A/N: All of these will be one shots - maybe some of them will turn out to be 2 chapters. Who knows? This is just a place for me to write things that come to my head that can't really be turned into full blown novels. So...anyway. I hope you enjoy them :-)


Ripley

"Bones, quick!"

A startled and intoxicated Brennan hurried towards her bedroom, not worried about the wine the sloshed out from her glass landing on her perfectly polished wood floors due to her sudden and ungraceful movements but more concerned for her partner who was clearly beckoning for her presence immediately.

"Bones…hurry!"

"Booth, what's the matter?" She said as she finally reached her bedroom and stood in the door frame of the sliding glass door that led out to the small balcony space that Booth felt the need to visit each time he was at her place. Apparently, he just loved the view at night. He felt like the moon was reachable. She would usually roll her eyes at his overly romanticized notions but deep down something inside of her knew exactly what he meant.

He looked back at her, his face slack and void of all the excitement that she had had just heard only a moment before in his voice.

"You missed it. I saw a shooting star."

Her shoulders fell dramatically as she gave him a look. "Meteoroid. And you thought that I would have been able to make it out here in time to see it before it burned out?"

"Well if you would have hurried up…" He teased.

She stepped back inside.

"Booth, please come inside now. It's getting chilly."

She wrapped her arms around her mid section and watched while Booth moved back inside. She closed the door shut once he was in and then locked it. They walked back out into the kitchen where they had been sitting.

Booth absentmindedly stuck his finger in the center of the nylon material in a form of a circle that was sitting abandoned on Brennan's kitchen island and swirled it around. It was the collar for a pet that would never be had. A collar for Ripley. He glanced at the time that was displayed on her microwave. Brennan eyed the last bit of wine that puddled at the bottom of her glass. As much as she wanted to gulp it she tried to remain with some class regardless of how drunk she actually was. After emptying the fragile ware she quickly and not very delicately set the glass down on the counter with a loud clunk.

Booth stopped spinning the collar around on the table and looked at her seriously for a moment. Since coming back to her place way earlier in the evening and starting on the bottle of wine her emotions had been all over the place. She'd go from laughing and joking to sobbing to just becoming unnervingly quiet. Of course she was sad. Hell he was sad. But he wondered if she was really ok. He couldn't remember the last time she had finished off an entire bottle of wine by herself, a time that he was aware of anyway. He knew Brennan and he knew she processed things differently. She felt and experienced things in her own unique way. And he wanted to be there for her – of course he did. He loved her.

He continued to fidget with the collar.

"I know that Ripley would have loved it here. And loved you." He said sincerely.

And she tried. He had to give her credit. She tried with all her might to keep from crying this time. The determination was clear on her face as she fought it. The skin on her nose wrinkled as it scrunched up. The lines between her eyes were clear as they crinkled. He felt a pang in his chest so real that he nearly went to rub it.

"I know it's not possible but I really really feel like he would have, Booth. I really feel like he would have loved me." Her lips were stained from the red wine and she was pouting. She looked at the collar that Booth still held. "I hate that I'm not over it. I don't want to continue feeling sad…. over a dog."

He reached across the counter and grabbed her hand. He squeezed. "Bones, its ok to feel whatever it is that you're feeling. No one can tell you that that it isn't right or that you're being overly emotional over a dog. In fact, most people with pets treat them like their own children, maybe even better than their own children. " Booth smirked and it made Brennan smile for a few seconds until she looked down at the collar again. Booth gently pulled his hand back from hers and stood up. He shoved the collar into the back pocket of his jeans.

When the collar disappeared from her sight she couldn't keep the flood gates from opening any longer. She started to cry again.

Booth stood up. "Oh Bones…Bones….Bones." He said with such tenderness as he moved over to her. He wrapped his arms around her for the third time that night and she turned on the bar stool so that her face was pressed into his chest and her arms circled his waist and she held on as if she would fall into the deepest depth if she were to let him go. His own arms wrapped around her protectively. His large hands sprawled over the width of her tiny feminine back - he began to rub soothing circles around and around and around.

"We both knew how it felt to be mistreated by our owners."

Booth cringed inwardly at the knowledge that she believed she was actually ever owned by anyone. As independent as she was now and as often as she made that known it stung him to his core to hear her describe herself as being owned. He was suddenly transported in time and behind the darkness of his own eyes his imagination painted a picture of a young Temperance Brennan. Going from foster home to foster home, instead of feeling loved, cherished, irreplaceable; she felt like an animal, a pet that was owned.

She sniffed and he held tighter.

"We both knew how it felt to be misunderstood."

"I know... I know…."

"I just wanted that bond, Booth. I wanted to bond with someone, even if that someone was just a dog. I wanted that unconditional love. I wanted to feel that every day." Her words came out muffled as he continued to hold her to his chest.

He would be lying if he told himself that her words didn't pluck at more than a few of his heart strings for a very specific reason. It made his stomach turn that she felt as though she needed to rely on a dog for that feeling when he was so willing to fill that need within her himself. As his thoughts ran deeper and deeper his movements against her back became less and less as he drifted.

When his hands finally came to a complete standstill she moaned in protest. The sound effectively pulled him from inside his head with ease.

"You ok?" He asked into her hair as he simultaneously smoothed it down with his hands.

"You're hands. They make me feel so good." She mumbled.

Oh Christ. He thought knowing that she didn't really understand what she was doing to him. Drunk or sober.

He gave one more quick rub, up and down, and then untangled his arms from her. She looked up at him. "I feel so embarrassed." She sniffed.

"Why, Bones?" He hoped that his quick need to stop touching her didn't offend her.

"Because, Booth, I'm drunk and I'm a mess….crying over a Canis lupus familiaris!" She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. Booth smiled at the action. Definitely something she would never do while in her right frame of mind. He found it adorable.

"Bones, you know that you can always count on me, right?"

Count on him to love her every single second of the rest of both their lives and beyond. He was determined that he'd even love her in what was to come after this life.

Another sniff. "I know I can always count on you, Booth, but you're not going to love me. You're not going to live everyday for only my attention and affection." She explained and with her words she cast a line into his chest, the hook sunk deep into his heart and now she was pulling, pulling, pulling and it felt as though his heart was pulled all the way up against his chest but it kept being pulled anyhow - not able to go any further even though it felt like it could burst through and present itself to her at any moment. He knew that he had to fight that pull.

He went to say something to her but his throat was like sand and when he tried to speak he could only cough.

"Are you ok?" She looked up at him and asked.

He cleared his throat. "Yeah, yeah. I'm fine." This wasn't about him or his needs. It was about Brennan. He could keep any confessions to himself for now he found hope in the fact the he believed in fate. Destiny. The time would come….but now wasn't that time.

She leaned into him once more, burying her face into his chest.

"I know it's late, but please, don't leave yet."

"Shh…I'm not going anywhere." He answered as he started to rub her back again in soothing circles.