There will be a long author's note to close this short fic. For now, I'm doing a rewatch and it's interesting to see things from the lens of 10-15 years' worth of additional cultural (and personal) maturity on certain subjects from when these episodes aired. One thought that struck me is that approaching addiction is quite different now from 2009/2010, and that Brennan's reaction might have been a lot different with the benefit of a modern outlook. Bones was sometimes a bit progressive on certain social topics so I don't think this is out of character, per se, but perhaps not something that the writers would have considered at the time.

Note there are spoilers up to and including Season 5, Episode 16 (5x16), The Parts in the Sum of the Whole.

"You. You're the gambler. For once, make that work for you." - Sweets, The Parts in the Sum of the Whole (5x16).

A second passed in silence. Then another.

"How dare you. How dare you."

"I'm sorry, Doctor Brennan?" Sweets asked, taken aback by her immediate reaction to his plea. Booth looked uneasily at her, the hope in his eyes threatening to suffocate her. Her nostrils flared both in anger and to help her lungs push air across her vocal cords despite the tightness in her throat.

"Booth is an addict. There is no way of 'making it work for him.' He's only been in recovery for a few years, and now you're steering him back to his addictive tendencies? Do you have any idea what you're asking of him?" Her storm-colored eyes belied the great tempest of her fury. She hadn't been this angry since finding out she wasn't informed of her partner's fake death. Booth was frozen beside her. She assumed he knew from experience any perceptible movement risked directing her ire toward him.

"I cannot believe you would ask him to gamble again, to risk sending him down a road that would inevitably lead to the loss of his job, his ability to see his son, and the relationships he maintains with the many people he loves."

"Doctor Brennan, I was being metapho-" she held up her hand, her jaw clenching as her indignation rose.

"I understood the metaphor. I'm telling you I don't agree with its sentiment. It doesn't matter if the aim of the bet is to win a game of craps, or to win…" her tone implied her disdain for the idea she could be 'won'. Sweets had the grace to look guilty, at least, at the insinuation he hadn't realized he'd made. "Gambling is gambling. Today, our relationship, but what follows that as his habit escalates? His safety? His life? No. I'm disappointed, Doctor Sweets" she nearly spat the title at him, "that someone with all your supposed training and intellect would not understand the damage that could be done by that encouragement. Would not understand that addiction is addiction, even through a different outlet. And that you would suggest in such a cavalier manner that Booth risk everything to gamble once more, whatever the nature of the bet."

Her husky timbre, laced with that sinister edge of extreme emotion, made her words sit heavily between them. While she struggled to compose her breathing, the two men subconsciously held their breath as they waited for the next verbal strike. Her exclamation consumed the air in the room, as all three stood in silence for several beats. Sweets' head hung low - in shame, she hopes - his eyes looking at the floor and his shoulders slumped.

Brennan was in no mood for whatever garbled response he came up with. Flicking her eyes to Booth and finding him already looking at her, per usual, she breezed past Sweets and out of the FBI building, her partner on her heels. When they reached the steps outside the Hoover, she felt Booth stop her abruptly with a hand on her arm.

"Thank you," he rasped. As she turned to face him, she first noticed his eyes, still downcast, were dewy. He wouldn't cry, she knew, but he was "a bit choked up", as he'd put it. In her periphery she noticed him fiddling with his pocket. Flipping his token over and over again.

"For what, Booth?" His eyes met hers for the first time since her outburst in the psychologist's office.

"For pulling me back from the edge, Bones. For making me see the damage that bet would have done, the weakness in giving into the habit. I…" he paused, his own tight throat lending an almost desperate edge to his voice, "would have thought I was being brave instead of the coward I've been, and would have come out here and given into that desire to bet again. I see now that the gamble would never have worked, couldn't work." Her eyes softened as he spoke, her anger overwhelmed by some other feeling for the man in front of her. His hand was still on her arm, not desperately gripping now but reassuringly anchoring them together. She's grown used to the touch of his hands and knew how to read them. This was as much for his own comfort as it was for hers. The safety of the familiar gesture emboldened her to use a conversational ploy she did not often practice.

"What would the gamble have been, Booth?" She asked in a much softer voice. Her eyes searched his but there was no need, his answer was immediate.

"Us."

She sucked in a breath. Knowing and hearing were different, apparently.

"Romantically, I mean," he clarified and despite himself, despite the heaviness of the emotions that weighed on him, he found the corner of his mouth quirking up at the automatic need to lay out his meaning explicitly for her. Her own barely-there smile in response let him know she had understood without the explanation, but appreciated it nonetheless.

"A gamble is something made with little to no evidence as to the success of the outcome," she began hesitantly. She looked down to discover her hand had found his hand on her arm and was holding it, their fingers entwined. She met his eyes again, gathered herself and told him in an emphatic voice,

"I suspect that I am not capable of what you would have asked me. Of opening myself up, of opening my metaphorical heart to someone. That I don't have the capacity to change myself or my life in that way." Desperation filled those warm, reassuring brown eyes of his, hurrying her next words. "But you know me, Booth, perhaps better than I know myself. I told you once that to see myself through your eyes would give me comfort. So don't gamble."

