(Between season 5 and 6)

A/N: doccalaban asked for this story. I hope this is what you wanted. (This is a companion story with chapter 90.)

I don't own Bones.

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Once Booth arrived at Camp Black Horse he tried to adapt to his new situation, but he found it harder to do than when he was a younger man. He had been assigned to many hot spots during his military career and they were all starting to blend together into one big nightmare. The unit he was assigned to was alright and the men and women he worked with were decent enough, but they were so young compared to him. Had he ever been this young?

He had only been in Afghanistan for a month and he already missed his son and grandfather. His grandfather was eighty-two years old and what if something happened to him while he was overseas? What if his last visit at the retirement home before he shipped out was the last time he would ever see Pops? And what about Parker? The boy had a part time father as it was and now it was even worse. He was going to be away from the boy for a year and God knows how much his son was going to change while he was gone. Why did he agree to the deployment? What had he been using for brains when he agreed to Colonel Pelant's demands?

He hadn't heard from Brennan and he had been in Kabul for a month. Maybe he was supposed to make the first move. He knew that once Brennan got to Maluku she was going to be busy, but too busy to write? Well, he'd just grab the bull by the horns and write first.

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Booth had been busier than he had counted on. Before he had signed up, he had been told that he was only going to train soldiers in the Afghanistan army to hunt and track down insurgents and that had been true the first month, but things changed the second month and there hadn't been anything he could do about it.

Colonel O'Brian had ordered him out on a mission that he was well qualified for, but the kind of mission he had thought he was finished with. There was a Taliban leader in Khost Province that had murdered several teachers in a school for girls and was threatening to kill anyone that dared to open the school again. The Colonel and given him the order to take the man out and with some help he had killed the murderer, stopping the man's war on schools.

This had not been what he had signed up for and there was nothing he could do to prevent it from happening again. He was a soldier in the United States Army and to decline a mission could cost him a court martial. He wasn't a civilian. He couldn't quit if he didn't like the job.

After that mission, he was feeling lonely, just a little bit guilty and more than a little lost. He had written his second letter to his partner at this time. He hadn't heard from her yet and he was starting to worry about her. Was she working herself into the ground? He knew once she started working on something it was hard to get her to stop. Many times in the past, he had practically kidnapped her from the Lab and taken her out to eat and then taken her home to rest. He worried that her fellow scientists at the dig wouldn't watch over her like they should. Of course, they might all be workaholics like she was and none of them with sense enough to know when to take a day off and rest. Squints could be so single minded and the frustrating part was he was too far away to take care of her.

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He had been out with the kids, teaching them how to track when they came under fire. One of the young men he was training was killed instantly while the rest of the unit had taken cover. Most of his group had been pinned down and they couldn't move without the risk of being killed. Luckily for him, he found himself in a spot that gave the shooter no way to shoot at him or even see him. Booth had slipped over the ridge behind him and worked his way over to where the sniper was hidden. Once the man was in his sight, Booth had shot him and his unit had been safe once more.

While his young men gathered around him, he had pointed out how he had taken the murderer out and used it as a teachable moment. The youngsters had been impressed with his skills and had congratulated him on doing such a fine job. It made Booth feel proud that his charges were so eager to learn under such extreme circumstances and they were willing to learn from him.

On the way back to camp, they were walking along a road they had used many times and one of his young charges had stepped on an IED, killing him and hurting several members of his unit. Booth had been far enough away to avoid most of the destruction, but not all. The top of his lower right arm had been sliced and the cut had been deep. After the wounded were taken care of, Booth had wrapped his cut with a bandage and later had it sewed up back at the base hospital.

The death of his men on his mind, Booth wrote to his partner. He decided not to mention what had happened that day since he was supposed to have a cushy job and wasn't supposed to be at risk. That was what Brennan believed and it was important that she keep thinking his job was safe. The last thing he needed was for her to worry about him. She had enough on her mind as it was.

