Detour Down Memory Lane - Friendship - K+ - Author: Hart

[g]Hello everybody. Is everybody fine? That's fine...I started another fic...it's about Booth when he was trying to quit gambling...you wanna read it? Ok. [/g]

Dr. Sweet’s office. The Zone of Truth. Well, as far as Booth was concerned, the Zone of Truth could be the Zone of Endless Pie, he still wouldn’t want to be there. He was fingering his red dice, doing his best not to pay attention while Sweets spoke. But then something suddenly pulled at his attention much the same way a fishing line yanks on a fish.

“Excuse me?” He sat forward slightly in his chair, he had heard the question more or less, and judging by the surprised, slightly concerned look on Brennan’s face, it was more rather than less.

Sweets faltered a bit, glancing back at his notes before looking up again. “Agent Booth, do you have a gambling problem?”

Booth set his jaw and Brennan could practically feel the seething anger radiating off him and she glanced at Sweets. She knew the guy was young, but up until now she hadn’t thought he was actually stupid.

“Had. I had a gambling problem Sweets, and I don’t really see how that relates to anything we’re dealing with right now.” He spoke through clenched teeth, all but ignoring the calming hand Brennan laid on his arm.

Sweets took a deep breath and swallowed, doing his best to keep an ‘I’m not intimidated’ look on his face.

“Agent Booth, you have a hero complex and control issues, Dr. Brennan has a naturally independent nature and...control issues.”

“Are those clinical terms?” Brennan asked, sounding slightly offended.

Sweets glanced at her but continued smoothly. “And since your kiss at Christmas, neither of you can deny that your partnership has been a bit…strained.”

Booth and Brennan exchanged glances and shifted uncomfortably in their seats. They certainly couldn’t deny that. Just yesterday they’d come dangerously close to blows at a crime scene in Bethesda.

“You were both a bit disconcerted by the sudden shift in your relationship undoubtedly brought on by that kiss. I believe the best way to relieve this strain is to reestablish the connection you once had by taking turns in relinquishing control.”

“And my former gambling has to do with that…how?”

Sweets cleared his throat. “You’re both naturally private people, while you’ve established a very strong bond already, at this point in time it is obvious that a rift has been driven between you. You both also have your vulnerabilities, by sharing and talking about those vulnerabilities with each other, you will restore that trust and free flow of reliance on one another that you once had.”

Brennan shifted and frowned, the way she often did when something she wasn’t quite sure she believed something, but couldn’t come up with a logical argument to dispute it. Booth sat back in his chair, trying to come up with another excuse and fairly quickly.

Sweets raised his eyebrows in that coaxing way he did. “Agent Booth?”

Booth narrowed his eyes at the young man and bit back a smile. “You know Sweets, it’s a good thing I find you mildly amusing.”

Sweets had a feeling that was more of a veiled threat than a compliment. Booth had to give the boy props, he didn’t blink. But he did swallow hard and beads of sweat began forming on his brow. With a deep sigh, Booth conceded.

“Fine.” He cracked his knuckles, his eyes glued to a bookshelf along Sweet’s far wall. “I started gambling when I got back from my first tour of duty in Israel, Operation Desert Storm. At first it wasn’t that bad, only on the weekends when I had nothing better to do, but pretty soon, it was more and worse. I couldn’t get enough. I loved the action, I loved the winning. But then my luck turned. I needed money and I needed it fast. I was pretty good at hiding it and I didn’t think anybody had seen a change. But somebody did.”

August 1992

They were on vacation for the summer form St. Joseph’s University, it was supposed to be their summer. Nothing but parties and fun and memories to be made. Instead, she spent half the time trying to sober him up, the other half wondering if he would ever lose that hollow look in his eyes and be the carefree, happy man she’d been with two years ago.

They’d gone to the same High School, but hadn’t met until their senior year. She, being an army brat, understood his sense of duty and honor the way no one else really did. The bond they’d formed was something like a flash fire that burned for three weeks, reaching it’s peak the night before he was deployed. A night that had gotten them both through the long months to come.

She would probably say it was fate that brought them together. He wasn’t so sure he believed in all that anymore. Hell, these days, he didn’t know what to believe.

