When She Ran Away

By: Lesera128 & dharmamonkey

Rated: M

Disclaimer: We own nothing... Obviously. We're still just playing in someone else's sandbox for a bit. Ummm... yeah.~

Summary: Brennan returns from Maluku, meets Booth at the coffee cart, and refuses to hear about Hannah because she has a confession of her own to make. Brennan runs, Booth follows, and angsty physicality ensues. Set at the start of 6x01. AU.

A/N: Since it's become clear in recent days that a lot of people don't read these author notes, we're going to keep this short, sweet, and to the point. To those who left reviews, you're awesome. To those who haven't, what are you waiting for?

Normal disclaimers, exclusions, and provisos apply: as ever, if this type of fic isn't for you, that's fine with us. We understand. Happy fic hunting. Useless comments and flames are summarily ignored, but constructive criticism/feedback is cherished. As a final thought, this piece is angsty, uses adult language, and contains some very suggestive imagery. If that's not your thing, turn back now. You've been warned. As for everyone else, this part is a bit angsty, but, we promise, there is a very pleasing reward at the end of the tunnel if you can make it through the gauntlet. Even still, proceed at your own risk.~

Part IV: When He Explained

For a few seconds, Booth looked at Brennan as if he had just watched his entire world begin to implode. He would've liked to have said that he saw the same feelings mirrored in Brennan's face, but he couldn't, because Booth wasn't sure what he was actually see going on there at all. Like a stranger, he found that he couldn't read what she was feeling, tell what she was thinking, or, most importantly, couldn't figure out any indication of what she might want to do next, besides the fact that whatever it was, she didn't want to do it in public. When he had nodded his agreement with her request—as if there was any indication that he'd ever deny her anything after what had just happened to the pair—something again flashed in Brennan's eyes. However, it was gone very quickly as she took her keys, squeezed them once in her fist, and then juggled them once. She had nodded grimly at Booth once before she moved and trudged to the driver's side of her car. Opening the door, she got inside and waited for Booth to climb into the passenger's side of the car before she turned on the ignition. Once he was settled, she refused to look at him, concentrating instead on the road ahead of them as she put the car into gear and drove.

In some ways, the car ride again strangely echoed the course of events that had taken place two weeks ago but for some slight differences. This time, the car ride to Brennan's apartment was not made in a cab driven by a silent cabbie with a penchant for mocking D.C. alternative rock stations at night. No, this time the car ride was made in silence during the day as she drove. The only sounds in the car were the hum of the engine, each person's slightly ragged breathing, and the occasional car signal blinking when Brennan made a turn. As he watched her drive, and Brennan refused to look at him, the only thing that he could tell betrayed the intense emotions she was dealing with was the fact that she was gripping the steering wheel so hard that her fingers had turned white for most of the car ride back to her place. For his part, Booth wondered how much the state of uncertainty he felt alone in being confined to was reminiscent of what he imagined hanging on the edge of oblivion by his bare fingertips felt like. Pushing the self-indulgent thoughts away, Booth spent the remaining minutes of the trip trying to prepare himself for whatever Brennan had to say to him since, unlike the last trip, this time it was she who would begin the conversation.

After a few minutes, they were suddenly there. Brennan quickly got out of the vehicle, and Booth stared at her empty side of the car for a few seconds. The strength with which she had slammed the car door echoed once she got out, and Booth felt a pain twisting in his gut at what awaited them upstairs. He took a minute to steel himself with a few deep breaths before he moved to get out of the car himself as he mentally whispered a plea to her.

God, Bones, he prayed silently. Please give me a chance to explain. Please let me try to fix this, don't—don't just shut down on me. Don't give up on us. Not now, not after everything that's happened. Please...let me try to make it right.

And, so, with a final sigh, Booth grabbed the passenger's side handle and moved to get out. Brennan was waiting for him, staring intently at him, but she still hadn't said a word once he got out of the car. She merely clicked the locking mechanism on her keyless entry and the car beeped twice in that annoying sing-sing chirp it had once she did so. Turning on her heels, she walked toward's the buildings front door. Once again, just like the first night, Booth followed Brennan up to her apartment. Again, they climbed the stairs, Booth falling in only a few steps behind her. However, this time when she unlocked the door, entered, flipped on the lights, locked the door behind them, and dropped her keys and iPod on the table—this time it was Brennan who had things to say to Booth and not vice versa as it had been that world-changing/existence-altering night two weeks prior.

Forcing herself to take a deep breath, Brennan narrowed her eyes, focusing on Booth, a glint of her emotions finally cracking through the facade of her calm and cool detachment. He tensed as he anticipated her words, almost as if he were waiting to be struck with a physical blow. However, after a minute more, when Brennan finally began to speak, her first words actually brought Booth relief and hope, not pain and despair as he'd originally anticipated.

"I didn't run," she managed finally, each word causing her to grimace, as if merely speaking them caused her physical pain. "You said—you said that, as of two weeks ago, that we were done running. So, because of that, because of the agreement we made, I didn't run, Booth. I'm here, right now, to try and figure out a way to, as you put it—'handle this.'" She paused, crossing her arms in what was very clearly a defensive gesture as she said, "So, I'm here, Booth. I'm here, and I didn't run, even though this is really the last place I want to be right now, and there's nothing I'd rather being doing then running as fast and as far away as possible right now."

