A/N: Before this becomes confusing, this is meant to be set in Boy in a Tree, with dialogue snippets from the Pilot in the thought process."Bold and italics" is actual dialogue from the actual episode taking place. "Italics" are past dialogue, but only in thoughts.

Prompt: Self conscious, for livejournal community 100(underscore)situations.

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"You're bad with people, okay? No use being offended by the fact."

But she was offended.

As much as she wanted to say that his words didn't affect her, they did.

Despite all of her scientific knowledge of the brain and the workings of humans that told her words couldn't hurt, not physically, the comment stung. Somewhere deep inside her sure as hell felt as if it was hurting.

She didn't want to admit it, but she cared what Booth thought of her. She cared whether he saw her as intelligent. She cared whether he wanted her help. She wanted him to like her.

"I don't care if men like me."

And the statement had been true at the time, to some extent. She really didn't care, not for the most part, anyway.

But Booth?

She normally categorized her need for his acceptance and approval as wanting to further her career, be more successful. He helped her move forward, didn't he? He put in a good word for her when she needed it.

Brennan knew, however, that that wasn't why she cared, not at all.

It was just easier to want to impress him for professional reasons and ignore the unprofessional ones.

"It'll help us determine exactly when the victim died."

A nudge, and she knew she'd failed, forgotten.

"Your son. We're very sorry for your loss."

But she recovered, embarrassed not by how she made the boy's parents feel, but by how she made Booth feel.

She knew he cared about their feelings far more than she did, and she had let him down.

Brennan shifted her gaze to the floor momentarily, and then to Booth, in a silent request for forgiveness. She was hurt by the pain she saw there, pain that she felt she had caused with her callous mistake, her slip of the tongue.

And her eyes filled with tears as well, and she felt that maybe he had been right after all.

"What if I'm only good with bones and lousy with people?"

It worried her that this quality of hers was so noticeable that he'd brought it up more than once. Was she really that bad at interacting with people? Was she really that cold and unfeeling?

After all,

"My most meaningful relationships are with dead people."

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End