A/N: The closer season 8 gets, the more scared I get! I'm sort of saving my tearful-reunion scene for "All of the Courage", but I figured I'd go past that.

This takes place after B&B and Christine are reunited. No real spoilers, just pure speculation. Warning: angst ahead!

DISCLAIMER: Not mine.

She watches him sleep.

The past week has been rocky at best. She is finally back home, her daughter tucked safely in her nursery. Booth was ecstatic, absolutely over-the-moon, and she was right there with him. Every touch, every look was electrifying, and letting each other go was nearly impossible.

And then the sun came up, and reality set in.

She shifts. Certain parts of their routine have been easy to settle in to: she has spent the past months sleeping in crappy hotels and hidden rooms; he has made beds on the couch and at Angela's. Their room has been nearly untouched, so this part is easy. Going to bed with him, feeling him pull her close, it is as natural as breathing. They have both become light sleepers, so the rare moments when she is awake and he is not are treasured.

Life with him has always been like navigating a minefield. She is terrified of stepping on the wrong spot, with the wrong foot. But he was always there to guide her through it, nearly carrying her. These days, though, it's like they're both navigating their own minefields. She can lead him through his and he can lead her through hers, but it's not that simple. They can't reach out for each other, or their worlds will both explode. They much each navigate their minefields separately.

They are finally together, but she has never felt so alone.

He knows the distance between them.

It's killing him inside, not reaching out for her. He knows she is just on the other side, and it would be so easy to draw her close.

But the months alone have taken a toll on both of them, and he knows better.

She has always been a maze with fake walls, one that he willingly dedicates his life to navigating. Some walls are meant to be broken, and they are both better for it. But some walls are glass, and when he kicks them down they shatter, leaving slivers in his feet. He can't afford breaking the wrong walls anymore, so he doesn't break any of them. He keeps his distance, curling his fingers into his fists to avoid reaching for her.

He knows she's awake, and he wonders if she knows that he is, too. He fakes sleep, though, keeping his breathing regular and torturing himself by shifting closer. Heat rolls off of her in waves, and it takes every ounce of strength in his body to keep from reaching out for her.

The past week has been like walking blind through a warzone. He doesn't know what to say or what to do, but certain habits do kick in. She keeps a steady routine from the first day: she wakes and feeds their daughter, she goes to work, and she comes home and makes dinner. She calls him at regular intervals: in the mornings, at lunch, in the middle of the afternoon. Those calls have become his lifeline, her voice a balm to the fear that he feels whenever she is gone.

The fear has always been there, from the moment he fell in love with her, from the moment he decided to spend his life protecting her. When she is gone, he can't possibly know what she is doing, who is around her, who is a potential threat. But now the fear has morphed, changed into something else. He still fears for her life, especially with Pelant still not completely pacified. But now, more than ever, he fears that she will leave again. It's pointless, stupid, irrational. But he still fears that she will walk away.

Their daughter is another problem to navigate. Christine has grown accustomed to her mother, and although Brennan did everything she could to remind Christine of Booth, Christine still feels uncomfortable around him. She squirms and wiggles much more in his arms, and if her mother isn't around she cries. It's a knife in his heart, the fact that his own daughter doesn't remember him. He aches for her, but he can't stand the way she sobs in his arms so he pulls away.

He has spent the last months praying for them, dreaming of them, crying for them. But now that they are back, he no longer knows where he stands.

In the next room, their daughter cries, and they both shift.

They both know that Christine doesn't remember Booth the way she once did. It breaks her heart, the fact that the man she loves isn't a part of their life the way he once was. Before those months, he was a constant, but now there's an invisible barrier between them. She claws at it, kicks and screams and punches and cries. But she can't break through it.

She pads out of their room towards the nursery, biting back a whimper when he doesn't follow. He misses the days they would awaken together, both nearly running towards their daughter. But those days are gone for now, and she resigns herself to this loneliness in the hopes that it will one day disappear.

He feels her presence shifting, walking away from him, and he opens his eyes.

