A/N

Some of you MIA reviewers (or readers who've never reviewed) please let me hear from you! Just so you know to be on the lookout… Chapter 36 is already written, and will be posted a day or so later. Ch37 should be up another day or two after that.

P.S. Any similarities to an episode of the show are purely coincidental – I've had this roughed in for months.

Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Thursday, Early Evening

"We've got to stop meeting like this," he told her. "I hope it's not becoming a habit."

"I don't think only two data points constitute a trend." She smiled wanly in return, but then her eyes slid away from his. Apparently he wasn't the only one who was nervous.

He was suddenly at a loss for how to proceed, and an awkward silence ensued. She surprised him by speaking first.

"May I?" She glanced at him as she pointed to the two cards on one corner of the tray table that her roving eyes had come to rest on.

"Sure." Not exactly cutting to the chase. Still, he was just glad she was talking without him having to coax everything out of her.

He watched her pick up Parker's card, examine the front, and then open it. As he expected, she found it impossible not to smile at the picture his son had crayoned of the two of them throwing a football on a grassy field with flowers and a blue sky with a smiling sun, and an unevenly lettered "Get well soon, Daddy. I love you!" He suspected the total absence of guns from the card was Rebecca's influence, after all Parker did have a vague idea of his job, but he didn't care. As far as he was concerned the card had the intended effect.

Her eyes met his briefly over the opened card, and, miracle of miracles, she was still smiling as she carefully laid it back down on the table. Thank God.

Better yet, she even teased a little. "So, who carries the art gene in the family?"

"Trust me, that had to be from Rebecca."

She nodded as she picked up the other card.

He teased back, "Bones, that's the part where you're supposed to politely disagree with me about my lack of talent."

She just smirked and picked up the striking scarlet and gold card. The front was adorned only with the "Globe and Anchor" insignia of the United States Marine Corps; it contained no pre-printed text. He was amused by the frown she made when she first read the scrawled note inside.

Her nose wrinkled as she read it out loud. "'Hooaahh?' I don't know what that means."

He laughed out loud. She gave him a dirty look then read the rest, still clearly puzzled, "Em-gee-wye-ess-gee-tee Mitchell C. Evans, USMC." She simply raised an eyebrow at him expectantly.

For once she needed help deciphering his brand of gibberish. He explained, "'Hooaahh!' is the Army cheer, and the other is the abbreviation for the rank of Master Gunnery Sergeant. Gunny Evans was my instructor down at Camp Lejeune at the Marines' Scout-Sniper School." He laughed again, "I swore that old bastard didn't like me."

He clarified that at the questioning look she gave him, "Inter-service rivalry. The Marines consider themselves 'elite' and the Army just undisciplined cannon fodder."

She nodded and put the card back.

"Cullen said it's a secret for now that I'm here, but I guess once he saw my picture on the front page he must have worked the military grapevine. Nobody is plugged in like a lifer NCO."

She nodded once more. Then after a moment she asked, "Do you know your prognosis? Have they given you any idea how long it might be before you're fully recovered?"

He shook his head. "I imagine with my luck the answer will be 'It depends', but the nurse said I should learn more in the morning when the chief surgeon, I think it was Barrett, makes her rounds."

Turnabout was fair play. "What about your leg?"

"They want my weight off it a few more days, then after that I'm supposed to still wear this boot," she tapped it just below her knee with some annoyance, "for a few more. After that they want me to walk quite a bit while avoiding anything more strenuous."

Booth realized that in informing him of her experience, Cullen had left out something important. At least something more important to him… which bomb blast had caused her injury. Not knowing if he might have prevented it was starting to eat at him, but he held his tongue. Not yet.

In the lull while he was thinking she looked away from him to the cards on the tray table. She reached out a hand and slid them around with a finger tip to neatly arrange them, aligning them squarely with the corner of the rectangular surface.

These silences were killing him. It was ridiculous, but the horrors of Monday hung in the air between them unaddressed, the proverbial elephant in the living room. He had an idea of how to broach the subject indirectly, but again she surprised him by beating him to it.

She continued slowly, still looking at the cards, "When I asked how you are doing… I meant more than physically." She looked up at him again.

He knew she was talking about the killing he'd done.

Strong shoulder... Not that he'd be able to fool her completely, or even really try. "I think… I'm going to be ok." At her look of concern he added, "Don't worry. I'm actually going to take some advice you gave me a while back."

The concern was replaced by a puzzled frown, but not wanting to risk an argument about religion that might spoil the fragile mood, he didn't explain about the priest. Instead he rushed to head her off.

"What about you?" She became wary at his question. "Cullen filled me in on what you had to do on the inside."

Her eyes slid off to the side, and her tone became flatly 'scientific'. "I simply applied some of my years of martial arts training." After a second her eyes made contact with his again, but her voice was less sure, "…not that I ever expected to fully use it."

