you help her out and point out things for her so she can see, but... she's never just going to instinctively know, the way that you know.”
“Know what?”
“Know jealousy. Love. Anger. Hurt. She can't... classify those things as immediately as you can. She doesn't know how to handle those things.”
“Listen, pal, it's been a while since you've been around Temperance, so I'm just gonna...”
“Booth. She's my sister. I just want you to promise me that you'll keep an eye out for her. That... you'll just... help. She doesn't come to me anymore when she doesn't understand. I think she had a lot of years when she didn't have anybody to help. I think she's starting to do that with you and I think...” Russ shrugged. “I just want you to know.”
“Yeah, I got it.” Booth nodded his head, and he took off. “See you, Russ.”
**
The phone rang in the middle of the night. Russ reached across Amy to pick it up. “Brennan residence, this is Russ.”
“Russ?” The voice on the other end was broken. “It's Tempe.”
He sat bolt upright and flipped on the light. “What's wrong, Temp?”
“Booth. He's... he's sick.”
“How sick?”
“He had a brain tumor. They went in and removed it in surgery and now... now he's not waking up.”
Like a hammer to his heart, the sounds of his sister's sobs came over the line. “Tempe, hold on. I'm going to be there, okay? I'm going to be right there.”
“No, I shouldn't have called, this is stupid, I...”
“You absolutely should have called. You give the phone to your friend Angela. I'm going to have her give me the details. I'll be there as soon as I can.”
He hopped a flight, maxing out his credit card but this was his little sister's heart that was breaking. This was her shield falling from her side. He rushed through the hospital doors and she stood up, flying to his arms like she had so long ago at the baseball field.
“It's okay, Tempe. It's okay.” He rocked her back and forth and she clung to his neck. All around her, her friends and coworkers looked more than a little shocked. He knew his sister hadn't let herself break until just now. “Tell me what you learned.”
She pulled back a little, shocked. “What?”
“You've done your research. Tell me exactly what's going on.”
Slowly, the fog lifted from her eyes and she nodded.
**
“You know, I was thinking about having a baby once.” Tempe's voice over the phone, first thing in the morning. They did this sometimes, now. Just to make sure they stayed in touch. Her hours were erratic at best and he was working two jobs to try and keep things afloat. It was difficult to really be there for each other.
“Good morning to you too,” Russ said with a smile on his face. Then the words sank in. “Baby? With who?”
“Booth,” she answered honestly. “He'd agreed to be a donor but... then he was in the hospital and I haven't brought it up. Now things are...”
“What happened?”
“Booth wanted me to.... he thought maybe we should...” Tempe sighed over the phone. “Sweets convinced Booth that he should... Well, never mind. It's private.”
“You should have gone for it.” Russ poured his coffee straight into a mug. “Booth's a stand-up man, Tempe.”
She laughed. “Is that all I need in a man, then? That's sexist.”
“He's a stand-up man who needs you and loves you, by the way.”
“Love is transitory.”
“Bullshit.” Russ shot a glare at his giggling stepdaughters and put a finger over his mouth. “I've loved you for your whole life, Tempe. That's hardly transitory.”
“You are genetically coded to love me, not to mention the societal constructs which force a sense of loyalty and...”
“Tempe. You are so smart, and so funny, and so generous, and so giving. I don't just love you because you're my sister. I love you because you're you.”
There was a pause on the end of the other line so long that Russ almost asked if he'd lost her.
“I... well, thank you. I love you because you're you, too.”
“Yeah, Temp. I know.” Russ sighed. “Go talk to Booth. Give it a shot.”
“I don't understand how...”
“Have him show you. When has he ever let you down when you tell him you don't understand?”
“There's another woman.”
Russ let a raspberry escape his lips. “And you're still dating that other FBI guy, right?”
“From time to time. Andrew is very amusing.”
“Yeah.” Russ rolled his eyes at the girls theatrically. They burst into a fresh round of laughter. “Stop wasting time, Temperance. Grab your happiness with both hands.”
