Here's a story that started over on the Boneyard. The challege was to write Booth's breakup with Tessa. The only rules were that no cheating could have occured, and that Booth couldn't actually speak to Brennan. Only actual dialogue from the show could be used between them.
"So, how was your day?"
An innocent enough question, but…Booth just sat there.
How was his day? Let's see, he killed someone. 'I need a face, I need a face'…He shot a man, a target, whatever. That made for a bad day, but…how do you even describe that to someone? His mind flashed back to the bar at Wong Foo's. He'd had no problem describing how he'd felt to his partner. "There's no pleasure in taking someone's life" he'd said. Nothing to celebrate. But, now, here…could he really talk about it?
"Fine" he passed the salad. "My day was fine, how was yours?"
"Fine" Tessa passed the bread. "My day was fine."
The rest of the meal passed in silence.
Two weeks later, Booth woke up to find Tessa pressed against him in his bed, and he turned to look at her to find her looking back at him.
"Do you really have to go to Washington?"
He sighed. "Yes, this morning. Apparently someone found a human eaten by a bear and, I guess…"
"Ew, gross…stop…I don't want to hear about that. That's disgusting. I just do not get it how someone could want to be around that kind of thing all the time." Tessa laughed, smoothing her hands around his waist.
He chuckled half-heartedly.
"I'm sorry you have to go, Seeley. And with Dr. Brennan?" Tessa laughed. "I'm sure she'll be a great travel companion." She continued, a bit sarcastically.
Booth conceded this with a slight nod and his mind moved toward his partner. Maybe he'd misrepresented her a bit to Tessa, but…Bones could be demanding, and harsh, and…well, he knew Tessa wouldn't quite get it, so he'd left it there.
"Well" Tessa continued, moving to kiss him. "When you come back, maybe we should take a vacation."
He looked at her, surprised.
"Okay, yeah, sure…"