Fic: Clean and Detached (#62 in ATLBU)

[only_more_love]

Title: Clean and Detached
[I borrowed the title from a bit of Cam's dialog in The Verdict in the Story. She said to the team, "Clean and detached, people -- just the way Dr. Brennan likes it."]

Rating: K or PG
Characters: Cam, Booth, Brennan
Spoilers: For The Verdict in the Story.
Timeline: Set toward the end of The Verdict in the Story.
Word Count: 200
Acknowledgments: HUGE thanks to all the folks who have ever commented on this series. I know some people are a little (ha ha) suspicious of brevity, but writing these moments is such fun for me.
Disclaimer: Though I wish Booth and Brennan belonged to me, they don't.  FOX owns 'em; I'm just borrowing them for entertainment purposes.  No copyright infringement is intended.

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Click here to read the other ficlets in this series.

“I didn’t ask you your opinion of Dr. Brennan’s character. I asked you: did she have time?”

Cam’s breath stutters as she waits for Booth’s answer.

“Yes. She had time,” Booth finally says, implicating his partner as a potential suspect, and as Cam glimpses his face, she knows she’s seeing something intensely private.

She wonders if he knows he’s laid his heart as bare as the hearts of the people she’s examined on her autopsy table.

Her gaze swoops to her jacket sleeve, but it’s too late. Before, it was just a suspicion. Now, she knows. Cam feels an ache in her stomach – a pang of something that isn’t hunger. A self-deprecating smile twists her mouth when she realizes what it is.

Tonight, at home, she’ll sip her wine and finish the book she started last night, her fingertips skimming over paper. Then, on nights when paper turns to skin, the eyes that meet hers will be warm with lust, not the thing gleaming in Booth’s eyes as he looks across the courtroom at Dr. Brennan as if they’re alone.

With Booth, heat’s mellowed into friendship. But is it too much to ask that someone look at her like that?

---

A/N: If you're wondering why the point of view character in this is Cam, the answer's simple. First, I wanted to try something a little different. Second, I'm working on something a bit longer in response to The Verdict in the Story, and I didn't want to cannibalize it for these ficlets. Still, I did want to write something drabble-y related to Verdict. So then I thought a little Cam POV might be interesting.

Anyone out there write using third person omniscient point of view? I tend to favor third person limited. I'm curious how omniscient feels for you, if you've utilized it.

Comments

[fangirlgonewild.livejournal.com]

This is probably because I started watching Bones only recently, and therefore already knew Cam didn't last long, but I like Cam. (Actually, given that she barely impeded B/B I was shocked to discover the amount of hatred for her. I mean, I get shipper hate. I hated both Hannah and Duncan for coming between LoVe on Veronica Mars...but Cam was...well, another story for another time.) I admire her very practical point of view and I think she conducts her duties with immense poise. But she, like Brennan, is very isolated in her own way, which I think you captured perfectly here.

The only time I've ever come close to third person omniscent is switching between people during a fic, which isn't really the same at all. I think so many novels use 3p limited that it's hard to wrap my mind around it when I write.

[lerdo.livejournal.com]

I like Cam, too. :) And I DON'T get shipper hate. I dislike the knee-jerk hatred that some people have for Cam simply because she had the gall (gasp) to sleep with Booth. They're both consenting adults, and I don't expect that Booth's been saving himself for Brennan his whole life -- or vice versa. *g* It's one thing if Cam just doesn't resonate with a viewer, but to hate her just because of her past with Booth doesn't make much sense to me.

The only time I've ever come close to third person omniscient is switching between people during a fic, which isn't really the same at all.

I do that; it's third person limited.

I've never written third person omniscient, as far as I can remember, but I do have some intellectual curiosity about it.

Thanks for commenting. :)