Flight of Fancy - A Tag for The End in the Beginning

Disclaimer: Unfortunately I don't own nor am I involved with the production of Bones. On the plus side, I work cheap so if Hart Hanson & Company are reading this - call me.

Synopsis: Booth awakes from surgery confused and afraid. The woman before him looks so like the woman of his dreams but that’s all they were, dreams. He knows this because she’s told him so, they were dreams, the two of them were never married and she is most definitely not pregnant. What does a man do when the reality he faces is desolate, and only in his dreams can he know love?

A/N: After watching that trainwreck of a season four finale I felt the need to salvage something from it, this story is the result.


It’s been twenty-eight hours since I came out of the coma. Twenty-eight hours since I woke up a stranger to my own life, the last however many years of my life missing. In my dream I know who I am, Seeley Booth, former Ranger, currently owner of the hottest club in DC, happily married man with a beautiful, intelligent wife, who is expecting my baby. In the waking world I’m not sure.

The woman sitting here beside me, this beautiful, alluring woman who so reminds me of my wife, isn’t. Still she sits here, hour after hour, talking to me, answering my questions, telling me who I am. Even when I sleep, I know she’s there, when I awake she’s there, she never leaves me but she’s not my Bren. I’ve fallen asleep four times in the last twenty-eight hours and each time I’m back there, at the lab, in our apartment, taking care of business, eating breakfast, making love to my wife. I miss her. I miss my dream life.

‘Who are you?’ The words still rang in my ears, rattled about in my skull, lingered on my lips like some sickly sweet poison, clinging to my tongue and filling my mouth with an acrid taste that there was no cure for. What in the hell had possessed me to say that to her? I saw my Bren but at the same time it wasn’t my Bren. She called me Booth, I mean that’s what she always called me but Bren, my Bren, whenever I’ve been sick or in the hospital it’s Seeley. Whenever she’s worried about me it’s always Seeley. Here she was, not just worried but distraught and she called me Booth, not Seeley. ‘Who are you?’

The look in her eyes, she was devastated, mouth agape at my thoughtlessness, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes, already red-rimmed from previous efforts. She’d been by my side this entire time, four days, six hours, thirty-six minutes she sat there waiting for me to wake up. The entire time this woman stood guard over me, never resting, taking sleep in fits and starts, worrying over me, and this is how I repay her? I ask ‘Who are you?’ like some badly written character in a daytime soap? Stupid Seel, stupid stupid stupid.

Right after I woke up I started asking questions, but no one had any answers, no one but her. The doctors, Dr Jursik in particular, insist I should rest, give it a few days and wait to see if my memories come back naturally before trying to ‘force’ things. Well I’m not known for my patience. Okay, I don’t know that I’m not known for my patience or not, but when I tell her that I’m tired of waiting that afternoon, after less than a day, that I want answers now, she smiles at me. Really smiles.

For the first time since waking up she’s smiling at me and it’s the kind of smile Bren would give me when I did something predictable that she found cute anyway. So with no one else around, here we are, and she’s going to help me jog my memory. The funny thing is my memory is perfectly fine, I can recall almost everything in perfect detail from the moment I awoke, right down to the scent of jasmine in her hair, and the feel of her fingers on my forearm, nah my memory is fine, it’s the actual memories I don’t have a handle on.. Still we begin, from the beginning.

“Okay, so let’s start from the beginning, pretend I don’t remember anything, like that’s a stretch.” The ghost of a smile, nice to know my sense of humor is still intact. “I mean, at least that way we don’t leave anything out.”

“Okay, that’s a good idea. I’m Dr Temperance Brennan and you are Seeley Booth, we’re partners.”

God bless her but she’s a trooper. It’s pretty obvious this is ripping her heart out, that those three little words I spoke yesterday morning practically killed her, and yet here she is trying to help me out by answering my question instead of…what? Hell I don’t even know what she’d be doing otherwise. Damn. “We’re Partners. Work partners, right?” Why do those words feel like ash on my tongue when I say them aloud?

