Bones: Fic - Sending All My Love Along the Wire [1/2]
May 2010
Brennan believed that she needed a year to gain some perspective, to put her life in a measurable context and weigh it against the significance of the past and the legacy she wants to put forward for the future. There is still so much that she still needs to achieve, so many big dreams that still hang unfinished.
Her resolve crumbles three hours into the flight.
Daisy Wick can be insufferable after twenty-four hours in the lab, and Brennan finds that sitting next to the energetic young woman on a plane decreases her patience exponentially. She reads a book (“Dr. Brennan, is that research on the local customs? Because I read this wonderful article before we left.”). She goes over some paperwork (“I can help you look over supply lists, if you’d like.”). She listens to her iPod (Daisy taps her on the shoulder, “Is that the same group that came to perform at Georgetown? I saw them in concert last Christmas with Lance.”).
Finally, Brennan pulls out a blank spiral notebook and picks up a pen, intending to sketch out the highlights of her next novel. Mercifully, the younger scientist finds Brennan’s novels “amusing, but lacking the substance of actual case notes.” As she turns her attention elsewhere, Brennan finds herself staring at a blank page, alone with her thoughts.
Stopping to think doesn’t normally result in the feeling of endless emptiness, punctuated by clutching periods of sheer panic. Not for her. But here she is, trapped in an uncomfortable seat alternating between loneliness and terror.
Brennan takes a breath, willing herself to calm down and focus on the task at hand. What was she going to do? Write. So write something.
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Booth finds the letter waiting for him at his base of operations. It’s been a particularly grueling day, with crap weather (too hot) and difficult trainees (too slow). The weather won’t get better; Booth can only hope the kids will.
He contacts Parker on occasion, but mostly his technologically-savvy child of the twenty-first century shoots him an email or texts his father to “please skype.” This, this is different. Booth recognizes the handwriting on the grubby little envelope immediately, and his fingers pick at the edges of the half-dozen stamps affixed to the corner, a marker of how much distance stretches between them.
He doesn’t rush to rip open the letter, saving it for after dinner. The front reads Sergeant Major Seeley Booth, and he imagines her putting pen to paper, carefully spelling out his name, his title. Booth removes the paper slowly, unfolding it to find her long-since-dated account of the awful flight and her zealous former intern.
He reaches the end of her words, Stay safe Booth, and lets out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding.
Booth found the Malapoopoo (or whatever) Islands on a map, because he likes to know where she is, to daydream about her squinting at some piece of bone.
He really hopes she arranged for good internet, because he doesn’t think he can wait eons between conversations.
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August 2010
Brennan tells Booth a lot of things she didn’t even know she thought about during the day.
The details of the dig are supposed to remain confidential, and though she knows Booth would patiently read over the measurements of every fractured rib and hold his silence, she doubts he has much actual interest in the subject.
So, she finds other things to tell him about, like the ever-widening feud between Daisy and Annabeth, an ambitious grad student from California. The quintessential west coast girl sternly informed Daisy that if she could not shut up on her own, Annabeth would help her by wiring her jaw shut in the night. Brennan admires her spirit, but points out to Booth that Daisy would likely still be able to make unintelligible sounds.
Brennan muses on other topics as well, inconsequential discussions that she likely wouldn’t have with him if he were here. She sprawls out on her cot, trying to keep her sweaty extremities from touching any part of her body as she types out whole conversations with Booth. She tells him about the golden yellow of the sky at sunset, and how full and rich the spices in her food are (she’s getting spoiled, coffee will never taste the same to her back home, it won’t even be able to compare).
Her hair tickles the back of her neck. Brennan had asked him if he thought she should cut it, because it would be more practical than putting it up in a ponytail all the time. She didn’t think she would look very attractive with short hair.
Cut it, he’d written back, surprising her, you’ll be more comfortable. And you couldn’t look unattractive if you tried.
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Booth wishes she were romantic sometimes. Then she would send him a lock of her hair, or maybe a picture of herself standing before one of the electric sunsets. He could put it in his wallet and carry her around with him like something precious.
He wonders if she knows they’re making dinner conversation, the mundane exchange of details that you’re only really interested in because the other person’s mouth is the one saying the words. And you love that other person, so you let them keep talking, nodding along as you mash your peas into your potatoes.
These are the kinds of things he thinks about when darkness falls and the stars come out to pepper the sky with twinkling lights. Booth misses eating dinner with her (or that weird after-dinner fourth meal they sometimes have, which is known as ‘he shows up at her place with Chinese food’).
Computer access is more limited here, even for him, so he waits until his thoughts form completely before sitting down to share them with her. He sneaks down to their small lab (not off limits, he just hates to wake someone up) and pulls up his inbox. He’s saved everything, so he can read through it again and again if he wants.
Booth writes back that he wishes he could have a cup of her coffee, because what he’s drinking is mostly crap. And he really only drinks it out of habit, because who wants to drink bad coffee in blistering heat?
He tells her the good things too, like how on his day off he and some of the guys hiked to the top of a nearby mountain and looked out over the drop off. He could see for miles, then Parker texted him saying that he had scrambled eggs for breakfast and they were delicious. Booth stood on what felt like the top of the world and laughed, because wasn’t that amazing? Half a world away and Booth can know if his son liked his food or not.
He is only a little surprised when a package full of Indonesian coffee arrives. His Bones may not always be romantic, but she’s always had a good heart.
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a/n: This started as one more chapter in I Need You So Much Closer (because oh my God, you would have thought I shot a puppy from the comments on that last one). But this got long, so it gets its own title and everything. Obviously pulled from my obsession with the new Glee release (finale tonight!).