“You should write motivational posters for a living.”
“Do they let ex-cons do that?”
“Yes.” She said it simply and just let it hang in the air. “Thank you, Russ.”
“You're welcome. I love you, you little snot.”
“I love you too.”
“Marco.”
“Polo.”
Author: ladychi
Characters/Pairings: Booth/Brennan, Russ Brennan, Angela
Rating: All Ages
Spoilers: For 5x16 "The Parts in the Sum of the Whole", as well as the rest of Season 5.
Summary: Russ Brennan has always loved his sister. Even when she doesn't understand.
Love Is Not Transitory
Russ knew the instant she arrived.
She had a weird way about her, his sister. Stronger than steel but somehow too precious to handle, she met the world with fierce intelligence, daring it to stupefy her. Nothing did. Not physics. Not his baseball stats, not calculus, not the collected works of Rudyard Kipling. He loved that about her.
There were things, though, that Tempe just didn't get. And, as he swung the bat and it smacked satisfyingly against the leather of the ball, he knew that she had once again met something she didn't understand.
She stood at the edge of the field, her arms crossed over her chest, watching him with ice blue eyes that absorbed everything. When he dropped the bat and walked over to her, she uncrossed her arms and looked up at him with tears in her eyes.
“Hey, Tempe, what's wrong?”
She didn't speak, just launched herself into his arms. The other guys on the team started jeering, but Russ wrapped an arm around her and shouted over his shoulder. “Hey, shut the hell up, all right?” He turned his attention back to his sister. “What's going on, Tempe? Tell me, so I can help.”
“I - I don't understand,” she said in a broken voice. “Nobody likes me and I try so hard, but...”
“Tempe.” He pushed her away just enough that he would wipe her tears with his thumb. “You're just a little bit different, that's all.”
“It is very upsetting,” she said in that disconcerting way she had, “not to be accepted by my peers.”
“Nobody's accepted in middle school, Tempe. That's the way it goes.”
“Andy Fluger says that I'm creepy.”
“Andy Fluger deserves to have the crap beat out of him,” Russ said instantly, unwaveringly loyal. “I'll take care of that tomorrow.”
Tempe laughed. “Russ! No.”
“You're not creepy. He just doesn't know you.” Russ bent down and picked up his glove, swung the bat over his shoulder. “What were you talking about, anyway?”
“He asked what I was working on. I said I was doing an independent research project on the bones in the body, that's all.”
Russ started walking them back towards the house, his friends forgotten. “You learn anything cool?”
“Yeah.” Tempe's face brightened from the inside out, and Russ felt a surge of pride at how beautiful she was. He listened contentedly until they reached the house.
**
The phone rang shrilly and disrupted the quiet of Brennan's apartment. Angela put down the glass of wine and hollered down the corridor. “Do you want me to answer that, sweetie?”
There was no answer and so, with a shrug of her shoulders, Angela picked up the phone. “Dr. Temperance Brennan's residence.”
A moment of silence on the other end of the line and then, “Is Tempe available?”
“No, not at this moment. Do you want me to take a message?”
The man on the other line sighed. Angela could see him in her mind's eye, rubbing at his eyes to somehow relieve he pressure. “No, she won't... she won't take a message from me, anyway.”
“Who are you? Are you someone creepy? Because I have to tell you, Bren's a pretty scary gal, and if you're following her around she's likely to break your arm or something.”
The man laughed. “Yeah, I know all that. This is Russ. I'm... her brother.”
“Her brother? Are you sure you don't want me to take a message? I mean, she told me she hasn't got any family, so....”
“It's complicated. Listen, quick, before she comes back. Just tell me. How is she?”
“Brennan? Oh, she's fine. Extremely pissed off at one gorgeous FBI agent at the moment, but fine otherwise.”
“Her health is good and everything? I heard she's been out of the country a lot recently.”
