How Did This Happen? 4 Bones Fics!
Title: Bend Until It Breaks
Prompt: From spacekid77: Booth/Brennan - In 'The Man on Death Row', what if Booth had not made the phone call that stayed Howard Epps' execution?
Bend Until it Breaks
It's not something they're proud of.
It's not something they talk about, but they both know -- they both know they bent. Maybe just an inch, but, like oak trees cracked at the base, it's a wound far more subtle and lethal than anyone would know.
Brennan patiently IDs the bodies. Methodically she brushes dirt away from them, catalogs, bags, studies, x-rays, then bags, labels, and sends them home. Home to families that will never get the satisfaction of pointing their finger in Howard Epps' face and saying "You took our daughter from us".
Booth goes to tell the families. It's always Booth. Always in black. Always staid. And she can tell, when he comes back to take her for afternoon pie ("you gotta eat, Bones. Jesus, it's like you're melting away") and they both pick at their food, that they went wrong. They swerved.
They finish with the last girl (Heather Namen. 18 years old. Swim team captain in D.C. on a road trip with her girl friends, got lost on the way back from the club, never seen again), send her home, and Booth invites her over for a night cap.
His apartment's dark, but the Scotch is good. It's the kind of whiskey that burns all the way down until it seeps into veins and warms from the inside out. Brennan's lips are tingling and her head is spinning when Booth finally speaks.
"We fucked up."
She inclines her head. "Yeah."
He considers the whiskey glass in front of him, turning the liquid this way and that. "We fucked up big time, Bones."
"We couldn't be certain at the time that our findings --"
"Bullshit."
She pours another finger of the liquid and stays silent because he is, of course, right.
"I just don't know how I'm going to handle it, Bones."
"Handle what?"
He shrugs. "You're going to think it's stupid."
"Booth."
"I don't know how I'm going to handle seeing those girls when it's all over, you know. At the pearly gates. And telling them that I chose to not let them tell their stories."
"Oh." She does find it stupid, and yet, at the same time, not. Because she is feeling the same way. "I understand. I feel a level of guilt I have not experienced before."
"It sucks." Booth squeezes the glass and it fractures in his hands -- exploding into shards. Brennan exclaims and reaches forward to help him, but he curses and waves her off. "Just... grab the damn bandaids from the bathroom, would ya Bones?"
She does, and then she invades his space, pushes him back to the sink, cleans his wounds and bandages his hand. He laughs. "Sorry, Bones. I'm... I'm a mess."
"This entropy is not good for us."
"What?"
"We cannot allow ourselves to get weighed down by this. We have admitted we made a mistake. We should... forgive ourselves and move on."
Booth hisses as she wraps the gauze particularly tight. "How do we do that?"
"We'll tell the truth from now on. Unflinching. Unswerving." She grabs her hand in his, the undamaged one, and squeezes it.
"You know what I think about when you say stuff like that?"
"What?"
"How blue your eyes are. And I wonder if Scotch tastes as good on you as tequila did."
Brennan reaches up, fingers his hair. "Booth, we can't."
"Nah. You're right. Too many mistakes already this month, right?"
Her heart breaks all over again. Jagged breaks, millions of pieces of something sharp flowing through her bloodstream. He wants her to admit he would be a mistake. That he wouldn't be worth it. She knows no other way to say it. She swallows.
"Right."
**
Title: How High
Prompt: From fourth_rose: Booth/Brennan, Harbingers in the Fountain: What if Booth hadn't added the "atta girl" qualification after telling Brennan that he loved her?
How High
"I love you."
That was it. No qualifiers. No "but you've really got to open up, sweetie". No: "but I'm taking the next flight out". No howevers, buts, ands or ors. Just Booth's mouth and three words.
The world... tilted. Just so. Like it'd been a picture frame at the wrong angle for the longest time and he'd bumped it with his shoulder, putting it back right.
Then her heart started to race in her chest. Something like hope bloomed out of her chest and spread down her fingers and lit her face with a smile. "I am... I love you, too, Booth."
