Bones Fanfic: Stuck In A Moment (20/27)
Title: Stuck In A Moment
Author: biba79
Disclaimer: Characters aren’t mine, they belong to Hart Hanson.
Pairings/Characters: Booth/Brennan
Rating: T
Summary: An event tests Booth and Brennan's relationship. Booth kept telling himself that it would take time, and he needed to be patient. Will they be able to get through it? Future Fic! B/B!
Word Count: 2,937
Spoiler: None
Preview Chapters: One - Two - Three - Four - Five - Six - Seven - Eight - Nine - Ten - Eleven - Twelve - Thirteen - Fourteen - Fifteen - Sixteen - Seventeen - Eighteen - Nineteen
A/N: Woah. The reviews for the last chapter were incredible; you guys have no idea how shocked I was. Thank you so much. You guys are freaking awesome.
How awesome was Thursday’s episode? I’m still hyper because of it.
Song “This Is How It Goes” by Aimee Mann
This is how it goes
One more failure to connect
With so many how could I object
And you, what on earth did you expect
Well I can't tell you baby
When this is how it goes
Chapter 20
It had been a week since that night, since he had seen Emma last. Booth had been reeling back and forth with his feelings. He was tempted again and again to go for what he knew was safe; he was drawn to her, her spirit and her inner beauty. But he couldn’t stop thinking about Brennan and the radiance of her soul, he knew her soul and her heart, and he couldn’t turn his back on her, from his soul mate, his lifetime partner. If there was a chance that she would ever come back to him, he would take it. But he was frightened; he didn’t know what the battle would entail and his reserves were low. He didn’t know if he could keep them both above water if he tried.
Booth had Cooper with him for the weekend, and he was not focusing where he should. ‘Think of Parker and Cooper, they will give you what you need to fight.’ Emma’s words came back to him, and he knew if anyone or anything would give him a reason to want to fight, it would be his sons.
He watched for a moment as Cooper threw down his legos, a huge pout on his face and a single angry tear running down his cheek.
“Hey bud, I’m sorry that Daddy had his mind on some other things, I didn’t mean to ignore you. Are you upset about something?” Booth looked deeply into the mirror of his eyes.
“I miss Jake, Mike… and Nick. We were making some spaceships with legos and it’s been so long, I bet that they finished without me.”
“You don’t see any of them?” Booth felt alarmed. “Didn’t you go to a sleepover with Nick a few weeks ago?” Booth thought for sure that had to be a reason that Cooper didn’t come to him on his usual Friday.
“No, Daddy. The only time I see anyone is when you come and we go out, and that one time at Auntie Ange’s house.”
“I’m sorry, Cooper. I think your Mom is tired and it’s hard for her to have a lot of company right now. Things will get better, I promise.”
“Daddy?”
Booth nodded listening to his doubtful voice.
“I want you at home, will you ever come home?” Cooper’s eyes pleaded for that, it was his dearest dream.
“I hope that I can.” Booth wouldn’t give him false hopes. “Cooper, even if I don’t, I promise you will have all the fun you used to, just like before.”
“It used to be so much fun when we went to the beach all the time. We never have picnics anymore, or go to the zoo or splash in the puddles when it rains. I want you to come home, Daddy.” Cooper’s stubborn little voice made it an order, and not a request.
“I want to Coop, I really do.” Booth felt like crying. He wanted to, more than his son would ever know. “I just can’t yet.”
“All Mommy does now is paint.” His sorry little face was so pitiful, Booth felt the double entendre rising as he heard this again.
“Well, I heard that Mommy likes to paint now, and it has been helping her, Buddy.”
“No!” Cooper denied it vehemently.
“Why do you say that, Cooper; I’m sure that Mommy paints beautiful pictures.”
“Ugly and scary, I hate them.” Cooper grumbled.
“I don’t understand… why do they scare you?”
“Monsters.” Cooper’s eyes were big as saucers. Booth’s arms opened as the little boy fell against his chest.
“Monsters?” Booth was still at a loss.
“When I go to bed at night, the nights you don’t come, she goes in there and she paints. I wanted to ask her something and I went in there, and I saw them, Daddy. They look mean, I don’t like them.” Cooper rubbed his eyes hard trying not to cry.
Booth felt Cooper tug at him tighter. Cooper had always had the monster under the bed fear. But this seemed to be very real to him.
“I’ll talk to Mommy about the paintings. Cooper, I’m sure that she would never want to scare you. She loves you.”
“I love her too.” He stifled a sob.
Booth closed his eyes. Fight! He would fight one last time, he would get out the armor and he would battle for his son, but if she rejected him again, he would be done. But she was going to hate him, because his son wasn’t going to grow up afraid and alone. He would do whatever he had to save his son, no matter what it did to her. Brennan in her right mind would never want to hurt their son; but she wasn’t well, and Booth wouldn’t allow him to stay in the seclusion that she was enforcing on him.
