Seeley Booth was bored. Tear inducing, mind numbingly bored. He was antsy and restless and didn't know how much more of this he could take. He missed his job, he missed being outside doing normal stuff, and he missed his son. But most of all, he missed Bones.
The last time he'd seen her face, it was as it faded to black, tears running down her cheeks, pleading with him to stay. It physically hurt him that he had blacked out and been unable to obey her, and it had taken him days before he could conjure up a mental image of her face that wasn't the one he so desperately wanted to forget.
He had only a vague recollection of his boss – Deputy Director Cullen approaching him when he was in his hospital bed, telling him that this was the best opportunity to catch the guy he had driven underground, the man who had vowed that the only way Booth would ever see him again was at his funeral. Booth had agreed to the plan, wanting to finally get his man, but he was also heavily under the influence of pain relief meds and so would have agreed to pretty much anything.
Two weeks in an FBI safe house hadn't sounded so bad at first. He wasn't looking forward to so much time apart from Bones, but he was still recovering from the gunshot wound so he wouldn't have been able to work, and at one point, he actually found himself looking forward to having a couple of weeks to recuperate with nothing else to do but watch TV, maybe read a couple of books, but the reality had proven to be different to what he had anticipated.
He was in the hospital for the first week, recovering from the gunshot. He was in a private room under a false name, with two FBI agents constantly guarding the door. Seeley Booth 'died' in the hospital. Craig Collins - the new identity temporarily assigned to Booth - was treated for a gunshot wound then subsequently discharged from the hospital to a residence on the outskirts of Washington DC that was the FBI safe house. Craig Collins had no visitors, no contact with anyone but the medical staff and the two FBI agents assigned to conceal him and make sure he stuck to the rules. It was a lonely existence and Booth suddenly had a new respect for people forced into witness protection.
The safe house was a non-descript, single storey, white clapboard cladded family home. The inside was comfortable, but basic and Booth couldn't help but wonder who had decorated the place. The décor was fairly modern, but the mismatched floral furnishings looked like something his Grandma Alice would have picked out. He had a TV at least and there were a few pieces of gym equipment in the basement to help him regain his strength before he had to take down the sonofabitch that made this isolation necessary.
Booth had got sick of the TV real quick and the books he had requested couldn't hold his attention. His mind kept drifting back to Bones, wondering if she was okay, how she was doing without him there. Even though he was officially 'dead' he knew the Bureau would want to maintain their relationship with the Jeffersonian ready for when he returned. He speculated which agent she might have temporarily been assigned in his absence and if they'd had a case yet. Booth couldn't think of a time when they'd gone longer than a week or two without a case so he assumed it was highly probable that they were working on one right at that moment. Consequently, the thought of Bones out in the field without him brought on a round of unpleasant heart palpitations, suddenly finding the lack of knowledge about how she was or if she was safe unbearable.
He wasn't allowed outside the house in case he was seen. He couldn't talk to anyone on the phone, not even his son who he missed terribly. He usually only had Parker on weekends and for the occasional vacation, so Booth was accustomed to not seeing him. But to not be able to even talk to his son, to say sorry for not being there, to reassure him that he was alright and that he loved him was awful. The team at the Bureau who were responsible for keeping Booth's faked death a secret had assured him that everyone on the list that he had hastily written from his hospital bed had been informed about the situation, and that had been the only small crumb of comfort he'd had to cling onto.
But he was only just clinging on, by his fingernails. Unable to complete his usual exercise routine because of his injury, and the treadmill in the basement a poor substitute for running outside, he felt like he'd got all this energy stored up inside making him feel like he was going stir crazy, and he was counting down the hours and minutes until he could get out of there.