"No, Bones." He took a step forward, framed her face in his large hands, pushed her hair back and invaded her space with everything him. She could smell his cologne, coffee and cigarettes (he must have taken a walk with his agent friend that took a smoke break at ten o'clock every morning). She could see the faint lines on his face, the tilt of his smile. She could feel the calluses on his hands because he liked to build and hammer and fix plumbing on weekends. Booth. Booth here. Booth alive. Booth talking and walking and breathing on his own. Her wonderful mind all filled with Booth. "I love you, okay?"
"I... okay?"
"It's the kind of love where... I couldn't say no to giving you kids because I want you to have my kids. I want coffee in the morning with you, but not at the diner. From our coffeepot. In our kitchen. I want to make love to you. I want to fight with you. I want to worry about you when you're sick and not have to worry about what it looks like to anyone else."
"Booth, I'm no good at..."
"Bullshit, Bones. Look in my eyes, baby." His thumbs brushed across her cheeks. "You are good at everything. You're good at all that squinty stuff, sure, but you're also good at being a friend. You're good at being a sister. And you're going to be the best at being my partner in everything. If you'll just try, baby, I know... Just try."
"Are you asking me..."
"I'm asking you to jump, Bones."
She smiled and took his hand. "How far?"
**
Title: The Writing on the Wall
Prompt: From fourth_rose: Booth/Brennan, The Truth in the Lye: What if Brennan had knocked on Booth's door instead of calling him while he was in bed with Rebecca?
The Writing on the Wall
She smells like sex, and she knows it. Well. Sex and Booth. She's got that deliciously-used feeling between her thighs and her nerve endings are still buzzing. They have their problems, but making it work in the bedroom has never been one of them.
Still, Seeley's in the bathroom when the knocking starts, and so Rebecca adjusts her dress and pads in bare feet to the front door.
"There you are --" a statuesque brunette says. She has startling blue eyes, and her mouth drops open a bit. "You are not Booth."
Rebecca laughs nervously. This is about four kinds of awkward. Booth isn't the type to cheat, so this has got to be a friend or... something. "No, I'm not. Rebecca Stinson." She extends her hand.
"Ah. You are the mother of Booth's son." Rebecca finds her hand being squeezed warmly by the woman. "I'm Dr. Temperance Brennan, Booth's partner at work."
Rebecca finds herself oddly flustered. When Booth speaks of this woman, it's always in this... half-exasperated, half-enamored sort of way. Rebecca's good with people -- something she's always shared with Seeley (they just aren't terribly good with each other, which is another problem all together), and she can tell this woman is going to be a big deal. A big deal in Booth's life means a big deal in Parker's life and so Rebecca smiles and puts on her big girl panties. "He's told me a lot about you."
The woman seems surprised. "Booth does not... I mean, he..."
"Rebecca, who's at the door?" Booth emerges from the bedroom with his jeans unzipped and his shirt undone. "Bones?"
She inclines her head. Like a queen, Rebecca thinks, and the thought makes her want to laugh, but she holds it back. "I'm sorry, Seeley, I just..."
"No, it's okay. Uh... c'mon in, Bones. What's up?"
Bones -- Dr. Brennan... whatever her name is, she shakes the cell phone in the palm of her left hand. "We have a case. Dispatch told me that you didn't answer your phone so I came to make certain that you had not been harmed in some way.
"Oh. Well. I wasn't. So. Uh -- just. Hold on a second, okay? Let me get my gun and, uh... some socks, and then we can rock and roll."
"I can occupy myself while I wait." Dr. Brennan finds a seat in the living room, and, unable to help herself, Rebecca sits next to her.
"So. You, uh -- identify remains for the FBI?"
"Only tangentially. My specialty has to do with identifying remains that have decayed or are damaged beyond recognition. I consult with the FBI."
"Oh." Rebecca smiles thinly. "That's quite a field to get into -- were you always interested in science?"
"My father encouraged an interest in it, yes. And I was an extremely bright child."
Rebecca finds her smile relaxing to something more natural. "Seeley says that you're brilliant."
