She was heartsore and exhausted. The case had been brutal-- the discovery of two toddlers' remains leading to four more. The evidence led to two American-pie-seeming brothers, who, when confronted, confessed in sickening detail. Sweets had left the observation room to retch, once, and Brennan had to enter the interrogation room twice to keep Booth from doing something the cameras would catch. The confession led to their basement, and the last four children-- all butchered less than a month ago. They'd been so close. For the first time, she lost her stomach at a scene, bolting out of the basement and into the street, before collapsing over the gutter. She wasn't the only one doing so.

She was worried about Booth. He'd been nearly manic with rage and anguish until they got the confessions, hounding himself and the team to find every last clue, even as she did. But when the killers confessed, and she came back into the room that second time, it was like he shut down. He asked the rest of the questions, did everything to his usual excellent standards, but there was no visible emotion in him. His only real show was when he came over to hand her water and a towel as she heaved into the gutter. He'd dropped her home, declined the invitation upstairs. Now, she'd showered and changed, and contemplated how to reach out to Booth.

She picked up her phone, deciding, just as the key turned in her lock. It was him, and he looked as he had earlier-- not there, somehow.

"Come in," she said, as he stood in the doorway. "I was just calling you."

"Were you?" he asked, standing still.

"I was," she replied, coming forward to show him the display. He looked at it and then back at her in slow motion.

"You were. Thanks, Bones."

She tugged him inside and then locked up after him. He just stood there, looking around, so she played the protector for once, and took off his jacket, unholstered his weapon, and set them to the chair where he usually put them.

"Come on in," she said, tugging him forward, until he resisted her pull as they stood in front of her counter. His vacant look was less disconcerting than what she could see swirling just underneath-- all the emotion he'd built since the start of the case. She stepped in and pulled him into a hug, one arm circling his waist as the other reached up to his shoulders. He stood stock still, the warmth of her holding him only gradually registering, until her circling hands on his back drove the thoughts that consumed him since this afternoon.

"I wanted to kill them. Still do. I should have done it right there, with the cameras running. I don't care. I might still, if I can figure a way out."

Her arms didn't loosen-- they actually tightened around him. "I know. If we were anyplace else, I'd have helped you."

He looked down at her then, and saw she was telling the truth. What a strange kind of solace, to be assured by the woman he loved that his murderous urges were shared. He was always afraid that she didn't understand all the things he was capable of, not from duty, but rage. Here she was, though, accepting and echoing his statement, as he needed her to. She was the only one who never questioned him-- and he needed that, needed her. She was as committed to their work as he was, and loyal, and fierce, but he still worried that someday, he would do something that scared her. That possibility, brought back by her entry into the room, was the only thing that stopped him today from grabbing that pen on the table and gouging their eyes out. If he scared her, and she left him? Ceased to be his friend and his partner? Well, wanting her as his lover and wife took a far back seat to not having her in his life at all. It would be worse than as if he'd never known her-- to have lost someone who trusted him, despite knowing who he was.

She squeezed him again in her arms, and her hand at his shoulder came up to the back of his neck. He let her pull his head to her shoulder, and he wrapped his own arms around her, pulling them so tightly together that their ribs creaked as they breathed. Neither let go. He inhaled her scent. She was clean, and warm, and she cared about what happened. Cared about him. She felt the rock hard tension in his muscles and worried further for him-- to have tamped down all that adrenaline wasn't healthy. He could probably run two marathons on the energy of it. She threaded her fingers through his hair-- it had always made her feel better when her mother had done so. She stifled the urge to kiss him-- he was hurting, and she didn't want to take advantage of him by thrusting her since-his-death now realized unpartnerly urges onto him.

Her warmth didn't calm him-- it just melted the ice he'd mustered to make it through the rest of the day. Her touch transformed all the rage and despair into sheer desperate need for her, not that he hadn't needed and wanted her already, but tonight it was out of control. He'd been close to the breaking point all day, but now the killing rage was an all consuming need to bury himself in her, in the hope she could make him forget. He couldn't-- he wouldn't-- he wanted her most in the world, but he was too dangerous, and she was innocent and perfect in the way she believed in finding the truth. He would manage to spoil that.

