Restless by LAndrews

Summary: Seeley Booth is restless.

Spoilers: Two Bodies In The Lab, Season One.

Notes: Starlet2367, Little Heaven and Psychofilly for the once over and "Go post!" Ya'll rock :-)

Two days out of the hospital, Seeley Booth is restless. He wants to walk. Dusk is setting in and he likes to walk in the dark. He knows the streets within five miles of his apartment well enough to glance up at any time and know where he is and how to get home without guessing. When he has Parker and can't walk, he waits until Parker is down and out and then runs the stairs until he can't anymore. He can go weeks without walking, but when he needs to walk? It's vital, as important as breathing. He has to move or die, and suicide has never been an option, so he walks.

He struggles into his jacket and takes the stairs down. Out on the street, he hesitates. He wants to walk, but it hurts. More than a little. He decides it's a fine night for driving.

***

The Tahoe feels solid around him, the steering wheel like an extension of self. Booth feels safe, in control. He drives aimlessly at first, but he's thinking of the relief he felt as Bones' arms closed around him, about Hodgins' coming around to steal more pudding and fill him with theory, about Angela's grin when she and Bones came to pick him up at discharge. He goes to Sid's.

Sid takes one look at him and disappears. He comes back with beer, chunks of roasted pork, and brown rice rolled into savory little balls. There's some bit of fruit inside that blends with the pork just so and Booth closes his eyes as he chews.

When the food is gone, Sid brings him coffee and clears his plates. Booth stirs in four packets of sugar and a whopping dollop of cream in the time it takes Sid to return with a slice of apple pie, a chunk of cheese, and the bar phone.

"Hi, little man," Sid says into the phone as he sets down the pie and Booth smiles. "Yep, I miss you, too. How 'bout we go down to the water when you come next?"

There's a long pause as Sid nods at whatever Parker is going on about at full volume and breathless speed. "You did? Good man." Sid nods again. "He's right here. I'm feeding him because he can't take care of himself without me. Uh-huh. Take care, Poppy, I'll see you soon."

He hands the phone to Booth, but Booth's chest has filled with an ache that closes his throat and his collarbone throbs something fierce when he brings the phone to his ear. He lists sideways, propping his elbow on the bar, and takes a strangled breath.

"Daddy?" Parker says.

Booth swallows hard.

"Daddy?"

"Yeah, Parker, I'm here, son."

"Are you okay, Daddy?"

"Yes. I hurt my arm a little but it's nothing talking to you won't fix."

"Do you have a cast?"

"No."

"Good. They itch really bad, Sammy said."

"I'm sure they do."

Booth talks to Parker about Sammy and his weekend and what they will do when he sees him again, and when Booth hangs up, he feels a lot better. He picks at the pie and finishes his coffee.

"Thanks, Sid," he says when Sid comes to retrieve the phone.

"Seeley, you look like shit. Let me drive you home."

Booth shakes his head.

Middle finger on top, Sid slides Booth's keys across the bar to him, presenting them like a checker to be kinged. He taps them once and slowly withdraws his hand.

"You took my keys."

"You didn't even notice. Watch yourself out there."

***

Booth tells himself he's just wandering, but an hour and a half later he ends up down the street from Rebecca's house. After a while, lights flip on in Parker's room and the bathroom. The living room light goes off, and then the bathroom light. Shadows flicker through the kitchen. After twenty minutes, Parker's light goes out.

"Goodnight kittens and good night mittens. Goodnight room and good night, moon," Booth whispers. Out loud, he says, "I love you, little buddy," and starts the car.

***

He's headed home, really. But he's thinking about Rebecca and Tess and the relief he felt as Bones wrapped her arms around him. A Tylox and bed are probably the best bet, but he drives to the Jeffersonian instead. Security lets him in the side door and his keycard lets him in the lab. The lights are dimmed, but he can see that the offices are lit and would bet his life that Temperance is at her desk.

She's tapping on her keyboard when he darkens her doorway, but she only glances up at him without surprise. "Hang on."

He leans on the door frame, but it's too much pressure on his collarbone, so he shifts until the frame lies between his shoulder blades and settles in to wait.

Bones frowns and her lips move as she works through her thought. He grins and tries to look at anything other than her so as not to distract her. It's hard. The flash of her fingers and the backlit curve of hair swinging against her cheek as she whispers to herself are the only movement in the room and draw his eye against his will. After a few silent minutes, she stops, rips a sticky note off her monitor, and turns to him as she crumples it. "Hey, Booth."

"Hey."

He sees that she expects him to go on, but he can think of nothing else to say.

"Do you need me?"

"Yes."

After a moment, her eyebrows raise, but then she scowls at his silence. "You don't look so good. Why don't you sit down?" She stands up like she might come help him, so he lurches away from the door frame and heads in the general direction of her couch.

"It's okay, Bones, you working on your book?"

She remains standing, uncertain. "Yes. All my notes were here already, and my place is... yeah. Do you need something? A... drink? Can I get you something to drink?"

Booth takes care not to jar his arm as he sinks onto the couch's pliant leather. It's even softer than it looks. Maybe a large expense account would be worth the complications of a private sector job. He sighs.

"Booth?”

She’s looking at him like she looks at corpses, her head tilted to one side, a slightly puzzled look on her face.

"Alcohol would be good."

"I can do that. I'll be right back."

Booth reads the titles of all the books he can see from his spot and listens for her in the hallway. He can't imagine a day when he would ever tell her he writes. He knows she can keep a secret, knows beyond doubt that there are moments she has survived that aren't contained in any official document. Booth has plenty of those moments, too. You can't spend government time in the countries they have worked and not suffer through moments that won't ever surface on any official paperwork, no matter how often you are forced to revisit the days surrounding those moments.

Unofficially? Sure. Those moments surface- sometimes in stunted sentences over bourbon or beer to a father or a brother. Never, never to your mother. Sometimes they pop, vivid and bright, from the pages of books, distorted but true. Those startle him, the truth loud in his head from the mind of some fictional character. They show up in movies.

He likes movies. He's never walked out of a movie that got the military wrong, but twice he's walked out because of a truthful moment. All he can remember now is the heat in the theater, the cloying weight of Tessa's hand on his thigh, the itch to walk. Those moments jump start the reality inside him, vibrate right through him, and set all those memory cells in motion. He's never really thought about the writers behind those moments, the secrets that they keep.

He never writes at home. The urge strikes him most often when he's in his office late, or holed up in a hotel on a case. He writes letters to Parker, an older Parker, one who might decide one day that the military life is one he wants. They always start out vague, but the detail catches up. Booth hates the things he writes. They are violent and dark and come from somewhere inside him that he doesn’t care to visit. He always burns them when he’s done, and then sleeps heavy and dreamless.

Temperance comes back in time to save him from himself; a bottle of Vodka tucked under one arm, orange juice and glasses in her hands. "No ice left, but the orange juice is cold."

"Perfect. Angela's?"

"And Hodgins." She pours his juice first, and then adds a large amount of the vodka. "Here. Are you okay?"

Booth can't help but grin at her. "No."

He sips his drink while she digests that. Eventually she nods and pours a single shot of vodka, no juice. She takes it back to her desk. Booth watches her relax into writing mode again, drifting away, and feels privileged that she has let him in so close. It is as intimate as a kiss, and he falls asleep smiling.

End.

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