Black and White
Niki-chan

Disclaimer: If I owned them Booth and Brennan would already be together, and David Boreanaz would never wear a shirt (now that's good tv!)
Notes: While I'm not new to fanfiction, this is my first attempt at a Bones fic, so review are greatly appreciated.

SPOILER WARNING: While I really have no idea what will happen in the upcoming episode "The Man in the Cell" this story is based loosely on some spoilers I have heard, so read at your own risk.

Temperance Brennan believed in black and white. There was fact or fiction, right or wrong. She didn't like grey. Grey meant there was no distinctive truth, no definitive resolution she could wrap up neatly and tuck away in her analytical mind. Grey scared Temperance Brennan more than anything.

In her mind Seeley Booth had been wrong. That was a fact, and she never could ignore the facts. He was inarguably and irrefutably wrong. Agent Booth had murdered Howard Epps.

She didn't mourn Epps' death. A small part of her (the emotional part she usually chose to ignore, because emotions weren't real, and she needed something tangible before she gave it any warrant) was glad he was gone. He was a serial murderer and she wanted to believe the world was a better place without him (logically, of course, she knew it wasn't, because there would always be another Howard Epps). Her feelings on the subject, however, didn't change the facts.

Seeley Booth had shot and killed an unarmed man.

She wanted to believe it had been a mistake, that Booth had somehow believe he posed an immediate threat (he had captured her, after all, and had Booth not intervened… well, he did and she saw no point in continuing with that line of thinking). But again Temperance was unable to ignore the facts. Howard Epps had surrendered. His hands were in the air; he backed away from the bound Dr. Brennan. (She still remembered the feel of his hands on her, and the putrid stench of his breath as he whispered in her ear… "I usually like them younger, but for you I'll make an exception…").

Epps was smiling, she remembered, when he told Booth her death would have been just for him, that he had ruined the surprise Howard had taken such care in planning. She remembered that Booth was smiling too, when he pulled the trigger.

Brennan couldn't bring herself to look at Booth as they waited for backup to arrive (she remembers hearing the sirens and silently wishing they had found her before Booth had). He had said her name a few times, asked if she was ok, and she only shook her head (she wasn't ok, but it had nothing to do with what Howard Epps had planned to do to her and everything to do with the fate of her partner).

Seeley Booth was put on temporary leave until the matter could be fully investigated. They had asked her to provide a statement of the events leading up to the demise of escaped death-row inmate, Howard Epps (she had resentfully wondered why they didn't apply this same thoroughness with cases involving actual victims, because in her mind Epps would never be considered a victim).

Yes, in her mind there was no doubt that Special Agent Seeley Booth of the FBI had been wrong when he shot and killed the unarmed Howard Epps. Yet when she provided her statement, she blatantly lied. "Agent Booth responded to the immediate threat to my life, and under the circumstances he had no other choice but to take drastic action".

She didn't miss the shocked look on Booth's face (she couldn't read people, but she could read him). They asked him if her recount of the incident had been accurate. He also lied and said it was.

She hadn't spoken to him since that night, so when he arrived at her office she was more than a little surprised. She was cold and distant and she didn't care, because she didn't know how else to be. They argued, and he admitted he was wrong when he killed Epps. But this no longer mattered to Brennan because she could forgive him for that (in fact, she already had, because somehow she knew his actions stemmed from his desire to protect her).

"I never asked you to lie for me," he had said, because he knew her, and he knew that was the real reason she was still so angry. And to Temperance Brennan that somehow made it worse. If he had asked her she could find a way to rationalize her actions (he was her partner and her friend, and if he needed her help she would offer it). But he hadn't asked her, and she knew he never would, because he would never compromise her integrity, and some days that was all she really had.

Yes, if he had asked her, things would be different, because then she could blame him for the indiscretion and she would be able to forgive him. It was not as easy to forgive herself.

She was angry because she had compromised her beliefs (and put her career on the line) for someone else. And the more she tried to rationalize why, the more irrational the reasons became. She had ignored her mind and followed her heart (an expression she used only figuratively, of course).

Somehow, without realizing it, Temperance Brennan had fallen in love with Seeley Booth (which was ridiculous, because she didn't believe in love, and she knew somehow it was his fault because he had changed her).

So as she stood in her office, arms crossed, with Booth leaning against the closed door in defeat, she gave in. She told him not to worry, that she had forgiven him. She told him she would lie for him again without hesitation (then made him swear she would never actually have to). He smiled at this, and she absently wondered why it was so contagious, because she couldn't help the smile that crept slowly onto her own face.

When he left her office, she sat down and sighed, because she no longer knew where she stood. Booth was her partner, and she preferred to keep a distinction between her professional and personal lives. Being in love (even if she still believed it was nothing more than a simple chemical reaction) didn't allow everything to be neatly categorized into either black or white. She hated when the lines were blurred, and she feared those grey areas more than anything.

Yet there she was, amid a blurry mess of grey. Temperance Brennan hated grey, but mostly she hated the fact that she didn't really seem to hate it anymore.

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