“Just some jaunts down to Guatemala but Bren can take care of herself.”
“Oh. That's... that's good. Okay. I'm going to hang up now. Tell her I called, okay? And tell her happy birthday.”
“It's Brennan's birthday?”
“Yeah. Give her a hug for me, okay?”
“Yeah, okay.”
Angela put down the phone and raised her eyes. There, standing at the doorway, was Brennan. Her eyes were filled with tears, but she swallowed. “Was that Russ?”
“Yeah. He said to tell you hello. He wanted to know how you are.”
“He doesn't deserve to know,” Temperance said, evenly. She shrugged off the emotion as easily as Angela would have discarded a cardigan. Her spidey sense went off.
“Brennan, what happened?”
“Russ called. You answered the phone. I inquired who it was... end of discussion.”
“No, Sweetie. No it's not.” Angela reached for the bottle of red wine and refilled her glass and Brennan's, gesturing towards a couch. “Tell me what's going on here. I can see that it bothers you.”
“It's an old wound. Logically speaking, it should have... scarred over by now,” Brennan said, but she took the glass of wine anyway.
“Not if you keep pouring salt in it, it doesn't. You've got to draw the poison from the wound. Suck it right out and spit it on the ground, Bren.” Amused, Brennan's mouth lifted a little in a smile. “Ah, there you go,” Angela said, pleased. “Now. Tell me.”
“When my parents disappeared...”
“Whoa. Wait. Disappeared?”
“Yes. Disappeared. No one knows what happened to them.” Brennan was very calm. “They found the car but never... never anything else.” She took a deep swallow of the wine in front of her.
“Is that why you do this?”
“Do what, exactly?”
“Stare at corpses all day? To try and... atone somehow?”
“I don't put any stock in psychology. My interest in science was cultivated long before my parents disappeared.”
“Uh huh, I see.” Angela sat back. “What's up with Russ, then?”
“He was nineteen at the time. I was fifteen. He could have taken me in... taken care of me. They would have let him. But he... he just took off. That's what happened. He took off and he left me alone and now he doesn't get to know what I'm doing or where I'm going or how I'm doing. Because he took off.”
Angela reached across the sofa and grabbed Brennan's hand, squeezing it. “All right, Sweetie. Next time he calls, I'll tell him to go to hell.”
Brennan smiled weakly and put the wine down. “Did you want to hit the bars tonight?”
“Nah.” Angela let down her hair from the very elaborate hairstyle she'd spent hours on. “Let's just hang out here. We can watch one of those man-hating Lifetime movies and drink too much wine.”
The look Brennan gave her clearly communicated relief.
**
“Booth?”
He turned, flipping the poker chip, the sound of the carnival in the background. “Yeah, Russ?”
“I'll come up there. I'll help. I just have to know.... are you...” He coughed and looked up at the sky. “Listen, I know it might not sound believable, but I love Tempe like no one else in the whole world, all right? And I have to know that you're taking care of her.”
Booth recognized immediately the plea of the older brother, and his shoulders sagged. “Yeah, I'm doing my best.”
“It's just... she doesn't get it, sometimes.”
“Temperance is the smartest woman I know,” Booth countered.
“Yeah, she is. But it's not that she's bad with people, you know? She loves people. She loves more than... more than anyone I know. But she's always on the outside looking in cause something's just not... hooked up properly. She can't understand, sometimes.”
Booth stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels, refusing to look Russ in the eye. They were both evasive. Conversations this honest couldn't be had with eye contact. “She'll get it figured out.”
“But she won't, really.” Russ opened the gate and took a couple of steps towards Booth. “She'll get better, yeah. If you help her out and point out things for her so she can see, but... she's never just going to instinctively know, the way that you know.”
“Know what?”
“Know jealousy. Love. Anger. Hurt. She can't... classify those things as immediately as you can. She doesn't know how to handle those things.”
“Listen, pal, it's been a while since you've been around Temperance, so I'm just gonna...”
