Brennan watched all the hours of the night tick by on the clock beside their bed. Her eyes were pregnant with tears and sore with sleep. In her mind she debated, but could not let herself close them and let the lonely night engulf her. She didn't toss or turn, not wanting to wake Booth and risk having to face him again. She just lay there and felt.
Her heart was metaphorically broken, but had never felt so literal.
"We need to talk."
She had reacted as one would expect she would, being a logical and rational woman. She was disappointed, but told Booth she understood. She even put on a smile and told him she was impressed he was finally seeing things from her perspective.
"Bones, were okay, right?" His eyes had searched hers. Apologetic?
She felt stripped. She had let herself get too comfortable. His reassuring words about thirty, forty or fifty years had struggled their way into her. She had trusted herself and trusted him, and had opened her heart up enough to let them in.
And now those words were missing.
She couldn't quite rationalize why she would miss something she barely knew was there.
But she felt it.
And in the silence of the night, she yearned for Booth's familiar voice to speak them again.
"It's just a piece of paper."
Before living with Booth, Brennan only ever slept for a couple hours a night. Enough to keep her going in order to get back to the lab. She would work herself to complete exhaustion so that when she finally found herself in her dark and lonely apartment, she would soon be sleeping. All this to avoid the lonely and empty feeling that came with the night.
This night felt lonelier and darker. Booth was just inches away from her, and her daughter just down the hall fast asleep in her crib, but Brennan felt far away. She could already feel herself pulling away from the situation. Her brain was stepping in.
As an anthropologist she knew that humans have biological tendencies that influence social behavior conditioned by innate predispositions, such as the tendency to avoid pain.
Her brain was stepping in to avoid pain. It is completely rational. Much more rational than her unpredictable feelings.
Brennan can trust logic. Logic will never lure her into false security only to take it away. Logic will not leave her dark and lonely.
Brennan slipped carefully out of bed, the green fluorescence of the clock lighting her way as she tip toed out of their bedroom.
She grabbed her jacket and left for the lab, leaving behind the last of her broken heart.