I apologize for the delay in updates, as finals draw closer I have less and less free time. But I only have 2 weeks left of school (yay!) , and I'll post more frequently during the summer. I hope this chapter was worth the wait, it was a hard one to write so reviews are majorly appreciated!

Brennan woke up the next morning and sat for a second, remembering what had happened the night before. She rubbed at her eyes, still sore from crying, and she knew that she had overreacted. She felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment, she never cried like that, never lost control. Sure her emotions had been unbalanced lately but that didn't justify having a breakdown. She sighed, knowing that she would have to deal with this eventually. She could hear snoring from the living room, she looked at the clock and noticed that it was barely five-thirty. She got ready quietly, she wasn't quite ready to deal with Booth yet, she needed time to process her own emotions first. She stood at the end of the couch and watched him sleep for a minute, not sure what to do. She didn't want him to be late for work, but she really needed to think before talking to him, reign in her emotions before they got out of hand again.

Then she spotted his phone on the coffee table and knew what she would do. She picked up the phone and set an alarm, giving herself a ten-minute head start. On top of his phone she left a short note, asking him to come to the Jeffersonian later that afternoon so that they could talk.

As soon as she got to work she headed straight for her office and dove into her stack of paperwork while picking at a fruit salad, hoping to stave off her morning sickness.

Booth woke up with a start at the sound of his cell phone blaring. He shut it off quickly and looked around the apartment, which was obviously empty. Of course it was. But there was the note left on the table, and as he read it relief coursed through him. She was offering to talk. She wasn't shutting him out completely, which he would have deserved. He was such an idiot. He shook his head, dragging him off of the couch to head back to his apartment before work.

Brennan worked diligently through the morning, only stopping when she realized it was nearly noon and she was actually hungry. She went to the diner and ordered a salad for take-out, adding a small order of fries at the last second. She brought her lunch to the mall and sat on the bench next to the coffee cart while she ate and thought. She thought about the events of the previous night, trying to figure out what had bothered her so much. Booth had been right, she had always insisted that sex was simply sex, relieving biological urges. She had even thought about having sex with him multiple times, how could she not have? So what was wrong?

She knew deep-down what it was that bothered her so much, what had made her snap. No-strings sex was her belief, yes, but it wasn't his. She knew that Booth didn't believe in just sex. He believed in making love. How many times had he explained that to her through the years? She had thought that she'd accepted the fact that he wasn't in love with her, but she knew that on some level she had held out hope. Hope that him dating Hannah had been some sort of fluke. That he never did move on the way he said he would. That maybe she was enough for him, that she didn't have to change. Last night had proved all of that long.

If he did love her, he wouldn't have tried to use her for sex. If it had been any man but Booth she would never have thought twice about giving in. Maybe if she had never told Booth all of her regrets that night in the rain she would have agreed. If he had no clue that she cared about him as more than a partner or a friend. That was what had really done it, the fact that he not only knew that she cared about him, but that he was willing to exploit that, that's what made her react the way that she did. She had spent the entire week doing everything she could to help him, but that was where she drew her line, in the exact same place he had crossed his.

She reluctantly finished her lunch and headed back to the lab. She knew that she had to talk to Booth, maybe there had been some ulterior reasoning behind his actions. Maybe her evidence was skewed in some way. Or maybe, she thought sadly, Maybe I should just stop hoping. Hoping never leads to anything but pain. Hoping led to her waiting by her window every Christmas eve for years, in case her parents returned. Hope was what caused her to spend her days in Maluku dreaming of coming home and telling Booth how she felt. Hope let her down at every turn.

She entered her office, still absorbed in the melancholy thoughts swirling through her mind, and she almost jumped when she noticed that Booth was lounging on her couch.

"Hey, Bones," he said, sitting up nervously.

"Booth," she gave him a small nod of acknowledgement before sitting down at her desk.

"Bones, look, I'm so sorry about last night," he would have continued to apologize, but she cut him off.

"No, you shouldn't apologize." She said, drawing in a deep breath, "I may have overreacted some, and I'm sorry about that. I've been more emotional than usual lately and I guess that was the stick that snapped the camel's back." As he watched her collect her thoughts, he decided it was best not to correct her. "Last night was something I needed to see, a wake-up call if you would. It was the last piece of evidence that I needed to prove a certain fact to myself."

He didn't like the sound of this, "What type of evidence are you talking about Bones?"

She looked at him and he could see the walls rebuilding behind her eyes, the walls that he had worked so hard to bring down. "It was enough evidence to prove something that I suspected all along, love doesn't exist."

His eyes widened, "What?"

She remained clinical, despite the fact that it took all of her effort to appear unconcerned, "Last night gave me the final piece of evidence that I needed to conclude that love, as you define it, is nonexistent. A fantasy. Something that only exists in stories. Love is ephemeral, like I always thought." She shrugged and turned to her computer, focusing her attention on it to keep her emotions at bay.

So she didn't see the devastated look on Booth's face, "I don't understand."

"Fine," her eyes flashed with emotion, but it was too fleeting for him to comprehend. "First piece of evidence, you claim that love is eternal, but less than a year after claiming that you wanted to spend the rest of your life with me, you decided that you were in love with Hannah. Second piece of evidence, love is supposed to be unconditional, but as soon as I warned you that I couldn't change, you told me that you had to move on. Third, you have spent years lecturing me that you don't have sex with people you care about, that sex is more than biology, that when you care about someone it is making love. Therefore, I could only conclude," she stopped as her voice broke and she looked away from him, tears pooling unwelcomingly in her eyes. "I can only conclude," she stopped again, feeling choked up.

"You could only conclude that I don't care about you." She didn't look at him but she could hear how hurt he sounded, "But, Bones, what about everything else between us? You know I care about you, everything we've been through…" he trailed off as she shook her head.

"I know you cared about me. Before the night at the Hoover, I was sure of it. Now though… Evidence from years ago is simply not as relevant as the evidence that has been staring at me these past months. By the constants that you yourself taught me, you have proved that you do not love me. I realize that you didn't take my balking at the idea of a relationship well, but you had never given up easily on anything before. I didn't know that one second of fear would scare you off." She still avoided looking at him.

He simply gaped at her, unable to fault her logic. As always, she had drawn the rational conclusion from the evidence that she had been presented with. He hadn't done it on purpose, but he had convinced the one person he cared for the most that he didn't care at all, "Bones, I do care about you, more than you realize. I never wanted to push you or make you feel uncomfortable because I care. Please, let me show you that, let me give you more evidence. Please don't shut me out."

She thought for a moment, before nodding slightly, "Just… I need time to think, to process. Let's just try to get our friendship back for now. Then if that works we can go forward from there." She looked at him, finally, and he could see that even this small offer was difficult for her, he could see that he needed to regain her trust.

So, he put-on the most charming smile he could manage and offered her his hand, "Friends?" He asked, raising his eyebrows hopefully.

She gave him a small smile in return and took the offered hand, "Friends." She affirmed, and they shook on it.