Author's Note: I am already buried alive in homework, but couldn't focus on it no thanks to Booth. He just would not get out of my head until I let him have his say this afternoon. This one-shot is all Booth, from the first person point of view.

This is Booth and Booth is a soldier and a cop. I've spent some time around those kind of guys, so Booth's thoughts are just a bit salty. (No worse than you would hear on TV, however.)

This is a one-shot, with major spoilers for episode 8.2, Partners in the Divorce.

~Q~

No Longer Needed

Since she's been back, she is different. Every time I try to put my finger on exactly what has changed, I come up with empty air, however, because what is different is not who she is. No. It's what she does. She's independent, sort of like a teen that finally grew up when she left for college and got used to doing things on her own. Now she's back on summer vacation and I keep acting like she never left, but she did and of course we're not the same.

I finally realized the other day what it was that has been bothering me … what has changed is her need for me. It's gone.

For years I've carried through on an unspoken promise to protect her, to guide her, to provide for her. She never knew the level of commitment I've been giving to her, even when Hannah seemed to pull me away from her. She didn't know I was always there even when she didn't see me, and always planning to be there. I didn't need her to know, because it was never about that. One day years ago I saw that Bones didn't have anyone to take care of her and so I decided I was the guy who would do that. I've been taking care of her ever since the first winter of our partnership, for so long that I think it might define me. I am Seeley Booth, Special Agent of the FBI and special protector of Temperance Brennan.

I have killed for her, I would die for her. I stayed in a painful partnership because she begged me to. Long before the time we finally stepped over our line, it was already clear that I was never going to leave her.

She left me, instead.

Yes, I know it was necessary. It was rational, logical, and probably the only option that would guarantee her safety while we worked out a way to ensure her continuing freedom. After I saw that image of Pelant standing in Christine's nursery, leering at the security camera, I actually got down on my knees and thanked God that Bones had taken our baby and run.

I get it, I really do.

But I'm still angry that it had to happen. I'm angry that she didn't tell me, warn me, even though I know why she thought it better not to. I'm angry that I am angry … because I don't want to be angry and yet that is exactly what I am, and I can't stop. It won't go away, and I think that's partly because it hurts, too.

I hurt. I am hurting. I lost months with my baby, months she promised me and that I'll never get back. Bones promised me she would never keep me away from my baby.

I know she didn't want to, it was circumstances, etc. We've been over that. It still hurts.

What hurts the most, though, is that I can see she doesn't need me.

~Q~

Ever since I was a kid just freshly rescued from my father's gin-scented screaming and flying fists, there was a ritual that grounded me every morning. Pops would get up and cook us all breakfast. He made pancakes, or French Toast, or maybe just eggs or oatmeal. It was always hot, though, and it happened every single day. We could always count on a warm breakfast to start us off.

Once upon a time, Bones told me "cooking is a way of showing love." She was just quoting somebody, but I think it's true. Eating meals together helps families stay close, and for me, cooking breakfast for her every day was my way of making us into a family. Since the first morning we woke up together, I've always cooked her breakfast.

Then she left and I had no reason to cook. There was no family.

Now she's back, not even a couple of weeks, and today I caught the scent of pancakes. Bones was cooking them. I felt deflated. It was just so jarring to see her standing in the kitchen, a spatula in hand and an apron tied around her waist, doing the thing I've always done for her. It made me feel as useful as teets on a bull, as Pops would have said.

Bones doesn't like to acknowledge this, but I do have a rational side. That rational side made me try to shrug it off. She's just doing something nice—she even said as much. But when I tried to joke that I can still do the French Toast, she informed me she can cook that, too. I could only stand there with a rock in my belly, hearing her tell me that her experience as a fry cook taught her how to cook diner-style breakfasts and clearly, she doesn't "need" me to do that for us anymore. I felt like I had been fired.

If it was just that, maybe I'd have swallowed my discomfort and moved past it; but it wasn't just that.

At the crime scene later that morning, she told me she and Christine slept under a bridge once. How the hell am I supposed to live with that, knowing that my child and the woman I love, that I've sworn I would always protect, were living under a bridge?

Then a few minutes later she began explaining the motivation of the killer choosing that location for a body dump, citing her new experiences as a fugitive for giving her that insight. Now she can think like a criminal because she's been one. Great.

She doesn't need me to be the 'heart' person now….

Fired again, the second time today.

Out of spite, I started 'doing her job,' spouting off all the detailed instructions for collecting the body and moving it back to the Jeffersonian. Two can play the 'I-don't-need-you' game. She looked irritated, but so was I. It's my investigation, she's the invited guest.

It just got worse after that. She was going to take Christine to the Children's Museum. What about me? Am I not invited to go with them? I said I was hoping to take her to the carousel and Bones let me know that wouldn't work: she'd already done that and apparently Christine didn't like it. Well, I didn't get to try that. Maybe it would be different if I were there. I am her father, after all. Fathers protect their children—at least, the good ones do.

