Title: Everytime you feel alone
Pairing: Booth/Brennan
Words: 2.360
Rating: T (Although I'm a little inclined to say that there are at least one paragraph worth of poetic M)
Spoilers: A little insight about Booth's family
Disclaimer: I don't own nothing, and the inspiration for this one shot came from a beautiful portuguese song called O Meu Abrigo (My Shelter) from Mafalda Veiga. Feedback is very good to my writing soul and very much appreciated!

Enquanto anoitece, enquanto escurece / While it grows dark, while it becomes gloomy
e os brilhos do mundo cintilam em nós. / and the brightness of the world shines in us.
Enquanto tu sentes que se quebrou tudo, / While you feel that everything was broken,
eu estarei aqui sempre que te sentires só. / I'll be here everytime you feel alone.


Rays of light slipped through the half open curtains in the far end of the bedroom. Her eyes opened and were welcomed by the pale light that bathed the room, the soft breeze from the open window sent shivers through her skin. She blinked away the morning moister in her vivid blue eyes and repressed a yawn.
The morning came too soon, her senses shouted as she pushed the soft blanket around the curves of her body and cocooned herself away from the world. There was a lingering pain in her limbs; it felt like a pleasurable pain, almost imperceptible against the feeling of warmth and contentment she experienced in that morning.

Her head came out of its safe location under the covers and blue eyes greeted the day for the second time. She had no recollection of feeling that peaceful and satisfied in a long time, and that came along with sentiments of confusion and wonder.

Turning over, she found the other side of the bed still empty.

She sat up and let herself feel the soft wind caressing her exposed body. Wide eyes looked down and stopped upon seeing bare flesh. Had she been so tired last night that didn't bother to dress in something comfortable for bed?

A shiver overcame her flesh.

She turned to the empty side, again, and to the ruffled sheets beside her. Her hand traveled along the length of it and felt them soft and warm below her fingertips. She found herself wondering how disturbing had been her night, for her to be tossing and turning around the bed, slaving away for some nightmare that had been washed away by the morning light into the confines of her memory.

It was time to leave it behind and face another day of work, because even though it was Saturday, she wasn't the one to sleep in and do nothing all day. Her brain demanded action.

She threw her legs aside and easily let her feet touch the floor. Her hands reached for a satin robe to cover her body from the unwelcoming breeze that enveloped her now completely exposed body.
Moving out of the room, she felt small goose bumps travel up her legs as she walked in the cold floor deeper in her apartment.

It was then, when she was absently rubbing the leftovers of sleep from her eyes, that she heard faint noises in the distance and inside her apartment. She froze in the middle of the hallway with an erratic breathing. Ears were alert and tried to catch the sounds. They were met by what seemed to be a voice, low and masculine, humming to the sounds of her kitchen radio.

Immediately, her heart rate grew strong and was amplified with every step she took closer to the kitchen. Her hand came to rest above her chest, trying to calm the beat down. Her body came to a halt against the door frame that separated the corridor from the kitchen and the rest of the living room.
She breathed once, twice and finally gathered the courage to look inside the other division.

The sight she saw inside made her body jerk against the wall and the preserve reaction was triggered as she hid herself in the corridor again.

The humming had turned into a soft singing in a deep voice that she came to identify with only one person specifically. The sound surrounded her being and warmed her flesh in a way that the wall behind her back seemed cold in comparison.

Once again, that erratic heartbeat erupted in her chest, this time it was not triggered by the fear of the unknown, but rather by the feeling of what she knew too well.

Curiosity caught her as she leaned, once more, against the wall and allowed only her vision to peek out.

He was barefoot in her kitchen floor, dressed in nothing but jean pants. His body moved with a fine agility around the place, which was not his, and yet knew exactly where to reach for whatever he searched for. His hands moved from the stove to the counter and she could smell fresh pancakes and coffee. Her eyes closed and she smiled in the only time she allowed to feel that kind of enjoyment.

Then, as fast as that feeling of satisfaction came, it went away and left confusion. Her mind produced endless questions and one of them was why. Why was that man standing in her kitchen half naked, dressed in something less appealing than the bright smile that turned his lips upwards and illuminated his brown eyes?

Her eyes traveled around the rest of the house and rested in the living room. There were random pieces of clothing in places that shouldn't be, couch pillows lay carelessly in the floor, and yet it didn't felt more right to her, that chaos, than ever before.

And then, she remembered.

Last night the weight of his past had proven unbearable and she found him outside her apartment's door at a late hour. His face seemed old beyond his real age and his eyes were dark and heavy with so many emotions that she couldn't categorize one apart from another.

Had it been a nightmare? A picture? A phone call from someone of his past?

It hadn't matter, because she enveloped him in her arms, anyways, and brought his almost lifeless body inside and towards the sofa.

He sat there, face down, shoulders heavy with the weight of guilt and not looking at her. Instead, he fidgeted with his hands; a nervous habit she had come to identify as one of his usual acts whenever he wanted to talk but words didn't seem to form in his throat.

She sat close to him, knowing from experience, both his and hers, that sometimes feeling the close proximity of a friend was enough to settle a troubled mind. Somehow, there was an ache inside her body, akin to a persistent pain. It ached because seeing him in pain triggered new and fearful emotions inside of her. Emotions that she had to battle against and become victorious in the end, if she wanted to reach for him and be the friend he needed her to be.

