Spoilers: Nah.
Disclaimer: I'm sorry if this is a little out of character. I'm suffering Bones withdrawal, at the moment, so I haven't seen an episode in like three weeks, so I'm a little out of inspiration. I'd much appreciate it if you guys could tell me how in (or out of) character this is! Thanks!
Author's Note: Inspired in part by a Bollywood movie I watched last night. They're awesome, but, really, they never end! It went for about three and a half hours with no ad breaks. No joking. It may have been longer, actually...Anyway, I had serious trouble with ending this story, actually. Maybe that's what happened to the Bollywood people, too.
"Hey, princess!" someone drawled from down the corridor. Brennan kept walking, rolling her eyes. She hated being here. "Yo, honey, come here! You want a real man," called another voice. Booth moved closer to Brennan, placing his arm tightly around her shoulders.
"Booth, thank you, but I can defend myself! Besides, they're behind bars," she added slowly, as if he were five years old. Booth shot her a look, but refused to loosen his grip.
"Remember what happened last time? When...when Epps got out?" He struggled to say this calmly, to keep his voice even. Brennan looked at him apologetically. Booth continued. "These guys are some nasty pieces of work, Bones."
"Yes, Booth, that's why they're in prison," she emphasized again. Booth opened his mouth to speak when the guard interrupted, completely oblivious to the conversation. Booth figured that he had learned to be oblivious the hard way, judging by his quickly darting eyes watching the prisoners. Most prison guards had.
"Here he is. I don't know why you're even bothering, Agent Booth. The man hasn't spoken a word about himself for twenty years. He's polite as hell, but that's mostly what makes him so suspicious, sir. Something ain't right about a man who don't defend himself, you know?" The guard pulled a face, then unlocked the cell, before moving aside to stand guard.
Booth nodded in understanding. "Yeah," he mumbled. Brennan smiled at the guard before entering the cell. Booth could have sworn he saw the guard blush, and he put a hand on her back unconsciously.
Brennan sat down on the chair that had been placed there by the guard earlier and extended a hand. "Mister Faulks? My name is Temperance Brennan," she said steadily. The man didn't flinch and continued staring at the floor in front of him. Booth looked between Faulks and Brennan, then started speaking.
"I'm Special Agent Seeley Booth, FBI," he stated, as if it were somehow going to persuade the man to speak. It didn't. "Sir, we're here because we believe you're innocent." The man's head jerked so that he was looking in the opposite direction, but still he refused to look at either Booth or Brennan. Brennan looked at Booth with a slightly confused expression and tried again.
"Recently, a set of remains was found in the site that you had apparently dumped the bodies of the other girls. It shows all the same signs of torture-" here, Faulks flinched, as if he'd been hit "-that were evident in the earlier cases. The problem is that carbon dating puts the death of the latest girl at least one year after you were incarcerated."
She looked at his pained face and turned to Booth, who picked up where she'd left off. "Do you understand what we're saying, Mister Faulks? This body shows damage which is, in perfect detail, the same as the earlier cases. But these things were never released to the press, Mister Faulks."
He dropped his voice to a harsh whisper. "Talk to us, for your own sake, and for the sake of the nine girls who lost their lives to this psycho who is still out there."
Faulks turned his head and stared directly into Booth's eyes before beginning.
--
Booth and Brennan sat on her couch gripping cups of coffee. Brennan was staring at something out the window, grinning, while Booth studied her shamelessly. Her eyes reflected both the dim light inside her apartment and the darkness outside, and they glistened with it, and he found himself to be completely taken. Again, he added.
Brennan took a sip of her coffee, but her gaze or smile never strayed. Booth's eyebrows furrowed. He loved seeing her smile, more than anything, but he wanted to know what had made her smile.
"Bones?" he asked quietly, slightly amused. Brennan's eyes flitted over to his slowly. He looked at her with curiosity; she only smiled wider and took another sip of her coffee, turning her attention back to the nonexistent focal point beyond the dark window. Booth watched the steam dance off her coffee as she blew on it absentmindedly.
She took a deep breath and turned to look at him again. Still smiling, she started to talk. "We did a good thing, Booth." She looked at him, completely uninhibited, and he took a second to digest her expression so he could remember it next time she went emotionless on him.
"Yeah, we did," he almost whispered, his grin now matching hers; he didn't want to let her mood drop. She nodded, and looked again to the window, curled up against the arm of the couch, and Booth went back to studying her. She was wearing black track pants and a plain white tank top, her hair held back with a pen.
She'd been like this when he'd come over, and he was surprised, and ecstatic, when she hadn't immediately become professional and left to change into more formal attire. He knew from previous...experience that when a woman allows you to see her dressed like that, it is definitely a good thing; she was letting him see the more homely, more vulnerable side of her.
Something he wished he could see more often.
"Bones? Can I ask you something?" he ventured, sipping his coffee so that he had something in between himself and Brennan.
Brennan nodded. "Sure, Booth. You don't have to ask," she half joked. Booth chuckled; he was glad her good mood had stayed up.
"Why? Why did you listen to me when I told you I thought it wasn't him?" She looked at him thoughtfully before answering, resting her head against the back of the couch. The word 'snuggling' jumped into Booth's head before he could stop it. It wasn't the only word that did, either.
"I suppose that I've learned that I'm not always right; even when I have the facts to back me up." She looked at him questioningly, wondering if this was the answer he wanted. He laughed, amused that she'd finally admitted it.
"Good. I thought you had just been boosting my ego, or something," he teased, nudging her foot with his knee. Brennan laughed, shaking her head.
"Booth, your ego doesn't need any more boosting. I think your head would explode," she added just loudly enough for him to hear her, grinning as she took another sip, letting the mug warm her hands. Booth grinned, too happy to let her comment annoy him.
"You know, Bones, it's physically impossible for someone's brain to explode from an overloaded ego," he stated, mimicking her slightly. Brennan laughed and kicked his thigh; he caught her foot.
"I don't know; the scientific world has never before seen one the magnitude of yours, so anything's possible," she shot back, hardly missing a beat. Booth pouted dramatically, then assumed a more serious tone, puffing out his chest deliberately.
"The scientific world has never before seen something of my magnitude, huh?" he said, intentionally sounding cocky. "Well, I think it's about time they did," he said, winking and leaning over to her, taking her mug out of her hands. Brennan looked at him, confused.
"Hey, I wasn't finished, Booth!" she whined as he moved closer, wrapping one arm around the back of the couch as he placed both their mugs on the coffee table in front of them. He placed his free hand on her thigh, safely close to her knee and looked her in the eye, smiling mischievously.
"What are you doing, Booth?" she asked, scared.
"Something very, very stupid," he answered, before closing the remaining distance between them and touching his lips to hers. The contact made her breath catch, and her eyes snapped closed as he parted her lips, moving his hands to her face when she didn't instantly pull away.
Booth moaned, stunned, when Brennan intensified the kiss, but he let himself forget that he was kissing his partner and let himself remember that he was kissing His Bones. He reached around and pulled the pen from her hair, running his fingers through it before grasping her shoulders and almost painfully pulling away. He struggled to breathe for a minute.
"Bones, what are we doing?" he asked, trying desperately to regain some semblance of composure. He hadn't actually expected her to reciprocate. To be honest, he hadn't thought much beyond actually making contact; that in itself was a feat. To his absolute astonishment, she grinned at him.
"Something very, very stupid," she replied, before reclaiming his lips.
Okay, so I don't know about the ending...
Y'all will have to tell me what you think!
...please?...
Giorgia