The whole time, Bones was acting like I wasn't really there. I wasn't needed for anything, not even an opinion or a vote. She doesn't need me.

She's been a single mom, a fry cook, a fugitive, she knows motive, she can do anything. After all these years of me thinking she needs me, I find out she never did.

My chest feels like bands of steel are wrapped around, getting tighter and squeezing all the air out of me. It hurts.

~Q~

When I tried to explain to her how I was feeling, I admit I got upset. Instead of letting me talk, she shut me down. Turned all rational and told me she wasn't going to 'engage' with me until I could be reasonable again. Do you have any idea how aggravating that is…? I've got something ugly burning inside, burning to get out, and she just shuts me down and walks away. I wanted to strangle her. I wanted to make her stop and LISTEN to me.

I want her to need me as much as I need her.

Instead she started bellowing that she's a free agent and she doesn't need me. God, she actually said it. If I weren't so angry already, I'd have been scared that Bones was going to bolt. We were supposed to be working, which is probably the only thing that stopped us from fracturing right there. Suddenly she got all focused on looking down the refuse chute and demanded that I hold her legs.

Like hell.

So she muttered again that she's a free agent and she'll do it without me. She leaned all the way in and of course she damn near fell in head first to her damn death.

What else could I do but grab her damn ankles before I lost her to that damn impulsivity that's been scaring the crap out of me for years. I stood there holding her, saving her from herself, and what she does is tell me she can see blood. Not a thanks or even an acknowledgement.

For a moment it felt perfectly normal, like that bitter argument we'd just been having hadn't happened at all. She went into her usual daring mode and I just grabbed her and protected her because that's what I always do without thinking. As I held her, though, I saw that she did need me after all, and that somewhere under that anger and hurt she'd trusted fully that I was going to be there.

That tightness in my chest finally loosened and I almost felt like crying, right there at a crime scene. Thank God it was only Bones there. She asked what was wrong and I said the fumes from the refuse chute were making my eyes water. She believed it, just as I knew she would.

I guess that hasn't changed.

~Q~

It was getting on to evening, and I walked into the Jeffersonian lab to find Bones. As I was about to go into the Bone Room, I saw her standing beside the examination table. Her long, elegant legs curving out from under her short lab coat drew my eyes at first; but what really got to me was seeing her hair up in a messy bun, her head bent down to gaze at a long bone in her hands.

Here's something else that hasn't changed: I love to watch her work.

I've always loved it. She's so beautiful and graceful and when she looks at bones she narrows her entire being onto that one thing. Every time I see her like this, I fall a little more in love with her. It's always been this way, except for the seven months we were apart two years ago, and the three months we're trying to come back from.

All the changes I'm seeing in her don't erase this one Constant: that I love her. I do. I can't stop and I don't want to stop. I love her. And I've missed her, so deeply and so painfully missed her that I can't even think of what it would do to me if she left again.

She caught me standing there, and it was that resurgence of love that pushed me in to apologize to her for our fight. She said she was sorry, too, for hurting me. We were so careful and polite and awkward with each other.

God, there is so much wrong between us right now and I'm so afraid.

~Q~

She didn't come home until three hours later than usual. What could it mean? I sit quietly, nursing a Scotch and praying that we're going to get through this.

When she does come in, she's tentative. She tells me she's been to see Sweets—surely the biggest sign yet that she has changed—but the reason she gives me just blows me away. With tears in her eyes, Bones tells me there's something wrong with her. I, of course, do the standard reassurance, but that's not what really floored me. It's what she said next.

She thought polite meant we were okay, but only because she's naïve. Only after I had left did it finally occur to her that we aren't okay. Something finally alerted her to the reality that 'polite and awkward with each other' means everything is wrong. She's scared, too. She needs me so much that she went to Sweets for help. I think she'd rather have a root canal than spend time alone with Sweets.

Everything broke open then. She's different, but she still needs me. She wants me.

With serious eyes and a sweet little smile, Bones tells me we will take Christine to the carousel, even though she knows the outcome isn't going to be great. She's going to do something 'irrational' just to prove to me that she loves me.

We kiss each other, the sweetest and most loving kisses since the moment we were reunited. For the first time since seeing her in a blond wig in that seedy motel, I feel that it is love that is pulling us back together, not lust or the desperation of denial. I love her.

Knowing that she loves me just as deeply has smoothed the edges. I know it's going to be hard for a while, but finally I'm hopeful that we can work this out. I know that we have to work it out because Bones needs me; and I won't ever let her down.

~Q~

Author's Note: Ordinarily I let things sit and percolate for at least a week or two. I read and refine several times. Sometimes it's months (or years!) before I feel I've finished a story. This time, I was channeling Booth. He's not the sit-back-and-think kind of guy ... so I decided I would publish this fast, with minimal editing. I wanted this to feel very stream-of-consciouness, and a little raw.