"I know, Bones," Booth said, exhaling audibly as he tried to calm the butterflies in his stomach. She's not going to run, he told himself. God, thank you. If she was going to run, she would have done so already. She said so. Thank you, God. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. "And, I'm glad," he added. "That's a good thing...you not running, I mean."

"But, I still want to—" Brennan repeated, her voice quite fragile in that moment as she looked away and said, "I really...I really don't want to be here...with you, right now."

"Bones," he said softly, knowing—or at least, hoping—that her words were said out of pain and not out of true preference. "You don't mean that."

"Yes, I do," Brennan said. "I do, Booth. Because...God, this is so fucked up—all of it. This, just—it's a mess, Booth. A complete and total disaster. This..."

Her voice trailed off, and for once, Booth was at a loss as to how to respond. Several long moments of silence passed between them before Brennan finally looked up at him again.

"Why didn't you tell me, Booth?" she asked, her voice tight with hurt. "Why didn't you tell me...about all that happened between you and Hannah? That you had told her that you thought what you two had was 'something special'—whatever that means?" She sighed. "Why didn't you tell me the way she felt about you...and the way that you really felt about her?"

"Bones," he said lamely. "I did...or, at least I thought I did."

"You left out a lot of specifics, Booth," Brennan said.

"I figured...I figured if you wanted to know something specific that you'd ask me," Booth began to explain. "I figured, these past couple of weeks, after that first night, that—well, that we were more important in the here and now, than dwelling on the past, Bones. So, when you didn't ask, I was more than happy to just let sleeping dogs lie, and so I didn't tell you because you didn't ask." He averted his glance, knowing in that moment how insultingly empty his response truly was. "I thought, since you didn't ask, that maybe...you didn't want to know."

"That's no excuse, Booth," Brennan said, biting each word as it left her mouth. "At least, not a very good one. I didn't ask because I didn't know there was more I needed to ask about, Booth. A deliberate lie of omission is still a lie nonetheless." Her pale eyes drilled into him, and his resolve crumpled beneath her pained gaze.

"Bones," he pleaded.

"No, Booth," she snapped. "You lied...Hannah...when you were with her, there was more to it than you let on, wasn't there? She wasn't just 'nice' or just a 'good person,' was she? She was more than that, but you said—you said that Hannah, the time you spent with her was just casual. But, it was more than that. It was much more serious than just a casual sexual relationship, wasn't it, Booth?" She shook her head, her throat tightening with emotion as she began to fell tears prick at the edges of her eyes. "God," Brennan moaned. "I trusted you. I trusted you, and you—Hannah...and you, Booth. It was...what she said—"

She paused, and he looked down at the floor, unable to meet Brennan's gaze or, in that moment, to offer some type of further explanation.

"God, Booth," Brennan began. "If you didn't tell me everything about Hannah, then—God, there's more, isn't there? She was right when she said that I hurt you like I did, wasn't she?" She brought a hand to her head and yanked loose the elastic holding her ponytail. She already felt the tell-tale signs of a tension headache encroaching, and the elastic wasn't helping things. It fell to the floor silently, and Brennan quickly tucked her hair behind her ears before she shook her head and said, "You downplayed things with Hannah, but even worse—you downplayed what I did to you, didn't you, Booth?"

"It wasn't that big a deal," Booth said quickly, wincing vaguely as he heard the disingenuoussness in his own voice. "It...it happened, Bones. But, I dealt with it—"

"With Hannah's help," Brennan added sadly.

Booth hesitated, then he nodded slowly.

"God," Brennan said, shaking her head and sniffling slightly. "What did I do, Booth?"

"It doesn't matter—"

"Yes, yes it does," Brennan snapped. "I need to know. What did I do?"

"Bones," Booth began. "See, this is why I didn't want to make a big deal out of it." Even though it was a big friggin' deal, he frowned. Big enough that I couldn't stand being in D.C. after you said you were leaving for Maluku. You were leaving me so I had to leave you, too. And, I hated you for that. I hated you for leaving me and making me leave you, leave us. "I didn't want you to feel worse than you already do. Don't try and own what happened last year. It's...it wasn't all you—not at all. I made mistakes, too, Bones, that night at the Hoover, and after that, before we both left. But I didn't—I still don't want to break it down and try to assign blame. There's no point, really. It's in the past, and what's done is done. I dealt with it—"

"Tell me what I did to you!" Brennan snapped, her voice crackling in the air. "Or, is there no point to repeating what's already been said because things were as bad as Hannah described them?"

Again, Booth looked away and his lack of a verbal response shredded Brennan in that moment.

"Oh, God," Brennan moaned. She was silent for a minute and then said softly, "Well, there you have it, Booth," Brennan nodded, biting her lip, as the tears now began to run out of the corner of her eyes as they overflowed her tear ducts despite her firm resolve not to cry. "There it is."

His head snapped up at her words, and, at last, Booth managed to speak. "What, Bones?"