Since she hadn't written yet, he didn't know if she was in touch with anyone else. Booth assumed that his partner was in touch with her best friend Angela and assumed that Brennan knew about the Lab being closed down. Cam had taken on the job of coroner for the Metro Police once her job as coroner at the Lab was gone. He had thought that there might be problems if he and Brennan had left, but he had hoped everyone at the Lab would pick up the slack and keep things going. Now he knew that hadn't happened and it made him both sad and angry. Cam didn't deserve to lose her job at the Jeffersonian and he hoped it was fixable when they got back.

Once his letter was done, he noticed a spot of blood on the bottom of the paper. When he had been hurt earlier that day he had also received a cut on his right hand, but he had thought a Band-Aid would take care of it. The blood oozing from the Band-Aid meant that he needed to go back to the hospital and see if that needed a stitch or two. Careful to wipe the blood from the paper, he had folded it and placed it in the envelope. He assumed the tiny bit of red would not be noticeable and he didn't feel like rewriting the letter anyway. He was so tired.

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Four months and no letter from Brennan. Booth was starting to get angry. How much time did it take to write a line or two on a piece of paper and mail it? Maybe their partnership was over and she was just too much of a friend to tell him in a letter. It was possible she didn't want to work with him anymore and she might not tell him until they got back state side. Of course, he now had to worry if their friendship was over too. She hadn't written him since they had parted and he wondered if she had decided that their friendship wasn't worth very much either. He didn't know. He never really could read Brennan that well. He tried and sometimes he knew what she was thinking, but other times he didn't get her at all. He really enjoyed their friendship and he knew that she liked their friendship too, but ever since he had asked her to take a chance outside the Hoover their friendship had been strained, almost fragile.

Perhaps they had finally broken that friendship. Maybe it had been too fragile. After all he was just an average cop and she was a genius scientist. Their friendship was unusual and the distance between them may have allowed Brennan to see that being his friend was a mistake. He didn't know. She wouldn't write and tell him. It was so frustrating.

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Sometimes his job seemed to be too much to take. Between training young men to be soldiers and being a sniper at the whim of his commanding officers, he felt that his life was no longer a happy one. It was out of his control and he only had himself to blame. His cosmic balance sheet was racking up kills again and he wasn't sure he would ever be able to fix that. His job at the FBI had allowed him to find murderers and get justice for victims, but now he was the one who doing the killing and he was so worried that God might turn his back on him. He had been to confession so many times in the last few months that he was sure his priest was sick of seeing him show up at service.

He should never have agreed to come back into the service. It was possible his soul was at stake and it might be too late to save it. He wished he had someone like Aldo to talk to, but he didn't and the priest that was available was young and inexperienced. He didn't understand Booth's worries. Father Alexander thought confession was all he needed, but Booth worried that the Father's absolution wasn't enough.

On top of his worries about his soul, he was also sure that his friendship with Brennan was over. It had been five months since they had last seen each other and she had not written to him in all that time. He had hoped she would write him and tell him that their friendship was safe, but no letters left him with only one conclusion. Brennan no longer wanted anything to do with him. Not only was his partnership done, but so was his friendship. He mourned that loss.

He had never had a friend like Brennan before. He tended to be a solitary man and rarely spoke about himself to the few friends he did have. His partner was different. He knew he could tell her anything and she rarely judged him. She knew some of his deepest secrets and yet he had never known her to talk about him to others. She hated gossip as much as he did. Of course, when she had been dating Hacker, she had let slip a little bit of gossip about him, but nothing important and nothing that made him mad at her for very long. She had made a mistake, but one he was sure she wouldn't repeat.

He wrote one last letter letting her know that he knew that their partnership was over. He was sure that their friendship was over too, but he told her that he would meet her at the reflecting pool when he got back just in case there was still a chance it wasn't over. He told her that he hoped she found happiness some day and he wanted her to know that her friendship had made him a better man. She had helped him give up gambling and that had been such a huge change in his life. It had given him a better relationship with his son and he would always be thankful that he had known Dr. Temperance Brennan. She had been his rock when he needed it and he hoped he had been her rock as well.

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There is one more chapter in this little story arc. Let me know what you think of my story. Thank you.

A/N: Don't worry, Hannah will not be in this story arc.