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.

Click here for fic index.
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

[bamax.livejournal.com]

Great thought guys. ICAM with them. Cam is really sharp and she's getting what's going on between Booth and Bren. I agree that she's not rooting for it because on some level, she still cares for Booth but for more than that. She's lonely I think and needs someone herself and Seeley is never going to be more than a friend to her again. She wants the whole enchalada. I do hope we see she and Brennan have some conversation at some point about their feelings in regard to each other and Booth. It's the big purple elephant in the room that everyone knows is there but it's being ignored until the right time.