"The truth," Brennan muttered. "There it is, finally, in all its ugly glory. I hurt you...no, what did Hannah say? I almost destroyed you, and to top it all off—you...you're only with me because Hannah turned you down. So that makes me...what, Booth? What am I? Am I some type of goddamn consolation prize?"

"No," he said emphatically, holding up his hands and taking a step towards her. "Never, Bones. No. I love you. You never could be a—"

"I don't see why not," Brennan answered, quickly wiping away the tears with the back of her hand. "Because, you said it yourself, Booth. You pressed her for more than she was willing to give you at that point, but if you'd had your choice, you would've formed a serious long-term monogamous relationship with Hannah at that moment in time." Brennan stopped and then inclined her head as she asked, "And, then what, Booth? Then what would've happened if you'd been in a committed relationship with Hannah when we came back and we met that night on the Mall? What would you have done if I had still told you what I did that night? Would you still have followed me, or would you have let me run away?"

She paused and then asked, in a voice so small, Booth almost had trouble hearing it. "Did...did you ever tell her that you loved her?"

Her words cut Booth as precisely as if she actually had taken a scalpel and pierced his heart. He had involuntarily taken a short breath at her words, and at that moment, he was at a loss of how to begin to explain as he had begged her to give him the opportunity to do.

Booth blinked as her words echoed in his ears: Did you ever tell her that you loved her? His heart pounded in his chest and a wave of nausea washed over him. Wait. Did I? he asked himself, trying to remember all the words that passed between him and Hannah all those nights they lay together in her bed. No, he reminded himself. No. I never told her I loved her because—well, because I never really did.

After several long moments of silence, Booth lifted his head to speak. "I never said those exact words, no."

"But, it was more than just sex with her, wasn't it, Booth? It was more than just being with someone who was there and wasn't me and who wanted you sexually, wasn't it?" Brennan asked.

He sighed and then said, "Look, Bones—Hannah said a lot of things that...well...that weren't entirely accurate."

"Don't do that," Brennan suddenly said. "Don't try to protect me. I need to know. Don't—please don't try to downplay what happened, Booth."

Looking up at her, he nodded. "Fine."

"Everything she said," Brennan began. "Everything she said was pretty damn accurate, wasn't it, Booth?"

"Well," he said, hedging. "Not..." He dropped his head, his face drawn in an expression of defeat, then looked up, peering at her from beneath his heavy brow. "Bones, look—I'm sorry that you had to hear that. But, you've gotta understand that she said a lot of things back there that...that weren't 100% true. I mean, some of them were—"

"Like you fucking her in public under a fig tree less than twelve hours after you first met her?" Brennan suddenly snapped, surprised herself at how much bitterness was in her voice.

Booth flinched as if he had been physically struck by her words.

"I can't deny that part, Bones," he admitted, pressing his lower lip out with his tongue as he struggled to explain himself. "That part—well, it did happen...pretty much as she said it did," he told Brennan slowly. He paused and then shook his head. "God, Bones. I'm so sorry. I never imagined you'd have to hear about that stuff, let alone in the way you did—"

Her eyes flashed for a moment before Brennan responded. "I'm not embarrassed about hearing about your sexual trysts with Hannah, Booth," Brennan snapped, "if that's what you fear has caused me such emotional turmoil." She then looked away and muttered, "Even though I'd prefer to avoid hearing any other details, lest it stoke my aggressive, possessive jealous tendencies." Brennan stopped and then looked back at Booth. "However, that aside, I-I...it seems that she was more than just someone who helped you when you were in a bad place...and, did you really say those things about me?" Brennan's voice had suddenly gone quite small again.

Again, Booth winced, but knew he owed Brennan the truth, and so spoke it, even though he knew it would be very painful for them both to hear. "I was hurt, Bones. I was hurt, humiliated, and...and I loved you—even then, even after the night at the Hoover and you leaving for Maluku. You know—I still loved you. But, I was hurt, and I wanted to lash out at you, and I couldn't because...you were so far away. Thousands and thousands of miles separated us, and I couldn't hurt you even if I wanted to. So yeah, I was angry. And, in that anger, I said some things to Hannah that I regret saying now."

He ran his hand through his hair. "God, I regret them now, Bones. If you only knew..."

Brennan glanced at him, her heart again cracking in places that she thought the past two weeks had slowly started to glue back together. Still, she remained silent as she let Booth continue on uninterrupted.

He closed his eyes and shook his head. "Look," he said. "It wasn't right that I wanted to hurt you, or that I said those hurtful things about you when you weren't there to defend yourself. I was an asshole, Bones. But, at that moment in time, I was hurt, and I wasn't thinking about anything beyond making some of the pain go away."

I don't blame you, Brennan thought to herself. I...I hurt you, and I don't blame you. I can only blame myself in this, and I do, Booth. I do. But, hearing it, hearing the truth of it, from her... it still hurts, Booth. It cuts—

Booth rubbed his forehead. "I-I...I wasn't thinking about anything except trying to make myself feel better. I know that's selfish and shallow and a shitty thing to say, but it's the truth. And, I'm sorry, Bones, so fucking sorry. I wish I had a better explanation than that, but—but that's the only one I have to offer that's true. And, I owe you at least that—the truth."