'A simple touch', Angela had said many years ago. The wise words of her friend proven correct back then and she knew they would be the wise course of action, even now, because she knew he was like that. He had come to knock on her door, not only for emotional support, but for physical one as well. She enjoyed touching him, enveloping that tall and strong man in her slender arms and calm his worries. She knew he enjoyed it too. That was what he was searching for.

Her hand had wrapped around one of his larger ones and stopped the frenetic and nervous turn and twist of his fingers. At first his hand pulled away at the sudden contact, soft and pale skin against rough one, but under her persistence he allowed their fingers to entwine.

A low sob had escaped his lips, and she knew he was losing control over his emotions. They came flooding out, like water free from a dam, the tears from his eyes. Heavy tears rolled down his face, a sight of physical weakness she rarely had seen in him, if not ever.

She tried to maintain her own emotions in check for his benefit, but failed miserably when his dark brown eyes had searched for the blue of hers. Her vision blurred unexpectedly and she blinked hard to maintain control.
Another sob and she felt his grip tighten around her hand and her own body, in its voluntary motion, leaned towards him and wrapped a free arm around his shoulder.

He, in his turn, leaned into her embrace as well, and like that, they stood for what seemed a long time.

Silence became a heavy blanket surrounding them in the dimly lit living room. Old artifacts and books witnessed the compassionate embrace and her soothing caresses in his hand and neck.

Then, his voice came out, cracked and heavy with emotion, and slowly, as taking infant steps, his lips started to move, forming words and phrases that she didn't want to acknowledge, for they belonged to the life of her partner and cut deeply into his heart. They hurt him, if only by speaking them aloud, and that, as a consequence, hurt her as well. She never would imagine that her strong and fearless partner had suffered so strongly in his youth.

How could she know that below that shielded exterior and warm smiles lay a fearful boy who once had been as miserable as herself?

He had spoken to her, with his head in her shoulder, and his words had traveled without effort to her ears. He spoke about his progenitors, scars and tears from the past. Of endless nights of fear dripping from his forehead in small drops of sweat, and the emotional loneliness he had endured for as many years as he existed.

A few months into their partnership, she convinced herself that he had been a golden boy. A young boy, growing in the suburbs of a large city, amongst a family founded in catholic values, of Sunday church and apple pies. A young man, who had been the pride of his parents, the desirable object of affection among girls and proud server of the country.

All along, she had been wrong.

She learned, with a strong effort from his part, the enormity of her mistake. He was not born a golden boy under the stars and stripes but, he had become one.

Nevertheless, guilt overcame her whenever she remembered how selfish she had been when mourning over her past and the sad fate bestowed upon her at such a young age. She now recognized the glint that shadowed his eyes whenever she spoke about missing her own mother. He knew the feeling, because he had been missing his own as well.

There, in her living room, she had wanted to say something, tell him that she knew, in one way or another that she felt the same, that she understood him, maybe better than anyone, for she had experienced, in her own part, similar situations. But tonight, tonight was about him and his fears. In that night she wanted to be the listener, like he had been for her many times before.

'Don't leave me, Bones.' He had whispered over and over again like a mantra as the tears threatened to engulf his being.

He asked her not to leave him. Her, the one who feared to be caught in a complicated net of emotions, the one who was always left behind, who feared he would leave her if she took a step forward, in the line between them, larger than her leg.

She wrapped her arms around him tightly and said that everything was going to be fine, even though the rational side of her couldn't gather evidences to found her argument. Nonetheless, her lips formed the words against his ears, his cheeks, his eyes and even his lips. The words, that were merely soothing before, had transformed into truths that had been encased in her heart for too long.

As her lips kissed the remains of sadness from his eyes and his breathing became even, their embrace became demanding, urgent to soothe and feel one another.

That night she had been in his arms and him in hers. Their bodies had, somehow, found their way to her bed, among forgotten clothes and kisses.
He had been smiling, the first smile she saw in his lips that night, and that alone, was enough for her to surrender the last remains of rationality and give into his caresses. His hands had played her like an instrument, the soft music echoed from her lungs in the form of his name. His body melted into her with a long whisper of her given name and she found herself dissipating into his warmth.

'Becoming one.' His words resonated in her head and she couldn't restrain the crimson shade to taint her cheeks.

His voice brought her back from the imagery of the past night and she heard him ask if she would be standing in the threshold for the rest of the morning, or come inside to enjoy his magnificent breakfast. She walked inside the kitchen, her paces were still unsure. He greeted her with one of his smiles and disarmed her fears. For the second time, she felt naked in front of him, this time not of clothes but of doubts.

Her arms wrapped around his torso and his evolved her in the same way. His skin was warm and sun kissed, his eyes still clad in the remaining clouds of sleep. His hair in disarray was a vivid remembrance of the night.

She looked into his eyes and, uncharacteristically, smiled shyly.

She heard him proffer another kind of words. They were enough to make her haste to a place, inside her, where he could never find her, and she could ignore them, but it would be useless, because, even though her mind wasn't prepared to respond, her heart sang them with every beat.

Her head rested in his shoulder and, as her lips built a path in his neck, his pleasurable sounds were all the words that she would ever need in her life, for no other sound would be as welcoming and as wanted as the ones that he was whispering into her ear.

In that private moment of affection, she finally realized that even though there were oceans of difference between both of them, when the hurt is much too hard to bear, they would find solace and comfort from loneliness and despair in the arms of one another.
She knew he felt the same, and even without words his embrace expressed how deeply he cared and needed her, just as much as she did, and that gave them a sense of inner peace, which they hadn't found in a long time.

The End