Bones Fanfic: Stuck In A Moment (24/27)

[biba79]

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 - Twenty-Three



A/N: Thanks again for all the reviews, alerts and favorites, you guys are fantastic.

I have been waiting forever to post this chapter, it is my favorite chapter of the whole fic, and it was probably the hardest chapter to write, so I really hope you guys enjoy it. I would love to hear what you guys think.

Thanks to Angie for doing all the beta work for this chapter, you are awesome.

WARNING: You might need tissues for this chapter as well.

Song “Fade Into You” by Mazzy Star.

I want to hold the hand inside you
I want to take a breath that's true
I look to you and I see nothing
I look to you to see the truth
You live your life
You go in shadows
You'll come apart and you'll go black
Some kind of night into your darkness
Colors your eyes with what's not there.

Fade into you
Strange you never knew
Fade into you
I think it's strange you never knew

A stranger's light comes on slowly
A stranger's heart without a home
You put your hands into your head
And then it's smiles cover your heart

Chapter 24

Emma arrived at the house, where she had only seen the entrance when picking up Cooper or dropping off her son. She wondered if Brennan was still sleeping too. It had no doubt been even more of a traumatic evening for her. She noticed right away the front door was somewhat ajar. She felt a surge of fear.

What if Brennan had done something? What if what Booth said about her being dead had become true? No. She wouldn’t allow her mind to go there. She refused to believe that would happen. She tiptoed inside, listening for signs of movement, but there were none.

She saw Booth’s jacket and tie still splayed across the floor, and the opened windows were letting in a chilling morning air. The house was filled with an eerie brightness, and she could feel the echo of the torrid emotions from the night before bouncing off the walls.

She thought about calling out to Brennan but she didn’t want to scare her if she was asleep. She was in a fragile state, and she knew all too well how edgy the nerves got. She tiptoed up the stairs, spying the wreckage in the office. She couldn’t help herself. She saw the ruins of Booth’s work. She saw the black and the gray, and the darkness in the torn paintings. But she knew that Brennan painting her emotions was a good thing. It was like her playing the sad, melancholy music. It was the same as when she played the sad, melancholic music. It was a way of removing the pain from one’s heart and one’s soul so one could go on, day to day, moment to moment. But she understood why Booth sought to destroy it.

She saw their bedroom; cold and empty, no sign that anyone was occupying the space, and no sign of Brennan. She went by Cooper’s room peeking gingerly, feeling like an interloper, but also feeling the need to make sure Brennan was okay. She found another empty room and then hauntingly Booth’s words turned in her mind. ‘The tub, the water.’ She backtracked to the master bedroom, this time she didn’t hesitate to go in.

She admired the beauty of the room, and she knew this house was decorated with love and happiness. In mind, this was where Booth and Brennan had lived together as husband and wife. He had a wife, a beautiful, damaged wife who he loved more than life. She saw the wet spots on the carpet and noticed the flooding bathroom floor. She couldn’t take a chance. She hesitated, afraid of what she could find. She went in, holding on to the sinks, so as not slip on the slimy, wet floor.

There was water all over the place; but thank God, no Brennan. She could only imagine how totally desperate Booth must have been when he brought her here. She stopped the urge to sit and cry for him because she didn’t have the luxury of time.

As she exited their room, she noticed the blaring sunlight filtering to the hallway. She held her breath as she saw the splintered doorway, just as he described it. Emma pictured him half crazy with fear and heartache as he broke it down.

She went towards the room, afraid but intent in doing what she had come here to do. And there, at last, she found the mother of the little doll that used to occupy it, brokenheartedly clutching to her baby’s quilt. She was not asleep, but she was not totally awake either. She was in some place that was almost unreachable. But Emma would try, she had to try. For Booth, for Brennan and for herself; because she couldn’t watch him go through anymore devastation.

“Temperance,” she whispered softly from the doorway.

Brennan blinked showing Emma she at least registered the sound.

“It’s Emma… Emma Foster.” She and Brennan had spoken politely several times because of their sons.

Brennan’s eyes revealed the hatred she felt at hearing that name.

“I think you and I really need to talk… ” Emma continued gently.

Brennan roused from the fog that surrounded her to make sure she wasn’t having another nightmare. She struggled to focus on the direction the voice was coming from. Her eyes opened suddenly as if electrical shocks had hit her. “What are you doing in my house?” Brennan’s face showed every bit of the distaste and revulsion she felt.