Brennan considered his words before she replied quietly, "What you said before, about me not hurting you—you were wrong. It happened once before; it'll happen again."

"No," he said. Sighing, Booth felt a wave of fear cresting inside of him again as he said, "So, what—is this your way of saying that you don't want to be with me, Bones?"

A beat of silence passed between them and still Brennan didn't answer. When she remained silent, Booth pressed her quietly, "It isn't...is it?"

Looking up at him, her tear-streaked face miserable in its pain, slowly Brennan shook her head. "I don't know how I could do that even if I wanted to, Booth. I just don't...not without causing a great amount of harm both to myself and, by extension, to those people who are our friends and work with us."

"Oh, God," Booth breathed, exhaling another sigh of relief. "Thank God."

"But," Brennan said, looking up and slowly shaking her head. "I don't even know how or where to start. I'm very worried, Booth, and scared—I'm so scared right now, I can't even communicate it to you. I...I don't know how to 'fix this' thing between us because it seems as if the issues with which we've been confronted today greatly surpass the scope of our normal 'bickering.'"

"I know that, Bones," Booth agreed solemnly. "I know that."

"Where do we start?" Brennan asked him. "I don't know how or where to start, Booth. How...how do we fix this?"

"Do you want to fix it?" Booth asked—although he was fairly certain he knew the answer since Brennan was still there with him and hadn't kicked him out of her apartment—but part of him still needed to hear it from her just to be certain. "Do you?"

Looking up at him, a pair of tears silently rolled down her cheeks in parallel as she nodded. "Yes."

"Then, we will," Booth said, reaching out to her. He took a step towards her, and his heart lightened just a bit when she didn't tense or flinch or move away. Raising his hand to her cheek, Booth quickly brushed away the tears with the back of his hand. "Starting right now, we will."

"How?"

"Tell me what you need from me," Booth said slowly. "Tell me how I can make it better."

"I need..." Brennan began slowly. "I need you to help me understand, Booth." His heart again melted as he saw her falling back on her tried and true logic, her attempts to fight her battles with the tools of reason and intellect. In that moment, if it were even possible, he loved her a bit more for just being so purely and truly herself.

That's so you, Booth thought, not for the first, thousandth, or last time. And, God, I love you for it. I love you.

"I need you to help me to understand why things happened, Booth," she began. And, then slowly, she added, "And, I need to know why...as much as it hurts me to say this, the evidence of your behavior indicates that you've established a certain pattern in your interactions with me and then with...Hannah." She stopped, looked up at him and said, "I need to know why, logically—why I should believe that the things you said and felt for Hannah are any different than what you've said to me. The things you've said about us—how...how can I know that you'll follow through on those promises when something or someone who's better just doesn't come along and replace me?" Brennan breathed. "How can I know that I can trust what you've told me won't end up resulting in something that will destroy us both in the end, Booth?" She stopped, and then slowly shook her head. "I wasn't lying when I said I want to fix this, but logically, I have to ask—how can we know that what we're doing isn't just going to bring us each more pain than happiness in the long run? How do we know?"

"Because," Booth immediately said. "You're so different from Hannah, Bones, and the way I feel about you is different. The difference between what I had with Hannah—whatever it was—and what we have, it's like the difference between night and day, Bones."

"Why?" Brennan asked. "Like I said, you asked Hannah to take a chance on a relationship with you and then she turned you down. It's the same thing that happened to us—"

"Wait," Booth said. "Hang on a sec there, Bones." He took a breath, closed his eyes and sighed. "Look," he said, "I didn't really push Hannah for any kind of a relationship. I basically...well, she led and I followed. I was in a bad place, Bones. I know I've said that before, but if my life had been different at the moment in time when I met her, things probably never would've gotten as far as they did between us—between me and Hannah. I was sad, and lonely, and weak. And, I can't lie—I did want to try to see if there was a way to make things more permanent between us. But, it...it happened so fast. One day I'm hunkered down on my observation point and this perky blonde starts trotting into a hot zone, and then next thing I know she and I are getting hot and heavy under a fig tree—"

He stopped when he heard Brennan take a swift breath. Looking up at her, he said, "I'm sorry. I...I don't want to say more than I need to, but if you want the truth, than that's it. What happened between me and Hannah, Bones, it was so hard and so fast—six weeks, you know? Two months before I came home, I met her...and we were together for six weeks. That was it. And, then, all of a sudden, I...it's just that—look, when she told me that she was leaving, I was afraid I'd be left alone again. And, I didn't want to be alone, not having been with someone, someone who finally wanted me and then losing her again. It was hard enough when I hadn't heard from my best friend, the person who was made me feel whole, in months. I wasn't sure when I'd see Hannah again, but I wanted to at least have someone to talk to, email, hear from every so often. You gotta remember, Bones, when she left, I thought I still was going to be in the desert for another five months. I needed something—someone—to get me through it. I needed to be able to think about someone, dream about someone, long for someone who the simple thought of didn't bring me extreme happiness in one heartbeat and unbearable pain in the next."