The room is dark, the imprint of her still beside him, still nearly solid. He rolls to where she was sitting, the leftover heat a small comfort to the unfathomable ache in his chest.

He hears his daughter's cries and the soft padding of Bones' feet across the floor, her murmurs as she tries to quiet her daughter down. He misses being able to help her with their daughter. His muscles contract, as if he's nearly prepared to walk out after her, but he doesn't. He's scared that if he walks in there, he'll only make it worse.

He remembers the first time he held her after they returned, the weight of her in his arms. She has grown more than he could have possibly imagined, and although she was still light and tiny, his knees buckled. His fingers itch for her now, the soft skin and surprisingly strong fingers.

In the nursery, her cries continue, and the soft murmurs from his partner become imperceptibly more desperate. He knows that she feels the lack of sleep, because he feels it too. Again he aches to hold them, but he is terrified of what could happen, of all the possibilities.

The crying continues, again and again and again. The murmurs rise, little by little, desperation sinking in. He knows that she knows Christine can feel her mother's emotions, but he knows she is too tired to consider that.

He is moving before he realizes it. His feet are nearly silent on the wood floor, loud enough only to alert her to his presence. He turns the corner into Christine's nursery and his heart nearly breaks: Bones is curled up in the rocking chair with their daughter in her arms, rocking slowly, tears slipping down her cheeks. Her words are quiet, hushed, and strung together in rational sentences. The closer he gets, the more he hears: she is trying to calm their daughter by telling her the benefits of sleep.

She looks up as he gets closer, her eyes red and brimming with tears. She is too tired to even be surprised by his presence, simply watching him draw nearer.

His arms reach out without his permission and the words slip from his lips. "Give her to me."

Every muscle in her body nearly collapses with exhaustion, and her arms stretch out to deposit their daughter in his arms. She stands from the chair, and he takes her place, trying not to make her feel uncomfortable where she stands beside him.

His daughter wiggles and squirms in his arms, sobbing loudly. Her face is red, her eyes squeezed together and her mouth wide open as she screams louder than her lungs can possibly handle.

"Hello," he murmurs, and her fists clench. The world falls away, and he all but forgets about his partner standing beside him.

"Hello," he murmurs again, and the words spill like waterfall from him. "I missed you. Daddy missed you. So much. Do you know how much I love you?"

Her cries diminish by tiny degrees.

"I love you so, so much. I cried too. Just like you are right now. I cried so much when you were gone." His eyes fill with tears and his lips quiver. "I wanted to hold you. I didn't want to ever let you go."

Her eyes open to half-mast.

"It made me so, so sad that you and your mommy were gone. So sad. I think you and your mommy were sad too, right? Do you know how much I missed you guys?"

Beside him, Brennan's eyes overflow with tears again, and her breathing become shaky.

"So, so much."

Her cries slow and her breaths come in quicker, like tiny hiccups.

"You and your mommy are so special to me. You two are the light of my life. I love you girls so, so much. Do you know that?"

Her eyes open and her cries hitch to a stop. Two bright marbles of brown light blink up at him, so similar to his own eyes. Her fingers reach up at him and clench, reaching for him.

He lets his hand rest over her chest, watching with delight as her fingers wrap around his.

His partner's sniffs are suddenly that much louder, and without even looking up, he shifts. He moves his daughter to only one arm, so that his other arm is free. He leans back in the chair and opens up his free arm, reaching for her.

She moves into his embrace seamlessly, wrapping herself around him. Her legs pull up into his lap and her arms wrap around him as she presses her face into his neck. His left arm supports their daughter, now asleep, and his right arm wraps around the love of his life protectively.

Slowly her breaths even out as she allows the exhaustion to pull her into its possession, and his eyelids droop down against his will. In the morning they will awake and stretch out their muscles. He will regret sleeping on the chair when his back acts up, and she will spend the day rolling out her shoulders to loosen the tense muscles. But the distance between them will be once step smaller. And frankly, that's all that matters.