(The Boneless Bride in the River)

Thank you for reviewing my story. I appreciate it.

I don't own Bones.

Ooooooooooooooooo

This was probably the hardest conversation that Brennan had ever had with anyone. Sully had asked her to give up her job for one year and sail around the Caribbean with him. He'd bought a boat, quit the FBI and was launching a new phase in his life. She had found his decision to be unfathomable and when he had asked her to leave with him, she had found herself mentally torn.

"But you're not gonna go, are you? Why, Brennan? Sailing around the warm oceans with someone who loves you. Please tell me what is holding you here." He couldn't believe that Brennan didn't want to go with him. He loved her and he had thought she loved him. "Look, I don't want to sound conceited, but I think I'm worth the risk."

She didn't really know what to say. Brennan was finding it hard to explain her position. "You are. You definitely are." She didn't believe in love, she thought it was a trick that was played on the brain by a body flooded with dopamine, serotonin and endorphins, but she really liked Sully. He was kind, considerate, funny and an interesting lover, but what he was asking her to do was impossible. She just didn't know how to explain to him why she couldn't go and make sense to him.

"Alright, well . . . you're the logical one. What's your thinking?" He was still hoping that she would give in and come with him. She worked too much, she never seemed to have any fun and he just couldn't understand why she couldn't see that. He was tired of the FBI, he was tired of dealing with murder and death and to see Brennan, the woman he loved, not see that there was more to life than her job was just heartbreaking to him. He wanted her to be happy, but he knew deep down that she would never be happy if she didn't get away from the Jeffersonian. How could she be happy surrounded by death? How could she be happy when she had no one in her life that cared for her as much as he did? She claimed that Booth was just her partner and friend and Booth had told him the same, but sometimes he wondered if there was more to them than what they were saying. If she loved him why not come with him? Did she love Booth more than she was saying? He didn't know and he was sure she would deny it if he asked. He didn't know what to say to make her leave and come with him and maybe that was the problem. Was he trying to make her leave? Shouldn't she want to leave?

She hesitated before speaking. Brennan knew that Sully was offering her a chance at a new life with someone that adored her, but it wasn't enough. He wanted her to give up everything she had ever worked for to follow his dream, not her dream, his dream. "I want to go and I know I should go, but I can't." After all, she didn't love him, did she? And if there was a remote possibility that she did, she knew she didn't love him enough to give up who she was.

"What you're doing, it's important, but it's not important enough to be your whole life." At first, he had thought it was Booth who was influencing Brennan not to leave, but he now knew that wasn't the problem. She couldn't give up her work and nothing he said was going to make her change her mind. She didn't love him enough and he would have to accept that. He wanted to kiss her one last time, but he couldn't do that. He was afraid that if he did that, he would never be able to leave her and he had to. For his sanity sake, he had to move on and get away from everything that made him hate his life. His partner had been murdered the previous year and he'd been in a tailspin since then. He'd started to search for something that could make him happy and when he'd found the boat that was for sale, he knew that he'd found what he was looking for. He wanted a quiet life. A life filled with contentment and no victims making him feel guilty because he wasn't solving their murder fast enough. He could find work doing something that he loved and it wouldn't involve, death, pain and despair. Reluctantly, he gave her a sad smile and left the room. There was nothing else he could do to make Brennan change her mind and he would leave without her. It hurt, but he'd been hurt before.

Watching Sully leave had been the hardest thing she'd had to do in a long time, but she let him go. With tears streaming down her face, she stared at the door as it closed and wondered why she was unable to find and keep happiness. Was she doomed to be alone for the rest of her life? She didn't know, but she supposed the answer was yes.

Out of the corner of her eye, Brennan noticed Booth handcuff their suspect in the interrogation room and as he walked by the window, he had given her a bright smile and a thumbs up. She knew that her partner assumed that she was there watching him and she smiled. Wiping the tears from her face, she sobbed as Booth left the room with Jackie Burrows. She was alone in the observation room and she felt that the solitude gave her the chance to mourn.

Was she mourning? Yes, she was. A man that she liked very much was leaving her behind to pursue a future he wasn't willing to give up for her. Why was it that the people that supposedly loved her were willing to leave her behind? If she needed proof that love was temporary then her experiences was the proof she needed. Her parents had left her behind when she was fifteen years old and her brother and given her to the state of Illinois a few weeks later. She had guarded her heart for so long and when she had allowed herself the luxury of liking someone, trusting that someone she had been betrayed once more. Sully loved her, but he was leaving her behind. As far as she could tell, loving someone just meant pain and loneliness in the end.

Sad, she leaned against the one-way mirror looking into the now empty interrogation room and thought about why she was staying. Why couldn't she go with him? What was wrong with taking a year off from her work? There would always be murders. She could leave for a year and when she came back there would still be deaths to solve. So why not go?

Staring at the closed door in the interrogation room, Brennan thought about her partnership with Booth. Until she had met Booth, she had lived most of her life surrounded by scientists like her. She taught at the university, worked at the Lab and went on digs. She'd had little interaction with people in other professions. Then Booth had invited her to help him solve a murder and she knew that there was a world out there that could use her skills and at the same time would allow her to expand her horizons. She could study people under extreme circumstances and perhaps learn more about how people interacted with other people, through the good times and the bad times.

Booth was unlike anyone she had ever met. When they first worked together, he had irritated her, but at the same time he fascinated her. He was a brilliant investigator and part of that was due to his ability to use instinct. Her partner could read people like she could read bones. In some mysterious way, Booth could talk to people and pick up hidden clues about them that she couldn't see or understand. He seemed to be able to strip the façade that some people used to cover up their guilt like a cook did when he or she peeled an onion. It was fascinating to watch and combined with her ability to see the history of someone in their bones, they made a great partnership. From that partnership had come respect and friendship and Booth's friendship was the most valuable thing she owned. She valued that friendship so much that she was certain she couldn't go with Sully and leave Booth behind. She enjoyed his companionship, his honesty and trust and to risk never seeing Booth again seemed to be too much to risk.

Honestly? She liked Booth as much if not more than she did Sully. Sully had asked her to make a choice and she had done so. She would not leave her job, her partnership behind and risk losing the best friend she had ever had.

Her cheeks dry, her thoughts now ordered in such a way that she was no longer torn and confused, Brennan pulled a tissue from a box sitting on the table behind her and blew her nose. Dabbing another tissue under her eyes, she felt calmer than she had since entering the observation room. She had made her choice and she could live with it.

Oooooooooooooooooo

Let me know what you think of my story. Thank you.