When he finally did get out of there though, it was to attend his own funeral. Something which not only made Booth feel uneasy, but also felt very macabre. Both with the army and the FBI, he had faced many situations in the line of duty that could have resulted in his death, and many times, when he had thought that his number was up, he had speculated who might be at his funeral. He just never imagined he would get to find out, and even though it wasn't his real funeral and none of his family were going to be there, it was still going to be really weird. He'd had his directions about what was going to happen. Booth was going to be in disguise as one of the guards of honour. He was to watch for his target and take him down by any means necessary. It all sounded simple enough, but Booth just had to hope that Bones was good enough at acting not to give the game away. He knew how well she could act from their undercover work, but this was an unprecedented situation, and he wouldn't be able to guide her through it. He could only hope that Sweets or maybe someone else at the Bureau had the sense to coach her. If she allowed them to that is.
Thinking about how Bones might react to Sweets trying to instruct her on how to act at his funeral made Booth laugh, wishing he could have been a fly on that wall. God, he just missed her so much. Two weeks apart with zero contact had been far too long. He loved her with every fibre of his being and being separated from her had induced an aching hollow in his chest, growing larger every day, that would not be filled until they were reunited.
Not a day had gone by that Booth hadn't thanked God that for whatever reason, in an unguarded moment, Bones had thrown caution to the wind and decided to listen to her instincts rather than her brain. The past few months had been the happiest of his life and even though he sometimes still worried about the motivation behind Bones' sudden change of heart and what it meant for the future, he wouldn't change it for the world.
Booth had known since the first time they kissed outside that pool hall in the pouring rain that he was falling in love with Bones. Her subsequent rejection and then her furious declaration that she would never work with him again hurt him deeply. He tried so hard to forget about her; going on dates, finding himself a girlfriend, but he still couldn't get Temperance Brennan out of his head. He wound up spending almost a year searching, waiting for the perfect case just so he had an excuse to try to get her to work with him again. He justified his persistence by telling himself it was because she was the best and working with her would give him an advantage not just in his career but also in his quest to even up his cosmic balance sheet.
After the Cleo Eller case, when they started working together properly as partners, Booth had questioned if he had romanticised how he had felt about her during that first ever case. She was even more haughty, arrogant, and impulsive than he remembered, and she irritated him, a lot. He persevered though and learned to tolerate her more negative personality traits because she was brilliant and, she helped him solve cases he would have had difficulties resolving otherwise.
As they spent more and more time together, Booth began to see more of what was underneath the arrogance and the hard exterior. Her passion for her work, the compassion she demonstrated for the dead, the way she strived for the truth no matter the cost, and her desire for justice were just some of the things that reminded him of what had attracted him to her in the first place. He chipped away at her tough façade and saw her vulnerability, her secret desire to belong to a family, her huge heart that had been broken more than once - not by a lover but by the people who were supposed to keep her safe, her family.
Booth felt himself falling deeper in love with her every day, but he'd had to accept that it was unlikely it would ever be reciprocated. Since that first kiss, she had never shown any desire for a romantic relationship with him, maintaining that love was a mere chemical reaction and therefore temporary, a theory which Booth had been arguing against for years, apparently without success. There was also the line that he had drawn between them borne out of fear for her safety. Cam got too close to him and ended up a victim, nearly losing her life in the process. They were both part of his team and he felt responsible for all of the squints, not just Bones and Cam. But Bones was his partner. She was the squint, and he was the cop. He was personally responsible for her safety. It was up to him to protect her, and he knew that if he failed and anything were to happen to Bones, it would kill him.
However, that line he drew, while still important, had grown ever fainter as Booth and Brennan grew closer than ever to each other. When she had turned up on his doorstep the day after Christmas, the last thing he had expected her to do was kiss him. When he questioned her reasons for her unexpected actions, she had struggled to articulate her feelings, but thanks to the years spent working with her interpreting her unique language, he understood what she was trying to say. She loves him, and not just as a friend or partner. She was in love with him and suddenly Booth realised he had been wrong to draw that line. He had done it to selfishly protect himself, but at the time, it felt like the right thing to do. He had also known then that Bones wasn't ready for what he wanted, didn't know if she would ever be ready. So, he drew that line not quite able to allow her to be so close to him but unwilling to let her go. It didn't really change anything between them, except maybe to temporarily push her into Sully's arms. But they remained close, closer than partners should be, and everyone knew it. So, what difference would it make if they were even closer? Bones was no more vulnerable if they were a couple than she was already. As long as she remained his partner, she would always be in danger and he was no more prepared to sever their partnership than he was to spurn the opportunity to be with the most remarkable woman he had ever met.
