Work Text:
Angela's office is smothering her tonight. The mangled face of the newest victim is a sharply focused and permanent fixture behind her eyelids. She sighs, brushing her hair out of her face and blowing out a slow breath. This new case is not the only thing bothering her. It's also the case this one came in on the heels of. Brennan's face, betrayed expression, as she sits on the witness stand and gets the most vulnerable parts of herself exposed. The way Angela had internally warred with excitement at seeing Brennan have something romantic in her life, uncharacteristically putting her work down to pursue something that could set her insides on fire, with a dull ache inside of her that she wasn't the one putting that fire there. Brennan deserves more than her old professor using their former relationship to get information out of her, withholding things from her complete honesty. But for a second, all Angela had seen was that Brennan could rekindle an old relationship, fan old flames, but hadn't chosen her. This preoccupation is what Angela blames for the instant nausea she feels upon receipt of the new skull. Not the redness that's become a common fixture around Brennan's eyes since Michael Stires left, since Booth made the lawyer dig out every piece of her and put it on display. Brennan is so much more than they see, than Angela does even. The thought is sobering and sickening.
Angela ends up on the threshold of Brennan's office without even thinking her way there. She just moves, driven by feeling. Brennan is bent over her desk, warmed by yellow lamplight as she compares X-rays with laser focus. Her nose is scrunched in a way Angela wants to reach out and touch. But she's become very good at keeping her hands to herself.
"Bren?" She calls into the room, suddenly warm when all that intense focus lands on her instead. "I'm heading out for the night but do you want to go get drinks with me, maybe go dancing? I need to get this one out of my head."
The rest of that truth lingers on the back of her tongue. Angela needs to get out of her head before she gets stuck thinking about how it all used to be, back in a time before that's probably unreachable now if what happened this week was any indication. Some things end for a reason. Some things should not go back together. And she'd like to believe that for a second, even if she needs to be pliant with drink and moving to some ground-thumping beat to do so.
Brennan is just looking at her, as if trying to read something off her, as if trying to break her open and investigate her insides. Angela melts internally, forces her external being to stay neutral.
"You've seen remains in worse shape, Angela," Brennan notes. "What makes this one something you need to go out to erase?"
Angela leans against the doorframe, the half-open door casting her partially in shadow.
"Well, I'd kind of like to forget all of them, sweetie."
Brennan's eyes only feel heavier on her as they search again, her mouth a pinched line. She drops the X-rays she's been holding to her desk, starts sweeping them up into a file folder. With her eyes still downward turned, Brennan asks, "why do you stay here if it upsets you so much? Is it because you need the income? I would lend you whatever you needed if you wanted to find other work. I have a lot of money."
This isn't where Angela expected the conversation to go. She wishes for a shot of hard alcohol to make the topic slightly easier to broach, wonders if they need to sit down.
"No," Angela says, fighting a slight shiver. "That's not why I stay."
Brennan finally looks up, leaning so far over the desk, it almost looks like she wants to jump it.
"Why? I don't understand," Brennan says. "I want to understand."
Angela finds the grace to step closer, just close enough that if she fully extended her arm, she could touch Brennan's hands.
"Well, this work feels important. It's hard sometimes but it usually feels worth it when I get to see you and Booth bring people justice," Angela says. Her words are measured and slow. But they are also absolutely true.
Brennan sinks back just a little, sitting flat in her chair. Angela fights the urge to move closer, keep Brennan in arms reach.
"You too," she says. "You give them back their faces, Angie. You have an excellent grasp of bone structure."
"You give them back everything else," Angela says resolutely. "I-I'm also here because of you."
If Angela isn't mistaken, Brennan flinches for a half-second, then her eyebrows knit together.
"Because of me?"
Angela watches Brennan's expression shift from mild confusion to something somewhat wounded. Guilt, Angela guesses. Or maybe sadness.
"Yeah, I just... You're important. Seeing you every day," Angela says. She shrugs, but it does nothing to belie the intensity of her statement because the end comes out breathy. "Is necessary."
"Even though it hurts you?"
"I don't know what to say," Angela says. She does take that step forward so she can touch Brennan's hand for a brief moment, pulling back the second she realizes it takes active effort to try not to memorize the feel of bones and tendons under thin skin. "You don't hurt me."
