What I Wish I Could've Said

By: Lesera128

Rated: T

Disclaimer: I own nothing... Obviously. Just playing in someone else's sandbox for a bit.

Summary: Hindsight is always 20/20. Everyone has a single moment that they wish they could have said something better than what they actually did. A completely random series of what-if vignettes.

Ch 44: The Time Brennan's World Turned Upside Down

It was raining. Her world had been turned upside down for so long that Dr. Temperance Brennan didn't know if she even remembered what the right side up was anymore. She felt cold and alone and foolish and embarrassed and riding in FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth's black Toyota Sequoia SUV was the absolute last place on Earth that she wanted to be in that moment.

She wanted to be anywhere but there. Absolutely anywhere. She wanted to be gone, to be as far away from him as possible. That's why she had cut him off, tried to detach herself from things as she studied the murder of Dr. Lauren Eames. She was aching to the point where the pain felt as if she had been cut in two and was bleeding a fatal wound. She had no idea how to staunch the blood loss. And she had no idea when the pain was going to end.

So this is it, a part of her mind echoed in an eerily detached voice. This is what it's like to finally feel. This is it. I can finally feel, and it hurts. It hurts so damn much. I-I…damn.

The walls she'd spent a lifetime building around herself had cracked and fallen like the walls of Jericho. She was breached, her defenses destroyed, whether by Booth's doing, her own, or some sadomasochistic combination of the two.

Logic. Rationality. Emotional Detachment. They were her refuge. They were her lifeline. They were the way she could get through one moment to the next. Except they didn't exist anymore. They were gone, and she was alone. All alone. With nothing left but the pain.

"That was her regret," Brennan's emotions finally cracked through the narrative ramble that her brain had taken to spewing at Booth in a detached recitation of the events of her world in the last few days. The last few days where she'd destroyed any part of her protective coat as her world imploded.

What's happening to me? Brennan wondered. What have I done?

Finally looking up at him, her blue eyes red rimmed and swollen in puffiness as the emotions and tears simultaneously poured out of her. "I got the signal, Booth."

What was the signal again? Was it from the universe? From God? If some almighty power was finally choosing this way to reveal Himself to her, it just made Brennan even more pissed off than she was before, which was saying something.

Is this His way of mocking me? Brennan wondered. Is he really the vengeful God that Booth believes in? Is this way of God or the Universe or whatever making me pay for the pain I've made Booth feel over the last seven years?

Shaking her head, trying to clear her vision as she struggled to regain some semblance of the control that was so important to her. Control. Detachment. Rationality. Calm. Her.

Please, she moaned into the ether. Please give me back my sanity. Please give me back myself. Please…Booth? Please.

The space of several heartbeats continued to pass as Booth remained silent, guiding the car back towards Brennan's apartment. Shaking her head, Brennan finally continued speaking.

"I don't want to have any regrets."

The words hung in the air, possibly to be taken in so many different ways. Booth remained silent, almost as if waiting for Brennan to continue. When she didn't, not even able to bring herself to look at him, Booth finally spoke.

"Um..."

The tone in his voice finally made Brennan look up. The calm and detached emotional façade with which he'd looked at her since he'd returned from Afghanistan seemed to have finally cracked. There was emotional coloring his troubledly handsome face. The look was a reminder of the pain that Brennan had seen in his eyes some months before and had not been able to recognize the night she'd rejected him in front of the Hoover.

"I'm with someone. Bones," he seemed to tell her through a choked sob. The pain was making his normally calm timbre crack as he struggled to find the words. "And, uh…"

This is what you felt? Brennan finally wondered as she looked up and had yet another realization. This is how you felt? This is why you hurt that night? Jesus, Booth. What did I do to you? How did you stand it?

"Hannah?" Booth continued, both an explanation and a question seemingly offered in a single breath. "She's…"

The words were like what Brennan imagined it felt like having a wound cauterized by carbolic acid was like. Sharp. Hurtful. Painful. Blinding, searing pain. Meant to help, but destructively corrosive in the way they tried to stop the metaphorical bleeding.

"She's not a consolation prize," Booth continued with a louder choked sob as tears ran down his cheeks. "I love her."

An anguished cry escaped Brennan's lips. The sound was like another spear through Booth's own heart. Still, for him, there was no going backwards and he knew the only way was forward. It had to be.

"You know, the last thing I want to do is hurt you, but those are the facts," he whispered.

Brennan, at a loss for what else to do, shook her head as her jaw hardened.

"Tough love," she finally muttered. "To me. Not Hannah," she sighed. Finally, her blue eyes bright with pain and emotion still, she shook her head. "Always trying to take the high road with me, Booth, aren't you? To save me from myself maybe?"

"Bones—"

The rawness of her gapping wounds made her swallow once and then wave him off. "No," she begged, desperate again. "I heard you the first time. Please. I understand. But don't…please don't say them again. I can't stand it. I can't…I-I can't stand the hurt anymore, Booth."

This time it was Booth's turn to cry out. Being cruel to be kind, he just realized, wasn't as easy or as successful as he thought it would be.

"Bones," he began again. "I-I…I didn't want this. I didn't want to fall in love with another woman. I didn't want to start over. But I had to…I had to. I had to stop feeling…."

"Like I feel right now?" Brennan sighed as she shook her head before finally meeting his eyes. "I…I-I get it now, Booth. I understand. It just…it hurt too much…."

Slowly nodding his head, he breathed. "Yeah, it did."

Her cold and clammy pale white fingers of her right hand suddenly curled around the door handle of the Sequoia's passenger door as her left hand grasped the seatbelt and she clicked the button to free herself of the safety restraint. The Sequoia's warning system alerted Booth to what she was doing before he realized it himself.

"Bones, what are you doing?" he asked, a fresh wave of panicked concern washing over his haggard visage.

"I can't be here right now, Booth," she breathed, barely audible over the pounding rain that pelted the Sequoia around them in a physical manifestation of the storm that ragged between the two partners. "Please, pull over."

"No—" Booth shook his head. "I can't—"

"Pull over," Brennan demanded. "I can't be here right now." Looking up, she pleaded one last time. "Please."

Afraid she would jump from the moving SUV if he didn't do as she asked, Booth slowly nodded. He pulled over and watched as Brennan breathed three deep breaths, almost as if stealing herself against what she had to do as she opened the door and took one last look at him. The look was something that Seeley Booth had never seen on Temperance Brennan's face before. Pure raw and unadulterated vulnerability.

"Bones—"

Shaking her head, she tilted her head sadly and cried out in anguish two final words before she disappeared into the night.

"Goodbye, Booth."

-TBC-

A/N: Been a while since I posted one of these. However, "The Doctor in the Photo" has been kicking around the good ole noggin' for a while, and this eventually spewed out. For any longterm readers still around, heya. For any new readers, pleased to meet you. Longterm Bones (Booth/Brennan) writer. I've begun tossing some random updates to my work. As some people may known, Brennan angst is my specialty, so I hope you enjoyed this even if I felt more than a tad bit rusty. If you're so inclined, a review would be greatly appreciated, even if just to say hi!