Title: Strangers
Author: Lucy (somethingsdont)
Pairing: Booth/Brennan
Rating: R
Timeline: 4.26, The End in the Beginning
Summary: "She's still a stranger to him, for the most part. This much she knows."
Notes: Thanks to the lovely TemperTemper for her red pen and her love notes. You rock.

who.

The flurry of neurologists is a mere blur behind blank eyes, and she waits patiently outside his room for them to complete their tests. She wants to tell them to be gentle, he's not a pincushion, don't take so much blood, but her throat is parched from exhaustion and what she imagines constitutes shock, so she stands motionless behind the glass window and plays the part of an observer looking in. A stranger.

He catches her eye a few times, looking lost, like he's pleading for an explanation or some form of identification. Validation, maybe, which she doesn't think she's qualified to give anymore. But for the most part, he focuses on his doctors, answers questions when asked, performs motions when prompted. He furrows his brows in confusion a lot, she notices.

She's seen so much of the world that it's not easy to surprise her, but this leaves her hollow. It'd hurt, she thinks, if she didn't feel so empty.

Gradually, the assembly of doctors around his bed begins thinning. A few minutes later, a man in a lab coat approaches her.

"Ms. Brennan?"

Doctor Brennan, but she doesn't say this. Her eyes remain glued to the window. "Is he—" ever going to remember me? But she thinks this might come off selfish, so she doesn't elaborate.

The doctor launches into an explanation, but she barely hears any of it. She's usually good at this, good at prioritizing her brain to receive, store and process, but as he speaks, she gets lost somewhere between receive and store, and the sentences become nothing more than a jumble of words, the words nothing more than a clutter of letters. She thinks of alphabet soup and the first time she had it. Oh God, Parker.

Her eyes snap to the doctor. His lips continue to move, almost mechanically. It's important news, she knows, but she just wants to know if it's—

"—temporary."

"His condition is temporary?"

The doctor frowns. "I said it's too soon to tell if it's permanent or temporary."

She wants to laugh at this logic. If it goes away, it's temporary; if not, it's permanent. Medicine is supposed to be a hard science, she thinks.

Eventually, the doctor leaves, which she finds neither satisfying nor disappointing. She just feels… vacant.

He's alone in the room now, and she figures there's no point delaying the inevitable. She forces herself to walk in, cautiously gauging his reaction. She feels foolish for hoping there'd be a flicker of recognition this time. There isn't.

"Hey," he says.

"Hey," she echoes, pulling up a chair.

He tilts his head to stare up at the ceiling. "Doctors say I'm thirty-seven."

She aches. "You are."

He squeezes his eyes shut. "I lost twelve years," he mutters.

"It might be temporary," she insists, unsure who she's trying to convince.

"Yeah," he acknowledges, but his tone is more dismissive than anything.

She watches the rise and fall of his chest for a few moments before the silence becomes suffocating. She'd been numb before, unfeeling, but being so close to him, seeing him, him but not him, it's unbearable. He's a blank slate again, but she's struggled for years to make sense of what he means to her, why, and he's marked her. She doesn't think she'll ever be able to let that go.

"I've been in a coma for four days…" His eyes flicker open, sight wandering the room before settling on her. "You were here the whole time?"

"I went home to shower and change."

"Wow." He turns to face her, the beginning of a grin forming across his lips. "I must've done something right in those twelve years, huh?"

She smiles, albeit faintly and briefly. "You did, Booth. A lot of things."

He sighs. "I wish I remembered…"

"You will," she insists, blinking against the moisture in her eyes and needing to believe it. "I have to make some phone calls," she announces, standing. She thinks of Parker again, of how it's not about her. "You should rest."

She's already at the door when, "Tell me your name."

"Temperance," she replies out of habit as she turns. "Temperance Brennan."

where.

Seated in the lone chair in his room, Angela shifts uneasily as Brennan packs Booth's possessions into a duffel bag. It's a bad decision under even worse circumstances. A best friend knows these things. But attempting to talk Brennan out of an idea after she's had time to rationalize it is more than just difficult; it's plain impossible.

Booth is out of a hospital gown for the first time in two weeks. The bandage on his head has been removed, and to a stranger, he'd look every bit like a healthy man.