Brennan inclines her head. There is silence for a moment, and Rebecca can practically see the wheels turning in her head, when she realizes she must say something complimentary in return. "He's a very good agent."
"Yes. Better now than he used to be. He's... a good man."
"Oh?"
"All right, Bones! I'm ready to go. Let's scoot, yeah?" He grabs his jacket and claps his hands impatiently. "We're already running late."
"I'm just going to uh... use the bathroom. I'll lock the door behind me, okay Seeley?" Rebecca's eyes are laughing at Seeley and his mouth thins in irritation.
"Yeah, sure, Becs. C'mon, Bones."
As the door closes she can hear Dr. Brennan. "Becs... Bones... do you refuse to call everyone by their proper name?"
"Jesus, Bones, it's a..."
They fade away. Rebecca smiles sadly as she gathers the last of her things she keeps "just in case" they fall back together at Booth's place. She can see the writing on the wall. This is the last time.
**
Title: Not a Thing
Prompt: From amilyn: What if Angela and Brennan had dated (or been fuck-buddies) for a while after Angela lost Kurt ("Skull in the Desert") and Amy Cullen died ("Graft in the Girl") at the end of S1?
Not a Thing
It's not a thing.
It's not a big thing. It's just -- two friends who are attractive taking comfort in each other. Angela's good at saving her heart from hurt and Brennan can compartmentalize everything, so there's no danger of anyone bleeding out over this.
It's just that it's... it's really damn good.
Brennan's clever at a lot of things, and it turns out activities in the bedroom are one of them. She's got nimble, agile fingers, a persistent mouth, and a sense of timing that... whew.
Angela will catch herself staring at the back of Brennan's neck. The way it's so graceful, slightly curved. The way she carries herself. She is proud, aware of her beauty, confident.
One day -- years from now, when she's packing up to move to Paris, Hodgins will find a painting of a woman -- curved hips and sweet breasts and ice eyes -- done in blues and purples greens and browns, and he'll know. Know what was there.
But for now. For now Angela and Brennan fall into bed, take comfort in the softness, and heal.
Prompt: From spacekid77: Booth/Brennan - In 'The Man on Death Row', what if Booth had not made the phone call that stayed Howard Epps' execution?
Bend Until it Breaks
It's not something they're proud of.
It's not something they talk about, but they both know -- they both know they bent. Maybe just an inch, but, like oak trees cracked at the base, it's a wound far more subtle and lethal than anyone would know.
Brennan patiently IDs the bodies. Methodically she brushes dirt away from them, catalogs, bags, studies, x-rays, then bags, labels, and sends them home. Home to families that will never get the satisfaction of pointing their finger in Howard Epps' face and saying "You took our daughter from us".
Booth goes to tell the families. It's always Booth. Always in black. Always staid. And she can tell, when he comes back to take her for afternoon pie ("you gotta eat, Bones. Jesus, it's like you're melting away") and they both pick at their food, that they went wrong. They swerved.
They finish with the last girl (Heather Namen. 18 years old. Swim team captain in D.C. on a road trip with her girl friends, got lost on the way back from the club, never seen again), send her home, and Booth invites her over for a night cap.
His apartment's dark, but the Scotch is good. It's the kind of whiskey that burns all the way down until it seeps into veins and warms from the inside out. Brennan's lips are tingling and her head is spinning when Booth finally speaks.
"We fucked up."
She inclines her head. "Yeah."
He considers the whiskey glass in front of him, turning the liquid this way and that. "We fucked up big time, Bones."
"We couldn't be certain at the time that our findings --"
"Bullshit."
She pours another finger of the liquid and stays silent because he is, of course, right.
"I just don't know how I'm going to handle it, Bones."
"Handle what?"
He shrugs. "You're going to think it's stupid."
"Booth."
"I don't know how I'm going to handle seeing those girls when it's all over, you know. At the pearly gates. And telling them that I chose to not let them tell their stories."
"Oh." She does find it stupid, and yet, at the same time, not. Because she is feeling the same way. "I understand. I feel a level of guilt I have not experienced before."
