Fic: In Its Time, Love Will Be Mine
He was slumped over the bar, over his drink, like the beautiful spirit that once shone from him in blinding rays had all but fizzled out.
She watched silently from the door for several minutes, unsure whether stepping out of the shadows and into the light surrounding her partner was the best course of action. Brennan was ultimately grateful for Hannah’s call thirty minutes prior, but the fierce protectiveness she was feeling encompassed her fully. Though he wasn’t hers to fix, the need to salvage the pieces of this broken man was painfully strong.
One of the restaurant patrons pushed passed her and Brennan quietly expressed her apologies. Booth didn’t know she was there, that she was standing barely ten feet from him. If she gave credence to that sort of thing, Brennan might say that was ironic; she had been standing right next to him, and Booth had rarely acknowledged her presence since they’d returned from their respective journeys.
She never faulted him for keeping his distance, even before their separation the summer before. Booth needed someone who could offer the thirty or forty or fifty years he deserved, and in that moment she hadn’t believed that she could be the one to give it to him. Her refusal had been based on her inability to change, and it took nearly five months under the Indonesian sun for her to understand that Booth had never asked her to. All he had asked of her was to give them a chance… and she hadn’t even been able to do that. So when he returned to the States with pictures of a beautiful blond and words laced with excitement, she couldn’t fault him.
The bartender refilled the shot glass Booth had slammed back at least three times since she had taken her silent position in the doorway. He was hurting, she knew this, but situations like this were beyond her realm of understanding. What words of sympathy could she possibly offer to heal the metaphorical wounds her partner was now ravaged with?
She was beginning to wonder if she had come solely to comfort her friend. Somewhere deep in the caverns of her vaulted heart she held onto the tiny flicker of hope that they’d be able to move past this stalemate now. With Hannah’s absence, maybe it was finally possible to prove to Booth that she had known right from the start, as well.
For now, though, she’d simply console him. The belief that one day they’d be on the same page, that she might be offered a second chance at love and happiness with the man who taught her everything she knew about love and happiness, would be enough to keep that hopeful flame alive.
With an encouraging breath, Brennan stepped fully into the unusually still Founding Fathers just as the bartender was serving Booth a double shot of some potent-looking alcohol. She slid onto the barstool beside him and finally broke the silence.
the end.