"And, afterward?" Brennan finally asked. "What about afterward, Booth? Where was she going to fit in to your life after the five months were up?"

"I didn't want to come back from the 'Stan and find myself alone," Booth answered truthfully. "It's hard enough coming back from a war and jumping back into normal civilian life—I know, because I've done it before—and I didn't want to come back alone, to an empty life, with nothing to look forward to, especially when I didn't know how things were going to stand between us, Bones. I...I needed to know I had someone to fall back on in case there wasn't going to be anything else between us after a year—because you gotta understand, when I didn't hear from you, I thought that maybe you'd even changed your mind about wanting to continue the partnership when we got back." He paused and then looked away as he slowly shook his head. "I can't lie and say there's not some part of me that wasn't even thinking that maybe on that day when we were supposed to meet at the coffee cart that you wouldn't show, Bones. I know that's not fair, and it's a shitty thing for me to have thought, to doubt you like that. But, I couldn't help it. Part of me thought that maybe you were going to stay in Maluku, away from D.C., away from our work, away from me—and never come back. Or, best case scenario, maybe if you did come back from Maluku and stayed at the Jeffersonian you wouldn't want to work with me anymore. I know it's not logical, but it's how I felt, and I was scared shitless about having to deal with all that all on my own."

"I can understand that, Booth," Brennan said slowly. "But, you still haven't answered my question."

"I know," Booth told her. "But ,I'm trying here, Bones. I'm really trying."

"And, I understand that, too, Booth," Brennan said. "However, I need to know—I need...I need a direct answer to my question, Booth," Brennan said with a faint bitterness in her soft voice. "What would you have done, had you and Hannah been in a committed, monogamous relationship when you came back, and I told you that night by the coffee cart that I loved you?" she asked. "What would you have done?" She stopped and then added softly, "Would you have let me run away?"

Booth's eyes seemed to glaze over as he stared into the corner of Brennan's living room. He inhaled a deep breath, his mouth hanging open, and his eyes narrowing as he mulled over the question.

"I don't really know, Bones," he admitted in a serious voice after another moment of silence. "It's a difficult question to answer. I..." His voice trailed off as he gathered his thoughts. "I love you, Bones. I've always loved you—going all the way back to that first case we worked together, really."

He paused, thinking back to that night they first kissed on the back stoop of his old pool bar. "I just feel like, um, this is going somewhere," he'd said to her. "Why do you feel this is going somewhere?" she asked, leaning closer to him. "I just...I feel like I'm gonna kiss you." The memory of that deliciously long, grasping kiss, so passionate and knee-meltingly intense, stayed with him for years in his memories and fantasies. As he had watched her drive away in that cab that night, he decided not to shoot pool that night, but instead stumbled back into the rain and walked home, half-hard as he savored the memory of that kiss. Even then, he knew there was something cosmic about the chemistry between them.

Had I fallen in love with her then? he wondered. Nah, perhaps not. Then, when was it? By the time we wrapped up that case in eastern Washington State—after spending all those evenings in the town bar, nudging away the more annoying local guys who were shamelessly pawing at her just because she was the hottest thing that had come through that tiny-ass town in years? Yeah, I think it was then. Or, at the very least, I was definitely beginning to fall in love with her. Booth scrolled through their personal docket, case-by-case, but was not able to identify a single moment when he knew he loved her.

"That night behind the Hoover, after we met with Sweets, when I told you that I had to move on...well, I think the truth is that, no matter how hard I might've tried to move on, I was never gonna be able to stop loving you. And, so, in the end, no matter how hard I tried—and believe me, Bones, I tried very, very hard, I should've known that me trying to move on was never going to happen. Not really." Booth felt his eyes well up with tears. "I will always love you, Bones, and no matter what happens between us, I don't think I'll ever be able to stop loving you." Booth cleared the thickness from his throat and swallowed. "So, I guess—I can't be certain, but I think if I'd have come back from Afghanistan and been with Hannah—really and truly been with her—and you'd have told me you loved me, I still wouldn't have let you run. I still would've followed you."

"But, why?" Brennan asked, her brow crinkled as she struggled to understand. "I don't understand, Booth." He paused, her throat growing even more thick with emotion. "You have to help me understand why."

"Because," Booth sighed. "If I'd let you run, that would be the same thing to me as letting you go, and I—I just couldn't do that, Bones. I've tried, and I can't. I just can't let you go. I guess because I never could've given my whole heart to anyone but you. So, yeah, I still would've followed you." He saw her blink and wondered if she understood. "You know, that's why I could never really move on, Bones. I don't think I could ever love anyone in the way...the way I so completely love you."

"But, you wanted Hannah to be—"

Booth tried to blink away his tears, wondering how he had managed to make such a mess of things.

"Hannah was there when you...when you weren't," he explained. "She—she served a purpose in my life and made me think I'd found something to replace what I'd lost. But, it wasn't real, Bones. She was just...fool's gold. From a distance, it looked pretty and shiny and was distracting enough in its pretty shininess that I thought it was the real deal, but it wasn't. And, so I fooled myself into thinking that I'd lucked out again and hit the jackpot, but it wasn't real. I know that now, but at the time, at best, I was just fooling myself into thinking she would be able to help me replace what I thought I'd lost—you."

