A/N: You guys are spoiling me with all your great reviews! Not that I'm complaining, of course ;-) To show my appreciation, I have for you another chapter full of fluffy angst. One quick little note, though, first. Booth mentions his education at one point in this one, and I've taken some liberty with the specifics because they haven't yet divulged those details on the show. Everything else should be pretty self-explanatory, so enjoy!

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Brennan sat at her desk attempting to work on one of her latest cases. Every few minutes, though, her eyes would wander away from her computer screen and focus themselves on the stereo sitting on the shelf across the room. Her mind would then follow suit and leave the homicide investigation for memories of dancing with Booth, his breath on her skin, the dimples in his cheeks when he grinned, the sparkle in his eyes as he sang along with the song. She couldn't get past how she felt in his arms, so light and happy, comfortable, safe, loved.

Loved.

There was that word again. She had been trying for a week to convince herself that it wasn't love she felt for Booth, because love wasn't real anyway. Love was just a chemical process in the human body to ensure that people would bond together and have children in furtherance of the species. The need for companionship was similar and also biologically encoded in her brain. But that, unlike love, was a need she understood on a personal level and was willing to acknowledge. It was the reason she had agreed to try online dating in the first place.

And it led her to David. Finding him had been wonderful—he was intellectual, good looking, and easy to talk to. They shared many of the same interests, and enjoyed spending time together. But Brennan knew she never had the same reactions to David that she had to Booth. Her heart never fluttered when David called her by name. She never felt her cheeks grow warm under his gaze. Her stomach never flip-flopped when he touched her. She never had problems concentrating when he was around.

But I'm not looking for any of that.

Those were merely physical responses, and while that aspect of a relationship was nice, it was the cerebral facet that was always most important to her. She'd had that with David. And the biological reactions to Booth she simply chalked up to the attraction for her partner that she had eventually admitted to herself. As her relationship with David progressed, though, she felt an odd emptiness with him, as if something were missing. Brennan realized she hadn't even been that distressed when he broke up with her—she had been more upset over the way he had spoken about Booth.

Her thoughts drifted back to her partner. In the time she had known him, he had always been able to make her feel, despite her determination not to. Anger. Hurt. Determination. Superiority. Inferiority. Vulnerability. Friendship. Comfort. Trust. Affection.

Love.

Love was real. Somewhere deep down in the soul whose existence she denied, she knew it. She loved her parents and brother, loved them even though the scientist in her resolutely adhered to the anthropological explanations for such feelings. In fact, those explanations had actually made it easier for her to accept the feeling because there was a concrete, specific reason for it. With Booth, there was no reason for her emotions. She only knew that when she was with him, or thought of him, she felt different. Better somehow. Like she wasn't alone in the world, no matter what she did or said to alienate other people. Like she had a partner, not just on the job, but in life.

We have a connection.

That's what he had said to her the night she broke up with David, that she and Booth had a connection. She had dismissed it as simple biochemistry at the time, but now she knew differently. They did have some sort of connection to each other, and she didn't know what it was or how it happened. She only knew that she treasured that connection, and the person on the other end of it, more than anything else in the world.

A soft sigh escaped her lips, her eyes still focused on the radio across the room. She wondered if they would dance together again, if he would hold her that way again, if he would see in her face how she felt about him.

She wondered if he would ever feel that way about her.



A little way across town, Booth was sitting at his desk, too, trying to work on one of his current cases and having just as little luck as his partner. His eyes were focused on nothing in particular, but his mind had definitely honed in on a subject it wouldn't let go of.

Brennan was in love with him.

He had seen it in her expression a week ago after they had danced together in her office. He'd caught her staring at him, and though she immediately shifted back into business mode, he had seen the love for him written clearly on her face. He'd caught glimpses of the look before that night—when he used her first name, when he touched her, when he whispered something sweet to her—and he'd always been able to brush it off as a harmless crush, a purely physical attraction. But this time there was no denying it.

Booth sighed heavily and dropped his head into his hands. She couldn't love him…she couldn't. Not because of the things David had called him—rough-mannered and uneducated? His upbringing and six years of night-classes at George Mason University would beg to differ. But David had gotten one thing right.

I'm not good enough for her.

No woman would want to be with a hit man, and that's what he had been during his days as an Army Ranger. He had been a government-sanctioned serial-killer-for-hire, shooting people from long distances because, well, that was his job. He knew intellectually that his actions saved the lives of so many other people, that they were justified because he was fighting a war.

But tell that to the parts of my soul that have rotted away and died.

And that's why she couldn't love him. He would taint her, drag her down into his own private version of hell bit by little bit, like some sort of Midas touch in reverse. He was actually surprised that nothing had gone terribly wrong between them yet, that she could even still stand the sight of him after he told her about his last mission as a sniper. Of course, that had been only one of the many stories he could have chosen. How would she feel if he told her the rest? Would she look at him the way she looked at the murderers they questioned together, sickened and repulsed? Would she try to hide it and fail miserably? Would she come right out and insist on a new partner, or would she try to stick it out with him despite her disgust?

I should ask to be reassigned now.

He dismissed the idea even before it fully formed in his mind. He knew he couldn't stand the thought of Brennan's feelings toward him if she ever discovered the rest of the things he'd done, and by remaining her partner there was a good chance she would find out. But he also knew that he couldn't live with himself if anything happened to her.

And no one will take better care of her than I do.

Booth was absolutely positive of that. He may not have been good enough to deserve her love, but he sure as hell was the one person who would protect her above all else. She was the most important thing in his world, and he knew he'd give his life to keep her safe.

His upper body crumpled onto his desk under the weight of a sudden realization, his head buried in his arms.

Because I love her.