(The Boneless Bride in the River)

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Because she wouldn't go with him, he left. They always leave her. No one ever stays. It didn't matter that her job was important to her. It didn't matter that she didn't want to leave the only friends she had. It didn't matter that he was asking her to give up everything she valued and he would give up nothing that contained value to him. It didn't matter to him. She said she couldn't leave and he left. Everyone leaves and it will always be like that.

This was why she didn't believe in love. If love was real then wouldn't that love keep people from walking away from you? If love was real wouldn't parents try to keep their children with them and not abandon them? Wouldn't it keep someone you adored from handing you over to a faceless bureaucracy to raise instead of doing it yourself?

"Love is just a myth. It's just a mixture of dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine. The emotional experience we call love can easily be manufactured in a lab." Brennan had watched Sully sail away on his sail boat and that event confirmed to her that no one should ever trust love. It just led to heartache. "Did you know that those three chemicals can have dire effects if you overdose on them. Schizophrenia, extreme paranoia, insanity . . ."

"Bones . . . Bones." Booth hated that his partner was hurting. She was so determined to prove that what had happened was inevitable. It was like she was giving Sully a pass for his behavior and there was no excuse for what Sully had done as far as Booth was concerned. They were in the Diner eating a late breakfast. It had been all Booth could think of to comfort his partner. "Love isn't a myth. It's real, but some people don't know how to handle it. They think that love means that your partner should give up everything to be with you which is pretty damn selfish as far as I'm concerned." He didn't want to berate Sully in front of his partner because it could backfire. Until that morning, Booth was sure that Brennan was falling in love with Sully, but Sully's greed to have everything his way had destroyed Brennan's happiness and he would not forgive that. Not for a long time.

Brennan felt that Booth was too romantic for his own good. "Don't be foolish, Booth. My parents supposedly loved me and they abandoned me. My brother couldn't get rid me fast enough. Your father beat you . . ." She stopped herself. She had not meant to go that far and the look on her partner's face told her that she had crossed a line. "My father came back into my life for a brief moment, just long enough to make contact with me and Russ then whisked my brother away and left me behind again. Where's the love, Booth? Where is it?"

Her words had been like a slap to his face. Bringing up his father like that had hurt. He wanted to get up and leave, but he was a man, an adult and he wasn't going to let her unhappiness drag him down or make him unhappy. "I know love exits every time I look into the face of my son. He loves me for who I am, his Daddy and I love him very much. I would die for him Bones. I would do anything to protect him . . . My grandfather loved me so much, he took me away from my father and raised me as his son. That is where love is, Bones. That is love."

He pushed his plate of eggs and bacon over next to the window and leaned on the table. "We've all had bad experiences when it comes to the heart. It hurt when I asked Rebecca to marry me, but she didn't want to marry me for a reason. I was a gambler at the time and she didn't love me enough to put with that shit. I can see that now, but I didn't want to admit that I was the problem back then. I kept gambling even though I knew that I could lose someone that I thought I loved . . . The sad thing is, I didn't love her enough to give up gambling. I was in love with gambling and that love was stronger than my love for Rebecca. I couldn't give it up . . . I was selfish. I get that now. Sometimes, we're too selfish and we don't love someone enough. But hopefully we learn from our mistakes. Hopefully when we're given a second chance or even a third chance, we know that love can't be one sided. If you're really in love with someone you have to be able to give up something for that person."

She knew that Booth was trying to tell her that Sully was selfish, but she didn't think that was the problem at all. "Sully didn't love me Booth. He was infatuated with me and wanted me and his dream of being a tour guide in the islands. He had this dream of what a perfect life was and he didn't care that his perfect dream was nothing, but a boring nightmare to me."

"His dream?' Booth wanted to laugh. "Sully is never satisfied. He's had so many jobs in his life, it makes me wonder what he's looking for. At this moment, his dream is to be a boat captain in the islands. Tomorrow it might be a scuba diving instructor or to sell snowballs to tourists . . . Look he lost his partner last year and that made him willing to give up on the FBI, but if his partner hadn't died something else would have come along and pushed him to leave . . . I don't know if he loved you or not. Only Sully knows that, but if he was in love with you he didn't take it seriously enough to give up his dreams for you . . . If it had been real love honest love, he would have found a way to stay for you. Sometimes you have to give up something to get the one you love, but neither one of you were there. Someday, when you meet the right guy, maybe you'll love him enough to give up a little and he'll be willing to give up a little and you'll be together."

Brennan shook her head. "That won't happen because love isn't real."

For the moment he gave up. There was nothing he could say to ease her pain and that made him sad. He hated that Sully had treated her the way he had. Because of him, now she was so sure that anyone that came into her life in the future and claimed to love her will eventually leave her. He hoped that he could prove her wrong someday. For now, he would be her friend. "Hey, eat up and we'll go for a drive. I know this cool little park that has a little waterfall on a river and we can have lunch there. It's kind of quiet and peaceful. I drive up there some time when I have stuff I want to think about. What do you say?"

Why not? It's not like she had anything else to do that day. She could go to work, but it was Saturday and she'd be alone. She didn't want to be alone at the moment. "It sounds nice. Thank you."

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