Her hand squeezed his for a brief moment. She'd asked him for evidence, and evidence he'd provide. He took half a step closer to her. The front of their coats brushed against each other.

"Bones, do you remember baby Andy?" Her faint smile grew to a grin.

"Of course, Booth."

"What happened with that bridge?" She looked down again at their hands.

"It opened a few months ago. The town…it'll be slow. It'll take years to put right. But the town is growing again, jobs are coming back. Those families have hope of a better life, now."

"That's heart, Bones. What you did for that kid, for his town, so he could have a better life? That's heart." Her eyes rose to meet his as he spoke. He took in a breath to continue but her quiet voice interrupted his testimony.

"I keep in touch. With his adoptive parents. They send me photos of him…I keep them in my desk drawer," she admitted in a soft exhale. He took her other hand in his and squeezed them both. Their maintained eye contact should have made her uncomfortable but instead it was as reassuring as his grip on her hands.

"What about our little incident under the mistletoe?" His eyebrows waggled and she chuckled in response. "Getting that trailer so your nieces and your family could have a real Christmas? Getting your brother civilian clothes to protect the childhood innocence of his little girls?"

"Heart?"

"Heart, Bones," he confirmed. "How much data do we need here?"

"Two points make a line. I suppose three would be a sufficient sample size to create a trend line," her heart lifted at their easy banter, at his knowing her so well, at their shared history giving way to a glimpse of their shared future. Despite her insistence on a third example, her heart betrayed her logical mind and was ready for whatever they were standing on the edge of. Her body leaned toward him, taking a shuffled step closer so their chests touched.

"Alright. When Zack…," he faltered, the pain in her eyes weakening his resolve even if it wasn't directed at him, "it hurt you. I could tell. But, you never got angry at him."

"I blamed myself," she whispered. They were standing so close her breath ghosted over his chin. "I still do."

"He was your protege, and you were his mentor. That's a natural response." Her mind considered his words, finding them insufficient even if they were factually correct. He could show her the proof, but she had to derive the equation for herself to truly understand the application of the theorem.

"That…that's not why," breathlessly she attempted to vocalize the feeling of wrongness. "That's not why I felt guilty, why it hurt." His lips curved further upward, but otherwise he remained still and silent. He gave her the space to make her deduction.

"Because…" she struggled to identify the feeling, to allow the emotion to resolve into something identifiable. She'd felt that feeling before, she knew, and she let that connection between her distant and recent pasts take form for a few beats. Her synapses fired, sending thought flowing through her neurons in search of the right connection.

As the realization came into being her eyes widened and her held breath released.

"Because Zack was part of my family."

He waited for everything that would come after that statement. For after this would come everything.

"Like Angela, Hodgins, Cam….even Goodman and Cullen. And," she felt shy again. "And you. They're all part of…of our family."

"Yes Bones."

"And that's still true," the final piece fell into place. She stared straight forward, somewhere near his tie. "Even after everything with Zack. We're still a family. I still love them like my family. I still love my parents, my brother, his family. Angela, Hodgins, even Zack. Even after everything."

"And is worth it, Bones?" Her response was immediate and unqualified.

"Yes. To live a full life, a wide life as Ange would say. Yes, it's worth it Booth. Even at the risk of being hurt again. Even knowing I might lose them, might hurt them or be hurt by them." Her eyes met his once more. She would never forget the pride in his gaze in that moment as they held onto the precipice together.

"Heart?" She asked.

"Heart, Bones," he got out just before she crushed her lips to his.

Author's Note:

I was a real-time watcher of Bones for a long time but stopped keeping up with it after 7x07 (I don't want to spoil anything after this story's episode tag, but I'll just say that episode was a bit too ridiculous even for me). I started a 'rewatch' in early October 2022, which I use air quotes for as I'll be rewatching the first few seasons for the 800th time but anything after 7x07 for more or less the first time. Early in the rewatch I realized I'd probably do another run-through shortly after this one, but started cataloging quotes and moments to watch out for the second time through. This idea couldn't wait, though. I don't hate this episode (sweet beautiful melancholic melodramatic angst stabbing at my heart - it's exquisite), but I hate the writing during the final scene and the entire arc that followed, including how Booth and Brennan got together. I know I'm not alone in this, but after that whole storyline plus 7x07, I just couldn't stick with this show. The writing was a complete betrayal of the characters I'd fallen in love with over the first 4 and a half seasons. I lost trust in the show's ability to tell these stories in a way I felt was faithful to the earlier versions of the characters, and eventually, I had to give up on this show I loved. Years later, I still feel strongly about it, and the more I see of the show post-season 6 the more convinced I am that this show should have been something greater than it actually was, something that it had early on but lost somewhere in season 4/5/6.

Anyway, that lengthy explanation is all to say that this may turn into a series of one-shots or short takes on 5x16, The Parts in the Sum of the Whole. Some might be canon, some 'fixes', and some perhaps lifted from my very old account where I wrote a real-time reaction to the episode over 11 years ago. We'll see. In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this one, and if anyone is still out there reading Bones fanfiction, please let me know what you think. This is far from my best work and far from well-written (I haven't done much writing, creative or otherwise, since college so I am definitely out of practice), but it's one take on how things might have gone if they hadn't decided to prolong the will-they-won't-they dance for a further season and a half.