He swallowed hard, certain that no matter what he said, he'd come across sounding like an asshole. God, when did I turn into this big of a dick? A cringing voice of self-doubt echoed in Booth's mind. Fuck—

"Look, Bones, I pretty much knew all along—even if I didn't want to admit it to myself—that she was...well, that what she and I had was never more than a...temporary thing. Even if we'd have tried to make it something else, something bigger or more permanent—it never would've worked, just like I told her. It would never have lasted. She...she doesn't want to settle down, stay in one place, get married, or have a family. She doesn't want the type of life I have here—even if she thinks she does right now. And, I can't do that. I can't risk wrecking my life again on a destructive relationship like that if for no other reason than because of Parker. I can't risk doing that type of damage again—"

"But, you are," Brennan suddenly interjected. "Don't you see, Booth? By staying with me, that's exactly what you're doing?"

"Oh, Bones, no, never," Booth said. "Don't you get it by now? Don't you understand? The damage that happened between us was because we were apart, Bones. It didn't happen because we tried to be together." He stopped and then smiled when he added, "And, well, as for Hannah—you know another reason she and I never would've worked out, right?"

"No, I don't," Brennan answered.

"Well, there's just this one other little thing that makes most of those other really good reasons moot points in the long run," he told her.

"And, what's that, Booth?"

"Well, it's simple, really, Bones," he said, glancing up at her. "It never would've worked with Hannah, even if we'd tried to fool ourselves into making it work for a while, because, well, I could never love her with my whole heart the way I love you."

"How can you know that for certain?" Brennan said quietly, another single tear rolling down her cheek.

Booth reached out and wiped the tear away with the side of his thumb. "You know the saying 'the whole is greater than the sum of its parts?'"

"Of course," she replied.

He glanced down at his feet then looked up again. "With Hannah and I—the whole would never have been greater than the sum of its parts."

"I don't know what that means, Booth..."

He smiled briefly at her words. Booth hadn't realized how much he missed all of her squinty Brennanisms, especially that one.

"Bones," he said, his voice dropping a half-octave. "You and me—well, how do I say this? You and me, when we're together, we're better than we each are by ourselves. You—being with you makes me a better person, Bones. You make my life fuller, bigger and better. You've opened my eyes to a whole different way of seeing the world. You have for years, going all the way back to the beginning." He smiled sweetly at her as a warm feeling spread through his chest. "That was never true with Hannah. She didn't—she helped me pass the time, I guess, but she didn't make my life richer the way you do. But, you, Bones? When I'm with you, I'm a better man than I've ever been without you."

"Booth..."

"Look, Bones," he said. "I'm not proud of what I did, Bones. If I could go back in time, knowing what I know now, I—" He ran his hand through his thick brown hair and sighed heavily. "If I'd known you...if I knew you loved me, Bones, I'd never have..." He looked away, a hard lump forming in his throat as his eyes began to water again.

"I would do anything, Bones, anything to go back in time and undo what I've done," he said, raising his eyes to make her understand how sorry he was. She met his gaze, and Booth saw something shine in them—tenderness? Understanding? Empathy? He didn't know, but whatever he saw gave him hope.

"But I can't, you know. I can't go back to that night behind the Hoover and un-say what I said about moving on, Bones. I just can't. I'm not a wizard who has some magic wand that I can wave—as much as I wish I did because—and I just can't undo everything that happened," Booth told her. " I can't go back and un-reenlist in the Army or un-deploy to Afghanistan. I can't undo what I did with Hannah or un-say the things I said to her. I wish I could. God, I wish I could. But, I can't, Bones. I can't change the past—and neither can you."

He swallowed hard again.

"Bones," he said quietly, his voice broken. "The fact is, the past brought us to where we are today. The good parts, the bad parts. The parts we are proud of, and the parts we regret. Right? All of it. Had it all gone differently—had you not taken off in that cab by yourself that night I fired you, or had we kissed that night you had your big museum event for your Egyptian mummy, or had you gone ahead and used my stuff to have a child—we might not be where we are today. In fact, we probably wouldn't be where we are today."

He took a step towards her and placed his hand on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry about Hannah," he said. "I'm sorry didn't tell you how serious I thought it was at the time. How serious she thought it was. I'm sorry you had to hear..." Booth shook his head. "You know—that you had to hear all of that today." He sighed again and, letting go of Brennan's shoulder, wiped a damp eye with the back of his hand.

"But, I love you, Bones. I love you. And, nothing in the past changes the way I feel about you now." He looked down at his feet, then up again at her tear-streaked face. "I can only hope that nothing in the past changes the way you feel about me," he added solemnly.

Brennan narrowed her eyes and looked at Booth as his words hung in the air.

