fic (bones, booth/brennan)

oh, flist, you saw this coming.

title: the way we were (is not just the title of a movie)
fandom: bones
pairing: booth/brennan
rating: pg-13
summary: Ever heard of the "morning after" myth? I´ve got news for you, Bones. It´s not a myth.
spoilers: vagely season one setting





the way we were (is not just the title of a movie)







There´s the skeleton of a little girl found in Friendship Heights – she is missing one hand.

“Too young to be into the triads,” Booth says.

“She is not Chinese,” she is kneeling besides him.

“How do you-?” His eyes smile behind sunglasses, a good day in the middle of a bad winter.


*


She touches him a lot. Much more than it´s normal in her.

(so much more)

Booth notices before she does.

Angela notices before either of them.

(it´s a fascinating thing, the lengths the human mind will go to justify itself, to keep on getting natural gratification - she touches Booth without realizing it makes her feel better, she touches him without realizing she´s doing it)


*


The thing is-

Booth doesn’t know if he stole the earring from the crime scene because it incriminated her or because it was her mother´s and it meant something.

He doesn´t know which of the options is scarier.


*


There´s this tendency – they start thinking in terms of “we”.

There´s this (more alarming) tendency – they start talking in terms of “we”.

It´s all part of the job.


*


She grunts upon the first light –somehow he(they) forgot to pull the blinds.

“Bedside manner isn´t just a manner of speaking, Bones.”

He sits on the edge of the bed, straightening his tie – narrow tie, black suit, one of those days.

She opens her mouth, he stops her.

“Wait just a minute. Just shut up.”

He disappears into the hallway. Brennan twists the sheets between her fingers, she feels her back hurt from sleeping in a strange bed, and her body stiff from sleeping too little. She likes his house, it´s so different from hers (and that´s why).

Booth comes back with a cup of coffee in his hand, he takes her hand and brings her fingers around it, (her instinct is to recoil but there´s something so natural about the way he touches her -- something so comforting in the way he hasn´t stopped touching her) his fingers linger a bit on her skin, on her knuckles, where everything thins around the bone.

(a memory of last night flashes: she kissed the curve of his shoulder, his collar and she thought, for the first time, oh, so that´s what bones are for, she finally understood)

“Keep drinking,” he says. “Real conversations only take place after the coffee. And this one is going to be very real and very awkward, so drink.”

“Why awkward?” She puts away the cup if only to see his why don´t you ever do what I say? face –there´s a tradition here, she can pretend it´s uncomplicated.

“Ever heard of the morning after myth? I´ve got news for you, Bones. It´s not a myth.”

He kisses the top of her head.

He leaves for work. She goes around the house (he loves the idea of Brennan in his bed, on his couch, drinking water from the faucet – the thought gives him chills and a smile as he drives to Hoover building).

She throws a blanket around her shoulders; she feels exposed, like Booth could see her still.


*


There are certain expressions she has trouble with.

-- everybody knows --

I´m sorry is one.

Please is the other.

(later, I love you)


*


In this city, they say the Potomac is dark with all the lies the politicians have been telling.

Brennan doesn´t know where she heard it, (maybe Booth told her, but then again, maybe not).

They find a man in the river. Fifty years old, decomposed, been dead for about a month. Blow to his head -- she traces the wound with her fingertips, perfect, the crack in the skull almost poetry; she doesn´t want to think about the motives, she never wanted in the first place (ohgodboothgotohell).

“Why do people lie?” she asks him during lunch.

(Booth think by “people” she means you, she means why would you? why did you? why have you? why will you? and it makes his stomach shrink with terror, and he wonders is this how it´s going to be, all the time?, the mortal fear he´d do the wrong thing, say the wrong thing)

“Kids don´t lie. We grow up and start lying. Why? Because we want things, and we think we won´t get them if we tell the truth.”

“That´s from Charade, isn´t it? And I don´t lie.”

He cups her face.

“That´s cause you´re a kid, Temp.”

She looks away (-there it is, the terror again).

“Don´t call me that. My brother calls me that.”

Booth mutters sorry and something along the lines of not good with boundaries and he misses that whenever he used to touch her before it was familiar, warm, a bit edgy, unique; now it´s just clandestine.

Booth wonders if he has ruined this all – a friendship, good work, the word partner, all gone forever.

You knew how this was going to be when you started it, somewhere in the back of his mind, and self-destruction might be beautiful, but Brennan would sure find it too irrational for her taste.

They finish their meals in silence.


*


She smells like his shampoo and it gives Booth pride.


*


“I´m a bit mad you didn´t tell me about it,” Angela tells her, calculated non-chalant. As if it had just occurred to her.

Brennan is examining a distal phalange from a murder victim (trying hard not to remember this is for Booth).

“Tell you what?”

“Temperance.”

(Angela can do that too, just like Booth, simply say her first name like they had invented it, like it means something)

She turns to face her; it´s the least she can do, even if the conversation comes two months (two months, she thinks, amazed, and she can´t remember who kissed whom first) too late.

“I´m sorry,” it´s a good start, if she only meant that. “It´s complicated.”

Angela brushes her cheek with two fingertips.

“Dear, it´s only going to get worse if you pretend it´s simple.”

So, Temperance Brennan does not lie. But she pretends.

Oh, she does.

(Angela says: it´s nice you start being lovers, instead of just acting like lovers)


*


“You don´t make jokes anymore,” she comments, and he wonders if she picks the lunch time for this sort of thing to torture him into not eating.

“What?”

“You don´t joke with me anymore. You don´t act like… like Booth. I don´t like this.”

Booth thinks, okay, it´s hard to be romantic with a literal girl, but it´s also hard to fool a genius. He puts his hand on her shoulder, it´s almost old and them.

“I don´t like it either. I´m just not sure I can find the reset button.”

“Maybe we should stop.”

Booth chuckles.

“We should definitely stop, Brennan.”

(this brennan sounds like temperance used to sound, intimate)

“Then why are you smiling? Doesn´t the idea of not having sex with me anymore bother you a bit?”

“As a matter of fact, it bothers me, more than just a bit. I just think it´s not going to happen.”

“What?”

“The stopping. I don´t think we can stop.” She is about to say something, but he stops her. He touches her elbow and nods softly, and it´s Booth and Brennan again for a moment.

“Eat,” he says. “Just shut up for a moment.”