A/N: After posting a hiatus chapter on breathing last night at 1:30 am, I woke up this morning with another idea demanding to be typed and posted here...same subject but rather insistent, so here goes...

Breathing

Breathing….it keeps us alive….it changes with our situation, mirrors our emotions, and reflects our reactions to life…..

Seeley Booth knows more about breathing than most people.

Maybe even more than his genius partner Bones. While in the service, his MOS (military occupation specialty) depended upon breathing. His success in completing assigned missions depended upon his ability to control that breathing, to let the world disappear from his consciousness and narrow his focus to the tiny circular view presented through his rifle's scope. He had purposefully to relax, slow his breathing, take painstakingly careful and pin-pointedly accurate aim and s-q-u-e-e-z-e his trigger as smoothly as possible. His spotter provided vital information, but the mission's success rested upon his acromia, those broad shoulders his Bones found so very pleasing. Booth is a sniper and breathing is crucial to how he executed his job. (An ironic use of words considering that carrying out his missions involved impossibly long-distance shots-executions of ruthless evil enemies.) And so it was that Booth's mastery of breathing was not only the source of his military prowess, but also the source of his cosmic balance sheet; the guilt he felt at taking lives, no matter how far up the chain of command his brutal action had been approved and deemed necessary.

Any Fan Fiction reader and viewer of Bones is familiar with Booth's breathing from another angle as well; his sighs and gasps and shudderingly deep breaths. His sighs can come from his disappointment at Bones' not being ready for a relationship; his gasps from his dismay at the risks she takes in their work. His deep breaths fill those sizeable lungs and expand that handsome chest for a number of reasons—trying to calm down, an attempts to handle pain felt after an injury received in the field, striving for patience in dealing with Bones and her squints, or the FBI's frustrating red tape.

Lately, changes in Booth's breathing have arisen from an additional aspect of his life, one more fulfilling and pleasant than trying to even the score on his mental checklist of murders solved and victims saved to balance the lives he took as a sniper.

Booth's 'happy breathing' became more frequent when Dr. Temperance Brennan lost her imperviousness and he erased 'the line' they couldn't cross. From their first meeting, she adored Pops, the enduring beacon in Booth's life. Unlike Hannah, she quickly valued and loved Parker, the little light and energy spark of Booth's life. All three generations of Booth men loved her in return.

And so it was that Booth's breathing improved dramatically. Laughing until his stomach hurt and he gasped to catch his breath. Anxious breaths of concern for Brennan's welfare during her pregnancy and sudden horse-attended delivery, cushioned in coats and straw. Quiet relaxed breaths of satisfaction holding baby Christine and silently watching her slumber in her crib.

And always, in the silvered moon-lit privacy of night and the rosy glow of early morning, Booth's breathing shared with his Bones in the two-become-one relationship he'd hoped, prayed, and worked for. Gasps of pleasure, deep sighs of satisfaction, lung-expanding gulps of ecstasy as they break the laws of physics because the center has held.