Bones Fanfic: Stuck In A Moment (23/27)
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: 2,092
Spoiler: None
Preview Chapters: One - Two - Three - Four - Five - Six - Seven - Eight - Nine - Ten - Eleven - Twelve - Thirteen - Fourteen - Fifteen - Sixteen - Seventeen - Eighteen - Nineteen - Twenty - Twenty-One - Twenty-Two: Part One - Twenty-Two: Party Two
A/N: Thank you all for reading and continuing to support my writing. The reviews for the last chapter were fabulous and I hope that you guys enjoy the final leg of this journey.
I was going to update earlier, but since my computer broke, I couldn’t. But here is the next chapter. I’m also going away for five days and I should update again when I return.
Thanks again for reading and reviewing.
Song “Shelter From The Storm” by Bob Dylan.
I was in another lifetime one of toil and blood
When blackness was a virtue and the road was full of mud
I came in from the wilderness a creature void of form
“Come in” she said
“I’ll give you shelter from the storm”
Chapter 23
He didn’t remember driving. He didn’t even know what time of night it was. He only knew that he had to see her, because he needed to see her to feel like he was not dead again. He knew in some abstract part of him, he was being a selfish bastard, but he didn’t care. The little lost boy in him needed her.
She opened the door knowing that it was him. She couldn’t think of anyone else who would come at two in the morning. She saw that he was trembling and soaking wet.
“I’m sorry,” his voice was a hoarse whisper. “I tried to fight… it didn’t go so well.” His eyes implored for mercy.
She grabbed him by the arm guiding him into the living room. She picked up the blanket from the end of the sofa and covered him trying to take off the chill from his body. She realized the chill wasn’t just from being wet.
“Oh… Seeley… what happened?”
“I told her. I told her everything… I told her…”
“What did you tell her? Tell me, Seeley. What have you been hiding?”
“She hates me, I knew that she would.” Booth looked into Emma’s eyes. “She knows about us too, about the kisses and our feelings. She hates me, she really hates me.”
“Oh my God, why did you tell her about you and I? Seeley, we haven’t…”
“She knew… she saw us that night at the concert… she just didn’t let Cam and Angela know that she saw us.”
“Oh my God, no wonder she hates you…”
“No! I think she hates me more for what I told her…. What I finally had the guts to confess to her.” Booth held the blanket but his body was shivering uncontrollably.
“What is it? Seeley, I promise that I won’t hate you… I won’t.” Emma said it with conviction.
“I don’t think it’s fair of me to be here…” His glazed eyes looked into hers sadly.
“You let me worry about that Seeley. I told you that I’m here for you, no expectations and no conditions. I wouldn’t have wanted you to go anywhere else.”
“I went in there like a wrecking crew, I opened windows, destroyed all her art; her art was so ugly and so dark… that’s where she’s been, in an ugly and dark hell and I tried so hard to get her back. The tub… the water… she was so close, we were so damn close.”
“Seeley…” He was in a trancelike mode, not hearing anything, only seeing what played out between him and Brennan.
“She was almost home, but she let it take her over again. The pain is too much; I told her that she was as good as dead to me….” He sobbed harshly as he mourned her.
“Oh Seeley…”
“I started to leave… but Liz’s room… the door was locked and I kicked it open…. I broke it.” He confessed totally broken himself. “I broke it open, I let in the light… she would never have wanted her room to become a tomb.”
“Of course not…”
“Then she followed me there…. And we had it out. I told her what I did; she looked at me as though I was a monster. I’ve felt like a monster all these months… like a lying, deceiving, and heartless monster.”
“Tell me what you told her, Seeley? Tell me what you have been holding inside for too long?”
He looked at her as though he was just seeing her. His eyes warmed a little as he gazed into hers; the chill over his body had a sudden penetrating heat.
“Ah… Cam warned me to be careful, she told me that I was too lonely and too vulnerable, and I know that I was… and now there’s you and Bones, and she hates me. She’s always going to hate me. You, you love me now, but you are going to hate me too someday?” He sounded so lost and so confused.
“Seeley, Temperance may have said that she hates you, but I know that she doesn’t. As much as you love her, I doubt she could ever hate you.”
“You don’t know that. When I tell you what I did, you might hate me too…”
“I’ll never hate you. Whatever you did, you did for a good reason, I trust you. Tell me, please? Trust me… I’ll still be right here after you do.”
“I never told anyone. I never told her until tonight.”
What Seeley… just say it.”
“I didn’t get to Liz on time.” His face screwed in pain and misery. “I let Bones believe, I let everyone believe that I did…”
“In time?” Emma didn’t understand from his broken words.
“Liz, my little girl died without Bones or me. She died alone, and I never told Bones the truth until tonight.”
“You weren’t there?!” Emma realized what Booth had nearly confessed to her in the car right after their dinner. He just couldn’t bring himself to do it, and now he had told Brennan. She understood so much more about what he had been doing to himself and how horrible this had been for him. “Why, Seeley? Why wouldn’t you tell her right away?” There was no judgment and no harshness. Emma was soft and sweet, as much pain as he and Brennan had gone through, she still remained unscathed.