"From the description of those random events that you've mentioned, Booth, the only commonality I can discern aside from the fact that they were events where you and I interacted on some personal level, it appears that you've linked them as missed opportunities where, had I acted differently, I might've circumvented the entire series of events that resulted in Hannah's arrival in D.C. and her subsequent conversation with us today. In fact, on each occasion, your words would seem to indicate I missed a chance to change the nature of our personal relationship, and ergo, I made another series of mistakes about which you've just now so kindly informed me." Shaking her head, Brennan bit her lip again as she said, a bit of sarcasm coming into her voice, "Thank you for pointing those out, Booth. That was very kind of you, and I appreciate it. It really makes me feel very positive and self-confident about things."

"That's not what I meant, Bones," Booth said quickly, immediately sensing his error, given Brennan's sensitive frame of mind. "That's not...look, Bones, I'm not blaming you at all. Hell, if anything, most of the missed chances we've had over the years were my doing, not yours."

He thought about the years he spent in silence, pining for her, loving her from a distance, building a wall inside of himself to keep his own feelings from spilling over and either contaminating their partnership or, worse, frightening her away. Booth knew he didn't want to live that way any more, not having known the liberating feeling of loving her, freely, openly and completely, the way he had in the two weeks since that night by the coffee cart. I can't go back to that, to how I was, he thought. I can't, and I won't.

"What I meant was...there's no point dwelling on the past, because good, bad or indifferent, we can't change it. And, since the past brought us to where we are today—you and me, finally together, in one place, feeling the way we do about one another—I'm not sure I want to change it. Sure, there are things in the past I wish I could change or do without entirely, but there's no point to that kind of wishing, Bones. Like my grandmother used to say, 'If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.' We can't change the past, Bones. We can only look back and acknowledge it, accept it, understand it, and, God willing, learn from it. But, we can't change it, no matter how hard we try."

Brennan shook her head. "But, I could've—"

"No," Booth insisted, reaching out and taking her hand in his, squeezing it gently. "Don't think about what you wish you might have done. There's no point. Don't try to fix blame, either. It's a useless exercise, believe me. We can't change the past, and we can't control the future." He thought about that last part for a second, and noted a flicker behind Brennan's pale eyes as her brain seemed to begin churning again. "You know what I mean, Bones. We can influence the future, right? To the extent that we can make good choices today, right? But, even the future comes down to the present, the only moment we can really do anything about. So, let's not dwell on the past, or worry about the future, alright? Let's enjoy the present."

Brennan thought about what his words meant, all of the ideas and meaning wrapped up in them, and tried hard to make sense of them. She was desperately wrestling with what they meant, and, more importantly what he was offering in the context of the explanation.

Smiling, Booth watched in pleasure as he saw Brennan's mental gears turn. He leaned in close to her. "I can see you thinking."

"It's what I do, Booth," Brennan began.

"It's no good, Bones," Booth said. "Wonderful, great, completely awesome to watch, but not right now—not about this. Don't...please don't overthink this one, Bones. Don't beat the horse until its dead in your mind. You know what I've said, you understand what it means, and the only thing you need to decide is either you can accept it...or not."

"It's not that easy, Booth," Brennan muttered. "I—"

He cut her off, and smiled with a slight shake of his head. "Your wheels are just spinning, Bones. Let it go."

"I can't let it go, Booth," she said softly, her voice barely above a whisper. "I can't—and I know this is going to sound incredibly ironic coming from me since I know what you're basically advocating is a form of compartmentalization—but, I just can't do it. I have to make certain that I've learned everything I can from it, processed the experience or experiences for the evidence they are, and extrapolated everything I can from them so I can anticipate any future outcomes should I encounter such a scenario again. So..."

Booth tried to conceal his smile. A flash of realization struck him: that night behind the Hoover some ten months earlier, when she told him she couldn't change—she was wrong. She could change. She had changed. It was just that Temperance Brennan arrived at change at a different speed and sometimes by a different, more circuitous, path than other people did. He looked at her and knew that the woman standing in front of him was a different woman than the one he saw at Dulles the day she left for Maluku.

Brennan paused to take a breath and then tilted her head at him. "So, you have to understand, I have to know what I did wrong, when I did something that was wrong, so I can avoid making those same mistakes in the future. I just can't cut myself off from where I've been or where I'm going to live in some hedonistic idyll...as tempting as that may sound. I just can't."

Shaking his head, his deep voice became more insistent. "Let go of the past," he said. "Set the future aside for the time being. Be mindful of the present. For right now, just—enjoy this moment, and the next one, and the next one. Let go of the past, Bones."

Enjoy this moment.

Brennan considered Booth's words. It reminded her of a treatise she had read once written by a Theravadan monk from the Thai Forest tradition that described the principles of mindfulness. It amused her to consider the striking resonance between the words of her adherent Catholic partner and the Buddhist monk whose treatise she read in graduate school. She remembered how the whole treatise argued that the way to attain a state of nirvāna was to let go of troubling, recursive thoughts that allowed one's mind to smolder in negativity and to thereby make one's mind 'like fire unbound.' Maybe Booth is right, she thought. Maybe he's right, and I need to let go. I just don't know how to do that... She tried to heed his words and let go of the past, to still the roiling sea of her thoughts, but she couldn't stop thinking how the whole situation failed to make logical sense.

