(The Secret in the Service)

This story was suggested by anne1585. I hope this is what you wanted.

I don't own Bones.

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She was finally resting and the children were asleep. Unable to sleep, Booth left the bedroom as quietly as he could and walked down to Christine's bedroom. Leaning against the doorframe, he watched his daughter sleep and marveled how she could sleep so peacefully. He and Brennan struggled to give their kids a life they had never had and for the most part they had been successful. It was those times that they had failed that worried Booth.

Though she was so young, Christine had had adventures that worried her father. She had been on the run for several months with her mother when she was a toddler and when she was just five years old she had lost her home after it was destroyed when her father had been attacked and almost killed. Booth was imprisoned for several months for a crime he didn't commit and then a year later, he was almost killed again when he'd tried to help Jared retrieve a list of undercover FBI agents from a traitor. His daughter had lost two uncles and a great-grandfather in about a year and it just seemed that the losses kept coming.

Softly, his words barely above a whisper, Booth apologized. "I'm so sorry, Baby. If I could give you an ordinary a life I would. I really would." The thought that his little girl had suffered because of things he had done, made Booth question whether or not he was a good father. He tried so hard to be a good man, a good parent, but he knew he had failed several times. All he could do was vow to move on and strive to be the father his children needed him to be.

Restless, Booth moved away from doorway and made his way to the living room. A gentle rain was falling outside and some of the drops beat softly against the picture window. The sound pleasant, Booth sat down on the couch, closed his eyes and tried to relax.

Before too much time had passed, the image of Neil Stockton dying on the street and after that the death of Agent Walker invaded his mind. So many deaths and they kept piling up on his cosmic balance sheet. He had killed Stockton to save the President of the United States and Walker had died while trying to do the same, but still these were two more deaths he felt responsible for. It seemed like the more he struggled to fix that sheet, to balance good deeds with bad deeds the longer his sheet grew. He wasn't sure what was going to happen when he died and faced God. Would God understand and forgive him?

"Booth." Brennan sat down next to her husband and placed her hand on his thigh. "Why don't you come to bed? You're tired and you've had a long day."

Slowly, Booth opened his eyes and turned his head to stare at his wife. "Bones, you're still sick. You should be in bed."

"I'm much better." Brennan's cold had been fairly bad earlier that evening, but the cold medicine seemed to have kicked in and the humidifier in the bedroom had seemed to make her breathing easier, at least for now. "Are you thinking about Neil Stockton?"

He knew that she was worried about him, but he really didn't want her sitting in the living room. Their bed was much warmer and he worried the chill air was going to aggravate her condition. Reaching over to the top of the couch, Booth removed the blanket folded on top, unfolded it and placed it around his sick wife. "If you're going to be out here at least cover up. You really should be in bed."

Brennan knew Booth well and she knew he was trying to divert his sadness by worrying about her. "I'm sorry that you had to kill Neil Stockton, but you had to do it. The President's life was in peril and you had to stop Stockton. This is no one's fault but Neil Stockton."

If there was one thing he could count on that was good in this world it was that Brennan had his back. He knew that she loved him and she supported him in everything he did. "It's just that if I'd figured out it was Neil sooner, maybe I could have arrested him before he was on the street with that gun. If my game had been just a little better, maybe he'd be alive and so would Walker."

"Nonsense." Brennan gripped his knee, trying to get his full attention. "You relied on the evidence at hand. It looked like Agent Walker was potentially an assassin. He was your primary suspect in the murder of a Secret Service agent and he tried his best to keep you out of that case using the specious excuse that John Wilkes Booth was one of your ancestors. That was ridiculous. You're a decorated war veteran and you've proved your loyalty to this country many times. All the evidence pointed to Walker and you were right to fear that he'd planned to assassinate the President. It was you and Aubrey on the street, alert and doing your jobs that alerted you to the fact that Neil Stockton was the real threat to the President and not Walker. You were able to stop Stockton and by doing so you saved the President's life. There was nothing else you could have done."

Her words were a balm to his tormented soul. She always seemed to know how to cut to the chase and say what he needed to hear. "Thank you . . . thank you for being on my side."

"Where else would I be, Booth?" Brennan smiled and placed her hand gently on the side of his face. "You are the most honorable man that I know . . . now, let's go to bed. Sitting out here is probably not a good idea, but I don't want you to be by yourself. Come to bed and keep me company."

Booth stood up and pulled Brennan to her feet, the blanket falling from her shoulders. "Yeah, I turned the heater up a little while ago, but I think the temperature outside must be dropping."

As they walked down the hallway, Brennan sneezed and pulled several tissues from her pajama pants pocket and wiped her raw nose. "I really despise being ill. It's unfair that you have such a poor diet and rarely get sick and I, who eat no meat and little sugar is beset with every cold virus that exists."

Amused, Booth chuckled. "Bones, you're rarely sick and you know it."

One more sneeze and Brennan hurried into their bedroom and got into bed as quickly as possible, pulling the blankets up to her nose. "Well, I am sick more often than you are and that is clearly an injustice."

As he unbuttoned his shirt, Booth shook his head at his wife. "Well, I got good genes Bones . . . well sort of. My bones are rotting, but at least I don't get a lot of colds or the flu."

"Um, your bones aren't rotting, Booth." Brennan knew that most of her husband's bone problems stemmed from being abused as a child, being tortured while a prisoner of war and having a refrigerator blown up in front of him. "You're just feeling the effects of being abused in the past. I do wish I did have your immune system though."

His shirt removed, Booth unzipped his pants and let them fall to his ankles. "Well, at least I inherited something good from my parents." Stepping out of his pants, he picked them up and draped them on the chair near the closet. That done, he moved onto the bed, pulled the blankets up around his shoulders and placed his arms around his wife. "Let me warm you up a little."

Pleased to have the extra heat from Booth's body next to her, Brennan smiled. "Thank you. You are an excellent additional source of heat."

"Well, thank you." Booth closed his eyes and sighed. "By the way, when you get better, I plan to generate more heat for you."

Brennan giggled. "I'll look forward to that."

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