Look
Title: Look
Author: stablergirl
Fandom: Bones
Rating: K
Pairing: Booth/Brennan
Genre: Angst
Spoilers: All episodes to date.
Summary: They meet at the reflecting pool...
Author's Notes: So I intended for this to be fluff...obviously that didn't happen. Sorry for the angst, I don't know where it came from. Though it takes place at their meeting a year from now by the reflecting pool this isn't real speculation, just a little creative snippet because I miss these two desperately already and hiatus has only just begun. Let me know your thoughts, I'm considering a chapter 2 since this is too depressing otherwise.
When he says it, he says “Look.”
Like this is all something she hadn’t seen before, like she was facing the wrong direction or blinking at exactly the wrong moment.
He says “Look,” and he watches the sidewalk beneath their feet.
In their year of separation, she had thought of a million ways to find the shortest distance between their two points. She had considered things. She had missed him.
Last spring she didn’t think she’d be the one standing here with realizations in her suitcase. She didn’t think she’d be the one biting back ‘it’s so good to see you’ because something about the way he’s fidgeting in front of her just isn’t right. She'd imagined a toothy smile, and she'd imaged happy rushed conversation. But he fidgets and none of this is what she'd imagined it would be.
The sun glints off of the reflecting pool and she blinks at exactly the wrong moment, the way she’s been doing all along, her eyes closed tight when his are wide open, and then hers open, dry, while his close against the glare - his evasive glance belying the words on his lips that say: Look.
“Look,” he tells her, like directions, instructions, an explanation all its own. He says “Look, I was over there on the other side of the world and I was thinking about…what you said, before…and uh…”
She does not tell him he looks good, even though the dry desert heat has smoothed his skin, and even though being a teacher of such serious subjects has slowed his step just slightly, so that she imagines how he might behave on a cloudy Sunday morning. She does not say she’s missed him, even though Daisy eventually had to explain to the other interns who Booth was and why he was always being referenced.
Brennan bites her tongue.
She does not blink.
“I met someone,” he tells her.
She does not breathe.
If she's honest with herself, there's a sinking feeling in the core of her stomach because...she thought so.
Or, she thought…maybe...
That’s ok, she thinks automatically, shrugging her hair over her shoulder - longer now than it had been before. That’s good. He told her he would do this. It’s perfectly normal.
“That’s ok,” she says aloud, and it’s probably the wrong thing. It’s probably giving too much away. She's never been good at handling this sort of situation.
He squints at her. “She’s in Special Ops,” he explains, awkward and unsure, “and she’s…uh…”
Brennan thinks about how expected this is, how good for him, how healthy and human and predictable. How unfortunate, she thinks also, uncontrollably, pulling at her suitcase so it sits a bit closer to her heels. How unfortunate that there are never second chances.
“She’s a nice girl,” he finishes.
And then Brennan says “Look.”
Look, like she’s pointing something out to him that should be obvious, even though later on she’ll claim she didn’t see it. She says “Look, that’s great,” and he watches her carefully, but then he blinks at exactly the wrong moment so that he misses that single instant of almost everything about her.
“Bones,” he tries and she shakes her head and musters something close to a smile and close to a flinch and closer still to a grimace of unutterable etcetera.
This is the worst they've ever done at pretending nothing is between them, and she's painfully aware that it's her fault.
She works hard to recall her former self, her year-ago-demeanor, her behavior before she started to miss him and realize.
She comes up with this: “I have a meeting to get to at the Jeffersonian, but I’m so glad you’re back, safe and sound.” Her hand reaches out and pats him awkwardly on the shoulder. Awkward because, after all, how does one touch without allowing the buzz of chemistry, the push of adrenaline, the blush of discomfort she feels if too many of her nerve endings sense him too close by? This is one of the many enigmas she hasn’t yet solved for herself. Booth frowns down at the spot where her hand had been on his arm, and then he frowns down at the hand itself hanging now beside her pocket, tingling and irritating and stiff at her side. “Tell Parker that um…” she starts, but the words catch somewhere and she has to clear her throat. The words catch somewhere because his stare lands with precision, pinning her, silently pointing out to her the weakness she’s been fighting against since she met him. Pointing out this weakness of hers - this way he makes her feel, feel, feel, constantly and all of the time and on and on. She grits her teeth and blinks, looking away with some effort.
“Bones, come on,” he mutters quietly. Too quietly.
She’d forgotten how fiercely and quickly he makes her feel...just...or she hadn't forgotten at all.
She shakes her head.
“Tell Parker I said hi,” she finishes, cool and concise. “Call me so we can grab coffee soon, ok?” and she’s backing away from him.
“Yeah,” he agrees, hazy, confused. He takes a step toward her. "Wait let me drive you," he suggests.
She shakes her head again, because it's too close for driving and because he's too close, and she tugs at her jacket so it’s buttoned up in front of her and between them, building enough walls to survive him and this nice girl from Special Ops who she’s not supposed to mind.
She’s not supposed to mind - she knows that.
“I’m really glad you’re back,” she admits once there are people passing between them.
He nods.
She exits the scene by turning away from him, and he’s watching her but she’s facing the wrong direction and she doesn’t see.
She doesn’t look back.
She doesn’t look.
She pulls her suitcase of realizations along behind her and she doesn’t look back at him because he told her this would happen. and it seems as if she’s not allowed, now, to fight against it. She was prepared to fight against it, she'd imagined herself fighting, but there's a girl from Special Ops, now, and things aren't what she'd imagined they would be. She's never handled this sort of thing well. Unpredictability. Change.
She's not a jealous person, but on the other side of the world she'd come up with a plan, a straight line, a way to get back to him and reconsider. And now...
He told her this would happen.
Because she is careful and slow. She is science and stone. He is instinct and guts and clay and magic, and he told her he would move on, but she was blinking. She was looking the other way, so in the end, here, now, they are two points driven apart by blindness and the rules of gravity and the glaring misfortune of human nature.
They are two points and there is no short and straight distance, now, instead there is confusion and poor timing, instead there are bad choices and heavy mistakes and missed opportunities and a year's worth of possibilities, and she just pulls them along this winding path of hers that had once been a short and straight distance to his side.
She pushes through the heavy atmosphere, waiting for a straight line to reveal itself.
He stands, waiting for something to change and for her to glance over her shoulder, just once.
But she is careful, she is science and stone, and so she is steady and maintains her focus, pushing so hard against nothing at all, and her eyes begin to water so she blinks.
She blinks.
Look.