Though it was physically painful, he dropped his arms from around her. She looked up at him, her arms still around him, and reached up a hand to stroke the side of his face. "It hurts to do the right thing sometimes," she said, softly. "And the right thing doesn't always feel right at all." The compassion and understanding and shared righteous anger in her expression was too much for him, and he squeezed his eyes shut, damning his body's unwillingness to step away from her completely. Tears of frustration at his own weakness started to leak from his shut eyelids, and he r heart broke a little at how much he was still hurting. She smoothed the few tears that escaped with her hand, and he flinched at the tender gesture. Too close, too close. Her hand caressed his pain-etched forehead, as she said "It won't be alright, but it will get easier to work around."

It wasn't her words that broke him. It was that understanding tone. He seized the hand stroking his face, his eyes still closed, and pressed the palm to his mouth, kissing it hungrily. He pulled her arm up as he clasped her to him, pressing desperate kisses on the delicate skin inside her arm. She inhaled, shakily, astonished and yet not by his need for her, her own answering need from before coupling with tonight's new grief so strongly that she closed her eyes against drowning in it.

Her half-swooned response drove him over the edge. Sweeping the things off her counter onto the floor, he lifted her up and tore her shirt open, burying his head in her breasts as his hands worked at her pants. She was clinging to him, her hands fumbling at his shirt, as he greedily sucked and nipped at her breasts, grunting in satisfaction as her pants came undone. He lifted her, one armed, as he yanked her pants down, and she hit the counter with a slight thud. The slight loss of breath at the impact was magnified thousandfold when she started to reach to remove her bra, and he growled "no," in her ear right before he tore the straps with his hands and cast them away. His mouth returned immediately to her breasts, and she gasped as his fiery mouth claimed her nipple as his other hand held her in place at her back. She was half limp against the hand supporting her, and the sight of her milky breasts jutting upward, her pink areolas tautened from his attentions drew him onward.

"Oh, fuck, I need you," he groaned, then nuzzled and bit, sucked and kissed her from the long column of her throat to her belly. She gasped and mewled, writhing against him, her hands in his hair her only way to hold on as his passion overwhelmed her. He managed to unbuckle his own pants and push them away before tearing her panties from her, and pushing her back on her counter so he could spread her and see her. Her rosy folds were already sleek with wetness, her musky sweet scent rising, and he pulled her forward until he could spear himself into her. She clenched as soon as he entered her, the unexpected release from the depth and force of his thrust drawing a scream from her, and his own answering shout. He gripped her, one hand at her hip and one arm up her back, fingers curling over her shoulder from behind to brace her, as his body took over. His thrusts were frantic and forceful, and she answered with whimpers and groans each time he filled her to the hilt. She clung to him, and her noises were driving him crazy. She screamed with another wracking release, her fingers and arms around him losing their strength, as she stiffened, then became limp, falling back into his hand. He braced her while he shed the rest of his clothes, leaving them where they fell as he tossed them behind him.

Then he lifted her, grabbing her under her legs, until he found the nearest wall, then ground her into it, just managing to get his hand between her head and the wall. He adjusted his grip on her legs, before his hips demanded he pound into her again. She arched and screamed "Oh!" or "Booth!" each time his weight pinned her again to the wall, then wailed as another release found her as he exploded within her.

His pulse was still hammering through him as he opened his eyes to look at her-- panting and flushed, eyes glazed with surprise and desire. That was enough to set him off again, and he picked her up and headed back to where he thought her bedroom was located. He kicked the door open, the wood bouncing off something hard inside, and deposited her in the middle of her bed, crawling in over her, as she panted and looked at him, eyes still dazed from the shock of their joining, and the fact that despite her intense orgasms already, she still needed him, still felt like there were things from this case they both needed to forget. He bent down to kiss her, and she pulled his mouth closer to hers, her hands half-pulling, half clinging, as she groaned into his mouth. Their tongues warred, less with each other and more with the need to somehow express their need to be absorbed by the other. The taste of her mouth made him drunk, and the thought of that taste brought thoughts of another. Tearing his mouth from hers, he shifted downward and spread her legs again, the half-light from the hall illuminating her still-engorged clitoris-- she was still so aroused he could practically see it throbbing. He dove in, feasted on her, sucking their mingled tastes as he lapped at her and sucked at her clitoris. She thrashed, her hands slapping uselessly on the bed as he nipped at her, reduced soon to short, almost guttural cries as his tongue thrust inside her, then left only to nibble and suck in an alternation that drove her over the edge, again and again.

