Chapter Text
In a year, they’d promised. In a year, they’d meet back at the fountain. In a year, they’d pick things up where they left off. In a year, they’d be ready for what was to come. But life didn’t usually go as planned.
It had been seven months instead, not twelve. Brennan didn’t find the Maluku bones they’d be looking for. Booth didn’t stay away from the warzone like he’d promised. When they met at the fountain, things weren’t as they’d left them.
They’d embraced tightly at their meeting point, but the hug hadn’t been as they’d wished for months ago. Brennan squeezed with seven months of longing, Booth with months of regret and attempts at forgetting. The embrace didn’t last as long as they would’ve hoped for in the past.
Soon enough, Booth had shown her. Hannah, he said her name was. A strong-minded beauty he’d met in Afghanistan. ‘She was his type’ was the thought she had allowed, if Rebecca was anything to go by. What she didn’t wish to allow was the thought that she herself was also his type— or had been. Or the thought that she had waited, following the silent promise that they wouldn’t change— the rest, maybe, everything changes, but not them. She had to push down the feeling of betrayal because no, evidence showed otherwise: they had promised to meet back up and be what they had been, and that only meant being partners. He came back, and they were partners again; there was no betrayal. What she wished for was entirely different; completely unrelated to hard facts. She pushed down the sting and told Booth Hannah was beautiful, with a sad smile that she hoped Booth wouldn’t decypher.
He told her that he was happy, truly happy. Things didn’t go as planned, but Brennan could see pure joy in his eyes— something she’d never admit, as emotions weren’t quantifiable or measurable through how much an eye shone, which could instead be easily explained by the light sources of the environment and the position of the eyeball in relation to them— and seeing so much happiness in him did make a part of her feel good: it was what he deserved, even if an irrational part of her being wished it were with her instead— the muffled, emotional part of her that she kept locked away in fear of many things. The part of her that most people thought didn’t exist, but Booth knew deeply of.
But anytime he spoke, be it of Hannah, the sniper trainees, the country, the seven months, Brennan would also see a hint of something else in his eyes, something darker. And seeing it in his eyes would be enough for her; eyes weren’t the door to anything, it made no anatomical sense, but Booth’s eyes were definitely the key to something. Brennan had learnt to use it with the passage of the years; anytime they were alone, anytime it was just the two of them, be it at the lab, in his office, in the car, in their apartments, Booth would hand Brennan that precious, invisible key, and she’d be able to see what he kept locked inside. Brennan didn’t need any of Sweet’s party tricks or Booth’s special agent training, she just needed to look into her partner’s all-encompassing eyes, and she’d know what he felt, what he meant, what he thought.
With the emotional nature of these hints, it was as expected that Brennan had difficulties understanding what these little revelations meant from time to time, and although she’d been getting better, what she saw now left her stumped. It wasn’t that they’d been apart for seven months and their connection had been severed, no, this was something else. His eyes were enough for her to notice, but she could also see it in the way his shoulders seemed to carry more weight, tired despite their healthy musculature. She could see it in how a certain exhaustion clung to his face despite the proper sleep hours he claimed to have had. She could see it in how the sounds of the bar— which had become cozy and even homely to them through the years— kept grabbing his attention, away from her even if he was invested in whatever she was saying at the time. She could see it in how there was a lingering sadness, even when the joy of Hannah threatened to take over anytime he mentioned her.
“Booth…” she started, trying not to sound too worried.
“Hm?” He turned to her, eyebrows raised, trying to focus again on his partner. She was sure she’d just caught him looking around for the source of what she assumed would be another glass clinking around the bar, or some other sound common enough for her ears to ignore it.
She’d seen little hints like these anytime they had a particularly difficult or personal case, whenever they’d been in imminent danger and he felt he needed to protect her; but this intensity was new to her. Her eyebrows knit together slightly. “Is everything alright?”
His eyes widened slightly. “Yeah, yes, of course. I’m sorry, were you saying something I missed?”
“No, it’s just…” she tried measuring her words. “You seem distracted.”
If it weren’t Booth, her partner, she wouldn’t have noticed the sobering blink or the deep breath he tried to hide. “Yeah, Bones. Everything’s ok.” She noticed the set jaw, too, and the forced smile didn’t do anything to alleviate her furrowed brow, but she let it go. If she knew him at all, she knew pushing a topic he braced for while tired wouldn’t get her anywhere. Something about his weariness made her feel that pushing it would only cause him pain, anyway.
She looked down at the table to reorganize her options for a moment, and looked back up with a polite smile to ask more about this new Hannah.