Good, her emotions hadn’t locked up again.

“The door was open. I was worried. I wanted to make certain you were okay, so I came in. I’m sorry… I never meant to upset you.”

“You never meant to upset me?” Brennan laughed strickengly.

“No, I have wanted to help you. From the very first moment I heard about Liz, I wanted to help you...”

“Well, you obviously decided you wanted to help yourself to my husband more.” Brennan found the strength to get up and stood still, holding fast to Liz’s blanket.

“I know what you think happened…”

“You don’t have a of clue what I think or how I feel.” Brennan’s eyes were tormented.

“You’re wrong. I do know. I know exactly how you feel…” Emma showed her with loving, empathetic eyes, she did know.

“Really? Well, let’s see, Emma. When your little boy died, did you have someone come after your husband? Did he have an affair with another woman… while you were grieving for your child?”

“You sent Seeley away, and no. How could my husband have had an affair? He died with my son, and you know what Temperance? It was like that. Here today and then gone.” She snapped her fingers. “Think about it, what if Seeley had died with Liz, what if it had been in an accident like my family. What if you lost him that way?” Emma’s voice got harsher, Brennan needed it. She needed to see what was slipping through her fingers.

“He’d be dead instead of having an affair,” Brennan sniped back.

“And that would be better? You would rather see him dead than happy?”

“Are you saying you make him happy?”

“I don’t know what I make him, except I know when he’s with me, we have fun, we talk, we cry, we laugh, we tease each other…”

“Do you believe I really want to know what you do with my husband?”

“Yes, I think you do. I think you’re desperate to know. I think you love him so much, but you don’t feel  it now the way you did before this tragedy. You’re so afraid of losing him that you feel paralyzed. You won’t allow yourself any happiness, because you blame yourself for all of it. You told him to leave, you told him you didn’t care anymore and you told him last night you hated him.”

“He went straight to you, didn’t he?” Brennan knew it. She knew where he was and who he was with. “I don’t care. I don’t care where he goes or what he does anymore.”

“But you do. Why do you keep sending him away when all you want is for him to stay?” Emma saw the phony denial. She saw how deeply Brennan did care by the way her hands moved as she tried to
deny it, by the flash of anguish in her eyes when Emma confirmed whom he had gone to, and where he still was. “Why won’t you let yourself love him?”

“Love is a chemical reaction… I don’t love him.” She denied  vehemently again. “I hate him for what he did. Did he tell you?” Brennan looked at Emma’s eyes and instantly she knew. “Of course he did. He
told you first, right? He told you and you both cried together. He didn’t come to me. He went to you first.”

“No, Temperance. Seeley told me last night after he told you. You’re the only person he wanted to tell. He’s been holding this inside for so long. He’s been dying inside himself because he’s known Liz had neither of you, but you didn’t. That was what mattered to him; he would have kept it from you until he died. He’s been terrified for you; he’s had such an incredible load. And so when I came along, he felt so isolated from you, the one person who could listen and who would understand his loss. He lost so much that he needed me to help him from withdrawing the way you did. He needed to stay strong and whole, in touch with reality, for your son. I know he’s done everything out of love, out of pure, unconditional love for you.”

“Really? Was that what the kisses the two of you shared were about? Unconditional love for me?” Brennan shook her head.

“I can tell you how those kisses came about, I can tell you why they happened… and yes, if you need to know, it was unconditional love. My unconditional love, not his.”

“Right,” Brennan replied, her voice low and steely cold.

“He lied to you about Liz, because he loves you. You have to stop blaming him and see this for what it is.” Emma implored her.

“I see what this is and who you are. As for blaming him, that will never change.”

“Well, that’s really too bad. You’re bound and determined to lose everything, aren’t you Temperance?” Emma could see right through her.

She knew the depression, the hopeless despair. She recognized it all too keenly. She could feel Brennan beginning to go into that shell, as if she was the one going. She couldn’t let it happen.

“He loves you. He’s married to you. He wants to be with you.” Emma knew it would matter, even if she didn’t act like it, she needed to hear it.