Angela is not a stranger; he is not a healthy man.

"I thought the Bureau offered to hire someone and pay the expenses," she says, figuring it's worth a shot.

Brennan doesn't look up from her packing. "They did," she replies, "but I'd feel more comfortable if he were to stay with me."

Angela hesitates a moment before rising from her chair. "Could you come with me for a second, Bren?" She motions toward the door, then offers Booth an apologetic smile. "We'll be back, Booth. Hang tight."

Outside his room, Angela places her hands on Brennan's forearms and looks her in the eye. She finds fatigue, desperation, heartache behind her facade.

"You know, Brennan," she offers gently, "I think it might be a better idea to have someone else stay with him."

"I can handle it, Ange."

Angela presses her lips into a line. "Who are you trying to prove that to?"

"No one," she replies with a hint of indignation. "I'm not doing it to prove I can. I know I can."

"Then—"

"He has nobody, Angela," she interrupts, her voice rising. "No one. He shouldn't have to stay with a stranger." She looks away at the word 'stranger' like it stings. "He deserves better than that," she finishes quietly.

"He has us," Angela reminds her softly. "Everyone at the Jeffersonian, other agents at the FBI. Jared's back from India. We can take turns. Sweetie, don't go this alone."

"Cam and Jared are the only ones he remembers. Cam has a teenage daughter, and Jared is barely equipped to take care of himself," she reasons. "I have the financial means and I can get the time off work." She takes a deep breath. "I need to do this, Angela."

"Why?"

"Because," she says. "Because he's never given up on me."

*

She drives him to her place, his duffel bag heavy in the backseat. He fiddles with the radio.

"I have a son," he says suddenly.

"I know."

"I think I scared him."

"Parker is an intelligent boy. He understands."

He fiddles with the radio again.

*

Her apartment smells musty. She doesn't need an odor to confirm that her home has suffered from neglect and inoccupation. She steps away to open a few windows.

"I set up the guest bedroom for you," she tells him. "End of the hall, to the right."

"Thanks." He wanders deeper into her home with his duffel slung over his shoulder.

She begins arranging dinner, but minutes pass and there's an unusual lack of noise coming from the bedroom. Concerned, she leaves the kitchen to check up on him and finds him seated at the foot of the bed, clutching an oversized photo album and staring at its cover. She recognizes it as the one Angela had put together for him while he'd been in the hospital.

She remains frozen at the doorway. "Booth?"

"I can't look at this," he half-croaks.

She approaches him and gently removes it from between his white knuckles. "You don't have to tonight," she reassures him, placing the album atop the dresser. She takes a seat beside him. "When you're ready, Booth."

He looks down, deflated. "How many times have I been here before?"

More times than I can count; you don't remember? "A few. Are you hungry?"

She boils some pasta and makes a passable penne. She pours him a glass of orange juice – he's not supposed to have alcohol yet – and they eat in relative silence. She doesn't remember a time when they'd been at a loss for conversation, but neither knows what to say, how to behave.

"This is good."

"Thank you."

Later, she bids him goodnight and watches him disappear into the guest bedroom before she retreats to her own and climbs under her covers. A wave of nausea hits her; she curls up to pacify it. The noise of the occasional streetcar outside her window plays accompaniment to the cacophony of thoughts assaulting her mind until the early hours of the morning.

Just before sunrise, her exhausted body succumbs to a dreamless slumber.

when.

His doctors had recommended at least a month of full-time supervision, and he's about three quarters of the way there. Medically, he's made excellent progress. The frequency of his hospital visits has greatly diminished, and he's a quick learner – or re-learner, as the case may be. He's managed to salvage bits and pieces of other people's memories to replace the void in his own.

He reconnects with colleagues and acquaintances, reestablishes himself as the personable guy with a cocky streak. People don't tiptoe around him anymore. Seeing Parker makes him smile again.

Everything is different in her world.

She doesn't have the luxury of a reset button. Her most powerful memories of him are gut-wrenchingly intense, and she knows she'll never be able to convey to him how each moment had been, what the experience had been like for her. No amount of fancy descriptive language qualifies.