“Yes. We work together, to solve crimes. You are the Special Agent of the FBI, you are in charge of the MCU and are the liaison to the Jeffersonian. I am a Forensic Anthropologist who works at the Jeffersonian Institute and your partner. They bring us the cases that other agents can’t do, the ones where the victims are too far gone for an easy authentication or there’s not enough evidence for a normal forensics team to process.” She is very thorough this time, and she’s telling me this with obvious pride, we must be pretty good at it if she’s that proud of what we do.

“Special Agent in Charge of the MCU, huh?” Now that’s news to me. The last thing I remember was being a grunt who’d transferred over from narcotics less than a year ago. So I got a promotion, good to know. “Liaison to the Jeffersonian? That’s the museum right?”

“Yes, I work in the Medico-Legal Lab and you are the FBI liaison for the criminal cases we handle.” She’s good. I can see it in her eyes, her body language, she’s upset but she’s calm, controlled, forcing herself to sound reassuring.

“And we’re good at our jobs? I mean if they’re bringing us the dogs and the cold cases we have to either be pretty good or they just hate us.”

“Yes, we’re very good, the best in fact. You’re considered one of the best agents in the FBI, Sam even thinks you’ll have his job someday. You remember now, being in the FBI?”

Of course I remember being in the FBI, it’s just my life in it for the past however many years I don’t remember. So we’re a good team, and I’m a good agent. No, Not just good but one of the best, and she called Deputy Director Cullen ‘Sam’. Am I really that good? I must be, she seems so proud of me when she speaks. Then again I wonder…

“Yeah. Yeah, I remember working for the FBI it’s just, Special Agent in Charge huh? The last thing I remember was getting the transfer from Narcotics to Major Crimes, and now I’m the MCU SAC? I must be pretty hot stuff.”

“Hot? Do you have a fever? Are you feeling unwell right now, do you want me to get a nurse?” What the hell?

“No, uh, no fever. Hot stuff, you know, pretty special, impressive, I got skills, that kind of thing.” She can’t be serious, can she? I mean who doesn’t know what hot stuff means?

“Sorry. I, I misinterpreted what you were saying. You should know I’m not very good with pop-culture references, it’s something you spend a great deal of time correcting me on.” She seems embarrassed, almost hurt, am I really that big of an asshole to her? I mean, it was a colloquialism, so she got it wrong, so what? She’s a freakin’ genius.

“So what you’re saying is that you’re not really aware of pop-culture references, modern colloquialisms, or euphemisms and I constantly correct you when you make a mistake?” The look on her face tells me all I need to know. I can feel my stomach sinking. “Let me guess, I always correct you right away too, like even when we’re in front of other people, strangers, anybody?”

She’s nodding. My worst fears confirmed, apparently I haven’t taken anything positive out of losing Rebecca, I certainly haven’t learned how to treat someone special to me because there’s no one more important to me than my Bren and I’m still acting like a complete asshole to her. Ah Crap, I guess I didn’t school my reaction good enough because she’s got this look on her face. She can tell.

“Booth? It’s okay. I don’t mind, really. You’re just trying to help develop my socialization skills, its one of the few areas where I’m truly deficient and correcting that deficiency is important.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why is it important Bren?” Damn. She cringes every time I call her Bren. My Bren loved it. Dr Brennan hates it. I call her something though, just not that. Damn I hate this. “Just…tell me why, okay?”

“I have difficulty connecting to people, outside of a purely academic or work related setting. I, I don’t get people. I get bones. I’m better with the dead than the living, most of the time anyway.” Shit. The look on her face tells me everything I need to know. I am an asshole.

“Let me guess, I’m the one that told you that right?”

“Yes, but you were only trying to be helpful. I really do have difficulty connecting with people, I simply don’t understand them, their motivations are confusing enough let alone what they are saying half the time.”

“And somehow my embarrassing you and making you question your self, how you conduct yourself, that’s helping?”

“You’re not really looking for an answer from me are you?” The arched eyebrow and pointed look make me feel like a lab specimen, it’s an oddly uncomfortable and at the same time familiar feeling. Great. “You’ve already made up your mind that somehow you’ve done something to offend me. Don’t do that Booth. Don’t blame yourself when I don’t, it’s annoying, holding yourself to that impossible standard constantly.”