Brennan’s eyes drifted to the doll house. “It doesn’t matter anymore, he didn’t tell me when it happened. He wasn’t honest with me for the first time in our lives. She was all-alone. My baby was all alone.”  Brennan’s voice broke as she walked over to the dollhouse. Kneeling down, she picked up the little baby girl in her hands. She wept uncontrollably as she thought again of those horrifying moments
when her little girl was leaving the world with no one who she loved by her side. “She needed us, and we weren’t there.” Brennan wailed as if she had committed the most unforgivable sin known to man. “My mother left me and I hated her for it. And now, I have done the same thing to my daughter, only it’s worse because she died when I left her.”

Emma’s heart broke for Brennan. “No, you weren’t there. But Temperance, I wasn’t there when my son died either. It was instantaneous; I didn’t get to be there either.”

“But his daddy went with him.” Brennan’s anguished eyes pleaded for Emma to see, it was not the same. “He had his daddy, our Liz had no one. I wish I could have gone with her, I wish I had… ”

“You didn’t. Okay. You are here, and it’s the way it is. We don’t have the answers; we are only left with questions, so many questions. But we also have love; we don’t lose the love, or the memories of their voices, or their smiles. We can hear them and see them in our hearts whenever we remember.”

“I want more.” Brennan shook her head as though it was not acceptable.

“I know, I know, me too.” Emma’s heartfelt compassion shone in her eyes.

“Why? What did we do to deserve this? Why her? Why now? Why after everything else?” Brennan asked the unanswerable questions.

“I don’t know. I only know that we can’t change it, we can’t make the pain disappear either. We do have beautiful little boys here who need us, Temperance, and who depend on us. They don’t deserve to have less in their mothers because of our loss, they need us even more.”

“I can’t be a good mother anymore. Booth is going to take my son, and he should, he should. I don’t deserve to have him. I’m not whole; I’m not able to…”

“Yes, you are. You are grieving, Temperance. You love him more than anything, I know. You are his mother; no one else could ever be as good for him as you are. But right now, you have to heal.”

“I won’t ever heal enough.”

“Yes, you will.” Emma could see the turmoil churning within Brennan. She felt for her because she understood her words.

“I told Booth that I hate him,” Brennan confided in her most unlikely confidante.

“But you don’t hate him, Temperance. You could never hate him anymore than I could, because you love him way too much, so much that you sent him away rather than subject him to your grief.”

“Why are you here?” Brennan wouldn’t trust her, she couldn’t trust the threat she represented. She had forgotten for a moment because of their common bond, but she remembered now. “Why do you care about me? Doesn’t it strike you as odd that you are here when you’re in love with Booth?”

“I’m here to tell you that I know your pain, the child being lost forever to you is horrible. I know you can’t go anywhere and find her and bring her home, though you long to desperately. You can’t hold her anymore. Your arms will never feel her again. Your fingers will never ruffle through her downy soft hair. You’ll never see her get taller, or watch her change from a baby to a child, from a child to a crazy teenager, and then at last from a teenager to a woman.”

Brennan stayed silent rocking back and forth on her heels as she listened to the truth, the truth she had wanted to die over.

“You’ll never have a quiet talk about love and life before she gets married. You’ll never know the joy you once had ever again because she is gone. Your life feels as though it’s on a collision course with hell. No matter how much a part of you wants to continue living, the other part is dead and will always be dead. You don’t know how to cope with losing such a huge part of you. You’re afraid, so terrified of losing anyone else or experiencing any more pain.”

Brennan’s eyes watered as she heard all the feelings she had been struggling with, her heart broke as she heard another mother speaking of such an insurmountable loss; and for the moment, she forgot Booth was between them. She got to her feet and walked towards Emma looking into her eyes, sharing for the first time with someone who knew the utter obliteration, who had experienced total devastation. She saw her tears reflected in another mother’s sorrowful heart. She didn’t have to speak or try to impart the pain because this woman shared the same pain. Even more pain because she had lost her husband too.

“Why does it have to always hurt so much?” She didn’t know she said it out loud.

“I don’t know, but it does. I know how much it does.” Emma told her fervently, and Brennan knew she was speaking from her heart.

“I’m sorry. I am truly sorry. It’s awful. It’s the most horrendous thing I’ve ever felt in my life. I can’t talk to anyone, no one knows, and even Booth doesn’t know.”

“I know. You carried her inside you for nine glorious months, she was so much a part of you that you didn’t know where her breath ended and yours began. She kicked you, and rolled around in your tummy, waiting to come to you, and you waited too. It was so blissful the day she finally arrived.” Emma knew exactly where Brennan’s soul was.

