Brennan sat cuddled in a corner of her sofa; her chin resting on her knees. She looked at the flowers on the cupboard with a light smile on her lips. Booth sat on the other side of the sofa and watched Brennan. When she felt his gaze on her, she looked at him.
"What?" she asked.
"Nothing," Booth said amused. "Nothing."
He looked into her bright blue eyes and smiled. He loved her eyes. Okay, he loved a lot more on her than just her eyes but her eyes were fascinating. Whenever he looked into her eyes he felt home. Her eyes always told him the truth- if she was happy, if she was sad- and, they always told him that she felt exactly the same as he did. Every time she looked at him he knew that she loved him.
Brennan locked eyes with Booth. Whenever her gaze met his, the world around her disappeared. His beautiful brown eyes always reflected his love for her and told her the truth. By just looking at her, he told her that he would never leave her and always be there if she needed someone. She lost herself in his eyes and forgot everything else.
It was when Booth moved that she was brought back to reality. She stretched her legs out and looked again at Booth.
"Gimme your feet," Brennan said.
"Why?" Booth asked insecure.
"Booth, I'm not going to hurt you," she reassured him.
He still hesitated a moment but then stretched out his legs and rested his feet in Brennan's lap. She ran her fingertips softly over them. She lightly touched his toes and then started to caress the soles of Booth's feet. He winced at the first contact causing Brennan to look up at him.
"Shhh," she said and looked reassuring into his eyes.
She touched the soles again and this time Booth didn't wince; although, Brennan noticed that his muscles were tensed. Carefully, she started to massage his feet. After a while she felt Booth relax slowly. He rested his head against the back of the sofa and closed his eyes. Brennan eyed her work on his feet closely and once in a while looked up at Booth's face. When she saw that he had closed his eyes, a smile played around her lips.
Her fingers still worked on his feet when she said, "Tell me what they did to you."
She said it more like a question than like a demand. Booth opened his eyes and looked at Brennan. In his eyes she could see the pain of the memory. She knew that what he had been through had to be painful, but she had never asked him to tell her.
"I…" Booth started but it seemed like he couldn't muster up enough power to tell her.
After a while he started again. "One day, they came to our base. It was one of our last days and we were already packing our stuff. Suddenly, we heard screams and gunshots. We got out of our tents to see what happened. They captured us immediately and tied us up. Then they threw us into a jeep and drove away. We were locked up in a cellar without a window. We didn't get much to eat or drink. It hardly was enough to survive. Once a day someone came and took us into another room. We were tied to a chair or a table and they beat us with iron rods. Sometimes they would heat up the iron and then hit us with the hot rod. The heads, arms, hands, stomach, legs, feet…"
With the last sentence his voice broke. The memory was still painful. Brennan looked Booth in the eyes. They were filled with the pain he felt in that moment.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry you had to go through that."
Her voice was silent and filled with pain. She wished she could do anything to take the pain away from him. She knew she couldn't make him forget but she could help to make it better. She hated to know that Booth had been tortured; it almost made her heart break. She wanted him to forget but she knew he couldn't.
"It gets better," Booth said. "You help make it better, Temperance."
Brennan smiled but it didn't reach her eyes. She crawled to the other side of the sofa and lay down next to him. Booth wrapped his arms around her to prevent her from falling off of the sofa. Brennan snuggled against him, softly kissed his chest, and closed her eyes.