A/N: I once watched a movie where one of the main characters said: "There are no happy endings, because nothing ends." While I don't necessarily believe in the happy ending part, I apparently follow the nothing ends part because I seem to continue stories after I think they're finished.
I also don't want to write a ton of chapters covering the entire year they are apart. The reunion sounds way more fun to me, so consider this a filler while I work on that…
How does a body measure time? With clocks that never move fast enough? With ticking that echoes in the darkness of nights that pass too slowly? With calendars that don't change often enough?
How does a heart measure time? By the heartbeat, in every second, of every minute, of every day? By the beats that take place when two people are apart? Or how long until they are together again?
12 months.
52 weeks.
365 days.
8,760 hours.
525,600 minutes.
31,536,000 seconds.
That is how time is measured for a year.
Booth measured a year on a calendar he kept in his pocket. Each day crossed off in the same red pen. He knew how many days it was until he would see Bones again. But he never shared that with another soul. Some things, he had told her once, were just theirs, and the heartache that came from missing her would belong to him alone.
The soldiers with him wondered and watched, but by silent agreement, never asked. To ask would be breaking a pact they hadn't consciously taken.
His days were measured by training and battles and longing. By dreams where she was always just out of his reach. By worries that she would change her mind before he could hold her again.
Brennan measured a year in her head. She didn't need a calendar, or a calculator to know how long it was until she saw Booth again.
Her days were measured by the finds she didn't make, the worries she carried for the man she loved, fighting half way across the world. She worked to keep her mind occupied, her hands smooth and calm even when her mind wasn't.
Her nights were measured by dreams where he was in danger and she couldn't find him. By letters she wrote in the privacy of her own tent.
Daisy watched and wondered, but each time she asked, Brennan changed the subject. While sure of her feelings, the whole thing felt fragile, like old bone. So while she didn't make any discoveries on her dig, Brennan did discover what it was like to truly yearn for another.
Together, their days were measured by emails that didn't come quite often enough. By pictures that hinted, but never revealed quite enough. By promises half whispered in phone calls that were never quite long enough.
By periods of silence that always lasted too long.
They shared dreams without knowing it. Dreams of the day they would meet again for coffee. Dreams of spending time together to get to know each other all over again. Dreams of perhaps, just perhaps, finding a way to merge two independent individuals into one shared life.
So they watched and waited, dreamed and hoped until the day when all of that could be put aside.
And they could go home.