“Because Bones needed to believe that she wasn’t alone, and I needed Bones to stay whole. I was going to tell her right away but when she found out that she missed Liz’s death, she fell completely apart. It was like watching her die too. Her agony was worse than mine, because of everything we had been through, she couldn’t have handled it then, so I stayed quiet and I let her believe our baby wasn’t alone. But she was, she died alone… Oh God!” He collapsed weeping bitterly. “She was all alone. I tried, but there was so much traffic and the helicopter. I tried so much to get to her, I thought that I would have a heart attack trying to get there, my chest felt like it was exploding and then when I got there, she was already dead.” He was sobbing so hard that Emma had to hold him; she couldn’t not comfort him in a moment like this.
“I lied to Bones on the phone, I told her… I let her believe while she was heading to the hospital on that damned delayed flight that our baby was still alive. I let her believe it all the way home, and I wasn’t even by her side. I lied about all of it. I never felt so helpless in my life. My daughter died without Daddy or Mommy.”
“It’s okay, Seeley. You did everything you could. You loved her. She knew that and she knew that you were coming, both you and Temperance. Seeley, she wasn’t alone, I’m sure an angel like her from heaven came to take her home. I believe that, I believe that they were there for my Ben and Jeff too. She wasn’t alone.” Emma was crying for him, now that she knew what a horrible secret he had had to keep. She also knew that he never got to say goodbye. All this time, she had thought that he had, but he must had been wracked with guilt and sorrow so much that he couldn’t divulge it to anyone. “She’s with the angels now, Seeley. She’s not alone. She will never be alone. She’s always going to have a place here…” her hand rested on his chest.
Booth heard her comforting words, but his heartbreak was too deep to be consoled. He couldn’t get Brennan’s face out of his mind or the final words that she spoke. “She hates me… she said that she was glad Liz… Oh God. I let them all down. She said she will never forgive me, and why should she?”
“Well, she is upset, Seeley. I don’t hate you, and she won’t either once she thinks it through. With the other things about you and I… it was a lot for her to handle all at once. She doesn’t hate you, I’m sure some of her reaction was hurt about us. Oh Seeley, I’m the one that you should hate.”
“I could never hate you, Emma. None of this is your fault, none of it is.”
“I should have been…”
“What were you but kind, sweet, generous and loving…”
“Too loving.” She exclaimed self-condemning.
“Never too loving, perfectly loving.” Seeley was still cold, but Emma’s hands pushing back his hair made him feel a tiny ray of warmth.
“Maybe you should get some rest here, Seeley. We will get you some dry clothing. At least I have some old hunting stuff of Jeff’s, is that okay?”
“No! I don’t want you to have to dig it out, that would be too hard.”
“You’re not going to sleep in wet clothing and I’m okay. Stop worrying about me and just let me take care of you…”
“You still want to care for me?”
“You are so stupid, Seeley; don’t you know me by now?” She laughed sweetly.
“Yes, I’m… totally.” He agreed. “And yes, I know you…”
Soon, he was in surprisingly well fitting jeans and a soft long undershirt. She made him lay down, taking off the soggy socks and covering him with a couple of warm blankets.
“Sleep, Seeley. Rest and everything will look better tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow Bones will still hate me.”
“Things change, you don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do. She will never forgive me for this. She thinks that I made her suffer more by not telling her. She hated me already because she thought that I got to say good bye; and now, she despises me because I didn’t.” Booth’s voice was low and hopeless.
“Seeley, close your eyes and rest, please?”
“You will be here, you are not mad at me?” He couldn’t help it, he needed her.
“Yes, I will be here when you wake up, and I’m not angry with you. I think you did the most unselfish thing you could do; you didn’t do it to hurt her. You did it because you love her.” Emma knew it before, but now she knew the total depth and height of his love. She knew that he would always love her, just the way he said he would.
“I love her…” He repeated it sadly, soulfully and staunchly.
She waited until he was snoring softly. She sat there for hours just watching him, the steady rhythmic beat of his heart, the funny way he huffed and then sort of talked as he slept. She knew that in his heart he belonged somewhere else, with someone else. She knew it was time for her to see Brennan. She waited until early morning, and then she picked up her little bundle and deposited him across the hall, whispering thanks to her neighbor. She closed the door to her apartment knowing as exhausted as Booth was, he would stay asleep for a while.
She had no illusions about what this meeting would be like, but she knew it had to happen. It was better before too much time passed between Booth’s revelations to Brennan. She wanted to strike while the nerves were raw and the heart was still hurting terribly, before Brennan could make a retreat back into her lonely shell.
A/N: I know a lot of people didn’t want him to go back to Emma, but trust me, there is a purpose. But what do you guys think of this Emma chapter? Please review and let me know what you think. Thanks again for reading.