Not Your Typical Fairy Tale--a Vignette

Another little one shot from me... Thank you, Sherry, for reminding me of this one.
Of course, I do not own any of the characters; I wouldn't be here if I did!

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Some stories run exactly the way you’d expect. Boy meets girl, they fall in love, and live happily ever after. Sometimes they fight before they love or fight after they love, or perhaps are separated and pine for each other or fight to be reunited, but the “happily ever after” part is a constant.

Or perhaps the plucky (smart, clever, good) girl leaves home or defeats a villain with her wits alone. But much more often, it’s the adventurous younger son who goes out into the world. The maiden simply needs rescuing: rings of fire, glass mountains, towers, unending sleep, even simple drudgery. Her reward for being passive or good or otherwise what society deems as deserving is always marriage to whatever man who can bull his way through the obstacles and charm the supernatural guardians to claim his prize.

They’re all cautionary, of course. Don’t talk to strangers. Listen to your parents/grandparents/elders. Be courteous to all. Danger may hide behind beautiful masks. And so forth.

My story doesn’t quite fit those parameters. The word parameters doesn’t fit the genre. That should tell you something.

Once upon a time, not too far away or too long ago, there lived a family. Mother, father, son, and daughter. They were a happy family, content in their places and in their gifts. The father was a scholar and teacher, the mother kept local guildsmen from losing their money, the son had a gift with machines, and the daughter studied the sciences.

True enough, on the surface.

When the daughter was 10, they moved into a quiet neighborhood in a large city. The daughter, though shy among her peers, managed to find friends and mentors, and thrived in her quiet, reserved way.

Also true. I had a few friends, boys as well as girls, who included me in their games and teachers who were patient with my reticence. And Russ was always there to help me, protect me. Once he was about 13, he didn’t play with me like he used to—something about being too old to play with little girls—but he never let me down. I knew he was there; it was…an article of my faith. I’d catch a whispered “Marco” in the hall at school and knew he could hear my equally faint “Polo” back. Even if I didn’t say anything else all day.

Then one day some five years later, just before the biggest and most important holiday of the year, the son and daughter came home from school to find an empty house. There was no word left behind, no scrap of paper to explain. The mother and father’s coats were missing. The children were not unduly distressed, since it was the holiday season and there were presents to purchase. But when bedtime approached, and then midnight, with no sign, they looked in their parents’ bedroom, a place previously off-limits to them.

The closets were half empty; the dresser drawers were no longer full. And the baggage kept in the attic was also gone.

Mom and Dad had dropped me off at school, waved good-bye cheerfully. There was no hint, not even the barest suggestion anything was wrong. I know now why they did it, and the logical part of me understands why they did it the way they did. I’ve heard my father’s explanation, and my mother thoughtfully recorded hers and an apology before she died.

But part of me (and I know this is psychology and thus suspect) will never accept it. That part of me relives that terror every year, expects nothing to stay the same or safe, is slow to accept people or rely on them. That’s why I run so easily. I know it. I don’t think Angela or Dr. Sweets or even Booth knows that I know that about myself.

The holiday came and the children still knew nothing of what happened to their parents. The son (brother) tried to cheer up his sister, still protecting her, shielding her. He set out the presents he had found while looking for their parents’ things under the tree, made the traditional breakfast, played the expected music. But she would only accept it from her parents and was determined to wait. For she was more of a dreamer than most people realize. Realized. And when it was clear that they were still alone, she broke down and cried. She rejected her brother’s attempts to help her and unknowingly rejected him as well.

I truly regret that. In my defense (and I will not belabor the point), I can only say I was not emotionally developed enough to avoid giving hurt, benignly self-centered. I can hear Booth laugh at me—I’m probably still not as developed as I should be. I didn’t mean to hurt Russ. My big brother. But I was 15, emotionally underdeveloped, and I wanted my mother. And somehow, my young mind twisted it around to include him in the blame.

Scorned and then ignored, the brother went to the elders of the city and asked what he should do. He was only 19, halfway through an apprenticeship in mechanics, with little income of his own and a sister just 15. There was, as it turned out, money left to maintain them, but he did not know it then, and he worried about keeping the wolf from the door.

The elders told him that the responsibility was too much for him; already feeling the demands, he reluctantly agreed and made arrangements for others to care for his sister. By the turning of the year, he was gone as well. She watched with disbelieving eyes as he walked away from her.

For years, that was the last image I had of Russ—getting into his car and driving away. I can still see the little details: it was a remarkably warm December for Chicago, and there was no snow on the ground. The sun was bright but his eyes were dark. Now I know it was his own regret and sorrow that he couldn’t care for me, but then all I could see was rejection.

And once he had driven away, the social worker pulled me back into the house and stood over me as I tried to decide what to pack and what to discard through the tears I couldn’t control.

I have no idea anymore how I held on to the handful of possessions I brought from my parents’ house; I am simply grateful that I did.

The daughter (sister, girl, heroine) spends the next three years being pushed and pulled about by strangers, some well-meaning but inadequate, some indifferent, some downright bad, and a small number of the genuinely nice. In these sorts of tales, it would be her ordeal, the circumstances which make her worthy of the highest honors and rewards, showered upon her from the outside.