X-X-X-X-X-X
Booth was pacing in his office. He knew that he felt like a caged animal today, and he wasn’t surprised when Cam walked in.
“What’s going on, Booth?” She asked never one to shirk the issue.
“I’m not sure…” Booth confessed looking up guiltily.
“What’s going on?” Cam asked again. She read his body language and somehow his mind. “Oh no, I told you to be careful.”
“Cam, how do you always know before I even tell you anything?”
“You are a man, aren’t you? What happened?” The weary voice did nothing to calm his nerves.
“It’s complicated.”
“I don’t think it is, Booth. You have a wife. Please, don’t tell me you slept with her.” Cam cringed.
“No! Oh God, no! I would never… you know that I wouldn’t.”
“Then what’s eating you? Something’s up.”
“Emma and I…” Booth wouldn’t put this on Emma alone; he had to be as honest as he could. “She’s important to be, Cam.”
“How important?” Cam asked softly.
“More than I thought anyone ever could be, after Bones of course.” Booth confessed.
Cam slapped him in his right arm. He could almost see the steam coming from Cam’s ears. And he sure as hell could feel her fury.
“Hey, you said you wouldn’t blame me.” He was like a pouting kid rubbing his injured arm.
“Well, I lied. Damn it, Booth. What did you do? And don’t you blame this on me saying that I wouldn’t blame you.” She slapped him again. “I blame you. I warned you.”
“I know, I know.” Booth tried to sidestep a third arm whacking.
“So, Emma has feelings too?” Cam’s eyes closed. What in the hell did she expect? Brennan was like a zombie and Emma knew Booth’s pain and she was alone too. What else would happen? She felt for him and she wanted to throttle him all at the same time.
“Yes, she’s… she knows that she shouldn’t, and I know that I shouldn’t… we both know, okay? You can’t slap me any harder than I have slapped myself.”
“Do you want to bet?” Cam threw up her hands. “Booth.”
“Don’t, please. I need to talk to someone and I need you to listen. Please, Cam?”
“Okay, Okay. I’m listening.” She knew that he had gone through hell and back lately and her soft side wanted to tell him go for it, but her mother-knows-better side couldn’t.
“I didn’t know that it was even happening, and neither did she, honestly.” He shook his head. “I love Bones, I really do. But she’s not here, she’s living in some zone I’m not allowed into, she has made grief her life, and… and she doesn’t want me there to share it. If she did, I would probably do it, even if it meant being half dead forever, I would do it.” Booth knew that he would with one little inkling that Brennan cared, he would be there for her.
“Then if you feel that way…?”
“I don’t want to anymore, Cam. I have had so much pain in my life, and ironically it was Bones who walked me out of it, held my hand and took me all the way to a place where I thought I would be forever happy…”
“But…?” Cam swallowed back the tears.
“But now, I don’t even know who she is anymore, and she doesn’t want me to know her, and that hurts more than you can imagine, it hurts.”
“I know, but Booth, you are in pain already, what you are thinking of doing will only…”
“I know. I know that now I have Emma, so vulnerable already, and I’m going to hurt her if I… but she wants me too…?
“She wants you to what?” Cam could only imagine.
“She wants me to fight for my wife. That’s how much she loves me, Cam. That’s why I know I could love her. I think that I already do in a way.” Booth’s voice faded as he admitted for the first time the truth out loud.
“Oh my God, Booth…”
“I know… it’s so unbelievable. Everything that’s happening is unbelievable.”
“Booth, are you sure?”
“Yeah… we kissed. It wasn’t what you think. It came out of my grief for Liz, and Bones. I’m mourning my wife, and she’s not even dead, Cam.”
“I know Booth, I know.”
He bowed his head. “I felt like I was dead too, but Emma has a way of making me feel like it’s okay to be here.”
“Oh Booth, of course it’s okay. I wish you would talk to me. But she told you to fight for Brennan, even though she’s in love with you?” Cam asked surprised.
“Bones and I… it’s possible that it’s truly over, and that we will never be able to go back, I have to face that fact Cam.”
“I wish…”
“I know what everyone wishes. I know what everyone expects… I know that I’m being selfish to think that I could be happy again someday… without Bones by my side. And I don’t even want to admit that to myself in some ways, but I know I feel things for Emma that just won’t go away because you want them to or you need them to. She’s in love with me, but it’s way more than that, Cam.”
“Oh Booth…” Cam’s heart was breaking for him.
“When I’m with her, I forget… I don’t have to forget Liz, because she loves it when I talk about her, she encourages me to have those memories. Bones just doesn’t understand.”
“Booth, your love for Brennan… it’s always been there, how can it not be there now?”