“Booth. She's my sister. I just want you to promise me that you'll keep an eye out for her. That... you'll just... help. She doesn't come to me anymore when she doesn't understand. I think she had a lot of years when she didn't have anybody to help. I think she's starting to do that with you and I think...” Russ shrugged. “I just want you to know.”
“Yeah, I got it.” Booth nodded his head, and he took off. “See you, Russ.”
**
The phone rang in the middle of the night. Russ reached across Amy to pick it up. “Brennan residence, this is Russ.”
“Russ?” The voice on the other end was broken. “It's Tempe.”
He sat bolt upright and flipped on the light. “What's wrong, Temp?”
“Booth. He's... he's sick.”
“How sick?”
“He had a brain tumor. They went in and removed it in surgery and now... now he's not waking up.”
Like a hammer to his heart, the sounds of his sister's sobs came over the line. “Tempe, hold on. I'm going to be there, okay? I'm going to be right there.”
“No, I shouldn't have called, this is stupid, I...”
“You absolutely should have called. You give the phone to your friend Angela. I'm going to have her give me the details. I'll be there as soon as I can.”
He hopped a flight, maxing out his credit card but this was his little sister's heart that was breaking. This was her shield falling from her side. He rushed through the hospital doors and she stood up, flying to his arms like she had so long ago at the baseball field.
“It's okay, Tempe. It's okay.” He rocked her back and forth and she clung to his neck. All around her, her friends and coworkers looked more than a little shocked. He knew his sister hadn't let herself break until just now. “Tell me what you learned.”
She pulled back a little, shocked. “What?”
“You've done your research. Tell me exactly what's going on.”
Slowly, the fog lifted from her eyes and she nodded.
**
“You know, I was thinking about having a baby once.” Tempe's voice over the phone, first thing in the morning. They did this sometimes, now. Just to make sure they stayed in touch. Her hours were erratic at best and he was working two jobs to try and keep things afloat. It was difficult to really be there for each other.
“Good morning to you too,” Russ said with a smile on his face. Then the words sank in. “Baby? With who?”
“Booth,” she answered honestly. “He'd agreed to be a donor but... then he was in the hospital and I haven't brought it up. Now things are...”
“What happened?”
“Booth wanted me to.... he thought maybe we should...” Tempe sighed over the phone. “Sweets convinced Booth that he should... Well, never mind. It's private.”
“You should have gone for it.” Russ poured his coffee straight into a mug. “Booth's a stand-up man, Tempe.”
She laughed. “Is that all I need in a man, then? That's sexist.”
“He's a stand-up man who needs you and loves you, by the way.”
“Love is transitory.”
“Bullshit.” Russ shot a glare at his giggling stepdaughters and put a finger over his mouth. “I've loved you for your whole life, Tempe. That's hardly transitory.”
“You are genetically coded to love me, not to mention the societal constructs which force a sense of loyalty and...”
“Tempe. You are so smart, and so funny, and so generous, and so giving. I don't just love you because you're my sister. I love you because you're you.”
There was a pause on the end of the other line so long that Russ almost asked if he'd lost her.
“I... well, thank you. I love you because you're you, too.”
“Yeah, Temp. I know.” Russ sighed. “Go talk to Booth. Give it a shot.”
“I don't understand how...”
“Have him show you. When has he ever let you down when you tell him you don't understand?”
“There's another woman.”
Russ let a raspberry escape his lips. “And you're still dating that other FBI guy, right?”
“From time to time. Andrew is very amusing.”
“Yeah.” Russ rolled his eyes at the girls theatrically. They burst into a fresh round of laughter. “Stop wasting time, Temperance. Grab your happiness with both hands.”
“You should write motivational posters for a living.”
“Do they let ex-cons do that?”
“Yes.” She said it simply and just let it hang in the air. “Thank you, Russ.”
“You're welcome. I love you, you little snot.”
“I love you too.”
“Marco.”
“Polo.”