"I don't understand," Brennan said, shaking her head slightly. "The evidence, all the evidence, Booth—" She stopped, her voice trailing off weakly as she tried to make him understand the root of her self-doubt and insecurity. "I don't understand how you can say you were attracted to Hannah and then be attracted to someone like me."

Booth hesitated for a minute, and then said slowly, "I know I'm probably gonna fall on my own sword at some point in this, but I don't know any other way to make you understand, Bones. So, I'm gonna preface what I'm about to say by pointing out that you and Hannah aren't so different as you might think. You're both strong women, gorgeous, and—"

Waving her hand, Brennan shook her head and then said, "Please don't, Booth. I—I didn't want to hear about Hannah the first night you told me of her existence, and now—now that I've actually met the woman, and I'm even more certain that I don't want to know now."

"Then you can't blame me, Bones," Booth said quietly. "You can't blame me for not telling you something if I try and you say you don't want to hear it."

Sighing, Brennan looked up at him and shook her head. "I don't want to hear how comparable Hannah and I are, Booth. Such comparisons make me nauseous—"

"I told you just so you could understand why I could be attracted to someone like you and then to someone like Hannah, Bones," Booth told her gently.

Taking a moment, Brennan looked away as she said, "It still doesn't make any sense to me, Booth. If we merely ascribe any limited similarities that you believe I may share with Hannah as attributing from the fact that we're both alpha females, that still doesn't explain why you seem to be reverting to a certain physical type...and, it's a type that, aesthetically speaking, I just don't come even close to matching in any way, shape, or form."

Booth knew Brennan was nervous as soon as she started rambling. When she began lobbing out anthropological mumbo-jumbo that seemed convoluted even for her, Booth had an inkling as to how uncertain she really was given the fact that it was one of her most well-guarded, but also most easy tells to spot—if one knew her the way he did. Still, although he knew Brennan was troubled by something, it took him a minute to replay her words in his mind before he latched onto it.

'Certain physical type,' Booth thought to himself. Oh, fuck, he grumbled mentally. She's not...how can she be worried over something like that? He groaned to himself, slightly exasperated by Brennan's idiosyncratic insecurities.

"Bones, lemme ask you something," Booth began. "From an anthropological standpoint, what does science tell you squints is the reason why physical attraction occurs?"

"A male's sexual attraction derives from a desire to mate with a respective female in order to propagate the species," Brennan responded automatically.

"Okay," Booth said with a nod. "Then, setting aside that last bit about propagating the species, I think the one thing that even you've got to admit is that there's been a fair bit of 'evidence' in the last two weeks to prove that I love having sex with you." He paused and then waggled his eyebrows as he said, "I really, really love it, Bones."

"I'm an attractive female," Brennan conceded, "who is quite comfortable in her own sexuality and displays confidence in herself—"

"Except when she starts to overthink the issue of why it seems like, but for you, I only seem to be bagging blondes left and right, huh, Bones?" Booth asked, a slight grin tugging at the edge of his lips.

A vague smile appeared on Brennan's lips. "What are you trying to say?" she asked, shifting her weight from one hip to the other as she scanned his face, a glint in her eye.

Booth cocked his head to one side and grinned, then took a step towards her, leaning close to her and backing her against her foyer wall. "What do you think I'm trying to say, Bones?"

"Well," she began. "You might be—" She was abruptly cut off when Booth bent his head and pressed his lips against hers, his tongue skimming her lower lip and patiently coaxing her mouth open.

It was the first time that Booth had touched her in a way that was more than something driven by sorrow or regret or sadness, and it jolted Brennan for a minute as she suddenly recalled that he was capable of making her feel so much more than something that could be described as a negative—or, at least, less than positive emotion.

Brennan moaned into his kiss as she felt him lean into her, pressing her firmly against the wall. "I think—" She paused and struggled to find the words, an incredibly difficult task given how lightheaded she was feeling. "I think you're trying to distract me."

"Uh huh," Booth moaned, leaning into her again, even more closely. "Good answer."

"But I...you can't do that, Booth," she whined lightly. "I can't think like I need to if you keep trying to distract me.

"That's sorta the point, Bones."

"But, I have to—"

"Have to do what, Bones?" Booth breathed into her ear, his breath warm and moist and, apparently, possessing the ability to inflame her beyond the point of caring about anything that had just happened between them. "What pressing business do you need to do right now more that's more important than this?"

And, as she looked up at him, for once, Brennan realized, she didn't really have a very good answer to Booth's question.

-TBC-

A/N2: Okay, yes, yes, we know—evil cliffhanger. We're sorry about that, but it couldn't be helped. So, to summarize, where do we stand now? Booth's explained, Brennan's felt guilty, they've both faced some hard truths as they laid all the cards on the table. However, the question now is... where is the smut and fluff as we promised? Well, the bad news is that it's still coming because Part IV had to be split into two separate parts as it was just too lengthy as a single entry. The good news is that Part V is completed, uploaded, and ready to be shared. Want to see it more quickly? Click that little 'review' button below—lurkers, regular reviewers, first-time readers—click it ASAP, and let us know what you think. We're eagerly awaiting to hear from you (and, we promise, no more angst from this point out... only the good stuff. We promise!) Until then...~