A/N: Sorry it took so long to post this next chapter! This has been the most difficult to write so far, and the longest. I wanted to make sure I was happy with it before I posted it, and with RL lately taking most of my brain power… I hope it was worth the wait.


Chapter 4

Although Cam was not at all shocked by his sentiments, she was somewhat surprised by the clear depth of his emotions for Dr. Brennan. Shaking her head, Cam realized that Booth had been trying so hard to convince everyone, including himself, that he had moved on with Hannah—he had managed to fool even Dr. Camille Saroyan, who had known Booth for over fifteen years.

Marshalling her thoughts, Cam began what she hoped would be a cathartic and fruitful talk with her long-time friend. She had long believed that Booth and Brennan belonged together, making each other happier than she had ever known either of them to be otherwise. However, she still felt it was her place as a friend to both of them to help them decide what they really wanted. It was the only way they were going to last a lifetime—which was what Cam knew Booth wished for and what she was beginning to believe Brennan might desire as well.

"Booth, I'm glad you feel you can be honest with me. I think that is a very important step. I admit I was surprised at how fast you seemed to move past your feelings for Dr. Brennan. I had known for a long time that you clearly considered her more than just a partner," Cam said.

"Really?" Booth asked. "I had tried so hard to keep my feelings under wraps—I knew that if I pushed her too soon, she'd run away." As he considered the truth of this statement, Booth wondered if maybe his declarations to Bones after they had told Sweets about their true first case might have been pushing things. But Cam was already answering his unspoken question.

"Yeah, Booth, you weren't able to hide very much from me. Some, I'll admit," she smiled wryly. "But I knew shortly after I arrived in D.C. that she was more than just your friend and partner. Remember when I asked you what you would do if I fired Brennan from the Jeffersonian?" Cam asked, chuckling inwardly at the memory of the ferocity of his response.

"Booth, if Dr. Brennan were to quit…" Cam began.

"What?" Booth asked. Bones wasn't a quitter.

Cam started again, "If she were to leave the Jeffersonian..."

Booth chuckled. "Well, the squints would flee this institution like the French army."

Angela had already said as much to Cam earlier, and Angela had included Booth in this exodus. But Cam wanted to ask him herself. "And you?

Booth smiled sardonically. "Well, I do as I'm ordered." He gave Cam a mock salute.

Cam scoffed, knowing Booth did whatever he thought was best. "No, you don't, Seeley."

Booth straightened up, sensing there was more to this than idle speculation. "Okay, here we go. What's going on, Camille?"

Cam paused, considering her words carefully, and she decided to be blunt. "What if I fired her? What would you do?" She waited for his response.

Booth turned to face Cam, and looked her straight in the eyes with an intensity Cam had seldom seen before. "I'm with Bones, Cam. All the way. Don't doubt it for a second."

Booth and Cam exchanged looks, and Cam had her answer.

Booth thought back to that conversation in the autopsy room. The thought of Cam making Bones leave had caused his emotions to slip their leash a bit. "You're totally right, Cam. I didn't allow myself to think much about it at the time, but the idea of Bones being gone from my life…" He trailed off. "She'd already become so important to me, even then." He stopped, trying to read Cam's thoughts from the expression on her face.

"Are you trying to tell me that I made a mistake in trying to move on, that I should dump Hannah and just HOPE Bones will someday be ready to give me a chance?" His emotions were sliding back towards exasperation and then anger again. "Do you have any idea how much that hurt, when she rejected me?"

Booth's emotions were now clear on his face—their long chat had long since exhausted his ability to hide them, especially from an old friend like Cam. She saw now that his heart had almost broken that fateful night, and it was all he had been able to do to keep things together thus far. He looked like a lost little boy, his expression similar to what she had imagined he must have felt after being betrayed and abused by his father in his youth.

Cam now got up from her chair and moved around Booth's desk, laying her hand on his shoulder. Booth roused himself from his feelings of despair and hopelessness at her gentle touch. He looked into her eyes and saw sympathy—and something else. He saw the shadow of remembered pain in her eyes, and Booth had a feeling he knew where Cam was going to take this conversation.

"You do understand, don't you, Cam?" Booth asked, his voice gentler than it had been earlier in the throes of his own pain. "You had someone you loved who broke your heart."

Cam nodded, allowing Booth to see the emotions that still swirled inside her at the remembrance of her greatest love, whose murder their team had solved a few years ago. Her voice took on a mix of nostalgia, sadness, and resignation as she spoke softly.

"When I was with Andrew, I thought that my world was complete. I was a doctor, in love with another doctor, living with him and his daughter. You know how much I loved Michelle, even then—I considered her to be my daughter in way that mattered. And then Andrew and I got engaged, and I started to imagine the rest of my life with him and Michelle, and hopefully more of our children…" It was Cam's turn to allow her thoughts to trail off into unvoiced contemplation.

"But I knew something wasn't right. I should have been more aware of what was going on, but I was a busy intern at the hospital, and he was busy, too, and with taking care of a young child… I just allowed myself to be fooled into thinking my life was perfect." Cam shook her head, still troubled by the memories.

"But Andrew would not stay away from other women. I told him I knew about it, I even caught him at the motel he had once taken me to, and he always said it was going to be the last time. He told me loved me and wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. He might have believed that, at least on some level. And I hated the idea of leaving Michelle, of leaving the relationship Andrew and I had spent years building." Cam sighed, thinking about the correlations between her past relationship and Booth's present dilemma.

"But I realized that I was not willing to settle for what Andrew could give me. I would not accept anything less than faithful monogamy from him. I knew that I owed it to myself to find someone who could love me completely, and who I could trust utterly to love me and not lie to me." Booth reached over and wiped a tear from Cam's cheek, momentarily interrupting her. She looked at him in surprise—she hadn't even realized she had started crying.

"And it still obviously makes me sad, the end of that relationship. But it needed to end—it wasn't healthy," Cam said, now feeling a bit better having reached this part of the story. "I know I did the right thing, ending things with Andrew. But that still didn't make it easy. I moved out of the house, I changed jobs, I didn't see him or Michelle anymore. But I still thought about him, and I occasionally had dreams about him." Cam looked directly at Booth again, and she could see him connecting the dots in his head, seeing how her story related to his situation.


A/N: The conversation continues in the next chapter!