In real life, she is the one who overcomes the obstacles, makes her way out of the maze. She earns her rewards through hard work and dedication. She studies hard and achieves the highest honors at school, then moves on to University and applies herself there even harder. Over her desk in the small room the University gave her is a motto, gorgeously calligraphed by an art student she knows: ad astra per aspera. To the stars through hardships.

Only the last of my foster parents supported my desire to attend college; even the case worker was apathetic. They helped me with the forms, encouraged me to apply to the best schools, and somehow got my case worker to write a good reference.

The rest of them--well, perhaps that’s better left unsaid. I saw some of the worst of human behavior in those three years; I have a scar or two to prove it, as well as a thick file. I have a copy of that. I keep it with my shoes, the ones I wrote their names on. I don’t look at them anymore, I’m not a masochist. Perhaps I might show the file and shoes to Booth; my dad would be interested, too, but I fear his reactions more. His conscience is more…flexible…than Booth’s for the most part.

She obtains the preliminary degree, that of Bachelor of Science in a remarkably short time; a Master’s quickly follows. Her focus is phenomenal, her drive unparalleled. There are no vacations or summer breaks for her, just classes, as many as the University will permit. And one good, true friend is found, a friend who brings her pieces of the outside world.

I worked hard at school. Money was, if not no object, at least not an issue. To my surprise, a lawyer and my case worker visited me on my 18th birthday and gave me a thin folder. Inside were all the documents left by my parents. The lease on the house (expired, of course). Wills. And bank books for accounts in my name and Russ’s, with the date of transfer the day they disappeared. Since Russ was still missing, the courts had decided they were all mine. Between that and the scholarships and grants I received, my education was paid for, up to my first doctorate, so long as I was careful.

Which I was. Financially and academically, anyway.

And I met Angela. My first real friend since I was 15, and my complete opposite. She was an artist from the beginning, brilliant in the humanities, with a budding interest in computers. And a party girl. Always that. She would take me out clubbing when she felt I was gathering dust, make sure I saw sunlight at least once a week. Odd that we are such good friends, and for so long, but at this point I have learned not to question such fortuitous circumstances.

Our heroine, now adult, and all alone in the world, turns to a rarified discipline--the study of bones. She wants to know everything about them. Some of the appeal is that mysteries may be solved in this study. Skeletons talk this way, you see, not literally of course; there is no magic wand to animate a skull. Only close examination and study make them open books. And somewhere deep inside of her, she is aware that her parents may be a pile of bones somewhere. The more people who can read bones like she wants to, the more likely she is to find out what happened to them.

But every student in this course must have a mentor. She is fortunate to catch the attention of one of the better ones. He personally guides her on her path, and she blossoms under his attention. Which allows him to see she is quite a lovely young lady. And so he does what is not strictly forbidden, but certainly disapproved of--he takes her to his bed. She is as apt a pupil there as in the classroom.

Michael. I was a fool. Angela told me so once I told her who I was sleeping with (she’s always had an obsession with my love life). But he was persuasive and kind and it never seemed to fall over into the classroom or our digs. I would have ended it if it had.

Somewhere in the last year before she earned the title of Doctor, though, she began to suspect her mentor was hiding something. Unfortunately, for all that she excelled in academics, she still had not learned to read the human heart in all its twisty ways, so she could not say for certain what was wrong. Only later did she learn of his jealousy as her skills surpassed his.

I was at the Jeffersonian by 1998; the same year, as Zack pointed out, that my mother’s bones arrived there as Jane Doe 129-0998. I had a feeling Dr. Stires was glad to see me leave Northwestern even then, but we parted on friendly terms.

And the Jeffersonian became my true home, as Booth phrased it once. The place where my mind was most at ease. Dr. Goodman hired me; Hodgins was already an employee, working on his own third doctorate. I missed Angela, however, and when there was talk of needing a facial reconstructionist or forensic artist, I thought of her. She was hired, mostly upon my recommendation, and together we created her actual position out of nothing.

She fit into the great academy and museum almost seamlessly. Time was allotted for her own studies and journeys, and she made important discoveries and designed new ways of doing things that only improved the work she and her peers did. The rulers of the land came to value and depend upon her expertise, sometimes asking her to travel far away.

Some of these trips were dangerous; so dangerous she could not tell anyone else about them. Twice, death nearly took her. But she believed that the work itself was too important to neglect. The dead she had come to help were too important to ignore. And so she persevered.

She remained quiet, however, and none save her friend from the University knew her. Even those she worked with knew little of her. They were pleasant companions, especially the young student she mentored with joy (though she stayed within the proper bounds of such a relationship).

In the meantime, she locked away the memory of her family, refusing to talk of them. It would be many more years before she learned of their fate. Except for her brother. Once she was on her own, he would send birthday greetings every year. She listened to them, and set her heart like stone, for she still blamed him that she was alone.