For each begging, pleading, "I can't," he proved that she could, and when his hands returned to her breasts, his palms rolling her flesh under them as he squeezed her aching, burning nipples with his fingers, she shattered all over again.

It was passionate, but not gentle. It was desperate and hungry, their need for each other and for release from the grief and rage for the case driving them both. Three plus years of waiting for him, and at least a year of desire for her, couldn't be spent in one night, but each of them felt the burn inside them, and needed to try. He would enter her, driving with and against her until they both exploded again, only to be seized again by the need to keep tasting her, feeling her, making her scream for him. She felt herself molded by him, let herself be twisted and bent each time he entered her. From behind, astride, standing, against the wall again, prone, his hands pinning hers to the bed as he hammered into her-- each thrust given and met drove a bit more of it out, but her responses to him drove him long past the point of release that the case demanded. He'd lay her down again, intending this time to collapse with her, but a whimper or moan of his name, a flutter of her eyelashes, a shiver of aftershock running through her would bring it all back.

He'd tasted and touched every part of her body, shocking her with his inventiveness, his ability to draw a release from her with practically every touch. She called his name over and over as he grunted and growled, and shouted her name when he came, always inside her. She had never been so passive before, but each time she started to get her strength back, to reach for him, he would be on her again, and she could only call out his name, or whine, or cling to him, or keen from another wracking release.

It was hours before the fire dwindled in him. He would think it was finally dying, and then she'd say his name again, and it would set him off. It was insane, and he was exhausted even as he couldn't stop holding her, touching her, tasting her. Finally though, as if someone had doused him with a bucket of water, or a fire hose, it was quenched with a last groaning shout as she clung to him, a rasping call from her echoing his own release. He collapsed with her, pulling her to him as he fell to his side, and she panted, eyes closed, against him. She was beyond exhausted, utterly limp, drenched in sweat. She could barely keep her eyes open, but she forced herself to look at him, to try to understand if what was driving him had finally let him go. He was as exhausted as she was, but when he returned her gaze, he seemed himself again, merely as heart-sore and exhausted as after any hard case, and not seized by the grief and rage that had taken him, understandably so, this time. She shivered as their bodies cooled, and tried to push herself upward to grab at the covers, but found herself limply swiping at them instead, then flopping backward into the bed. He wasn't much better off and only by gritting his teeth and groaning as he pushed himself upward did he manage to sit up far enough to find them and pull them up over them.

He flopped back into the bed, and she lay there, wheezing, eyes sealed closed. He missed her already against him, and with an enormous exertion, turned and curled himself around her, pulling her flush against him. He was too tired for words, and she was too, so she patted the hand encircling her waist, and fell into sleep. He followed her shortly.

- - - -

He woke confused-- he didn't know where he was, immediately, other than that it was someplace warm, and soft, and unfamiliar. Then her scent entered his nose and he opened his eyes to see the top of her head, tucked into him, her body curled against his. He only gradually remembered what led them there, to her bed, and he gently slid his arm out from beneath her, as he began to remember how he had literally pounced on her. Ravenous would be one word to describe how he'd acted. Desperate was another. Animalistic was perhaps better. He was instantly ashamed, terrified, even, of how she would respond when she woke, and he slid further back so he could look at her, gain some clue from her sleeping demeanor.

She looked as tired and sad as she'd been when she'd answered the door last night, sleep's normal abandon not erasing the faint lines of worry she'd worn as the case wore on. She rolled from her side where he'd been holding her, onto her back, the covers sliding down from her shoulder as she moved. She was deeply asleep, and didn't murmur or seem to notice as he left her. The fallen-away blanket corner exposed her shoulder to him as she slept.

He stilled, guts turning to ice, as he pulled the covers further away. There were bruises all over her, finger and thumb marks on her shoulders and arms where he'd gripped her, at her hips and waist, even some midway up her thighs where he'd held her legs over his shoulders while he rutted into her. There was beard burn on her breasts and inner thighs, her lips bright red and swollen from the onslaught of his kisses. He couldn't have marked her any more thoroughly if he'd branded her, and the nausea he'd tamped down yesterday at the recovery of those last four children rose up uncontrollably. He bolted for her bathroom, heaving into the toilet over and over again at the knowledge he'd hurt her. She'd never told him to stop, never pushed him away, but the markings on her made it clear to him that even if she had, she wouldn't have been able to stop him, as strong as she was. His mind stuttered over the terms legal people could call what had happened. He heaved again. He knelt there, miserable, until the heaves stopped, then rose to look in the mirror.

