DISCLAIMER: I own none of the characters. I am borrowing them. They belong to their creators and the studios who own the shows.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
SPOILERS: Bones: The Woman in the Sand.
Her Bones, Not Mine
By Acathla
Alright, I'll admit that I care about her…I'll even admit that I might even be in love with her. Look at her, who wouldn't fall for her? She's beautiful, smarter than most people I have ever known or heard about, she's funny (though you have to get to know her to really 'get' her humor), she's dedicated to the truth, devoted to her work and when she smiles…especially if I've done something she deems to be right, or fair, or honorable…I feel like I just slayed a 20 foot dragon for her.
So yeah…I guess I am a little in love with her. She's just…she's Bones. But I don't have the luxury of ever telling her. You see…she's in love—and it's not with me. I don't know exactly when it happened but one day she was Bones and the next, seemingly overnight, she became Temperance, a woman in love. And if it was another guy she was with, I might be tempted to fight for her, try to woo her away, maybe even confess my feelings and pray that luck and love are on my side but…it's not another guy. No, that would be way too easy.
Bones—Temperance Brennan—is in love with another woman. I never really knew she had lesbian leanings but I probably should've suspected something whenever Angela would call her 'sweetie' and Bones would blush just a little. But I guess I was too busy being captivated by her beauty I think…or by whatever case was currently active. I don't know. And the pissing contest that ensued when Cam came into the lab as the boss…well that should've told me something but again, I dismissed it. That time I think I chalked it up to Bones being used to running the lab with almost no interference from Goodman and Cam being a very hands on boss. (wait…I wonder if their working relationship was improved by some off duty…nah not Cam…then again I always thought 'not Bones' so who knows?).
Still, you know, I should've known something…I'm an FBI agent for crying out loud. I mean, yeah she's dated guys: Sully, her old professor, the deep sea welder—Mark I think, the Botanist, that guy she met online and they've all been wrong for her. I'm sure I didn't always help matters but it was only because I could tell they weren't right for her (they weren't me).
This woman she's with now…I can't compete with her even if I was crazy enough to try. This woman is beautiful, smart (not as smart as Bones but right up there), funny, tall, and she moved over 2000 miles to be with Bones. She's from Las Vegas, and I guess she met Bones back when we flew to Las Vegas for the murder of a female boxer. I asked Bones once and she said that when she went down to the casino when she couldn't sleep to play craps, she met her in the lobby. While I was sleeping, the woman I am in love with was being stolen right out from under me—before I even knew she was what I wanted.
Now, not only is Bones in love with someone else, but that someone else quit her job and moved over 2000 miles to DC to be with Bones and managed to get a job at the Jeffersonian on my squint squad! Ok well technically it's Bones' squint squad but still…I feel like she stepped in and took my place somehow.
She worked with the local police back in Vegas so she knows how to deal with cops (and FBI apparently) but she can also talk for hours with Hodgins about bugs and slime, with Zach about metals and materials, with Cam about cause of death, time of death and other autopsy things, with Angela about her art and the technology that Angela uses in her Angelator. And if all that wasn't bad enough, she can keep up with Bones and all her forensic terms without needing any of it translated into lay terms---the way I sometimes do. I'm learning some of them but, I just…I'm not the science guy.
She doesn't even come to the diner with me after we wrap up cases like we used to do. We used to sit together, sometimes at the diner, sometimes in her office and just talk…usually about the case and whatever aspect of it didn't make sense to her (usually having to do with personal motivations rather than anything that can be explained by her science) and I savored those moments together, just talking. I liked being the one doing the explaining, being the 'expert' when it comes to human emotions and motives. But now, she leaves the lab or the scene or the interrogation room and heads home—to her.
Her name is Sara Sidle and she is from Las Vegas. She was a crime scene investigator there but here, she's another squint, a lab rat but she seems to like it. All I know is that she has something that I always thought, assumed really and we all know what happens when you assume, was going to be mine one day. She has Bones' love, her heart, and sometimes I wonder, why did it take me so long to realize that I am in love with Dr. Temperance Brennan?
I noticed though, that Sara doesn't call her Bones, she seems to know that the name upsets her. She lets me call her Bones but only because she's gotten used to it from me but she won't let anyone else call her that. But once in a while, when they don't know I am nearby and can hear them, I catch Sara calling her Bones and I see Bones blushing a deep red that makes me grin.
Part of me wants to make a big deal about being the only one allowed to call her Bones—in public and in private—but most of me is trying too hard to keep from crying whenever I hear Sara call her Bones, to really listen to that other part. I lost her before I ever truly had her and…I wish I hadn't taken so long to realize that I love her.
I am truly, deeply, madly in love with Dr. Temperance Brennan. I am in love with Bones. I will probably always love her. And I know that I will always regret that I let her slip away from me.
I can accept that she's in love with Sara Sidle. I can accept that Sara makes her happy and gives her something that she obviously needed. I can even accept that Bones will probably never see me as more than her partner and her friend. But what I can't accept, what I can't seem to get past is that my own hesitation, my own fear led to her being her Bones, not mine. Never mine.
The End