“Yes. Yes.”

“You’d been there every day and every night since for her, doing everything you could to keep her safe, warm and free from danger. And you loved like you’ve never loved before, with every instinct in tune, honed to protect and to defend this life you’d been entrusted with.”

Brennan nodded weeping openly.

“Then one day, she’s ripped away so cruelly that you can’t even fathom it, and your heart is torn to bits. You stop feeling anything but guilt because you didn’t know, you couldn’t have known, and you weren’t there. I wasn’t there either, Temperance. They were here with me; and in a matter of seconds, my life as I knew was over. I had Nick, and I wanted to sweep him up and hide him from the world. No one else would take one of my babies. ” Emma breathed it as though it was law.

Brennan saw that Emma did know. “No wonder Booth needed you.”

“He needs you,” Emma said softly. “He needed you all along. I was just there for him to talk to because you weren’t. Temperance, he’s dying inside just as much as you.”

“He said he has feelings for you… ” Brennan couldn’t help the doubts that ran inside her mind. He kissed this woman; he had been spending all his time with her.

“Yes, I believe it’s because we are both grieving and the bond became strong. We’ve had a mutual loss, because my husband died; and in some ways, so did his wife. The woman he treasured turned him away when he needed her the most; she wasn’t there for him. He lost a child and a wife, the same as I lost a child and a husband. We have that in common. Only you’re not dead, Temperance, you are alive. You have another chance; he has another chance if you let him. My God, what I wouldn’t give if Jeff walked through that door and I had one more chance to be his wife. What will you do, Temperance, if Booth walks through that door and gives you one more chance to be his wife?”

“I don’t know… I can’t…”

“You can, you know you can.”

“He’s already falling for you,” Brennan argued.

Emma closed her eyes. “No. I fell for him. He’s finding something in me that he misses getting from you. Temperance, it’s all about you. Every day we’ve spent together, every hour we’ve talked, it’s all been about you. Booth and I were like healing partners. And do you want to know about the kisses?” Emma knew it would hurt but she also knew Brennan wanted to know.

She stood very still, having heard that it really did happen, that Booth’s lips touched and kissed another woman. It hurt deeply, horribly. But she needed to know why. She needed to know how and when and what he said. She didn’t want to torture herself imagining it, she would rather know. She nodded disconsolately.

“I think you know that Seeley holds a lot inside, and you know what he was keeping. I knew there were things he hadn’t told me, and I knew there was something holding him back from talking too deeply about the day Liz died. So I asked him to talk about it, and of course he broke down many times. He tried to tell me, but he wanted so desperately to share it with you. He needed to get it out and he tried, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t tell anyone but you, so as he was talking he sort of hyperventilated, he could hardly breathe. He was talking so despairingly about not wanting to be here. He actually said he wondered if you’d be happier if he had died instead of Liz.”

Brennan’s eyes registered the shock she felt hearing that Booth had been thinking this way.

“He said he wished he had died, so you’d have her back. He would gladly trade places with her to make you happy. That night I had to let him know it was okay to be alive, and in those moments while I assured him you would never want him dead, that you loved him, that he is worthy of being loved, I kissed him. I told him he was loved, and he was needed here. But I’m not the one he’s here for, you are. He’s here for you. He kissed me back because he was lost and alone.

I couldn’t bear to watch him devalue his life, and what it means to the people who love him most. That’s when I told him that I loved him too, because I do, Temperance. I didn’t set out to have it happen or even expected him to love me back, but I do love him. Loving again, no matter how crazy it is, feels so good. It’s life affirming, and Booth needed his life to be affirmed that night; more than anything, he needed that. You weren’t there, so I did it. I had to.”

Brennan’s eyes closed as she swallowed hard. She opened them guardedly. Could she trust anything Emma said when she obviously wanted Booth?

“I love him and I want you to know one thing. I will not let you drag him down into that black hole with you. I will be there for him if he walks through that door.” Her finger points to the downstairs entrance. “You reject him again and all my good intentions and resolve to do the right thing are going out the window. I will be there for him again; and this time, it won’t end with a few kisses, it won’t ever end at all.”

Brennan felt the chills screaming along her skin. She couldn’t let it happened, she couldn’t give Booth up to someone else. Even if someone else obviously loved him a great deal.

Emma saw her words were having some effect.