He didn't look like he'd ravaged his partner-- he was completely unscathed. She'd left no claw marks, no bruises on him. From his outward appearance, he merely still looked exhausted by a grueling case-- except for the haunted, half-mad look in his eye he now recognized. He saw that look in the mirror the first time he killed an innocent who stepped into the path of his rifle. He heaved again into the sink, then cleaned it out, flushed the toilet, washed his mouth out with her mouthwash, wiped his face off with her washcloth. Had he even used protection? He was clean, and he was sure she was too, but pregnancy was always an option. He didn't think he'd been wearing a condom. He doubted he'd even had any in his wallet if he'd thought of it-- it had been a while since he'd felt like meeting anyone new.

What was he going to do? How was he going to look her in the eye when she woke? All the stupid bright hopes he'd ever had for the two of them, flushed down the toilet because he couldn't keep control of himself. He'd been right to think he was dangerous, wrong to think he could protect her from him. He'd failed her. He'd possibly ruined her. He'd definitely ruined them. He went out to the living room, not willing to look again at what he'd done to her yet. He nearly heaved again at the sight of their clothes strewn everywhere, most of hers torn. It was still dark outside, only three am -- if he crept off in the night like a coward, he might as well stop off at the Hoover and turn in his badge and his gun before running completely. As much as he was sure it would ruin him, he had to face her.

Restless with anguish, he started collecting their things from around the apartment. His clothes weren't nearly as bad off as hers were, and he slipped on his shorts for lack of some better thought of what to do with them. As he folded his pants, his phone started buzzing in his pocket. Goddamnit-- Cullen's number. Not another case.

"Booth," his hoarse voice rasped.

"You sound like hell," his boss said. "Look, I'm sorry to call, that was a hell of a case yesterday, but I need you on a flight to Boise in three hours."

"What? I can't! I... you don't understand!" He couldn't leave. Any hope he had of convincing Bones to not kill him, or cut him out of her life, or call the-- no, he wouldn't think about that yet-- would evaporate the minute he left, even if it was for work.

"I'm sorry-- there's no choice. McFadden's escaped, and he was last seen heading for Idaho. They think he's headed toward one of those survivalist groups up there." Of course. The one domestic terrorist only Booth would be able to re-capture and he'd picked now to escape.

"Look... I... I can't," he stuttered.

"Booth, if you're worried about your partner thinking you've gone belly up again, I promise I will personally tell her first thing in the morning. You're right, she can be trusted with national security, especially since she'd never work with the Bureau again if I kept her out of the loop this time."

"That's not all of it... look, there are some... conversations I have to have before I go, Sam. Give me until noontime."

"No can do. No need to pack, either. It's undercover, just come here and equipment will give you the things that you'll need. Look Booth, I'm sorry, but I'll make sure Dr. Brennan and your son's mother know that you're working and that you had no choice but to go. Get yourself down here, though. It's going to take a while to brief you."

"Twenty minutes."

"See you then."

He dressed, robotically. His button down shirt that he'd worn over the tshirt was ruined, the button holes torn, so he left it behind. He laced up his boots and holstered his weapon, and then trudged into her bedroom, sitting lightly on the side of her bed. "Temperance," he called, stroking her cheek. "Bones, hey, I need you to wake up." She shifted and moaned as she rolled onto a bruised shoulder, and he swallowed a wash of bile. "Bones, please, wake up a bit," he said, stroking her cheek again. She didn't respond-- she was too deeply exhausted to wake.

He crept out of the bedroom, and rummaged for paper in her living room. He scrawled his note with a shaking hand, folded it, placed it on the pillow where she couldn't miss it, and was gone.

- - - - -

She woke, sore and exhausted, still slightly stunned by what had happened between them, to find she was alone in the bed. She rolled over, and her hand hit something paper. Blinking her eyes open, she saw it read "Temperance" on the folded-over outside, in Booth's scrawl.

"Temperance,

If I had any choice I would still be here-- I tried to wake you to tell you myself. I'm so sorry. Sam Cullen will explain everything in the morning-- please listen to what he has to say. I had no idea when I came here last night that this would come up. I hope you'll believe that, no matter what. I'm sorry. I love you. Though I wouldn't believe it if I were you, after what happened. I never wanted to hurt you.

Booth."