AN: This one is not a chapter like the last one. I'm pretty proud of it though, and I got a little teary at the end but I'm not sure if it's because it warrants being teary or if it's just the pregnancy hormones rearing their head. Please let me know what you think of this one. I look forward to your comments.

"Booth," Temperance said quietly into the dark room. The thunder storm raging outside was the reason they were sharing a cheap hotel room in the Middle of Nowhere, South Dakota. The room was anything but ideal, and Brennan was fairly certain the place was crawling with roaches, but it was safer than being outside and traveling in the storm.

"What?"

"I'm assuming you're awake because you answered me."

"Yeah well, I'd prefer to be asleep."

"Oh, well then I'll let you get back to that." She heard Booth sigh and felt the bed shift as he rolled to face her.

"No, just ask whatever you were going to ask because not knowing what it is will keep me awake if the damned thunder doesn't."

"I was just wondering if we could talk."

"We always talk. Why are you asking now?"

"Well, I know it's irrational to have a fear of thunderstorms, but it's something I've carried over since childhood and I find that if I talk to someone while it's going on, it takes my mind off of the storm."

"Huh, I never would have pegged you as someone who was afraid of thunder."

"It's not the thunder per se that scares me, but the lightning that precludes it." Brennan stared up at the ceiling, wincing at a particularly bright flash of light outside. The thunder followed almost immediately, cracking loudly over the cheap motel. Booth could feel her tense up next to him and pulled her into his body to offer some sort of comfort.

"And how exactly did you develop a fear of thunderstorms?"

"When I was about eight years old, there was a large storm that hit the town we lived in in Ohio. Dad and mom had us unplug everything so that none of the lights or electronic equipment would short out if lightning struck, and we were all in the living room just watching the flashes of light outside. I got up to use the bathroom and while I was in there, the house was struck and sparks of electricity shot out of the showerhead next to me. I started screaming and raced out of there as fast as I could, but ever since then..." She shuddered at another flash of light outside of the window.

"I used to be that way about spiders." Brennan turned to look at Booth. Even in the dark, she was held in his gaze as he rubbed a comforting hand up and down the side of her arm. "When I was a boy, I woke up one night to this tickling sensation on my stomach. I pulled up the covers and this huge spider was crawling on me. Anyway, I freaked out and my dad came in to see what the heck I was yelling about. Anyway, it took a long time for me to not flinch whenever I saw a spider." Booth chuckled and shook his head a bit. "My time in the Middle East ended that fear. Have you ever seen the camel spiders out there? Those things are freaking huge."

"I do happen to remember encountering them when I was identifying remains in Iraq."

"My first night there, one of those things got inside my tent. I thought if I just swatted at it, it would run from me. The damned thing charged instead. Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is to be a Ranger that is squealing as a foot long spider charged him? I got over that fear really fast." He heard Temperance suppress a laugh and grinned right back at her.

"I can imagine that didn't go over well for you."

"No, it didn't. I earned the less than flattering nickname 'Spiderman' for awhile." Booth chuckled as he thought back to that event. It had taken years to get that name to stop.

"What's your nickname in the FBI?"

"I thought we were past that." Temperance shook her head against his arm.

"You never did answer when Angela asked you all those years ago. Do you have a nickname, because I've never heard one given to you, although I do know that it's one way that males in your field bond with one another."

"I try to stay away from the whole nicknames thing."

"Unless it involves you giving them to other people," Temperance said back to him, earning her a chuckle in response.

"I only give nicknames to the ones I like." Brennan scoffed and pulled away from him to get a better look at his face in the darkness of the room.

"That is not true Booth and you know it, otherwise you wouldn't have called David 'Dick431', or called Rebecca's boyfriend 'Captain Fantastic'. I know the only reason you started calling me Bones was to annoy me, but I've never understood why you kept it up."

"Because that's who you are. You're my Bones."

"Your Bones? What are we dating suddenly? I don't appreciate being referred to as a possession."

"Just like you think that marriage is an 'archaic institution which hinders a woman's individual freedom and has its roots in ownership'. I got it Bones."

"You know, I've never understood why you hold marriage in such high regard. I mean you certainly didn't have a good example of what marriage was, so how can you honestly think it's a good thing?" Booth tensed and gritted his teeth. He knew she wasn't deliberately throwing his parent's rocky relationship in his face, but it still hurt to think about it.

"Yeah, and your parents were a great example of what marriage could be like. You can't tell me that you didn't grow up seeing how much they loved each other."

"My parents were bank robbers living under assumed names."

"Which had absolutely nothing to do with being married to each other. Growing up, could you tell that they loved each other?" There was a pause before she answered him, settling back down next to him.

"Yes, I knew they loved each other."

"So having grown up around such a loving set of parents who were a great example of what a marriage could be like, how is it that you don't believe in the institution?"

"When I was in college I took women's studies courses in conjunction with my anthropology classes."

"That doesn't explain your total distrust in marriage. I could see a 'men are bastards, let's burn our bras in protest' kind of a vibe, but I don't see how it would make you so completely distrusting of marriage. Lots of feminists get married. You know what I think it is? I think the idea of being connected to another person on that level scares you, so you find reasons why it would be an unappealing option." Temperance scoffed at the comment and pulled away from Booth, moving back to her own side of the bed. It was a minute or so before she responded to his comment.

"I still don't see how you think it's such a great thing. Over half of marriages end in divorce. How can you support an institution that has such a high failure rate?"

"You want to know why I believe in marriage Bones? I believe in marriage because it's two people agreeing that they only want to spend the rest of their lives with each other. They want to wake up to them every day for the rest of their lives knowing that there is no one else that could make them feel as loved and fulfilled as that person. You get married to show the world how you feel about that one special person and proclaim that love and commitment in front of your friends and family. That's why I believe in it Bones. It's a partnership. There is no owning of another person unless that's what you turn it into."