“It’s not gone, but I think it has changed. I mean, I can’t love someone who won’t let me, not the way that I need to love…”
“And you love Emma as much as you loved Brennan in the beginning?”
“It’s… you know that I would never love that way again, Bones was the first really true love of my life. I had never loved anyone the way I loved her, and I will always treasure that, what we had…”
“It’s not over yet. Booth, you can’t love Emma that way either. I know that you want to, but how can you…?”
“Because she understands me, she knows what my family means to me… and because she loves me, Cam. If I had any doubt, she never fails to take them away. You know, the way Bones used to do. She makes me feel again. Cam, I need to feel again. My son needs me to feel again. I can’t be in this hell anymore. I can’t stay here waiting for the rest of my life…. For something that may never happen, and then let Emma go…”
“Booth, think about it. You go off with Emma, and at some point, Brennan realizes that you have gone away from her forever and she knows she had made a horrible mistake, then what happens to her? I know you still care about her. How could you do this and not even try? Emma is right, you need to fight. I know up until now you were too worn out to try, but Emma is right.”
“You aren’t angry at her?”
“Angry at a woman who reaches out to you and makes you care about something again? Angry at a woman that tells you, in spite of her feelings, that you need to try at least to get your family back. No. My heart hurts for her, because I can only imagine her grief and then loving you when she knows you are taken. I can only imagine what she’s going through.” Cam’s brown eyes flash into Booth’s.
“I wouldn’t hurt her for anything... except…”
“Except for Brennan…” Cam filled in the inevitable blank.
“Yes…. Bones. Not the ghost she has become.”
“You are the only one who can get her back, Booth, we have all been praying you would see it, and hoping she would let you bring her back.”
Booth knew the answer; he knew it before Cam walked in. He knew it as he was promising Emma to come back to her, he knew it now too.
“I have to try.”
“Yes, you do, Booth.”
“I promised Emma that if it didn’t work out…”
“Oh Booth.”
“I couldn’t say no to her… I didn’t want to. I know that I shouldn’t have made her any promises because if I do this and it doesn’t work, going back to Emma after wouldn’t be fair to her, she would have to pick up the pieces all over again. I don’t know if even she could.” Booth admitted the heartache would be too deep; he would have to face a loss he wasn’t prepared to admit to or to fathom.
“You made her a promise, but how can you do that and fight this fight with everything in you, when there’s going to be a part of you that wants to back out and go back to Emma? It’s not a fair fight that way, Booth. You know that it’s not. And Brennan needs it to be, more than anything else in the world, she needs you to be there, totally and completely.”
Booth closed his eyes facing the truth that he knew inside.
“Booth, just see how it goes, don’t put pressure on yourself to be anything more than you are, you always do that, and you think that we expect more or that we are disappointed, but you are the one who expects more, you are always the one who thinks that you are not good enough. But you are, and Emma sees that, and Brennan knows it deep inside. Go to your wife, and don’t put expectations on yourself. Emma will be there, if she truly loves you no matter how many pieces you crack into, she will be there, isn’t that what she said?”
“Yes… it’s exactly what she said.” Booth’s eyes implored Cam to understand.
“But you can’t promise you will fall back on her, it’s not fair to her either. She needs you to know that you are not coming back for any reason but that you love her, and only her.”
“I guess, but I can’t say that yet.”
“No, you can’t. And if you can someday, then I will understand. We will all understand, and Emma obviously loves you enough to understand too.”
“I know that you are right. I think that’s what I have been so upset about... knowing that I could retreat from Bones at any time, and be safe. I don’t want to be that selfish. Bones needs me… to do this with my heart totally on the line.”
“Yes, she does. She will know if it’s not and you won’t reach her Booth, you know that you won’t.”
“I know.” Booth felt wasted already. How was he going to get through this?
“I’m with Emma. Fight hard, one last time. Booth, you would never be truly happy if you don’t try.”
“And what do I do with these feelings I have for Emma? What does she do with the love that she has for me?” Booth was inconsolable about hurting Emma.
“She’s a survivor, Booth; and so are you.”
“Surviving, is that what it’s called now?”
Cam felt his desire for life to be more. She couldn’t help but wonder if he had more with Emma, maybe he and Brennan had run their course. And if that was so, and Emma did make him happy the way that he deserved to be happy for so long, then she would stop trying to fight for his marriage and let him do what made him happy. God knew it was time. If he couldn’t bring Brennan back out of her shell, no one would ever. And that was too scary of a thought to entertain.
“Okay. I will fight.”
A/N: Thank you again. So, what did you guys think of the conversation Booth had with Cooper and Cam? We are almost to the end of this fic (6 more chapters and 1 epilogue), which makes me sad. More coming soon, I promise. Please, let me know what you thought.