Dipping my toe back in the fanfic world after a long absence. Booth drove me to it. He broke my heart, and I had to write. Just a tiny little snippet. Hope you enjoy.

TOUCH

I lost you, then I found you. Then I lost you again.

The past two months have been a nightmare; a nightmare without waking.

They took you from me – I saw you, bleeding and broken, defending us with the last of your strength, and from that moment, I never touched you again. We have talked but it isn't the same. It's so far from the same that it will never be the same again.

I need to touch you.

I need to feel your skin, to lay my hands upon that strong, warm surface, to assess the damage that was done to you. To make sure you are healing. I want to touch you so badly that daily, hourly, I feel a scream of torment rise again and again in my throat.

My husband.

My partner.

I can't touch you, and I need to touch you.

They took you away, like they took me away when I finally saw you again. I was so close, so very close, so near to touching you and they stopped me. You were there; broken and in pain, wrongly reviled by the very system to which you devoted your life. You were alone. You were alone, and I couldn't be with you. I couldn't touch you.

I love you. I love you more every day, and I realize I will never again be happy without you.

I cannot sleep without you. With all its blankets the bed is empty and cold. Food is merely fuel for the fight. I struggle through every day, trying to find the proof of your innocence – proof that, for once in my life, is absolutely, personally meaningless to me. I know you. Your innocence; your honor. Your truth. All of the people who have turned on you; have in their fear and cowardice thrown you to the slaughter, have forgotten those facts. They have forgotten but I will not.

Once we have freed you, once we have restored things to the way they should be and have brought to justice those who did this, I know you will forgive them. Forgiveness is in your nature.

It is not in mine.

I will never forgive them.

I will never forgive them for what they have done to you. Their strongest, truest, most loyal warrior. They tried to crush the man who couldn't be scared; who wouldn't be bought. They didn't succeed.

They will not succeed. I will not stop fighting. I will make things right. However I can, whatever must be done, I promise you I will end this, and we will be together again.

And I will touch you.

Thanks so much for reading.