Just a short one-shot

Just a short one-shot. I own nothing.

“You really should take a climb up Everest” she said to me. It continually echoed in my ears for the next few days after that. It was very unwelcome. For one thing, comparing the partner I have spent so much time with as a mountain a sexual mountain, was highly inappropriate. Secondly, the way she so knowingly made it seem like inevitability was highly irritating. Just because in the media portrayal a partnership involving both a male and a female cannot go on indefinitely without the rising of some sexual tension are just the marketing facts of the entertainment industry.

“Bones!” Booth said in the voice. As if all I should be doing is listening to him speak.

“Yes?” I asked, waiting for him to ask whatever question he thought I had been listening to the first time.

“Ya know what? Never mind.” He said, smiling at me as if my not knowing his question had somehow answered it. “I’m going to go back up to the rooms, were missing one of my suitcases.”

“Okay.” I responded, already going through what I needed to do in the labs on my return. I look through the bags, arraigning them in the car so that all of my bags are on the one side and all of his the opposite. One of his bags isn’t closed tightly, and as I move it a folder comes sliding out. I don’t mean to read the top paper, but as it slides out I can’t help but notice my name is on it. It’s a standard sheet of printing paper, but instead of the standard times new roman there is a type font that resembles archaic Old English typeface.

Dear Knight,

You lady Temperance won’t wait forever, even if it seems as if she can’t imagine the future. I can see the spark there for something, but if you wait to long it will founder in the night. Don’t let that happen, or it would be most regrettable.

Yours sincerely

Your counterpart in England, whose wishes she still had the chance with her knight.

Also, take her to Everest someday.

Smiling slightly at the nerve of her, I think of the man the letter is written to. My partner. I am so accomplished at compartmentalization I can see the situation from every angle. Should I take that step that she is telling him to take? The risk is great but I can see that the reward could be great as well. Of course, the relationship we have right now is rewarding enough. Everest though. A part of me wants to excuse our behavior for the remainder of the trip. Of course it is a human response that when we are out of the ordinary we go to move closer to that which reminds us of our norm. A part of me is very excited by the thought though. It has been so long since I have had any sort of romantic relationship, and I have never had any relationship like the one that I have formed with Booth. Logically, combining the two in my head makes a very enticing picture. Letting myself relax around someone who truly knows me. Letting a person see what I really feel.

‘Tempe, you already have that with him’ I think to myself. And I realize it is true. The relationship I am thinking about would not add any intellectual intimacy, only the physical intimacy. But by adding that, it would by necessity mean we could no longer work together in the field.

‘Am I ready for that?” I think to myself. Immediately my mind goes to being in the lab all of the time, with little to no fieldwork. It douses whatever excitement I had been feeling towards the advancement our relationship.

I put the letter back into the envelope, and tuck the envelope back where it belonged, before finishing the reorganization of the trunk space. I am not ready, I decide, for anything more with Booth. At least, I am not ready, for anything more with Booth yet.

But as we drive away from the hotel and begin the first part of the journey back home, I think of the letter in his bag. Just because I am not ready now, does not erase the possibility of ever. Waiting to see what he does with the letter should be very telling. And nothing says I won’t be ready soon.