“Don’t do what? Don’t worry that my partner, the one person who it seems is there for me when I need her most, is the one person I’m consistently an asshole to? And how is me wishing I wasn’t acting like a prick suddenly an impossible standard? Am I that far gone?” Shit, I mean I know I’m a bastard but am I as bad as all that? I guess I am. “Look Brennan, even after everything that happened between me and Becs it’s pretty clear I still haven’t learned how not to be a prick to the women I love, right? So quit acting like I’m not.” I couldn’t look at her, knowing how much I must have hurt her the last four years, all the little things I must have done to push her down, to ‘level’ the playing field so I could feel superior to my brilliant Bren, God I was a piece of shit. “I should have known it was all a dream…I never acted like a jackass, not once the entire time.”

“Well you’re acting like one now Booth.” That got my attention. Those words, a metaphorical slap to bring me around. I got my first good look at her, and she was pissed.

“I’m sorry Bren, Brennan, ah shit. I can’t even apologize right.” I can’t, the name thing, again, one of these days I’ll get it figured out but the name thing is killing me, killing us. Still, there’s one thing I haven’t called her, one name I normally reserve for us when we’re alone… “Temperance?” Bingo. Maybe it wasn’t all a dream. “Temperance I’m sorry. I, I just…you are important to me, okay? So very, very important to me and I can’t stand the thought that I’ve said or done anything to hurt you, even if I was trying to help at the time. I just want you to know that. And for the record? You’re doing pretty good with the living in this room, so I don’t buy that whole ‘better with the dead’ argument.”

A smile. It’s a weak one, and the eyes are watery, but she’s not crying and it’s a real smile, only the second one I’ve seen since I woke up. As if that wasn’t enough what she says next practically makes my heart sing. “Booths I get, it’s the rest of society that doesn’t make any sense to me, but you and Parker? You guys are easy.”

She knows me, she knows my son, we’re easy to get. That has to mean something right? Unfortunately for me the rest of our walk down memory lane goes downhill from there. It takes me less than an hour to figure out what I’m missing, five years of my life. My son Parker, my baby boy, isn’t a baby anymore, he’s seven, almost eight. Rebecca and I never reconciled, no surprise there. Even in my dreams she’s a footnote, it’s all about Bren in my dreams, Bren and our baby. But there is no Bren and me, no baby either, and Rebecca isn’t a footnote, she’s still around and she’s in a serious relationship with someone I call ‘Captain Fantastic’. A coastie, who’s playing daddy to Parker while I get to see my son a couple of times a month. Great. And the hits, as they say, they just keep on coming.

Seems Cam is working at the Jeffersonian now and I made that mistake again, smooth Seel, you always knew how to screw up a good thing. It’s pretty clear to me when Brennan talks about Cam and I that it hurt her, hell I can read the pain in her face, the way her brow furrows, the subtle clenching of her jaw, the twitch in her neck. Knowing I caused that pain kills me again, it’s as bad as knowing she’s not really my Bren and that’s the worst. She’s not my Bren, but she’s still Temperance to me. I just can’t figure out what we are to one another.

Sometimes she acts like we’re together, sometimes like we’re just business associates, but I know we’ve got to be more than just partners, she knows too much about me. She knows my brother but she doesn't like to talk about him, I don't know why I feel relieved about that but I do. She knows about my old man, my gambling problem, the time I tried to kill myself when I was just a kid – those aren’t things I tell just anyone, and I never told anyone about that lowest point of my life before, not Rebecca, not even Jared. And the things she’s told me I know about her, even as she tells me I can remember them all. I remember her time in the system, her father and mother abandoning her, her brother too. The trial...