How does she explain the instant after her exploding fridge? Before his funeral? How does she explain Kenton and Epps and Nunan? The Gravedigger? How does she explain taking lives and saving lives? Saving each other?

The Christmas tree. Mac and cheese. Jasper. Beginner's luck. Her mother's earring…

They aren't the center anymore. She wishes he'd even understand what that means.

She watches him rediscover common ground with others and wonders what stops her from doing the same. She realizes it's her. She stops herself because she doesn't want rediscovery. She's already discovered him and the idea of starting over is intolerable. A fault in the design, she'd once called it.

They spend an extraordinary amount of time being physically together and emotionally apart. His attempts to uncover memories the two of them had shared are quickly dismissed; she answers his questions about her with nouns instead of adjective, with short, quantitative sentences instead of long, qualitative ones.

It's counter-productive to his recovery, but it protects her from the painful process of starting fresh.

She should've listened to Angela and visited him on weekends instead of having him permeating every aspect of her life. They eat breakfast together in pajama bottoms and oversized tees, shop for groceries together and bicker over organic produce and soy milk. Once, they'd even fallen asleep on the couch together, her head sandwiched between his shoulder and his ear for much of the night.

That's when it becomes difficult to separate the pre from the post. That's when she shuts down.

She's still a stranger to him, for the most part. This much she knows.

"Your page is empty," he says to her one evening over dinner.

She looks up from her falafel. "What?"

"In the album," he elaborates. "Your page is empty."

"The one Angela made for you?" she asks, receiving a small nod. She'd forgotten about it. "You looked at it?"

"Yeah." He picks up a forkful of rice and brings it to his mouth. "It's nice. Angela's good with the art stuff."

"She is."

"People wrote messages to me," he continues. "You know, things they remember, good times we shared. There are photos. It helps with the…" He motions toward his temple, and she acknowledges him with a nod. He looks expectantly at her. "But you're not in there, Temperance. There are a few photos but… you don't have a page. Where's your message?"

"I was with you at the hospital when she put it together," she explains as guilt rips through her. It's not why, but it's what she has.

He pushes the food on his plate around with his fork. "I know we were close," he says without looking up. "We loved each other very much, didn't we?"

"Booth."

"I know this because everybody else is ready to let go and start over, but you're not." He lifts his head, apologetic. "I'm sorry I don't remember the things you find worth holding on to," he says quietly.

She bites her lip and wills herself not to cry. She's stronger than this, stronger than tears. Her vision blurs, but she shakes her head vehemently. "Don't apologize, Booth. It's not your fault."

He looks like he wants to say something but doesn't. They finish their meals in silence.

She's loading the dishwasher when he slides onto a barstool and, "I've started remembering things."

Her eyes snap to his as her body turns to ice. "When? What things?"

"Earlier today. Little things." He taps the countertop anxiously. "Parker learning to ride a bike, Hodgins asking me to be his best man. And Gorgonzola… Does that mean anything?"

"Gormogon." She breaks out into her first genuine smile in weeks. "You remembered?"

"That's good, right?"

"That's…" She steps toward him, her hands finding his cheeks before she can stop herself. He's warm beneath her fingertips, and for the first time in weeks, real. "Booth, that's great." She smiles until the muscles in her face hurt. She allows herself to be hopeful.

That night, she writes him a message about Foreigner and the bomb that'd been meant for her. The words don't come close to the real thing, but it's a start, and she tapes the sheet to one of the blank pages at the back of his album for him to find.

what.

The more she writes, the easier it becomes. Not easy, just easier. In ten days, she's filled thirteen empty pages of his album with her messages. Some are short, come to her roughly and abruptly and she has to scribble them down immediately or she'll forget (you called them guy hugs; they weren't). Others are longer and more difficult to recreate on paper, but she forces the ink across her notepad because it helps him. He tells her it helps him and she has faith.

Every night, he sits on her couch with the album open across his lap and studies each page carefully, even the ones he's already etched to memory. He still reacts; smiles and frowns appropriately, chuckles when he turns to the group shot dated Halloween '07.

("I can't believe I dressed up as a nerd."

"A squint. Because we squint at things.")

