Seeley watched as Jack spoke. Watched Jack's eyes slide away from meeting his. Watched Jack's lips close tightly after each word, after each sentence. Despite the nice stretch at the end of Jack's little speech ... Booth was not convinced. In point of fact, he was even more curious.
Jack wasn't lying. Not at all. But he was stretching the facts a bit. Talking without communicating. Blowing dust all over what he was really doing here this late. Alone.
Seeley met Jack's minor subterfuge with an easy smile and a shift of his hip. He pushed some papers around with the tip of two fingers, scanning the contents while he chewed on his bottom lip.
"Sure. Lots of things. Should be packing. Should be opening a Bud and sitting down to a game in the quiet of my own house without this fucking suit and jacket and tie. Should be doing, could be doing. But I'm not. I'm here. With you. Wondering just what the hell you're doing working on a case that has already been closed by your bosses."
One of Seeley's fingers inched out a photograph from a pale yellow manila file. A garden. A tall hedge that formed the corner of a maze. Some affectation of the absurdly rich, Booth smiled gently. He tapped the frozen color on paper.
"You know this house. You know these grounds. I know that." Seeley's eyes flickered over to meet and hold Jack's. Hold them still. His finger tippy-tapped over the gruesome image of the decomposed corpse.
He can’t control the chuckle, or the irritation gnawing at the base of his skull. If he didn’t like Booth, didn’t know he was a good egg, Jack would have blown him off with a few compound-complex sentences.
He’d tried that when they first met, and didn’t like himself much for it. Especially not once he realized that Booth actually listened to him; when he’d found himself standing at the foot of Booth's hospital bed without a plausible reason other than true, real personal interest, he stopped treating him like a mindless tool and started treating him like an equal.
A friend.
Jack watched him push the shot of Lucillle’s corpse out of the case file and looked away.
“Yeah. She’s a friend. Was a good friend.” For all his angry talking to himself, Jack has trouble forming the words to explain who she is, why she is, why he. . .
Pushing Booth’s hand away, Jack tucked the macabre reminder beneath the prelims and looked up.
“Lucille worked for my family,” he explained, taking the plunge. “She came to work for us when I was sixteen. Two days ago her remains came in, courtesy of a private client who requested an independent identification. We ID’ed her, Cam and Brennan agreed that the cause of death was acute myocardial infarction, and this morning Cam declared the case closed.”
Jack paused, aware of staring too hard into Booth’s face, as if he could magically produce an answer, or an anesthetic.
“She has a family history of heart trouble. But I know she didn’t just die, Booth. There’s a hedge maze on the property, and that’s where she was … where they found her.” Speaking of her in the past tense rips him open, slices him for the world to see, and it’s enough to make him push out of his chair and cross the room, just to fight for some scientific distance.
Hodgins finally speaks and Booth listens. A hundred questions filled his mind by the time Jack got to "She was trying to tell me something." and Seeley did what he always did in this kind of situation. He waited until the question whose answer mattered the most came to him and then he asked it.
Just that one. All by itself.
The one that stood out from Who would want an independent identification and why? What does it matter where she was found? Why does the hedge maze mean anything specific? What do you mean a *good friend*?
Booth pushed past all of that, because if he got the right answer to this question, all the rest would follow.
Jack wasn't ready to answer, but he'd been left without a choice, despite the voice in his head insisting there's always a choice. Always. And if that were true, Jack supposed he was making one.
In the time it took for him to turn and re-establish eye contact, Jack knew his one and only chance to step up and fight the way he always believed he should -- the way he'd fought for faceless strangers with every protest, every back-door investment and donation, every closeted humanitarian effort he'd ever given himself to -- was before him.
Words like dried twigs stuck in his throat, hampering his ability to breathe and swallow and make himself heard.
"She's ... she's trying to tell me who killed her. I know she was murdered, Booth. I don't have proof, but I know. She was found face down, facing east. Toward the ocean."
Jack crossed the floor to the lab table and pulled the photograph of the maze out. Tracing the pattern of the deep green shrubbery, he peered up at Booth.
"We used to meet in the maze and talk. She'd grown up in Haiti during the Duvalier regime and had this amazing life. We'd sit for hours and she'd tell me about her life in Port-Au-Prince, about living under a dictatorship and living in the shadow of the secret police. She's ... she was amazing."
Jack took a shaky breath and sat back down at the table. "I recognize the spot where she was found. It's where we'd go to talk. I may be a conspiracy buff, man, but there's no way I believe that she was just walking through the maze and fucking dropped dead on the spot where we used to meet."
