A/N: I was re-watching "The Man in the Fallout Shelter" the other day, and was struck (again) by one of Booth's lines when he's talking to Parker's mother trying to arrange his son's visit to the lab for Christmas: "Please don't make me beg..." It made me wonder what exactly this woman did to him to break his heart so badly, and this is what I came up with. It also suggests a reason why he's so reluctant to talk about his Army days. Let me know what you all think, and, as always, enjoy :-)
"Seeley, I'm pregnant."
Special Agent Seeley Booth sat opposite his long-time girlfriend, Rebecca Stinson, only the coffee table separating them in the small apartment. She had asked him over that night, giving no hint of the news she held until after he had settled himself in the easy chair she kept around especially for him. Perched on the couch just a few feet away, she had taken a deep breath and, without preamble, delivered the information.
He didn't respond right away, stunned into silence, his mind a numb blank. It seemed like eons passed before he finally recognized his own thought: I must be dreaming.
"What?" he finally asked.
Rebecca pressed her lips tightly together, steadying her voice before speaking again. "I'm pregnant," she repeated slowly.
"You're sure?"
It was a stupid question, and she could tell he felt dumb as soon as the words left his lips, but she answered anyway. "I'm sure."
His brain began to slowly function again, regaining a few thought processes at a time like a computer re-booting itself. But we were so careful. "How…how far along?"
"The doctor says six to eight weeks," she said softly.
The next question was out of his mouth before it even fully formed in his mind. "What are we going to do?"
"I was hoping you might have some ideas."
He studied the woman across from him, taking in the face he had caressed so many times, the arms that had held him close, the toes she stood up on to kiss him, the abdomen that sheltered his baby.
Our baby. Our child. He stood and moved easily to the couch, taking her hands in his and running his thumbs over the smooth skin. He knew what he wanted to do. He also knew what he needed to do first.
"Rebecca, I want to marry you," he told her, squeezing her hands gently.
Her eyes lit up. "You what?"
"I want to marry you," he repeated, the hint of a smile pulling at his lips. He knew she'd been waiting for him to ask, and he'd been wanting to for months now. The smile faded as he steeled himself against his next sentence. "But before I ask you, there's something you need to know about me."
The sparkle in her eyes clouded over at the serious tone of his voice. "Okay."
He shifted beside her, brushing his thumbs over her hands again, trying to draw strength from her touch as he had so many times in the past. "You know that I was in the Army."
She nodded carefully. "You had just gotten out when we met."
"And you know that I don't talk much about what I did in the Army."
"You always said it was too painful to talk about. Seeley, that never bothered me. I love you…"
"I know you do, and I love you, too, so much. But you need to hear this."
Her voice was more hesitant this time, unsure. "O-kay."
The truth will set you free, he assured himself, hoping the old Bible passage would prove correct. Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to meet her gaze. "Sweetheart, I was a sniper. A company commander somewhere early in my career discovered that I could shoot a rifle pretty well—better than most guys in fact—and they trained me to be a sniper."
"You…were…a sniper?"
The words came to him as though he was underwater, and he nodded in slow motion. "Someone picked out a target, the intelligence guys told me everything they knew about the target…and it was my job to hunt that target down."
"Target?" She grimaced and began to draw away from him. "You mea person."
He nodded again, the pain evident in his dark eyes. "Yeah, person," he croaked.
"You…" she put it all together in her mind and pulled back in horror, snatching her hands away. "You killed people!"
He couldn't think, couldn't move, couldn't speak. He wanted to reach for her, to explain to her why he had taken that path in the military, but found himself powerless to do so.
"You killed people!" she repeated, rising from the couch.
"It was my job," he managed.
Bad choice of words. "Your job?" she demanded, her voice heavy with disgust. "Your job was to take people's lives, Seeley! You got paid for murder!"
"Becca…" he began, using his pet name for her.
She cut him off. "No! All this time you never bothered to tell me? You were a goddamned hit man and you never thought it might be important?"
He blinked back the tears in his eyes, desperate to push away the despair welling up inside him. He had been called worse, certainly, but never by the woman he loved more than anything else in the world. Don't let her see you cry! "I'm telling you now," he almost whispered. "You deserve to know the truth about the man who wants to be your husband and a father for our baby…"
"No," she stopped him, her voice low and deadly calm. "I don't ever want to see you again. And you will never be a father to my child."
He rose, unsteady on his feet, attempting a jerky step toward her.
She held out a hand in front of her as if to ward him off and backed herself against the farthest wall. "Get out!" she ordered.
He tried, out of reflex perhaps, another step toward her, wanting to comfort her, to make her understand. She reacted by pressing herself even more tightly against the wall, the fear written plainly on her features.
He was stunned. She's afraid of me. This woman knows me better than anyone else in the world…and she's afraid of me.
Dropping his chin to his chest, he let himself out and stumbled his way back to the car before the dam broke. He knew he had lost Rebecca. His life with her was over. The anguish began to pour out of him, and he mourned the death of what he knew was true love.
Slumped over the steering wheel, his hands covering his face, Seeley Booth cried.