Another dream, another nightmare. This what was supposed to happen. He was supposed to fight, damn it. And she, she was supposed to admit her undying love. The truth was that they never said 'I love you'. That was the proof, and they never told one another. They would have a dream every night of how their confessions were supposed to unravel. By definition they were insane. A new dream every night, a new argument, but always the same outcome when they woke up.

Time had run out.

Booth rolled around in the bed he shared with Hannah. Brennan fell asleep on her couch, and a single tear was on her cheek.

They were taken back to the night, that they couldn't change.

(This is one outcome that they could have settled for, one dream of many)

"Why are you taking this so personally?" Booth asked, afraid of her answer.

"This woman is the same as me. She devoted her life to her work and she was extremely brilliant and successful, but she was lonely. She died, was murdered, alone, before she could really even start her life. I- I don't want to die alone, before I get to live, again. The closest I've ever felt to… love, is those five years, with you. But it's pointless to say now, because I missed my moment, I lost my chance. I broke your heart, and now I'm breaking mine. I'm lost without you, Booth. I fought you, because I never truly accepted that you wouldn't wait forever. It was foolish. For someone of such a high I.Q, I'm stupid. This whole situation is stupid."

"B-Bones…" Booth hesitated, unsure of what to do.

She was looking down, to her lap, the tears dripping.

She was turning inside out, the cool exterior melting until her heart was shining through her eyes, through her tears, her pained expression.

Finally grabbed her hand.

"I don't know what to say." He confessed, squeezing her hand.

She turned to him, looked at him, torn, and fell into his chest, his arms wrapped around her, tightly.

"You already said everything you needed to." She looked up at him, wiping away her tears, in vain, because they kept coming.

Suddenly Booth was unnerved, "So- w-hat now? Huh? We just forget that you spilled your heart out to me? Because you were seven months late?" Booth grabbed her shoulders violently, fighting the urge to shake her vulnerable body. "I don't want to let you fall."

"I mercilessly let you."

"Well I'm not you, Bones, and despite what you think, I didn't tell you everything."

"What else could you have done? I would have dismissed you, no matter what you said. I probably still would, if you said anything now, for your greater good."

"I don't care what you think- I didn't- I never told you that I would wait- that I didn't want to move on- that I didn't want you to change. That I fell in the most passionate love I've ever felt, for you, because of who you were, not because of who you can become."

"But don't you see, Booth? You're talking in past tense! You love Hannah now! She's your one and only future."

"No. No. No." He shook his head, trying to shake what he knew to be true, out of his head. "I don't want to let you go, Bones, I love you, I'm still in love with. We're broken, but I want to fix this. Let's get back to the way it should be."

Her crying started up again. "We can't. I shouldn't have said anything. I need to die alone- It's my expectation, my future. It's how I'm going to protect you, from the inevitabilities of love. Of my love."

"But I'm already broken! It doesn't matter anymore!"

"But I can't be with you, Booth, I love you too much! Let me protect you. I don't want to give you any illusions."

"So this is it? I marry Hannah and you die alone. We're never ever truly happy? We never get our happy ending? I never get to prove my love to you? I never get to have your children? I never get to grow old with you?"

"No. We don't. That's exactly what I wanted to protect you from."

"What? I don't need protection from you!"

"Yes, you do. My love? I doubt it. I doubt the strength of it. I don't know if it will last the night. I don't know."

"You're scared."

"Yes."

"Well if I can't have you… and if you love me… then I'll just have to die alone too."

"Don't waste your future, your dreams, possible family, for me."

"You are my family. My village. My world. You and Parker."

"As you are mine."