He was wired and tired and agitated, but there was something calming in Booth's presence. For the first time in days, the triple-bound knot in his chest that had been making deep breathing too painful to risk seemed a little less tight.
Despite himself, or perhaps because of just who he was, Booth's curiousity was piqued. If nothing else, this would make interesting dinner conversation and Seeley smiled. He pulled at his already loosened tie and rolled his head, stretched his neck muscles.
"You're not certifiably crazy, no. Come on," Booth reached out, his fingers grazed Jack's shoulder and he tilted his head to the door, toward the parking lot.
"Follow me home. I have dinner waiting and I want to hear more about this ... theory."
Dinner? Jack couldn't remember the last meal he'd actually finished.
Life's priorities had shifted so sharply and so quickly with Lucille's arrival on a stainless steel table -- it had become nearly impossible for him to think about anything else.
It's not a theory.
The rejoinder stayed locked behind Jack's tongue as he stepped away from the desk and reached down for his bag. Angela's words rang through his mind as he slung the messenger bag over his shoulder. "You should take a few days..."
"Wait," he called. "One sec."
With that, he collected another armload of reports and a series of slides. With lead-heavy feet and a heavier heart, he trotted out of the lab behind Booth without looking back.
Booth waited until Jack was standing with him on his doorstep. He slid his key in the door to turn the lock. When the door was open, Booth smiled again, following Jack inside. He slipped off his suit jacket, set his briefcase by the coat closet and turned on a light.
The entire apartment smelled of garlic and onions and beef. Tomatoes and potatoes, carrots and celery. Gravy made with red wine and drippings. A stew that had been simmering all day.
Seeley pointed at the couch and coffee table.
"You can drop your stuff there."
He jerked off his tie, sliding the silk from around his neck and toed off his shoes.
It actually hadn't occurred to Jack that he was going to Booth's place for dinner until he followed him to the door. As he stepped over the threshold and hissenses were filled with the aromas of a home-cooked meal he felt as though he'd woken up from some kind of long, harrowing dream.
And it made him nervous.
Palms wet, stomach gurgling, feet weighted beyond the ability to move, Jack stood in the entryway, suddenly idle and bewildered.
Alice down the fucking rabbit hole, here. Booth is gonna feed me?
The sight of Booth doffing his shoes and making himself comfortable in his own home made Jack profoundly uncomfortable, and he fought the urge to simply turn, offer his regrets, and go. But that wasn't an option, and he knew it. He was about to break bread in a very nice apartment with Seeley Booth in socks, and it was all for Lucille.
It had to be.
Jack put his messenger bag next to the coffee table and shrugged out of his jacket.
"Beer works for me," he said, standing stock still, unwilling to intrude in Booth's personal space. "Do youhave somebody who comes in and cooks for you?"
Now that Seeley had his shoes off, that fucking tie dropped over the back of a chair and his jacket hung on a peg by the door? He was feeling much better. He laughed out loud at Jack's all too apparent nerves and grabbed Jack's hand as he passed by, pulling the smaller man into the kitchen with him.
Booth opened the fridge door and waved his hand.
"Pick out a beer, got a few different kinds and no. I do all my own cooking. Kind of one of those things you either pick up and do well or you live on take out and hot dogs."
Booth tipped the lid back on the crock pot, grabbed a spoon and carefully stirred the stew. It was done. Perfect. Dark and thick and bubbling around the edges. Seeley's stomach growled and he set the spoon on a dish beside the pot, unplugging it and turning back to face Jack.
"Grab me one of those imports, will you? I need to light a fire. Might be the last night of the season for comfort food and a fire under the mantle."
Having literally been pulled out of his stasis, it took Jack a minute to acclimate himself and look around. Less than that for his stomach to rumble and his mouth to water because dinner smelled outrageously good. He hadn't imagined Booth as a man who cooked; he'd just assumed he was the hot dog and take out type. To learn otherwise made him smile.
Booth's fridge was filled with beer and wine and juice, bright vegetables and a covered dish or two of leftovers. Again, not what Jack would have expected -- had he ever given it any thought.
Reaching past the milk and cheese to pull out a pair of Bass ales, Jack wondered how many surprises Booth was keeping under wraps. We can probably go toe-to-toe playing I've Got A Secret, he thought.
Feeling as though he'd been bound, blindfolded and taken for a mystery ride and was at last in a safe place, Jack began to unwind and see his surroundings. The warm and cozy kitchen was not really what he'd expected. Not that he'd ever expected to be in Booth's apartment, much less be having dinner with him in it.