Since that first night together at his apartment, they had secretly spent several months together as a couple without anyone suspecting a thing. That was until Pam Nunan. Her stalker tendencies were obvious the first time Booth spoke to her, and he wasn't all that surprised when he suddenly became the next object of her affections. Bones thought telling Pam about them would make her back off, but Booth had insisted it was unnecessary and too risky. Keeping their relationship a secret was working for them and Booth was uncertain about the future of their partnership if anyone were to find out. Besides, despite Sweets' warnings, Booth thought Pam seemed harmless. However, when Booth saw her aiming a gun at a singing Bones in the Checker Box, he knew he'd misjudged Pam Nunan massively. He didn't have time to think about his actions that night, he jumped in front of the bullet, acting on the deep-rooted instinct inside of him that nothing was important as keeping Bones safe. Even if they hadn't fallen in love with each other, even if the outcome were different and the bullet was the one that ended his life, Booth knew he would do the same thing again in a heartbeat. Her life would always be more important than his own.
Booth's memories of his Bones provoked an urgent need to be close to her, but that was impossible. There were still two days until his funeral, and he had to stay hidden or all of this will have been for nothing. He paced to the bedroom and went straight to the drawer that held his wallet, the only thing in this goddamn place that was actually his. They wouldn't let him have any of his belongings from his own place in case they were spotted removing them from his apartment. His lack of possessions and the unfamiliarity of the house he was staying in made him almost feel like he had died, prompting him irrationally to check for his pulse every so often, just to make sure he was still alive and not existing as some sort of ghost or angel.
He opened the worn brown leather wallet and pulled out two pictures. The first picture was of Parker. He must have been about 3 years old in the picture, with his mop of blonde curls and large brown eyes, smiling widely at the camera. Booth's heart ached with a longing to see his son and he made a silent promise that next weekend, he would do something extra special with his little boy, to make up for the time he had missed with him while he had been in hiding.
The second picture was of Bones. It was a recent picture, taken only a few weeks ago. They'd been at the zoo with Parker, and on a whim, Booth had purchased a disposable camera from the gift shop. Booth used up most of the film taking pictures of Bones and Parker together. His heart felt like it would burst with love as he watched his partner's patience and affection as she answered his son's numerous questions about the animals, automatically simplifying her explanations for him so he would understand. The picture Booth now held in his hands was one he had taken later that night after an exhausted Parker had fallen fast asleep. Booth had picked up the camera from the coffee table where he had dumped it when they had arrived home. There were only a few pictures left on the film, so to use them up, Booth started to take candid snaps of Bones. He remembered laughing when he'd had the film developed seeing her less- than-impressed expression in those few pictures. However, there was one last photo that had taken his breath away. She was smiling at him, her eyes shining like sapphire jewels, her face exuding the warmth and love that she gave only to him. He had immediately trimmed the picture and placed it in his wallet, wanting to always have this photo of her close to him. This was how he wanted to picture her when he closed his eyes, and he knew he wouldn't rest until he saw her look at him like that again in the flesh.
He checked his watch for what felt like the hundredth time that day. Time was going so slowly, dragging so that every minute felt like an hour. Bones would tell him that time was a constant and it was impossible for it to slow down, but that knowledge didn't help. It didn't stop every hour feeling like a lifetime. He began to pace the room, counting the seconds, wishing the time away. Math had never been his strong point, but he had been calculating and keeping track of how much time he had left down to the minute. Checking his watch again, he calculated that he had 2 days, 48 hours, 2880 minutes, until he gets to see his love again and it couldn't come a minute too soon.