Hey y'all! I haven't written in awhile and I have missed it like mad. School has been kicking my butt this semester. If you are wondering about my story Confessions in the Forest, I am not sure I'll be able to continue that one, I lost the muse for it and don't know how to finish it. If I do find the time to devote to that story again, I will, but in the mean time here is a little diddy based on the whole elevator spoiler. I wrote the beginning on a slip of receipt paper at work (I work at a grocery store in the early morning, so no one is there). Let's all hope my boss doesn't watch the security cameras! ;-)
The two work partners sat on the cold, ceramic tiling of the J. Edgar Hoover building's main elevator. Neither wanted to be there, especially with each other. A power outage, caused by an unusual D.C. blizzard, disabled the inner workings of their 6x6 prison. If the outage had happened on any other day, the time alone would have been more than tolerable, but the partners were fighting, not that unusual, but this time was different.
"You're mad that I mentioned your failures in love." she said, breaking the half hour silence. Brennan was often very brash in her observations, she was a scientist after all. She often appeared cold and uncaring, but her partner saw past that. He saw her kind heart that was often masked by her scientific jargon and her inability to see how arrogant she came off.
"You sure know how to make a guy feel better, Bones." Booth said sarcastically, rolling his eyes. "Are we ever going to get out of here?" he let out a frustrated sigh.
"Well…" Brennan began.
"Please, Bones, I don't want to hear about the mechanics of the elevator, I was just venting my frustrations, not expecting an answer."
"Fine." she said, looking to her right where Booth sat, hoping to make eye contact. "But I think we should both talk about what I said earlier today. I believe you took it out of context."
"You were pretty direct in saying I am a loser in the love department." Booth said, bitterly.
"I did not say that, Booth. I was merely observing that you have had three failed propositions and maybe that means your expectations of love are too high."
"How can my expectations be too high? I want exactly what every guy who is in love wants! I want to marry the woman I love!" Booth exclaimed, finally meeting her curious eyes, revealing to her his pain from the last two months.
"I won't take into consideration the proposals with Hannah or Rebecca, as I was not there to draw conclusions to this hypothesis, but last year, when you asked me to start a relationship with you, don't you think you were expecting too much of me?"
"I was asking to date you, I wasn't asking you to marry me!" Booth was becoming exasperated by the way the conversation was heading. His cheeks were flushing with anger.
"No, Booth, you were promising me thirty or forty or fifty years. We had never even been on a date and you were already saying you saw us together for fifty years. I have never had a more meaningful relationship than I do with you and I couldn't risk losing you, but I ended up losing you anyway."
Booth started to calm down as he saw similar pain in Brennan's eyes from the events of the last year and half. "You didn't lose me. I've always been here."
"No, you haven't. We went to different parts of the world for seven months and you came back with Hannah. I lost you to her. You are always telling me that love lasts forever and that my beliefs in an ephemeral love are false, but you proved me right. You promised me a lifetime of love and then when I said I wasn't ready you gave up on me. You told me you had to move on. You said love lasts forever…but it doesn't." Brennan exclaimed, sadly. Her eyes began to fill with tears as their eyes met. She looked down, ashamed at being emotional.
Booth took her hand and gave it a squeeze. "I'm sorry, Bones. I'm sorry I hurt you. I'm sorry I left you. I'm sorry I didn't give you a chance. I'm just sorry."
Brennan wiped away a tear that managed to escape from her eye. "I'm sorry too, Booth. I'm sorry I didn't give you a chance, too. We missed our chance and I will just have to accept that. I will try to move on like you have. I know I said I would that night in the car, but I'll admit I haven't. I've tried. I've tried damn hard…but I just can't seem to do it."
"Who says you have to move on?" Booth asked.
"Booth…I can't live my life hoping that someday you will have those feelings for me again. I have to move on, like you did."
"Bones, I never moved on. I could never move on from you."
Brennan looked up at him as two more tears broke the barrier of her eyelids. "What?" she asked.
"Bones, I never moved on. I was only kidding myself saying I had. I loved Hannah, but there are people who you just love more and you happened to be it, and Parker, of course."
"What does this mean?" Brennan asked, not at all sure where the conversation was going.
"Well, as soon as we get out of this elevator…I'd like to take you on a date. A real date, no conversations about dead bodies or work or any of that. We will just discuss where we both see this going, where we want it to go and maybe at the end of the night…I can kiss you." Booth said with a smile. Brennan smiled in return.
"I'd like that."
"Me too, Bones. Me too."
A/N: This might become a multi-chapter fic and I might even integrate other stories of mine into this one to make them all interconnected.