Oh my God the trial. She talks about it and I can almost see it happening, I can feel it again, the desperation, the heartache, ‘I’ve stood over death with this woman…that’s a lot of heart Bones’. I don’t know if I said it aloud, I must have, because everything after that is lips. Her lips on my lips, and tongue, lots of tongue, hers, mine, sometimes both at once. My God can this woman kiss. Bones. I say it again in my head as I feel her lips crushing against my own. When she starts to pull back I whisper it against her mouth and like magic, she’s kissing me again. Her lips moving over my own, her teeth biting none too gently at the tender flesh, pulling the lower lip, her tongue pushing into my mouth, sweet Jesus she tastes so good, feels so soft and silky in my mouth, like heaven.

It’s a little overwhelming the extended kiss, what with the drugs still in my system, and the dull throbbing ache in my skull, but I can't stop - I'm afraid if I do I'll wake up and it'll all have been a dream. I can't take that, not again. I honest to God think that would kill me if I found out this kiss wasn't real. As much as I want this to go one it has to end, and the end comes when I hear the sound of someone clearing their throat and a barely restrained squeal from the vicinity of the doorway. Bones, my bones, was suddenly gone. She’d left my arms so fast I swear I can see a forensic anthropologist shaped dust cloud where she was instead of Bones. My Bones. I know why I call her that, I remember now, another piece of the puzzle. I look up at her, face flushed, eyes sparkling with embarrassment and something else, happiness? She’s smiling, a sweet bashful smile and she can’t bring herself to look up at the woman in the doorway…the artist, I know her, I think, just not her name, and the short hairy guy with her, I know him too but I’m not sure from where. Okay, still room for improvement but I’m getting there at least I know her.

“You.”

All eyes on me in an instant, but the only ones that matter are hers.

“Bren, Brennan, those weren’t right, were they? I know that now, because I know you…you’re Bones, my Bones.” The full on smile she gives me, the welling eyes, the few tears that escape, my God she’s beautiful. I’m still not sure what we are, but I know what we’ll be, at least if I have any say in things. There’s no way she gets away from me again, no way. Because I know her now, and I know I love her. Bones...my Bones.


Well there ya' have it. I feel better now, how 'bout all y'all?

RM

Glad you've got that out of your system.

I like how you have him bounce back and forth between reality and dream-state and that the dream comes back when he sleeps. And how he tries to figure out her place in his life by what she knows.
You have an outsider's view, too--where he can't figure out why he acted like such an idiot to her (and he knows she's still important no matter what). Of course, it stems from initial distaste for each other (at least) that faded into friendship, but with bad habits still attached.

Thanks. When I was writing this I kept thinking about the fantasy/story aspect of TeitB and I thought to myself, "What would it be like to wake up from this life to one where everything you value has been stripped from you in some manner?" I can't see Booth's subconscious letting it go, it needs it - he needs it. Until he can replace the dream with something real, he'll hold onto it for dear life. That's why at the end his realization that he knows her now, she's Bones, his Bones, is so critical. He can stop dreaming now, he has her in the waking world too.

I briefly contemplated an alternate version of this where it doesn't work out. Brennan is unable to guide him back to himself because she's too terrified of getting hurt again to risk being the one he can turn to, and without her Booth can only find solace in his dreams. Booth's career stagnates, his personal life devolves into a hellish brew of self loathing and defeatism, until he's only a shell of a man. Eventually Brennan, with Angela's help, accepts that she's the only one who can save Booth from himself, but when she gets to his apartment she finds she's too late. Unable to bear a life in the waking world anymore he's put himself into a chemically induced coma - a permanent dream state - where he will never have to be without her again.

RM

I feel much better! Thank you.

I love that Booth fell back into his dream, his fantasy of them together, whenever he fell asleep. Also how he re-evaluated himself and their relationship from this new perspective he's been given. So many things are missing for him, but the one thing he has to figure out, which is all important to him even without knowing, is her.

Bringing it all together with one of my favorite Booth lines, "that's some heart Bones" was amazing. When I heard him say those words in The Verdict in the Story I felt that if they weren't caught in the trappings of the courtroom that that could have been what would have happened then.

That was very good and very well written. I loved how he kicked himself for thinking he was so mean to her, and how he bounced from dream to reality. I absolutely loved it bravo!!