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She punched him in the face. It wasnt rational, of course, except for the perfectly logical, "What the fuck."
She needed to get away, right now.
What the fuck.
"Bones!" she heard.
What the fuck.
"Bones, wait up!" Unsteady, further away, but with more force.
She would not "wait up." She could not believe him. She could not believe this.
She just had to get away right now. She wasn't sure where the fuck she was going, but it had to be away from the funeral, away from the flowers, away from the weeping and the numbness and the fucking 21 gun salute and the ghost shouting that damn eponym.
She powered over the rolling hill and manicured lawn of Arlington, stumbling on a brick, subsequently trampling someone's rotting flowers. Fuck. Fuck this.
She'd nearly made it back onto a gravel path when she felt a hand pull at her shoulder. No. She whirled around, grabbing the hand and threatening her elbow into its attached chest.
"Bones!"
He had blood streaming down his face from the suckerpunch, staining his -- was it even his? a spare? some costume created for this theater of ritualized grief? -- dress uniform. His other arm, hovering above her elbow, was leveraged into his nose, attempting in vain to staunch the flow.
"What!" She snarled. She'd already socked him once; she wasn't afraid to do it again.
"Bones," he coughed. "You don't need to put your elbow into my throat. I'm still recovering from a gunshot wound, you know?"The pressure increased, so he turned up the charm, "Yeah, you know, from when saved your life?"
She clutched his arm harder, and yanked the other hand from his face, letting her in closer. She would not let him tease his way out of this.
"You." She spat. "Were not dead. But you didn't think me, your partner, deserved to know?"
He attempted a crooked smile, and she could see the blood tinging the visible teeth.
Blood. Red. Hemoglobin bonding with oxygen. Because he was alive.
Suddenly, she knew: she did need to know it. To feel it. Right now. She lurched the remaining inches and mashed her face to his.
Iron. Flesh. And the blood, smearing her too, now.
She was never so grateful for the parts of a body that obscured the skeletal system. She bit down, wanting to feel him, wanting to hurt him, wanting more.
At that, he seemed to catch up with the situation, leaning back, sputtering red, "Bones, what?"
She stared at him, adrenaline fading with primitive instincts. She suddenly felt so, so heavy.
"Booth..."
"Hey, Bones."
"Booth." She buried her mess of a bloody face into his mess of a bloody uniform and started to sob. One arm curled around her, while the other returned to his nose.
"Yeah." Somewhat muffled. "l'm here."