It's a bit of a lie, but only a little one. An acceptable one. Brennan doesn't like lies, but sometimes holding back a truth is an act of protection, of love. Angela could hazard a guess she'd be okay with this empathy.
"I don't want you to stay just so you can see me everyday. You know I don't put much stock in psychology, but I'm concerned that repetitive exposure to a source of malease is not good for your overall well-being… I don't want you to be unhappy," her voice is hoarse and quiet, slower and snaggy as she nears the end, like she's losing the fight at holding her emotions back. They come out with the fading of technical speech.
"I appreciate that, sweetie, but I'm very happy," Angela says.
Brennan shoots her a confused glance, all eyebrows.
"It's just worth it. It's worth it," Angela insists.
"Okay." Brennan decides to give in. "Would you tell me if it wasn't anymore?"
Angela pauses. This conversation feels like it's about a lot of things at once and it's difficult to parse. "I promise."
Brennan hesitates before standing, rounding her desk and putting her arms around Angela's shoulders in a soft hug.
"What's this for?" She asks against the faceful of Brennan's hair she receives, tries not to too deeply inhale. She pats Brennan's back anyway.
"This is how… I thought this was how you liked to receive comfort, if that's still okay."
And there it is. Angela feels the pieces of her broken heart chime. Everything that changed between them burns sometimes. Burns often, really, when Brennan gives her that smile just for her or reaches for intimacy she doesn't share with anyone else. Even now, they have something different, something theirs, something Angela wants more of, all of.
"It's still okay" Angela confirms, but her heart races as she feels Brennan's warmth against her, her softness and familiar shape, and she just remembers. God, she misses this. And though it's not really Brennan, generally, to talk around things, to be indirect, she thinks maybe this time she was. It feels like maybe Brennan breaks her own rules sometimes for her, or so as not to hurt her, as if she wanted to ask if Angela was still here because she still loved her but bit her tongue. Angela can't answer that question, not without hurting one or both of them.
To Angela's surprise, Brennan is the one to say it as she pulls away, releasing a waft of her same perfume that leaves Angela a little breathless.
"I miss..." Brennan stops herself, fingers over her mouth. She looks upset with herself for letting it slip.
Angela sighs, the slightest frown as her brows crease.
"It's okay," Angela says. "I miss it too."
"Well, it's a natural human response to—”
"—Sweetie," Angela interrupts. She shakes her head and Brennan's mouth falls from its readiness for speech. Her lips are the same pink and sometimes Angela spends too long looking at their shape, her fingers itching to trace it over paper so she'll never forget. It's a dangerous place to look, to think about. Her mind mulls it over anyway; maybe she could map her own on them so she could learn the contours well enough to sculpt them, immortalize how they fit together. Angela tears her eyes away.
When Angela speaks, it's almost like she's trying to convince herself.
"It didn't work before," she says softly.
"Well, maybe the variables have changed," Brennan says, just a little hope sparking in her voice, her eyes. "I think maybe I've changed. Maybe you changed me."
Angela is much more conservative with her hope. Brennan is not someone she thinks she could survive losing a second time.
"I would never want to change you. You're... Lovely," Angela says. "We don't need... I'm happy to be your friend. You don't have to love me any more than that."
"I didn't say I didn't love you," Brennan says. "I never said I didn't love you."
She wants to step back. She wants to move far enough away that Brennan couldn't hurt her, or at least far enough that she wouldn't be able to see it if she had.
Instead, Angela presses her fingertips to her eye sockets. She doesn't want to have this fight. It had felt like stubborn semantics, when they'd had it before. "You also never really said you did."
Brennan's mouth pinches and her eyes look a little wet. "I didn't understand before, how to show love the way you wanted but I think I get it now. You taught me things about people, after..."
Angela looks up, trying to blink enough that tears don't well. Then when she's collected herself, she looks into the blue of Brennan's eyes, wide and soft and... Loving. Her eyes did always say it, even when her mouth wouldn't. But it was easy to doubt something like the flicker of affection in a glance, especially if you didn't think you deserved it directed at you.