The spotless tile floor sparkled beneath his work shoes, and the realization that he should have taken them off at the door drove his ruminations about being alone with Seeley into the background.
Beers in hand, he returned to the living room and set them on the coffee table. He bent down and stretched out the ache in the small of his back as he unlaced and removed his shoes.
"It's a good night for brew and chew," he said, taking a long pull of his beer. He didn't mean to say anything else, didn't want to, but as he sat on the sofa the words dropped from his mouth as if he couldn't keep them in. "I hadn't heard from her at Christmas but I didn't think that much about it because I didn't get my mail returned, you know? And I should have. She loved Christmas."
Seeley got the fire going, matches to newspaper under the last of his winter wood. He made sure the flue was open and pulled the wire mesh over the opening than stood up.
"I love Christmas too, but I'm guilty of not returning every card I get. Sometimes."
Booth put his feet up on the perfectly shined mahogany coffee table. He popped the cap of his beer and tipped the neck up as he drank.
Jack wasn't lying. Not at all. But he was stretching the facts a bit. Talking without communicating. Blowing dust all over what he was really doing here this late. Alone.
Seeley met Jack's minor subterfuge with an easy smile and a shift of his hip. He pushed some papers around with the tip of two fingers, scanning the contents while he chewed on his bottom lip.
"Sure. Lots of things. Should be packing. Should be opening a Bud and sitting down to a game in the quiet of my own house without this fucking suit and jacket and tie. Should be doing, could be doing. But I'm not. I'm here. With you. Wondering just what the hell you're doing working on a case that has already been closed by your bosses."
One of Seeley's fingers inched out a photograph from a pale yellow manila file. A garden. A tall hedge that formed the corner of a maze. Some affectation of the absurdly rich, Booth smiled gently. He tapped the frozen color on paper.
"You know this house. You know these grounds. I know that." Seeley's eyes flickered over to meet and hold Jack's. Hold them still. His finger tippy-tapped over the gruesome image of the decomposed corpse.
"Did you know this woman?"
Reply
He’d tried that when they first met, and didn’t like himself much for it. Especially not once he realized that Booth actually listened to him; when he’d found himself standing at the foot of Booth's hospital bed without a plausible reason other than true, real personal interest, he stopped treating him like a mindless tool and started treating him like an equal.
A friend.
Jack watched him push the shot of Lucillle’s corpse out of the case file and looked away.
“Yeah. She’s a friend. Was a good friend.” For all his angry talking to himself, Jack has trouble forming the words to explain who she is, why she is, why he. . .
Pushing Booth’s hand away, Jack tucked the macabre reminder beneath the prelims and looked up.
“Lucille worked for my family,” he explained, taking the plunge. “She came to work for us when I was sixteen. Two days ago her remains came in, courtesy of a private client who requested an independent identification. We ID’ed her, Cam and Brennan agreed that the cause of death was acute myocardial infarction, and this morning Cam declared the case closed.”
Jack paused, aware of staring too hard into Booth’s face, as if he could magically produce an answer, or an anesthetic.
“She has a family history of heart trouble. But I know she didn’t just die, Booth. There’s a hedge maze on the property, and that’s where she was … where they found her.” Speaking of her in the past tense rips him open, slices him for the world to see, and it’s enough to make him push out of his chair and cross the room, just to fight for some scientific distance.
“She was trying to tell me something.”
Reply
Just that one. All by itself.
The one that stood out from Who would want an independent identification and why? What does it matter where she was found? Why does the hedge maze mean anything specific? What do you mean a *good friend*?
Booth pushed past all of that, because if he got the right answer to this question, all the rest would follow.
"What do you think she trying to tell you?"
Reply
In the time it took for him to turn and re-establish eye contact, Jack knew his one and only chance to step up and fight the way he always believed he should -- the way he'd fought for faceless strangers with every protest, every back-door investment and donation, every closeted humanitarian effort he'd ever given himself to -- was before him.
Words like dried twigs stuck in his throat, hampering his ability to breathe and swallow and make himself heard.
"She's ... she's trying to tell me who killed her. I know she was murdered, Booth. I don't have proof, but I know. She was found face down, facing east. Toward the ocean."
Jack crossed the floor to the lab table and pulled the photograph of the maze out. Tracing the pattern of the deep green shrubbery, he peered up at Booth.
"We used to meet in the maze and talk. She'd grown up in Haiti during the Duvalier regime and had this amazing life. We'd sit for hours and she'd tell me about her life in Port-Au-Prince, about living under a dictatorship and living in the shadow of the secret police. She's ... she was amazing."