Most nights, she joins him with a glass of wine, sits beside him and observes. He points at pictures, words, talks about progress and change. He remembers things, moments, snapshots, sometimes entire sequences of events. She nods and smiles and offers words of encouragement, but his memories are never of her, and she wonders if he knows that.

One night, he looks up from the page where Dr. Wyatt had doodled a family of ducks. "I saw my neurologist today," he tells her.

She smiles faintly. "I know, Booth. I drove you there."

"I've been—" He scratches the back of his head. "I'm cleared to live on my own."

Her smile fades. She'd always figured he wouldn't stay forever, but the timing surprises her anyway and leaves her feeling unreasonably empty. It doesn't really hit her until then, but the blow comes violently and without warning. He's better. He's better, and his memory is returning. His scans have come back clean, and he can work his way back to his old job at the FBI. He doesn't need her anymore. She isn't even sure he ever really did.

She purses her lips. "When are you leaving?"

"Tomorrow, I guess." He watches her expression. "I know that's really soon, but I gotta make sure I can live on my own without crutches, you know?"

"I'm a crutch?"

"No, you're—You've been amazing to me these past six weeks, Temperance, but I can't rely on you forever."

She tilts her head in a nod and looks away, feeling the slow burn in her chest. "I'm going to bed, Booth. I'll see you tomorrow?" Her heart twists when she realizes it's the last time she's going to get to say that to him in this context for a long time, maybe forever.

He pulls her into his arms, kisses the top of her head and whispers a 'thank you' into her hair.

She prepares for a long, restless night.

In the early hours of the next morning, she rises from her bed, having managed very few hours of sleep and even less rest. She pads out of her room in search of a glass of water. On her way to the kitchen, she notices that his light is on and there's movement from behind his closed door. She raps her knuckles against the wood and waits for him to answer.

The door swings open with a subdued aggression. "Sorry," he gruffs. His eyes are the epitome of fatigue. He rubs them, blinks like he's trying to work something out in his head. "Sorry," he says again. "Did I wake you?"

She shakes her head. "It's three in the morning. What are you doing up, Booth?"

"Couldn't sleep." He points to a messy array of clothes and a familiar duffel resting open at the foot of the bed. "I started packing," he explains.

"Eager to get out of here?"

"No." He frowns. "Is that really what you think?"

"I'm a stranger to you, Booth. Objectively, it makes sense for you to want to leave."

His expression changes to one of indignation. "You're serious." When she doesn't reply, he grabs his album off the dresser and opens it to one of the final pages. His finger lands on one of her messages. "Read this."

"Booth…"

"Read it."

Her eyes scan the line he'd been pointing at. She inhales a quiet breath and begins reading aloud: "That was the first time you saw me cry. I didn't know who I was – Joy Keenan or Temperance Brennan – but you were there. You told me that you knew me, that you knew who I was." The page begins to blur behind her sheen of tears, but she remembers her words and recites them from memory. "In some ways, I don't think we'll ever be strangers."

He waves his hand over the pages she'd tacked in. "After everything here," he broaches gently, "how can you think that you're a stranger?" He drops the album back on the dresser, steps closer and swipes the pad of his thumb across her damp cheek.

She shakes her head and pulls away, refusing. "Those are my memories, not yours."

"I'll get them back. I will."

"There's no way for you to know that, Booth."

He hesitates. "Temperance… I remember you." He sighs, his features softening as he retreats to the edge of the bed and takes a seat. He leans forward and holds his head in his hands for a moment before looking back up at her. "I have these… glimpses of you I'm trying to fit together in my head."

Her whole body goes limp, numb. "You never told me that." She should feel relief, she thinks. Relief and assurance that he'll get the rest back too, but her mind immediately conjures up all the agonizing nights she'd spent wondering when he'd remember her and what his first memory of them would be. She's angry that he'd hide this from her, make her wait. Her jaw tightens. "Why didn't you say anything?" she demands.

His forehead creases as he studies her. "It took me longer to remember things about you," he admits, "and the memories weren't really events; they were… emotions. It's hard to explain."

"Try," she urges him.