“I will wait for as long as it takes for him to get over you because I do love him, and I won’t let him suffer because you can’t see how unique and wonderful he really is. I know you think he betrayed you, about his presence at the end, but he was protecting you. He was broken and half crazed with grief; he couldn’t do that to you, and he couldn’t risk breaking you into more pieces. Not then and not now. He’s been so patient, and he’s been waiting and waiting for you, but in the interim he met me. I never expected to have these feelings and I’m telling you that they are there. And I’m not going to ever turn my back on him. Not for you or anyone because this man doubts his worthiness to be loved, and he shouldn’t. He absolutely shouldn’t. He’s one of the most lovable men I’ve ever met, and I would be so lucky to have him in my life.”

Brennan listened, and she didn’t hate Emma. She couldn’t. If she had lost Booth like that, if she was as alone as Emma was, she didn’t know what it would be like to find someone who could make her whole again. Booth made Emma feel that way, and Brennan envied her because she knew how it felt to have
Booth do that. He’d done it for her last night, and for a little while she had felt that way again, and it was so blissful. She had felt all the love again. She had let her heart open to his for a brief interlude.

“Look around you, Temperance. Is this what you want? A broken house with broken dreams, or do you want to salvage what still could be, a loving happy home with your husband and your child? You can have it happen if you want it, if you let it.”

“He might not come back. I told him I hated him, and I’d never forgive him. Why would he come back? I’ve been so cruel to him.” Brennan felt his pain now for the first time. She had an inkling of what all of this had cost him, and she knew how cold she had been to him.

“He’ll be back, and what you do after he gets here will tell me what I need to do next. I won’t desert him, ever. So be very sure before you send him away again. He can’t let you break his heart anymore, and I won’t let him.” Emma’s eyes defied Brennan to do it again, and her determination to protect Booth came through loud and clear.

“Why are you doing this?” Brennan couldn’t believe Emma was so honest and so giving. She knew if Booth came back it would be because Emma asked him to. She hadn’t said it, but Brennan knew it.

“I told you, because I love him. What I want most is his happiness and yours. Believe it or not, Temperance, I’m prepared to lose him if it means he gets his family back. It’s what I want for him, more than I want him for me. I’ll survive, but I’ll take the love with me. That I know.”

“He was lucky to have you, Emma.”

“I’m lucky too, and Temperance you are the luckiest woman I know, even if you don’t see it.”

“I’m really sorry about your little boy,” Brennan said as the tears streamed down her cheek.

“And my heart cries for you and your sweet little girl.”

“But hearts don’t cry,” Brennan said seriously.

Emma was confused for a second, “What I meant was I’m very sorry about your baby girl.”

They then did what neither of them intended or planned. Motherly arms opened and they hugged tightly, both sharing the numbing loss.

As they split apart, Brennan whispered, “I wish we could have been friends.”

“Who knows, Temperance, maybe someday we can be.” Emma smiled. “I see why he loves you so much.”

“I see why he has feelings for you.” Brennan tried to smile, but the idea she could lose Booth forever to this woman made it impossible to do.

“The feelings he has for me don’t compare to the love he has for you. Trust me, I’ve witnessed it firsthand. That man is totally devoted to you, even now he’s so desolated thinking you hate him, it crushed him. Don’t crush his heart anymore, Temperance. Open your arms and let him back into your heart. Don’t withdraw into that emptiness, because there is nothing worse, I know. It may hurt to give your heart again, but believe me, it’s worse not to. That’s why when Booth came along my heart gave in, and even though it probably won’t happen, I know it can again now. I’m grateful to him for that, maybe that’s the reason we were meant to meet. You know you have a good man, just don’t let him go,” Emma entreated her to see.

Brennan nodded. Tears rushed down her cheeks. What if she was too late? What if he didn’t agree to come back?

“He’ll be here,” Emma assured her softly. “Good bye, Temperance.”

“Good bye, Emma. Thank you for taking such good care of him when I couldn’t.” Brennan found that protective instinct she always had for Booth. The man she loved forever, the man she would always love.

Emma nodded holding back the burgeoning tears. She didn’t look back because she knew there was no looking back.

A/N: Two more chapters to go, and the epilogue. It’s almost over, isn’t that sad? I want to make this last as long as I can. So, another update in a week or so.

So, what did you guys think? Better or worse than you were expecting? What do you think of Emma now? Still hate her?