Kuch Pyaas Adhuri, Kuch Shyam Sindhoori

[plazmah]

Title: Reconnection
Author: plazmah
Rating: G
Fandom(s): Bones
Pairing(s): none
Summary: From the other side of the world, Brennan offers Angela something that she tries to refuse.
Notes: Written for bones_flashfic (prompt: pre-series). Originally, I wanted to included Angela meeting Jack, Zack, and Booth for the first time, but alas! I was uninspired. :P Unbetaed.

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This could not be happening. How was it that Angela Montenegro, artist extraordinaire and serial monogamist, was being asked to work at the prestigious Jeffersonian Institute, that wholesome, American, bastion of scientific inquiry? Angela Montenegro didn't do scientific inquiry and academic institutions. Angela Montenegro did sculptures and paintings of chiseled male models while running from one country to the next, leaving empty bottles of vodka and broken hearts in her wake. If she took up this offer, she'd have to wear a lab coat. A lab coat.

This is what I get, she thought, her fingers gripped around the phone, for being best friends with a forensic anthropologist.

"Hello? Angela? Are you still there?" Dr. Temperance Brennan's voice sounded tinny and concerned from across the Pacific ocean. A fine pair they made, one calling from a dingy studio apartment in New Zealand and the other speaking from a pre-historic excavation site in Chile.

"Yeah, Bren, I'm still here." Angela murmured, taking another sip of her half-assed Bloody Caesar, shuddering slightly from the foul taste as well as the cold breeze wafting through her window.

"I have to go now, but think about what I've said. You have all the requisite skills in order to perform the job. It isn't easy to find another forensic artist on such short notice, and I really need one for my team to function at full capacity. I need someone by next week when I return to Washington."

"You'd think this former reconstructionist or whatever would have more tact than to quit her position while you're away." Angela replied seriously, wondering if she could make her point as subtly as possible. "You're better off without someone that... flighty."

There was a pause on the other line. "Are you trying to tell me something, Angela?"

Angela sighed. "All I'm saying, Temperance, is that you have to consider the fact that I'm not the kind of girl to stick in one place for long."

"I know it's not your style." Angela could practically hear Brennan collecting her thoughts across the line. "I suppose you could say I'm asking you a favour, for all the times I obliged and took part in your eccentric escapades with your eccentric friends. Please?"

"But..." Angela trailed off, suddenly unable to no. This wasn't how she had expected the conversation to go. Commiserating with Temperance over quitting another job usually led to some crazy anthropological explanation for why Angela was so flighty, not opportunities to work at one of the most prestigious institutions in the country.

Angela cleared her throat. "You work with dead bodies. I'm not sure that's something I'll be able to deal with." She paused. "You've always been better at looking at things objectively. That's why you're the scientist and I'm the artist."

"You'd still be drawing, doing art. In a certain fashion." Brennan countered. Then her tone softened. "We'd be in the same city, Ange. We would be working together, able to see each other without having to drive or fly across the the country."

"Or across the planet." Angela said with a smile, remembering the time when she and Temperance had met up in Berlin. Brennan had been there for an international conference of some kind, while she had been there shacking up with this gorgeous stage actor who had been trying to break into the local movie industry.

The smile was evident in Brennan's reply. "Yes, not across the planet either. I'm going to be honest with you, Angela... I live a very solitary life here. I have colleagues and acquaintances, but no true friends. If you should decide to take what I'm offering you, not only will it be a rewarding experience, but we'll have more time to spend with each other."

"As opposed to seeing each other every few years, yeah." Angela murmured, thinking things over. She was known for being impulsive, and that sudden feeling of spontaneity was gripping her again.

She leaned back on the couch, phone tucked into her neck as she took another sip of her Bloody Caesar. "So. Next week, huh?"

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