(no subject)

[argyle_princess]

Hannah slept till late afternoon today. Which is not that unusual for a teenager on a Saturday, though it's unusual for this teenager, who usually runs three miles before breakfast. But this is hardly a usual Saturday, and Hannah slept though both breakfast and lunch.

And now Brennan has gone to pick up Chinese food for dinner, and Hannah has had a very long and very hot shower and put on her own clothes for the first time in two and half weeks.

She's busy painting her toe nails a rather vivid shade of green, and watching Legally Blonde on her laptop while she waits for Brennan to get back. She's not especially concerned with the trials and triumphs of Elle Woods today, she just wants the background noise.

Comments

[argyle_princess]

Hannah nods.

"Kinda the only thing you could do, if you had any, you know, reservations."

[paladinsuitsyou]

"I didn't," he says shortly, because he really, really didn't. "But I didn't want anyone else to. Evidence...it's important. And you can't just pick and choose what you use, if you have other options."

He sighs and rubs his temple with his hands. "I arrested him for killing a girl named April. That's the only death we knew about. But chasing down the evidence led us to the others..."

He trails off, not sure how much he wants to say after that.

[argyle_princess]

"And he had to be tried for those murders, too, so the execution was stayed. And I'm guessing that's what he wanted."

Hannah's been played by an accused murderer, too, after all. Not that that analogy should be carried too far, but it's there.

[paladinsuitsyou]

"Yeah," Booth says. "It was. And I gave it to him, wrapped up with a nice tidy bow. He thanked me. Before Brennan broke his wrist."

[argyle_princess]

Hannah is quiet for longer than she means to be, thinking.

"He . . . I . . . it doesn't sound like there was anything you could have done differently."

[paladinsuitsyou]

"Not so much," Booth agrees. "Even at the end, he boxed me in. Didn't let me choose. It was always his game."

He wouldn't normally talk to someone Hannah's age like this, not at all, but things are not exactly normal, are they? Luckily, Hannah's not exactly normal either.

[argyle_princess]

"Of course it was. It couldn't be your game, because you don't play games with people's lives, I don't think. Which means all you could do was try to change the rules in his. Or something. That made sense in my head."

She's not sure it makes sense said out loud.

[paladinsuitsyou]

"It makes sense out loud, too. Mostly." Booth smiles kindly. "The game...maybe the mistake was trying to think we could ever beat him at it."

He's sounding glum again after having been slightly cheered by Hannah's garbled theory.

[argyle_princess]

"Rigged game. Stacked deck. Something."

Hannah looks at her hands.

"I wonder, though, if it's better to be the opponent, even a rigged game, than a pawn."

She's only ever been a pawn.

[paladinsuitsyou]

"It is," Booth says. "I've been both, I think, and seriously, it works much better for me to be an opponent."

He eyes her curiously. "Which one are you thinking suits you best?"

[argyle_princess]

She looks up and directly into his eyes.

"I've never been the opponent. But I can't say like being the pawn."

[paladinsuitsyou]

"No, I don't think it suits you," Booth says. "Not that I'd suggest setting yourself up as the opponent on purpose just to stop being a pawn."

He gives her a long look. "That means, don't go into criminal justice just so you don't feel like a target. It doesn't work like that."

[argyle_princess]

Hannah nods. "I know."

If anything, it seems to make you more of a target.

"I find all this really interesting, scientically, but . . . it's a lot to think about. And not a decision I have to make any time soon."

[paladinsuitsyou]

It also makes you an opponent, and it can make you a formidable one, if you're lucky. But a target as well. And sometimes a pawn.

"I was in the Army," Booth says. "Ranger."

It seems apropos of nothing, but Booth does have a point.

[argyle_princess]

It does, in fact, seem a propos of nothing.

"Okay," says Hannah, slowly.

[paladinsuitsyou]

"I was a sniper," he says slowly, looking down again. "Meant doing a lot of things I didn't understand, just because I had orders. I was a pawn. It didn't bother me, not for a long time. And then it did."

Booth pauses, looks up at her. "So I decided not to be a pawn, to try and...oh, hell, it sounds stupid, but make up for the things I did before."

He's not sure why he's telling her this. It just seemed like something that should be said.

[argyle_princess]

"It doesn't sound stupid," says Hannah.

"Does it work?"

[paladinsuitsyou]

"It helps," Booth says. "I'm not sure that working entirely is possible, but it helps."

[argyle_princess]

"Helping is good," Hannah says.

She looks at her hands again.

"My first boyfriend asked me out so he could trade dumping me for my dad dropping testimony against him."

She looks up with a weak smile. "Not my first trip around the board as a pawn."

And before that, there had been the divorce.

[paladinsuitsyou]

Booth's eyes widen. "No, I guess not."

Pause.

"I can see why you're not so happy about this round."

Another pause. "Bastard. Did it work?"

[argyle_princess]

Hannah nods. "Yes."

Simple and matter-of-fact.

"It worked very well."

[paladinsuitsyou]

"Makes it worse somehow, doesn't it?"

Booth wants badly to ask what the charges were, what the guy was involved with, whether Hannah thought he was guilty. Whether he ever went to trial. But it seems sort of tactless and beside the point.

[argyle_princess]

Hannah would answer all those questions (manslaughter, a knifing on a bridge, no, and no), if he asked.

"Yes. Though I don't know that there was a better. Just different worses."

[paladinsuitsyou]

Booth is also tempted to ask what kind of town do you live in? but that, and all the others, can wait.

"I know how that is," he says seriously. "This whole Epps thing was pretty much a best-case scenario thing. Nothing seemed like a good option from the start."

[argyle_princess]

Would it cover it to just say, "Neptune"?

"'It could be worse' isn't much of an answer," she agrees.

"I'm just glad it's over. I can focus on having dinner, seeing my mother, and finishing high school."

In that order.