She wanted to run. More than anything, she wanted to run. She got as far as opening up the email folder where she saved all the requests she received to join archeological digs or identify victims of genocide. She could escape for a month or two, and by the time she got back, the world would be flipped right side up again and she would have rebuilt her defenses and she would be able to look at Booth without remembering that he had proved her beliefsabout the ephemeral nature of love and how people always leave. The tears began flowing again, and for a moment, she had a desperate, soul-deep longing to bury her head in her mother's lap and sob while her mother shushed her and stroked her hair. But she couldn't, because her mother had left her, too.
She sat there crying, indulging in the sorrow, feeling sorry for herself. And then, she started to think about what Micah had said. Everyone had a sad story. She had known him for a decade and she had no idea what his was. But he seemed to be making a life for himsef. She thought about the doctor who had died alone because she wouldn't reach out to those around her – wouldn't even take the hand of someone who was reaching out to her. And she made her decision.
She wasn't going to run away. She was going to stay here, and help Angela with her pregnancy diet, and maybe find out Micah's story, and wait for the world to flip. And she would find a new normal with Booth and learn to watch him with Hannah without aching inside. Maybe she had been right all along to pass up her opportunity with Booth. She had been afraid that she couldn't be the kind of woman he needed, that she couldn't love him enough. Maybe by rejecting him, she had freed him from the limbo of their seven-year surrogate relationship so he could find the woman he was really supposed to love for 30 or 40 or 50 years. All she had ever wanted was for Booth to be happy, and he was. Maybe in a small way, she could be proud of helping bring that about.
Maybe she would never get to have a great love like Booth, but she had a life, and she had people. She wanted to stay here, where her life was. Where her people were. Where someone would miss her when she was gone.
AN: This is not necessarily what I believe is true, but what I think Bones might tell herself is true.