"It didn't feel logical to say I love you all the time when I'd already told you," Brennan says. "But you don't work that way. And I get that it can be nice to hear. It was nice when you said it to me. And, you know, maybe feelings aren't rational either because it doesn't make sense for me to still feel..."
Angela feels a part of herself strain towards Brennan, towards hope. She sounds as honest as she always is and tentatively hopeful and it's a damn strong pull.
"Brennan," Angela says. "I... Maybe I wasn't fair with you. To just expect and never say..."
Brennan blinks tears away. "I would have. If you asked. I would've done whatever you asked if you told me you needed it to feel like I loved you."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Angela says, looking at all the emotion blooming in her best friend's eyes and the way she bites her lip when she's done speaking like her mouth had betrayed her. "I thought I understood you then but I think it was wrong. You don't always say the things you feel, but it doesn't mean you don't feel. I knew that. I just..."
She just couldn't believe it when it was personal, when it was about her and not... Murder victims, families, people who Brennan didn't know so well, who she couldn't possibly be expected to understand. They'd been friends and then they'd been more and Angela, well, expected.
Brennan nods a little, her chin bobbing like she's trying not to cry.
"I read some of those romance novels you left," she says. "I tried to learn. I think I can... I can do those things."
She hadn't asked. She hadn't wanted to ask Brennan for things that didn't feel natural to her. She had felt like it was better to just take it as a bad match. She never, ever wanted to change Brennan. She loves who she is. But she just needs certain things in a relationship, something she understands as moving on passion and instinct rather than analysis and calculations. But she's been wrong before. She hopes she's wrong.
"I used to think love was just a chemical reaction, that it would last six months to two years and end when the dopamine levels in the brain decreased, but I just... It won't go away. Angie, I think I was wrong. It won't go away."
She sounds so desperately sad that Angela's chest feels hollow in response. Hollow and aching. She reaches out and takes Brennan's hands into hers. It feels like relief.
"It didn't go away for me either," she says.
"It didn't?" There's hope there, too.
"No, Bren, I love you. Still. Always."
"I love you," Brennan says. "I'll say it whenever you want. I love you. I love you. I love you."
"Oh," Angela says. She finally loses the handle on her tears, feels a hot burst slide down her cheeks as the lump in her throat doubles in size.
Brennan gently removes her hands to wipe her face from tears.
"I don't know if you're crying because... I did it all wrong or because you're happy. But I'm sorry if it's the former. I'm not very good at this."
It's easy now to see how badly she had messed up before. Neither of them were perfect, but she let one fight dictate everything. It was more insecurity than truth all this time. They had both been wanting all this time. Temperance hadn't understood why she was upset about the infrequency of her saying I love you; she'd told her before and of course she would inform her if her feelings changed. She hadn't understood why Angela was upset about the lack of romantic gestures, when she did do things for her just because she thought she'd like them, even if they weren't conventionally romantic. And how conventional was Angela, really? Brennan hadn't understood and was stubborn about it. And Angela was too insecure to see that she still felt what she wanted her to feel despite that, too scared to ask for what she wanted.
"No," Angela breathes. "You didn't do anything wrong. I'm happy and I'm sorry. I underestimated you, I think."
"Does that mean we can… try to go back to how it was before?"
"We have to talk, Tempe, but I would... Yes, I would really like that."
She takes her hand again and it feels like peace has finally found her again.
"But not here," Angela adds. "I think we should go get that drink. Have you eaten?"
Brennan shakes her head and Angela nods at her. She wipes her eyes, catching what Brennan had missed, and grins.
She takes Brennan to one of the nicer restaurants, only a quick walk away so they can leave their cars. Something inside of her hums and buzzes. She just feels good. She feels better than she has in a long time, no longer feeling a heavy ache in her chest when Brennan's eyes are on her.
And Brennan's eyes are on her, tracing over her as she follows her into the little restaurant and gets a table for two.
The restaurant is small, but blends chic with comfort in a way that sets Angela at ease. It's painted mostly in warm reds and browns, with warm lighting from artistic fixtures that reminds Angela of golden hour. She tells Brennan that, almost instinctively.
