(After 'The Beginning in the End')

This is a sequel to chapter 188.

Thank you for reviewing my story. I appreciate it.

I don't own Bones.

Ooooooooooooooooo

The ride to the Army base was too quick as far as Booth and Brennan were concerned. They tried to make plans, but Booth's situation meant that their plans were tenuous at best.

"Look Bones, I know I asked you not to go, but if I have to go to Afghanistan, maybe you can go to Maluku until I can get out of my contract. You don't have to stay here waiting for me to come back. I don't want to ruin things for you." Booth was worried that Brennan might resent him if the dig turned up something huge in the anthropology world.

"I don't think so, Booth." Brennan held Booth's hand and tried to explain why she thought it was not necessary. "When Taffet's trial was going bad, I felt that I wasn't doing enough to put her away. I was afraid she was smarter than I was and she was going to walk away from the horrible things she had done without repercussions. . . She made me worry about you and Hodgins . . . and me. She kidnapped all of us and though I don't believe in luck, we survived after extraordinary measures were taken to make sure we did survive . . . my dreams at night seemed to ignore that we had survived and instead it showed me what could have happened. I saw you and Hodgins die every night. I saw Taffet throw dirt over my body while I was still alive and could see what she was doing . . . It was demoralizing Booth."

He gripped her hand and shifted in his seat so he could get a better look at her face. "She's smart, Bones, but she's not as smart as you are. She's devious and she's cruel and she uses her brain to try to get away with the terrible things she does. She thought making us give up our cases against her would make it impossible to convict her, but her arrogance did her in when she gave us the body of Terrence Gilroy as a diversion. She thought we wouldn't connect the boy to her, but you got her. You and Hodgins and me and Cam, we got her. She outsmarted herself."

"Yes, she did." Sighing, Brennan stared at Booth's hand clasped in her hand. The light in the cab was poor and she only saw their hands in flashes as the cab passed a streetlight, but it was enough. "I allowed my fears to push out the reality of the situation. She made me feel vulnerable, you and Hodgins were vulnerable and I couldn't see past that. I . . . I distanced myself from my feelings, from my emotions because I thought it was distracting me from what I had to do to see that she was convicted and it exhausted me, Booth. When the trial ended, I was exhausted and I wanted to get away from you and the Lab and any reminder of just how close I came to dying, to how close you came to dying. I felt drained of what made me . . . me."

Grateful that Brennan was finally talking to him about what had happened to her during the trial, he let her talk. She was being open and honest and he knew that it was hard for her to share since it made her feel weak and vulnerable. She trusted him and he knew it.

The silence in the cab for the next few minutes helped Brennan gather her thoughts, allowed her to probe her own feelings. "The trial reminded me of just how tenuous life is. It made me realize that I could lose you, that I might not be able to save you the next time you're counting on me . . . I don't want you to die and I dreaded being there when you did or having to identify your body when I wasn't there to save you . . . I thought going to Maluku would save me from that. Perhaps it would save me from feeling your loss, but now I realize that whether I am with you or not, I would feel a great sense of loss if you were to die, Booth. Distance won't change that. Separating from you, wouldn't make your death any less painful . . . If you must go to Afghanistan, I will accept that and I will stay here and continue the work the Jeffersonian originally hired me for. There are bodies in Bones Storage that need to be identified. They have family members that need closure and even if they don't have family, their stories need to be told . . . Maluku was a way to escape my problems Booth, but I don't need to escape. It was wrong to use that position at the dig as a way to run away from something I didn't think I could handle. Someday, I may go on a dig because I want to do it for the fun and excitement, not because I think it will help me escape something or someone . . . Do you understand?"

"Yeah, I do." Embarrassed, Booth sighed. "Afghanistan . . . I was doing the same thing by signing up to go to Afghanistan . . . You were leaving and I thought it was my fault . . . You know . . . outside the Hoover when I tried to push you into something you didn't want to do. I shouldn't have done that, but I . . . I love you, Bones and I thought I was going to burst if I didn't ask you to take a chance. I didn't do it right, I know that. The timing was all wrong. I made it seem like Sweets had egged me on to ask you, but I'd been trying to work up the courage to ask you for weeks . . . months and it just seemed like Sweets' book made it seem like it was time for me to do something about us . . . I thought there was an us and then you said no and I realized that maybe there wasn't an us after all."

"Booth." Brennan heard the pain in his voice and she wanted to do something about that. "Booth I said no because of me not you. I told you that I don't have your heart and I suspect I still don't. I may not be who you think I am and if we try to be what you want us to be, I will fail and you will hate me. You'll leave me. Everyone always does."

Appalled, Booth pulled her hand up and held it against his chest. "Hey, don't say stuff like that. I'm not everyone. I'm not Sully sailing away on his damn boat or Michael Stires using you to try to win a trial or that welder that was just looking to get some whenever he was on vacation . . . I'm not those guys. I know who you are. I know you have a bigger heart that you seem to realize and I could never hate you. If this thing fails, it will probably be my fault not yours because every relationship I've ever had has failed. Every single one . . . But, Bones . . . I think if we both work on this, if we don't give up when things are going badly or seem to be going badly . . . we won't fail. We have known each other for a long time and we've seen the good side and the bad side of each other and I think . . . I think we can make it. I think there is an us."

"I think there is an us too, Booth." Brennan leaned forward and kissed her partner. "Whether you serve a few weeks or months in Afghanistan I will be here in the District, doing my job and waiting for you to return to resume our partnership. We have something I never thought I could have, Booth. We have a partner that we can trust. I trust you." She kissed him and smiled.

He felt a weight lift from his shoulders. He hadn't known it was there. "I trust you with my life, Bones. I have for a long time. I have trusted few people in my life and for a reason, but I know who you are and I would die for you . . . and live for you."

Oooooooooooooooooo

Let me know what you think of my story. Thank you.