"And you felt that way about Rebecca?"

"At the time, yes. It probably wouldn't have worked out in the end, so I can only think that her refusal was a good thing now."

"But you still love her." It wasn't a question. If there was one thing that Temperance knew about Booth, it was that if he committed his heart to someone or something, he'd hold a place for whatever it was forever.

"Yes, I do. You know, she actually gave me the opportunity to ask her again."

"You never said anything about that."

"Yeah, it was right when I had that slip up just before... Anyway, out of nowhere she tells me that she thought I was a great father and a good man and asked if I still wanted to marry her."

"And you said no? But you were renewing your sexual relationship with her."

"I love Rebecca and always will, but she's not the one for me. It just took a while to figure that out." Booth waited for a response from his partner, but she was silent. The storm had moved a distance away from where they were, and the thunder sounded from much farther away. The downpour of rain filled the space around them, and Booth was almost lulled to sleep when Brennan finally spoke again.

"Booth?"

"Yeah Bones?"

"How old were you the first time you had intercourse?" Booth groaned and rolled away from Brennan.

"Why do you always have questions about my sex life?"

"I don't, but I find that I'm curious about where your value system originated. I mean obviously I know that you were in high school when it occurred, but I'm curious about how old you were."

"I was fifteen, and it was with Tracy Horton, my science tutor."

"I would think that someone as sports oriented as you were wouldn't have looked twice at someone interested in science."

"Nah, Tracy was cute, and it's not like I meant for it to happen, it just sort of did. I mean I was in biology and we were studying the human reproductive system and well, one thing kind of led to another. What about you?"

"I was sixteen, and was in my third foster home. My foster brother, Derrek was the most popular boy in school, and I was always amazed that he took the time to talk to me. Most of the kids just made fun of me, but Derrek was different. He was having this birthday party when he turned seventeen, and during the party he pulled me aside and told me how much he liked me, that I was different from the other girls."

"Oh Jesus, he was one of those guys."

"Weren't you?"

"I'll admit that I did play the field a bit in school, but I was never that bad. Let me guess, he tells you how special you are, that you're different from the other girls and that he just can't get you off of his mind. When you're blushing under his complements, he made his move." He felt the slight shift of the bed as she nodded her head.

"He talked me into having sex with him. The only place at the party where we could guarantee that we would have privacy was in the bathroom."

"Bones..."

"It wasn't fun and it hurt and we didn't have protection or anything, and after it was over, he got back to the party, and I heard him joking about it with his friends later."

"I'm sorry Temperance." He reached out to her, but she just shrugged him off his hand. She didn't want his comfort or pity.

"His parents found out about it and I was kicked out of the house and moved onto the next foster home, but not before the indignity of having to take a pregnancy test."

"You weren't, were you?" He could again feel the bed move as she shook her head.

"No, thank goodness. I don't even want to know how that would have changed my life. The administrators made me pay though. The next family I went to was very religious."

"Why would that have been making you pay?"

"I was put there because of my 'sexual indiscretions'. I guess my social worker felt that a more conservative environment would be a good influence on me."

"I'm guessing that it kind of pushed you in the opposite direction."

"Don't get me wrong, the Millers were very kind to me, but I just couldn't see how there could be a God if he was willing to take my family from me. It didn't make any sense to me." Both were silent for a long time, just listening to the pounding rain outside the motel room. The soothing sound of the rain was lulling the pair to sleep, and just before they completely went under, Brennan spoke again.

"Booth?"

"Yeah Bones?"

"How did you know you were in love with Rebecca?" He paused before answering. It wasn't something that he ever really considered and needed a moment to think.

"I don't know that I was ever 'in love' with her, so I can't really answer that. I mean she's a good person, and at the time we were dating, my gambling was at its worse, and she was by my side supporting me the whole time. I knew I cared about her and she obviously cared about me and that just kind of grew into love for me."

"That doesn't really answer the question."

"Okay then, let me ask you this. How do you know that you love your father?" Booth was quiet as he waited for Temperance to answer the question. He smiled a bit when he heard her sigh.

"I just do."

"Exactly. It's not something that you can explain, you just know that you love them."

"Then what's the difference between loving someone and being in love? I've never understood the difference."

"Being in love is wanting to have someone in every aspect of your life. If something happens to you, you want to tell them. You think about them constantly, want to see them, touch them, hell just be with them. It's so intense, but it's worth it."

"So you've been in love with someone?"

"Yeah, I know what being in love is like."

"Then why aren't you with that person?" Booth was quiet for a long time. Temperance held her breath, waiting to hear what his answer to that would be. She couldn't honestly see how any woman Booth was in love with wouldn't return the emotion. He was a good man, knew how to treat a woman, and he was the most loyal person she'd ever met in her life. He let other people thrive and shine while watching from the shadows, and he was most certainly worthy of the love and admiration of others.

"She doesn't return those feelings, but I want her to." Booth rolled over onto his side to look at Temperance. She could feel the weight of his gaze on her, though she could barely see him in the dark. "I want her to love me as much as I do, and it physically hurts to know that she doesn't."

She couldn't speak as he looked at her, just held his intense gaze, neither one of them moving. Thunder sounded in the distance, a reminder of the storm raging around them, and Booth turned away, rolling until his back was to her. Brennan reached out a hand, but hesitated to touch him. She could feel the need in him, and took a deep breath to get her own confusing emotions under control.

"Booth?" She waited to see if he would respond, but under the sound of the rain outside, she only heard the steady sound of his breathing. "I want that too."