She approached him slowly from behind, feeling a little bit like prey trying to sneak up on it’s predator. She knew that Seeley would never hurt her, of course, but since he’d gotten back from his first tour of duty overseas, his moods had been erratic and violently changeable. She’d learned it was best to err on the side of caution.

He stood by himself out at the edge of an empty parking lot behind their former favorite haunt. A diner that they’d all but lived in all through high school. He on his stool at the bar with his friends, she in a booth with hers. Only now the old fashioned diner felt too small, too young for the people they had become. She couldn’t quite pinpoint when it had happened, but at some point in the past year and a half, she and Seeley had outgrown what life was and could have been. And reality had yet to be defined.

She watched him for a moment, he stared long and hard at the empty field out behind the diner, a sky full of stars the only light shining down on them. She felt a bit like she was invading his privacy, watching him like this, but at the same time, the sight of him was somewhat intoxicating. His hair had only begun to grow out from his extremely short Army regulation buzz cut, his strong powerful frame and jaw line outlined sharply by the soft blue glow. He liked to be alone these days, and watching him had been a luxury she’d been indulging in more often than she would admit.

A white puff of smoke flew up over his head and she frowned a bit, clutching her brown purse by the handle. Since she was warm in nothing but her t-shirt and jean jacket, she knew it wasn’t from cold air.

“When did you start smoking?” She could tell she’d startled him by the way he whirled around, and it startled her a little bit. Ever since he’d come back from whatever he’d been doing in the Army, he never talked about it so she really had no idea, he’d been hard to get a reaction out of at all, and surprise was just plain impossible.

He looked guiltily at her, glancing down at the glowing cigarette between his fingers.

“I picked it up overseas.” He mumbled quietly, dropping it to the ground and stomping it out.

When she stayed quiet he shifted nervously, fearing he could add disappointing her to the long line of things he felt had gone wrong since his return.

“I don’t do it much. It just calms me down sometimes.” He added, watching as she kicked the dirt at her feet and meandered over to lean against the fence that separated the field from the parking lot of the diner.

“Picked up a lot of bad habits overseas, huh Seeley?”

He furrowed his brows and mimicked her position, standing close so that they were shoulder to shoulder.

“What are you talking about?”

She only shook her head and it seemed to take forever for her to finally look at him again.

“You should go home Seeley.” She whispered, as the nighttime often commands one to do, “Go home to your family.”

He turned his body to face her fully, carefully bringing his hands up to cup her cheeks. She looked up at him and he paused, momentarily immobilized by the deep emotions swirling in her eyes. He wondered if those were tears of joy, sadness or fear shining in them.

“You’re all the family I need.”

She could hardly breathe when he turned the full brunt of his intense gaze on her like that, but she did her best anyway.

“That’s not true.” She smiled softly, “But thank you for saying so.”

He cocked his head and cocked his smile and for a moment she was a girl back at school with him, her stomach a sea of butterflies, waiting for their first kiss. But this wasn’t high school anymore, and the time for first kisses had long past.

Reaching up slowly, she covered his hands with hers, gently pulling them off her cheeks and folding them together between hers.

“I love you.”

He was confused to see something like sympathy cross her pretty face as she kissed the inside of his wrists, right over his tattoos.

“Now go. Something tells me they need to talk to you.”

Hesitating only for a moment, but not saying another word, he finally turned and got into his truck, pulling out and heading home. And she stood there watching him go, waving goodbye.

“If I’d known what I would find when I got home, I probably wouldn’t have gone. And I’d probably still be gambling now.” Or worse. Booth’s voice was low, and he sat back in his chair looking exhausted from the ordeal of telling the first part of his story.

Brennan looked at her hands, clasped neatly in her lap. She couldn’t decide what she felt as regards to hearing Booth talk about his ex in such an affectionate way. And, unable to rationalize the dually pleasant and unpleasant feelings she was having, she resigned herself to fiddling with loose threads and avoiding eye contact with Sweets, lest he ask her to comment.

“And why is that Agent Booth?”

A slightly bitter, slightly amused smile kicked up one side of Booth’s mouth as his dark eyes flashed with a memory from years before.

“Have you ever experienced an intervention before Sweets?”


[g]So, what do you think? I have a little obsession with Booth's past, in case you haven't noticed. It's just so unexplored on the show, so much room for imagination. [/g]