"Golden hour is the most beautiful thing, really," Angela gushes. "How does the natural world create so much art every single day, you know? And for photography, you don't even need to understand exposure or contrast or composition, any of that, everything just comes out gorgeous."
She almost expects her little spiel to fall on deaf ears, but Brennan is smiling at her with a softness in her eyes.
"What are you smiling at?" Angela asks.
"You're very cute when you go on about ambiance and replicating golden hour and all this talk about art theory," Brennan says. Her eyes crinkle even further in the corners and Angela wants to take a picture, remember this. "You show all the physical signs of excitement."
"It is exciting," Angela says, placing her hand over Brennan's as she looks at her seriously. "And romantic. Art is… a language of romance."
"Metaphorically," Brennan confirms. "Because romance languages make reference to Rome. And art is not a language, though it does communicate cultural values and mark shifts in…"
Brennan seems to realize her rambling and pauses awkwardly. Angela takes her turn to just grin at her.
"Yes," Angela confirms. "Rome is also romantic. After Paris, I'd like to go there too."
"I'd like to take you to the Louvre," Brennan responds. "Listen to you talk about all of the art."
Angela's grin cracks wider, a little sunset. "Hey, I think you got a grip on the romance thing."
Brennan smiles slowly. "Well, I learned it in part from you. It only makes sense it would meet some of your own preferences."
Angela nods. "And what are yours? I'm not going to ask for you to love me the way I want and not do the same for you."
"You're doing it already," Brennan says, a hint of a flush on her cheeks. "I just… need you to give me the benefit of the doubt when it comes to all this. You know I've never naturally excelled at the interpersonal. You can tell me if I've done something to upset you and what the better choice would've been."
"But you don't have to pretend for me," Angela says. "You know, like… You hide sometimes, don't say anything to avoid saying something wrong. Or fall into this technical language to pretend you're not feeling something. I want you to know that you're safe with me. This would help?"
Brennan nods. "I don't want you to leave again, not without at least giving me a chance to stop you."
"Never again," Angela says. "I promise. I know you better now."
She kisses the knuckles of Brennan's hand, rediscovering the delicate turn of her wrist and falling for the unintended seduction in it. Delicacy meets perfect structure, like most of Brennan. Angela feels her cheeks warm.
Their meal goes smoothly and much too fast. Angela is already mourning its end when she asks if Brennan wants dessert.
"No thanks," Brennan says. "I'm really very tired."
"It's been a draining day," she says. "Let me drive you home."
"I'm perfectly capable of—"
At Angela's raised eyebrow, she shifts tunes.
"Oh. I see you're trying to take care of me, not insinuate I will fall asleep at the wheel."
"Right," Angela confirms with a grin. Her girlfriend, if she can call her her girlfriend, is adorable sometimes.
"Let's do this right," Angela says. She pays the bill, arguing when Brennan wants to pay that she is the one who did the inviting and so she'll pay.
She holds Brennan's hand as they walk to the parking lot and opens the car door for her, soon delivering Brennan to her apartment door.
There they pause.
"Would it be… presumptuous of me to invite you in?" Brennan asks. She hurriedly adds, "I just mean for coffee or a drink."
Angela shakes her head, but doesn't take her up on it. "No, but not tonight, okay sweetie?"
Brennan's eyes dip in brief disappointment but then she meets Angela's eyes and hers are bright. Angela can't fight herself anymore, she steps in and presses her mouth to Brennan's, finally getting to refamiliarize herself with the mouth she almost dreams about. Brennan's lips are as soft as they always were, pliant beneath hers as she delicately licks her way in and rediscovers the spot just behind Brennan's front teeth that always had her melting into her. Hands fall to Angela's hips, gripping, as she pulls away, still close enough to feel the warm humidity of Brennan's breath against her lips. She waits for her breath to become even again before she speaks.
"It feels so good to be allowed to do that again," Angela says. Brennan nods, pink-cheeked and silenced. "I love you. Goodnight. Lock up, okay?"
It almost hurts to step out of Brennan's grasp. But she does. Brennan opens her apartment door, but before she closes it says, "Okay. I love you, too."
The ease with which she returns the statement fixes just about every part of Angela's heart that was broken.