"It sucks." Booth squeezes the glass and it fractures in his hands -- exploding into shards. Brennan exclaims and reaches forward to help him, but he curses and waves her off. "Just... grab the damn bandaids from the bathroom, would ya Bones?"
She does, and then she invades his space, pushes him back to the sink, cleans his wounds and bandages his hand. He laughs. "Sorry, Bones. I'm... I'm a mess."
"This entropy is not good for us."
"What?"
"We cannot allow ourselves to get weighed down by this. We have admitted we made a mistake. We should... forgive ourselves and move on."
Booth hisses as she wraps the gauze particularly tight. "How do we do that?"
"We'll tell the truth from now on. Unflinching. Unswerving." She grabs her hand in his, the undamaged one, and squeezes it.
"You know what I think about when you say stuff like that?"
"What?"
"How blue your eyes are. And I wonder if Scotch tastes as good on you as tequila did."
Brennan reaches up, fingers his hair. "Booth, we can't."
"Nah. You're right. Too many mistakes already this month, right?"
Her heart breaks all over again. Jagged breaks, millions of pieces of something sharp flowing through her bloodstream. He wants her to admit he would be a mistake. That he wouldn't be worth it. She knows no other way to say it. She swallows.
"Right."
**
Title: How High
Prompt: From fourth_rose: Booth/Brennan, Harbingers in the Fountain: What if Booth hadn't added the "atta girl" qualification after telling Brennan that he loved her?
How High
"I love you."
That was it. No qualifiers. No "but you've really got to open up, sweetie". No: "but I'm taking the next flight out". No howevers, buts, ands or ors. Just Booth's mouth and three words.
The world... tilted. Just so. Like it'd been a picture frame at the wrong angle for the longest time and he'd bumped it with his shoulder, putting it back right.
Then her heart started to race in her chest. Something like hope bloomed out of her chest and spread down her fingers and lit her face with a smile. "I am... I love you, too, Booth."
"No, Bones." He took a step forward, framed her face in his large hands, pushed her hair back and invaded her space with everything him. She could smell his cologne, coffee and cigarettes (he must have taken a walk with his agent friend that took a smoke break at ten o'clock every morning). She could see the faint lines on his face, the tilt of his smile. She could feel the calluses on his hands because he liked to build and hammer and fix plumbing on weekends. Booth. Booth here. Booth alive. Booth talking and walking and breathing on his own. Her wonderful mind all filled with Booth. "I love you, okay?"
"I... okay?"
"It's the kind of love where... I couldn't say no to giving you kids because I want you to have my kids. I want coffee in the morning with you, but not at the diner. From our coffeepot. In our kitchen. I want to make love to you. I want to fight with you. I want to worry about you when you're sick and not have to worry about what it looks like to anyone else."
"Booth, I'm no good at..."
"Bullshit, Bones. Look in my eyes, baby." His thumbs brushed across her cheeks. "You are good at everything. You're good at all that squinty stuff, sure, but you're also good at being a friend. You're good at being a sister. And you're going to be the best at being my partner in everything. If you'll just try, baby, I know... Just try."
"Are you asking me..."
"I'm asking you to jump, Bones."
She smiled and took his hand. "How far?"
**
Title: The Writing on the Wall
Prompt: From fourth_rose: Booth/Brennan, The Truth in the Lye: What if Brennan had knocked on Booth's door instead of calling him while he was in bed with Rebecca?
The Writing on the Wall
She smells like sex, and she knows it. Well. Sex and Booth. She's got that deliciously-used feeling between her thighs and her nerve endings are still buzzing. They have their problems, but making it work in the bedroom has never been one of them.
Still, Seeley's in the bathroom when the knocking starts, and so Rebecca adjusts her dress and pads in bare feet to the front door.
"There you are --" a statuesque brunette says. She has startling blue eyes, and her mouth drops open a bit. "You are not Booth."
Rebecca laughs nervously. This is about four kinds of awkward. Booth isn't the type to cheat, so this has got to be a friend or... something. "No, I'm not. Rebecca Stinson." She extends her hand.