Jack took a shaky breath and sat back down at the table. "I recognize the spot where she was found. It's where we'd go to talk. I may be a conspiracy buff, man, but there's no way I believe that she was just walking through the maze and fucking dropped dead on the spot where we used to meet."
He was wired and tired and agitated, but there was something calming in Booth's presence. For the first time in days, the triple-bound knot in his chest that had been making deep breathing too painful to risk seemed a little less tight.
"I'm not crazy, man. I'm not."
Reply
"You're not certifiably crazy, no. Come on," Booth reached out, his fingers grazed Jack's shoulder and he tilted his head to the door, toward the parking lot.
"Follow me home. I have dinner waiting and I want to hear more about this ... theory."
Reply
Life's priorities had shifted so sharply and so quickly with Lucille's arrival on a stainless steel table -- it had become nearly impossible for him to think about anything else.
It's not a theory.
The rejoinder stayed locked behind Jack's tongue as he stepped away from the desk and reached down for his bag. Angela's words rang through his mind as he slung the messenger bag over his shoulder. "You should take a few days..."
"Wait," he called. "One sec."
With that, he collected another armload of reports and a series of slides. With lead-heavy feet and a heavier heart, he trotted out of the lab behind Booth without looking back.
Reply
The entire apartment smelled of garlic and onions and beef. Tomatoes and potatoes, carrots and celery. Gravy made with red wine and drippings. A stew that had been simmering all day.
Seeley pointed at the couch and coffee table.
"You can drop your stuff there."
He jerked off his tie, sliding the silk from around his neck and toed off his shoes.
"What do you want to drink?"
Reply
And it made him nervous.
Palms wet, stomach gurgling, feet weighted beyond the ability to move, Jack stood in the entryway, suddenly idle and bewildered.
Alice down the fucking rabbit hole, here. Booth is gonna feed me?
The sight of Booth doffing his shoes and making himself comfortable in his own home made Jack profoundly uncomfortable, and he fought the urge to simply turn, offer his regrets, and go. But that wasn't an option, and he knew it. He was about to break bread in a very nice apartment with Seeley Booth in socks, and it was all for Lucille.
It had to be.
Jack put his messenger bag next to the coffee table and shrugged out of his jacket.
"Beer works for me," he said, standing stock still, unwilling to intrude in Booth's personal space. "Do youhave somebody who comes in and cooks for you?"
Reply
Booth opened the fridge door and waved his hand.
"Pick out a beer, got a few different kinds and no. I do all my own cooking. Kind of one of those things you either pick up and do well or you live on take out and hot dogs."
Booth tipped the lid back on the crock pot, grabbed a spoon and carefully stirred the stew. It was done. Perfect. Dark and thick and bubbling around the edges. Seeley's stomach growled and he set the spoon on a dish beside the pot, unplugging it and turning back to face Jack.
"Grab me one of those imports, will you? I need to light a fire. Might be the last night of the season for comfort food and a fire under the mantle."
Reply
Booth's fridge was filled with beer and wine and juice, bright vegetables and a covered dish or two of leftovers. Again, not what Jack would have expected -- had he ever given it any thought.
Reaching past the milk and cheese to pull out a pair of Bass ales, Jack wondered how many surprises Booth was keeping under wraps. We can probably go toe-to-toe playing I've Got A Secret, he thought.
Feeling as though he'd been bound, blindfolded and taken for a mystery ride and was at last in a safe place, Jack began to unwind and see his surroundings. The warm and cozy kitchen was not really what he'd expected. Not that he'd ever expected to be in Booth's apartment, much less be having dinner with him in it.
The spotless tile floor sparkled beneath his work shoes, and the realization that he should have taken them off at the door drove his ruminations about being alone with Seeley into the background.
Beers in hand, he returned to the living room and set them on the coffee table. He bent down and stretched out the ache in the small of his back as he unlaced and removed his shoes.
"It's a good night for brew and chew," he said, taking a long pull of his beer. He didn't mean to say anything else, didn't want to, but as he sat on the sofa the words dropped from his mouth as if he couldn't keep them in. "I hadn't heard from her at Christmas but I didn't think that much about it because I didn't get my mail returned, you know? And I should have. She loved Christmas."
Reply
"I love Christmas too, but I'm guilty of not returning every card I get. Sometimes."
Booth put his feet up on the perfectly shined mahogany coffee table. He popped the cap of his beer and tipped the neck up as he drank.
"Tell me more, Hodgins. Who was this girl?"
Reply
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