Chapter 20

The rest of the morning became a blur. Thankfully she was able to compartmentalize quickly and focused on the only thing she could do, work. They hadn't said another word as they got through their morning routines and slipped out of the apartment without making even a pot of coffee. His admittance to her hung over her like an ongoing nightmare she couldn't wake up from.

Temperance knew that it wasn't definite that he was going, that it was still possible that he may decide not to go, but the fact that she wasn't being given a say in that matter destroyed her mentality more than she'd ever admit. He was the one she could trust more than anyone, the one who promised he'd never betray her years ago. Yet months into a relationship with her that was exactly how she felt. She felt betrayed.

There was constant movement on the platform as she worked on trying to find a cause of death but she couldn't tell you who was there or who she had spoken to. Her entire focus was on the ongoing conversation going in her head and finding out who killed two women who just wanted to be together.

"Perhaps that's the key." She said out loud startling everyone on the platform who hadn't heard her say a word outside of scientific answers when approached all morning. "Maybe it's not about one woman seeking revenge because two others fell in love. Maybe it's about those two people who fell in love instead." Temperance mused.

"Dr. Brennan?" Cam said obviously as confused about her outburst as she was once she had realized she had said it. Sighing she looked up from the femur she had been examining.

"Sorry, it's nothing. I just think we've been focusing on finding a way to convict the wife and it's clouding the true reasoning of the murder. We're looking in the wrong place." None of their evidence was adding up. Some of it was pointing to the wife but nothing on the bones confirmed it.

"You have been awfully quiet this morning, is everything alright?" Her friend asked and Temperance nodded quickly.

"Yes, of course. I have simply been trying to find the cause of death so Booth can be informed. It doesn't typically take this long to log it and I find myself frustrated." It wasn't exactly dishonest but she definitely wasn't prepared to share anything going on in her personal life with anyone at the lab just yet.

She stared at the remains for two more hours before she told Cam she was heading off to lunch. She needed air and the longer she was in the lab the more suffocated she felt. The case wasn't coming together and she couldn't focus enough to figure out why that was. Sitting in her car she let out a frustrated scream before laying her head against the steering wheel.

With no intentions on eating she drove to her apartment and tiredly opened the door. She had no reason to be tired outside of her lack of caffeine and groaned wishing she hadn't picked up their clothes. "Bones?" She heard after her outburst and she yelped and jumped seeing Booth sitting up from laying on the couch.

"Booth what are you doing here?" She was still frightened, not expecting him to be there. "Why aren't you at work?" Temperance continued a small smile on her face at seeing him despite how angry she currently was. However he looked so defeated as he put his arms on his lap and looked down at the floor and she frowned. "Booth?"

"Everyone was pissing me off so I left for a bit." He shrugged looking over at how reserved she seemed, like all of her walls had closed up around her. Slowly she walked over to him and sat on the chair across from him. "Why aren't you at the lab?" Nothing had come in about the case so he knew she hadn't been looking for him regarding the remains.

"I couldn't concentrate." She admitted softly and he frowned knowing that wasn't like her to admit no matter what the circumstances were. "I decided to take an early lunch but I wasn't hungry so I just came here." Booth knew she was purposely not making eye contact with him and his chest hurt knowing what he had put her through this morning.

"Bones, can we talk?" He whispered moving so he was kneeling in front of her, his hand covering her knee. "I want to apologize for this morning and most of all I want to talk to you about it." He couldn't avoid it any longer, not when he had already handled it wrong to start with. When she didn't say anything he sighed and chose to talk anyways knowing that at least she was listening to him, he knew she was always listening.

"Going back over there, to war, has never been something I wanted to do. Never. I never wanted to go back after last time and I didn't think the Army wanted me to go back so the thought didn't cross my mind. When the Corporal approached me I was pissed, I'm not military not anymore, I'm FBI, I take pride in being FBI." He spoke softly, his thumb moving in circles across her knee. "I didn't tell you because I figured they'd go away and there wouldn't be anything to talk about, but when they kept calling and sent me another letter I knew I had to talk to them or they wouldn't go away."

He paused as she finally looked him in the eye and he sighed at the tears welled up in her eyes. Carefully he reached up with his other hand and cupped her cheek. "So I met with them, I set up a meeting planning on telling them to go to hell but they made me listen to them before I did so. It's a training position to help young shoulders work with civilians in Afghanistan, some field work because there is no getting away from that, but they drove a hard bargain on why they want me to be the one to make sure these kids coexist over there and make it home alive." The guilt of what he did as a sniper was something he was never going to get over, but something about the thought of helping other kids to be better soldiers felt like it could help. Yet another part of him thought it would only make him feel worse.