And her life remained thus for seven years…

Seven years I worked at the Jeffersonian before I met Booth. Seven’s an important number in folklore and fairy tales. It’s always the seventh son or seventh daughter who is the most fortunate. A man in the Bible labored for seven years for the right to wed his employer’s daughter. There are some who say the body operates on a seven year cycle. I’m not saying there’s anything significant about it in my case--it’s just an interesting coincidence.

Yes, Russ left me messages every year on my birthday once I was out of foster care. Sometimes I was out of the country, as I tend to be on certain anniversaries. I’d come home and find his message; or if I was at home, I would simply listen as he spoke. It was always the same: a plea for me to answer, “Happy Birthday, Tempe,” a brief hesitation followed by his contact information. That would change from time to time, and a few years before I started working with Booth, he left no such details. I realize now he must have been in jail at the time.

Hodgins and Angela and I made a small unit, friends, colleagues, companions, and we worked well together. That was my sole criteria for many years. We learned each other’s quirks and habits, made allowances for them, knew what to expect on a professional level. Then I hired Zack. In retrospect, he became everyone’s little brother. Hodgins in particular took to him, even though he was the butt of jokes or the scapegoat when one of their experiments went awry. I wish I had paid better attention to him.

Now comes the tricky part…

One morning, the chief of the scholars came to her with a man from outside the academic complex. He was of a knightly force dedicated to eradicating and confining lawbreakers within the country. The academy had agreed that their best scholars would work with the knights in order to identify victims of crimes either so old there was naught but bone left or where circumstances had led to such intense damage that no name or face could be easily discerned. And this knight was tasked to work with them, bring them these bodies, and once a name could be attached and the weapon used identified, he and his fellows could apprehend the villain.

But he was hard to work with. He distrusted the way of the scholars, doubted their abilities. In turn, they began to despise him for his dismissal of their work, his open scorn and mockery. And when she asked to see a skeleton where it was found, he was quite rude in rejecting her request.

Angered beyond words, she went on one of her trips, leaving behind a message for the knight that she would no longer work with him. But when she came back, he had a mystery he truly needed her help on. And so he tried to humble himself, which was hard, for he was a proud man. As proud of his own skills as she was of hers. He gave way to her demands, and with her help, discovered who had killed a pregnant young woman. He was also forced to realize there was no way he could have done so on his own, and so his face became a familiar sight in the academy’s halls. Along with the sound of their debates.

I still am uncertain how we went from that “armed” standoff to friends. But we did. And somehow, somehow I have grown to trust Booth more than anyone else since I was 15. He’s stood beside me as I worked through the issues of my past as they have risen; I’ve told him more than I’ve ever told anyone else. He’s taught me about the rest of the world--the emotions and motivations of “normal” people. He’s done a lot more for me than we’ve ever discussed out loud.

I wonder sometimes if I have been as beneficial for him. It’s hard to tell. He’s a private man, as private as I am, and lacking his skills in benevolent prying, I cannot get him to talk as freely as he can get me to do. He tells me some things, and I try to show I care about him, that we shall remain friends no matter what he has done in the past. I wish I could do more--that I could get inside his head the way he gets in mine! I think--believe--feel--his youth and early adulthood parallels mine in some way. If he doesn’t scorn me for my questionable family and shadowed youth, how could I disdain his?

And recently, I have thought that I want to step across that line he drew, ostensibly to protect us…no, me. But I don’t know how to do it, cannot even be sure of his feelings, though there seems to be something in his gaze--and he’s always looking at me!

The knight has stood beside the scholars in matters dark and deep. He has put his reputation upon the line for them, especially her. He helped her find her family; a mixed blessing to be sure, since dangerous secrets came to light with them. But she has laid her mother to rest in proper fashion, embraced her father and brother once more--thanks in great part to him. He has begun to teach her the ways of the human heart and soul and she has taught him there is more than one way to untie a knot or penetrate a secret.

Trust has grown between them.

Is there a moral to my story? I doubt it. There is nothing so neat and tidy here as the moral to a fable; no message carved in stone. I hope I conveyed the importance of dedication needed in order to succeed. There is also a caution against closing yourself off from others. That sometimes the truth is dangerous and unpleasant, but always worth seeking out. Let an objective observer determine if there are others. I’m too close.

The tale is unfinished. The knight and the scholar are friends, partners, shieldbrothers. Bound together by ties incomprehensible to outsiders. They are the center of the union between the academy and the knights. Some look at them and see more than is there. Others push--hard--to make things happen. But one day…ah, one day, the knight will look at his friend the scholar and they will both see the other as more than a friend. Perhaps they will kiss of their own free will, without witnesses or blackmail. Perhaps they will speak of love and truth, trust and feelings, and their relationship turn on another axis.

As the poet says, ‘tis a consummation devoutly to be wished…

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In the light of the revelations made in Plain in the Prodigy, I was a little surprised when I reread this and discovered that several months ago I implied that Michael Stires was her 1st real sexual encounter. Go fig, as they used to say...

I recall that conversation and must agree given the serendipitous nature of the revelations from PitP. It is interesting how often life imitates art, or in this case how the lives of our favorite characters often seem to follow along with our conjecture.

BTW, I found this to be a lovely and thought provoking bit of writing, well done indeed my Queen.

RM