He takes a deep breath. "At first I thought it was all in my imagination, like maybe my head was compensating for what I couldn't remember. But it felt real, you know? Everything else that came back went the other way around – the event first, all the facts and figures. You would've been proud of my subconscious for being so empirical." She smiles a little at this, and he mirrors. "But for things about you, it'd be a sudden rush of something – I guess whatever I felt in the moment – and afterwards, as the memory fleshes itself out, I'd begin to understand the context."

"Booth, why didn't you tell me?"

"Because that's not all." He stands up and takes two steps toward her, almost pinning her between him and the dresser.

She leans back instinctively, her heartbeat hammering in her chest. "What—"

He touches her chin and tilts upward, ghosts his lips against hers, testing, tasting. For an entire thirty seconds, the room is completely silent, save their quiet, mingling breaths. He doesn't move, and neither does she; both stare at the half-inch of space between their faces, and each dares the other to make the first move.

She licks her lips out of impulse, and after that, it's all tongue and teeth, feral and instinctual. He presses her against the dresser and kisses her hungrily, and she has to wonder if he's making up for lost time. The knobs on the dresser drawers dig into her back, but she doesn't say anything. Her hands tug at the hem of his shirt, and his teeth scrape her lip when he attempts to help her remove it.

"Sorry," he groans, flinging his shirt aside.

"Our first time better not be against a dresser," she says, her fingers exploring the unfamiliar skin along his chest and back.

He smiles and pulls her to the bed. She lies down on her back, and he covers her body with his. He's heavier than she'd imagined, his body firmer. He leans down to kiss her again, dips his tongue into her mouth, and a soft moan escapes her throat.

Her hands slide up the nape of his neck, and she grabs a fistful of hair, holding him in place and pushing to meld their lips together harderfaster. Her fingertip brushes against a line of raised skin on the back of his head, and she traces out the scar left by his operation. It's still soft to the touch, and alarmed, her palms find his chest and she pushes. He lifts his head for a moment before diving in again, leaving a trail of kisses along her jaw, down her neck. His fingers skim the bottom of her shirt, reach under and roam the skin along her sides.

"This can't be good for your cerebellum," she breathes.

He smiles against her collarbone. "No, but it's good for my atrium," he counters cheekily, his palms finding her breasts bare beneath her shirt.

She bites her lip and arches. "Booth, I'm serious. I don't want to be responsible for landing you back in the hospital."

He groans. "The docs cleared me, Temperance."

She can't argue with that one and doesn't as he pulls her shirt over her head and tosses it into his pile of clothes. He dips his head to lavish attention to her breasts.

She'd been suppressing it, she realizes through the haze of pleasure. Suppressing her need for this man to give him time to heal, time to remember. Those were all matters of the brain, but he's always been a man of heart; that doesn't change with his memories. And for tonight… for tonight, she can be one as well. A woman of heart. She likes the sound of it. There's only one thing she can never be and that's… a stranger.

They'll never be strangers. Never.

Everything happens faster after that; strewn underwear, friction, skin on skin as he shows her his jumble of old and new memories and she confirms that they're valid. He kisses her like he's in love with her and holds her hands as he moves quicker over her. Then oh oh! She spills the weight of four years of memories onto him as he collapses against her, his face pressed against her neck.

For a few minutes, neither moves. She listens to the cadence of his heart beating against hers until she feels him shiver. The skin on his back is cool to the touch, so she eases him off her and under the covers.

"You used to call me Bones," she tells him once they've settled in.

"Mm, people say." He pulls her closer and kisses her softly on the lips. "But I've gotten used to Temperance."

A lazy smile spreads across her lips. "Me too."

"You know," he mumbles drowsily after a moment, "I still have to leave tomorrow."

She trails her fingertip down his jaw line. "I know. It's okay."

why.

Because.

Three months after his surgery, almost to the day, she lets herself into his apartment at the crack of dawn, undresses, and crawls into bed with him. He murmurs something unintelligible and reaches for her, scooping her into his arms. His body is warm; his heartbeat is strong and steady against her back. She tugs one of his hands up to her head and brushes her lips across his knuckles.

He presses the softest of kisses into her bare shoulder. "I knew you wouldn't give up," he whispers.

She smiles and quietly echoes the sentiment. "I knew you wouldn't give up."