"I told them I didn't know what to tell them, I couldn't very well tell them to go to hell like I planned so I just sort of left feeling guilty and confused and I knew I needed to talk to you. Hell I should have been talking to you from the very beginning because you're the only one in this world to make me not feel like shit about my past." Pausing he sighed. "Instead I hurt you and I hate myself more for that than anything I've ever done in my life." He smiled slightly as her hand wrapped around his wrist at her cheek and she leaned against it. She wasn't pulling away from him, he saw that as a good sign.

"I admit that learning that you kept something of this caliber hurt me greatly." Bones said softly and he bit his lip and looked to the ground. "However this morning I asked to be a part of the conversation and to be given the chance to give my opinion and you told me no. That hurt me more than anything." He knew it was hard for her to admit such a thing and felt his own tears well to his eyes at the thought of causing her pain.

"Bones, you tell me not to go and I'll make the call right now and turn them down, I won't have a second thought about it. This morning when I told you I didn't want you to tell me not to go, I knew it would be me taking the easy way out of telling them no instead of getting over my own demons that haunt me at the thought of saying no." Her eyebrows furrowed and he knew she was thinking over what he meant by his words. "If I say no, what will happen to those kids who need someone like me to teach them to not get themselves killed? If I say yes, will it really counteract all the terrible things I did when I was a kid like them myself? Either way I say yes or no I'm losing myself again to the Army and I hate that they put me in this position."

He let out a slow breath. "So I asked you not to tell me not to go because no matter what I do I still become a bad guy and I don't know how to move on from that just yet. I thought I'd deal with it myself, which was a mistake because I just hurt you in the process and honestly I need you to talk to me about it. I love you and your opinion matters to me."

She was silent for a long minute which he respected, instead of pushing her he just continued to kneel in front of the chair rubbing her knee with one hand and her cheek with the other. "You are a good man, Booth." She finally said and he hummed warily because he certainly didn't feel like he was. "The Army asked the right person to do that job, because they know that you would do everything in your power to train other soldiers to be just as heroic and good as you are. I don't particularly like the idea of you going to war, but I understand considering the position."

He nodded slowly taking in her words, letting her work through what she wanted to say. "I don't want you to leave, it's very selfish of me to say and I can't believe it's a thought that's running across my mind but it's true." Before he could agree to not go she took his hand from her cheek and laced it with her own. "I know you though Booth, I know how much you love this country and how much honor you take in serving it. I can't tell you not to go when I know that a part of you wants to honor it by going back into the Army because they personally requested you to do so." She shrugged and sighed, rubbing her temple with her free hand. "I won't be the one to tell you yes or no about going, I can't make the decision for you but I do support you no matter what you want to go."

His eyes lit up surprised that she wasn't breaking up with him for lying to her or pushing him away for betraying her trust. "I love you too much to not support you, Booth." She said with a small smile having must've noticed his shocked expression by her admission. Chuckling, he leaned forward and kissed her lightly. "Perhaps if you choose to go, I'll reach out to the director of the dig in the Maluku Islands. I can't see myself being here without you for even a day, let alone a year." He remembered asking her not to go the second she had brought up the idea of the dig and immediately felt guilty that he hadn't allowed her to have the same conversation with him. That he hadn't shown the same support for her career.

"Wow I'm really not doing well as a boyfriend, am I? Here you are being incredible after I was horrible to you and yet when you were asked to leave the country for the year I told you not to do it without even asking for details." His head hung once again but this time it was her who gripped him by the chin to pull it up.

"Me going to Indonesia does not involve nearly as much details or danger as you going to Afghanistan does Booth. It's pretty simple to assume what I would have been doing. I also didn't have any desire to go so when you told me you didn't want me to, it was easy to turn down the offer. My situation and yours is completely different." She assured him and he nodded lightly. "Neither of us want to work with other people doing this job here, if we both have the opportunity to advance our careers then that's something we should think and talk about."

Standing up slowly he hovered over her with his hands on both arms of the chair and smiled before kissing her. "I love you Temperance Brennan." He whispered feeling like the world was lifted off his shoulders.

"I love you too, Seeley Booth." She laughed.

|| Okay, hear me out before you send me messages. lol. Canon these two were coming off of a terrible year and heartbreak and were running away from the other. We can't deny that, but we also can't deny that these jobs are who these two beings are. Booth is the honorable Army man who will do anything for his country and Brennan is an Anthropologist who longs to no more about humans and bones. While no one wants to leave their loved ones and leave the country, these two are the ones who can do it and come back stronger as a couple than before. (or will they? you'll have to continue reading to see ;)) So yeah my apologies to everyone who told me not to send them away, but honestly this was going to happen when I first started this story. It's all apart of my happy Bones world that I live in in my head and I have a lot of plans for them.