Compartmentalization

She tells them that she can compartmentalize, and she can. Put a case in front of her, and she looks at it with logic and reason. Emotions play no part in what she can do. Booth, Angela, no one that she works with understand how she can do it. She insists that she is very good at it.

But she isn't.

She would get home after one of her grueling cases, finished, with a celebratory drink or meal with Booth, and walk into her apartment. First she would smile. Another bad guy behind bars. Another puzzle solved. She would get a drink of wine, beer, water maybe. Sit down on her couch, take off the shoes that pinched her feet. She'd roll her neck, put some music on.

Then she would catch a glimpse of the clock, how late it was getting, and think, I really should get to bed. But before she could get to bed she had to clean the dirt and grime of the day off of her.

So, she would turn off the music, rinse out her glass, and turn off the lights as she headed to the bathroom.

She turned the shower on to heat up. She paid a lot of money for her 12 jet shower head, in shower steam room with music piped to not use it every night. Pulling off her clothes carefully and placing them in their proper laundry hamper (whites, and colors), she then took off her jewelry and pulled a couple items from her vanity, face cleanser and the like. It was then, when she shut the door to the vanity and saw her own reflection, that the events of the day hit her. She knew what was coming and she made her way into the shower.

And with classical music playing and her 12 showerheads jetting onto her body, she allowed herself to cry. And not just a single tear. Deep sobs escaped her. Sometimes when it was an especially tough case, a child involved, or forbid, Booth, she would cry so hard that she ended up on the floor racked with sobs. But the shower was the only place she allowed herself to let go.

She rationalizes it that it's just her bodies natural adrenaline working it's way out. But she knows better. And as it happens more and more often right after something happens with her and Booth, she knows something is changing. It's getting harder to compartmentalize him.

And she doesn't think she really wants to anymore. But she's not going to tell anyone THAT.