-A story exploring what Brennan might feel when she worries about her child! Comments, critiques and criticism requested. Can be set anywhere from the end of season 6 to anytime in season 7. Thank you for reading!-

Enough

Some of them, they would never understand. She wasn't prone to self reflection. It was a waste of time. A useless squandering of something precious, fleeting. She wasn't one of those who believed in an afterlife. She didn't get second chances.

Angela, Hodgins, Dr. Goodman, Cam, oh, god. Even Zach. They all had their lives, the pleasures and pain that came with that. But none of them understood her, not really. Sometimes he'd give her a look, and she's wonder if Booth even understood her. Agent Seeley Booth, the one person who didn't fail in pushing past her walls. If you wanted to be metaphorical about it. She didn't. A waste of time, all of it.

She wasn't like Angela. Didn't grow up in an expensive art school where you were "trained" to be crazy. Didn't have periodic meetings with her dad that were tense with his shows and other's expectations. She didn't have a dad. She didn't have art.

She wasn't like Hodgins who was a strange kid in a rich school. With tight curls and bugs to observe and watch. Who was left alone because his parents practically owned the world –his words, not her own. No one currently owned the world.

She wasn't like Dr. Goodman, who'd grown up in a small, quiet home, and worked to go to college and was rewarded with sweet kids and a wife. Who went from the one being bossed around to the one who bosses.

And she wasn't like Cam. With a strong fashion sense, a knowledge of Booth –from experience and observation—and an unpredictable family. She didn't have any of those things, and would forever bumble around in social interactions.

They never realized how hard it was.

Zach understood more, but, he didn't care as much. He had a huge family, who loved him. Would do anything to protect him and keep him safe. Who's parents she often saw when she visited him in the "Looney Bin" as he dubbed it. Who's parents had moved up here, just for him. Who was homeschooled and quickly moved up into college, where people envied his brains.

But she didn't have a dad at all. Didn't have parents who could protect her, provide a quiet and secure life for her. Didn't know people… Or the one she wished she did. Didn't even have people willing to move miles for her, uproot themselves for her. She had a car driving off, and her brother's turned back. No one had ever wanted to keep her.

Booth, he understood. Bits and pieces if anything. He understood not being able to trust your parents, being on guard for other people. Not trusting. But he had things she didn't. Things she couldn't see, feel, or measure.

How could someone be a parent, when they didn't have one?

When she was younger, she did. A bright, albeit quirky child who'd rather read books and follow rainbows then play with the neighborhood children. Who was awkward and shy when forced to be with kids in schools or "play dates". Her mother didn't understand her. But she loved her. And she left. Her father gave in to her every whim, and taught her to love learning. It wasn't just a dry needing for knowledge, eternal "whys" but something that could be related to and seen in life.

His students must have loved him. She did.

But she couldn't touch those memories. They were children's tales. Stories of another life. Dim and foggy, they remained, but couldn't be accessed. She couldn't learn anything from them.

She couldn't learn how to be a parent. All she knew was not to leave. She was told she'd love her children, multiple times, but… How was loving enough. People loved those they killed. How could love be trusted to raise someone? A tiny human, who was completely under your control? How could she be trusted?

And they didn't understand her. They reassured and gave advice, but, they could never understand her worry. She wasn't worried that she wouldn't love her child. She was worried that she could never be enough. She'd never understand her own child.

Some things, a person is not capable of. Some people just weren't enough. She knew that like she knew the bones in her body.

She knew she'd have Booth. She knew that he'd help her, guide her. She was grateful to him. She loved him. She knew that, now. But she wasn't normal, and never would be. Could her child forgive her that?

-THE END-