Hello!

So, I'm *sorry* to say that this one shot also is smut-free, haha, but I promise that is just a coincidence. I do have a nice long smutty one shot for this series almost completed, but this short thought/drabble was completed first, so I wanted to post it.

Thanks for all of the kind words regarding this 1st person POV experiment of sorts. I think the biggest challenge for me, besides the clinical tone I mentioned, is the verb tense-usage. So, feel free to offer concrit on that, if you're so inclined. And as always, let me know what you think in general.

~b&b~

Regrets are intangibles, and yet, I am acutely aware they exist. Like with most intangibles, I find their existence highly frustrating. Rationally speaking, I know that I shouldn't feel regret; I should merely use all experiences as knowledge intake before weighing all results in as detached a manner as possible.

But in my experience, I've learned it doesn't work that way. Perhaps that is what is most frustrating. I've learned as much as possible on the subject, only to learn that regret can come when least expected.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to know something without having learned it. To just...know it, as Booth might say. However, this is highly unlikely. For me, learning and experiencing is always the way to knowledge. Information received, hypothesis created, experiment performed, results collected, analysis produced, new information received, new hypothesis created, and so on...

It's a cycle that works in my job and in my life. In my job, I rarely find regret in the scientific process; there, knowledge is processed as information without emotion or judgment statements, and I wish I could transfer that to my life outside of work. I'd much rather prefer to be able to analyze the results of my personal life experiences as clinically as possible, and yet, I find I cannot do so at all times. But when that happens, I still try.

In my work, intangibles are often able to be proven with data and facts. Outside of work, there are also objects that represent what I've learned.

For example, within the past year, I've given Booth two gifts. One, a phone, indirectly. The second gift was the use of a Thompson submachine gun from the Jeffersonian. Both gifts created the same result in Booth-pleasure.

Yet, I find I regret the pleasure he received from the phone in a way I hadn't anticipated. Likewise, my awareness of that regret intensified after experiencing his pleasure from the gun.

When I analyze my responses, I come to new information about myself as well as a new hypothesis.

To avoid the sting of regret, I'll be giving my gifts directly from now on.