"Ah. You are the mother of Booth's son." Rebecca finds her hand being squeezed warmly by the woman. "I'm Dr. Temperance Brennan, Booth's partner at work."
Rebecca finds herself oddly flustered. When Booth speaks of this woman, it's always in this... half-exasperated, half-enamored sort of way. Rebecca's good with people -- something she's always shared with Seeley (they just aren't terribly good with each other, which is another problem all together), and she can tell this woman is going to be a big deal. A big deal in Booth's life means a big deal in Parker's life and so Rebecca smiles and puts on her big girl panties. "He's told me a lot about you."
The woman seems surprised. "Booth does not... I mean, he..."
"Rebecca, who's at the door?" Booth emerges from the bedroom with his jeans unzipped and his shirt undone. "Bones?"
She inclines her head. Like a queen, Rebecca thinks, and the thought makes her want to laugh, but she holds it back. "I'm sorry, Seeley, I just..."
"No, it's okay. Uh... c'mon in, Bones. What's up?"
Bones -- Dr. Brennan... whatever her name is, she shakes the cell phone in the palm of her left hand. "We have a case. Dispatch told me that you didn't answer your phone so I came to make certain that you had not been harmed in some way.
"Oh. Well. I wasn't. So. Uh -- just. Hold on a second, okay? Let me get my gun and, uh... some socks, and then we can rock and roll."
"I can occupy myself while I wait." Dr. Brennan finds a seat in the living room, and, unable to help herself, Rebecca sits next to her.
"So. You, uh -- identify remains for the FBI?"
"Only tangentially. My specialty has to do with identifying remains that have decayed or are damaged beyond recognition. I consult with the FBI."
"Oh." Rebecca smiles thinly. "That's quite a field to get into -- were you always interested in science?"
"My father encouraged an interest in it, yes. And I was an extremely bright child."
Rebecca finds her smile relaxing to something more natural. "Seeley says that you're brilliant."
Brennan inclines her head. There is silence for a moment, and Rebecca can practically see the wheels turning in her head, when she realizes she must say something complimentary in return. "He's a very good agent."
"Yes. Better now than he used to be. He's... a good man."
"Oh?"
"All right, Bones! I'm ready to go. Let's scoot, yeah?" He grabs his jacket and claps his hands impatiently. "We're already running late."
"I'm just going to uh... use the bathroom. I'll lock the door behind me, okay Seeley?" Rebecca's eyes are laughing at Seeley and his mouth thins in irritation.
"Yeah, sure, Becs. C'mon, Bones."
As the door closes she can hear Dr. Brennan. "Becs... Bones... do you refuse to call everyone by their proper name?"
"Jesus, Bones, it's a..."
They fade away. Rebecca smiles sadly as she gathers the last of her things she keeps "just in case" they fall back together at Booth's place. She can see the writing on the wall. This is the last time.
**
Title: Not a Thing
Prompt: From amilyn: What if Angela and Brennan had dated (or been fuck-buddies) for a while after Angela lost Kurt ("Skull in the Desert") and Amy Cullen died ("Graft in the Girl") at the end of S1?
Not a Thing
It's not a thing.
It's not a big thing. It's just -- two friends who are attractive taking comfort in each other. Angela's good at saving her heart from hurt and Brennan can compartmentalize everything, so there's no danger of anyone bleeding out over this.
It's just that it's... it's really damn good.
Brennan's clever at a lot of things, and it turns out activities in the bedroom are one of them. She's got nimble, agile fingers, a persistent mouth, and a sense of timing that... whew.
Angela will catch herself staring at the back of Brennan's neck. The way it's so graceful, slightly curved. The way she carries herself. She is proud, aware of her beauty, confident.
One day -- years from now, when she's packing up to move to Paris, Hodgins will find a painting of a woman -- curved hips and sweet breasts and ice eyes -- done in blues and purples greens and browns, and he'll know. Know what was there.
But for now. For now Angela and Brennan fall into bed, take comfort in the softness, and heal.