He gauged the distance and cursed silently. If only Angela had pushed her another foot closer… For the moment he could only reach out with words.

"Even if it happens in a split second, it's never just a reflex when you kill." He hated it but the word needed to be said. "The mind has a way of taking… responsibility," he'd almost said assuming guilt, "whether you like it or not, sometimes when you least expect it." He examined her face intently. "Have you had any nightmares about it?"

"No!"

She dropped her gaze briefly at his continued stare and added softly, "No, not about… that."

She didn't say no nightmares at all, but he decided to let that ride for now. "Promise me you'll tell me if you do?"

She looked stubborn for a moment, but then she bit her lower lip and nodded.

"Good," he said softly. He could see her gather herself, thinking...

"It would be irrational to feel guilty about killing someone in self-defense." She said it as if she were trying to reassure herself.

He nodded, "Yes. But it's not a purely rational thing. Guilt probably isn't the right word." He took a breath as he searched for the right words. "It's complicated. However justified, that doesn't make it any less ugly, any less powerful, or that there's no cost. It's still a line that, once you've crossed it… there's no going back." He let out a sigh. "That's probably a good thing because otherwise it might be too easy. Just be warned that it may end up bothering you more than you expect." She seemed more receptive now, but not quite sold. "Trust me. I know what I'm talking about."

She swallowed and nodded at that, then looked back up directly at him. "What about you? Those men…"

He forced a smile for her, "I'm not worried about them. If they want to haunt me, well, they have to get in line, all the way at the back."

She gamely returned his smile, but hers wasn't very convincing either.

His smile was a lie, and it faded from his face. He would have given anything to have spared her that loss of innocence. Lord knew, with all the blood he already had on his hands, a little more wouldn't have made much difference. Instead, now she had some on hers.

"I'm so sorry. If only I'd been faster… I let them in and they hurt you. Worse, I couldn't even save you, you had to save yourselves."

He grimaced and looked away, but her words brought him back to her face.

"For what it's worth, not that it should matter, my leg was injured in the first explosion, before you could possibly have done anything. And you did save me and Angela even if you didn't know it at the time. After the… the terrorist in the exit, when we were leaving the theater our escape was cut off by another one, a new one, out in the Gallery. I just knew we were about to die, but when you attacked outside, the explosion you caused supplied the diversion we needed to get clear."

Cullen hadn't told him that. He felt a lump in his throat, and he looked away as his eyes watered. He blinked it away. Maybe, just maybe, he'd got part of it right out of dumb luck after all. However, he pushed away the sliver of relief. There was just too much on his head…

"Besides," she added, "how can you be more responsible for me than I am for myself?"

He couldn't dismiss it that easily. "Protecting you, protecting all of them… that was my job." He inhaled a deep shuddering breath even though it hurt. "You know that's who I am." She did nod, granting him that much. "I let them get to you…" Other than Parker, she was the person he cared about the most in the whole world. Others might call it a success, but he knew better. "Your picture should be in the papers, not mine."

Now she shook her head vigorously. "No." She wasn't done yet.

"In attacking, you saved more than us. Cullen said preliminary analysis of the video showed that approximately four hundred people were herded back into the IMAX. After our escape most of them were still stuck inside. It was only because you crippled their strength, and they knew they couldn't hold, that they began letting people go."

"If you hadn't done what you did, when you did it, Angela and I, if not killed immediately or dying later from wounds, would probably still be in there even as we speak. Even if we had been recaptured without injury, we would likely be hungry and dehydrated, trapped in our own filth as we waited to die in some hopeless rescue attempt. Or we might have been summarily shot as an example to the others once they found out I killed one of them, or tortured first for amusement. Or," she added quietly, "gang raped on videotape."

The last made him look at her sharply. Her calm expression was belied by the shadows in her eyes. She returned his gaze levelly. "I know," she said. "I remember reading one of the follow up stories on Beslan last year. We can never repay you."

He knew the rest but had not known about the rape aspect of the school hostage crisis. Cullen had mentioned video cameras being found in their gear. He blinked again furiously. That he'd let the first group of such animals in, near her… it made his original failure worse, not better. He felt like throwing up.

"Still… I should have been faster…"

Brennan shook her head, "You did all… no, you did more, than anyone else could expect in the situation. There just was no time."

He opened his mouth to argue, but she continued quietly, "I know. You were on some tourist's camcorder from the moment when you first pulled up on the sidewalk. I've seen the video from outside of the building as well as the inside. All of it."

He grimaced, thinking of all the carnage he'd inflicted.

His voice was shaky, "Cullen… he shouldn't have let you see that."

"No." She was insistent. "I had to know for myself. I made him show me."

He simply nodded, knowing how determined she could be. He could tell she was carefully measuring her words.

She spoke slowly. "Booth, what you did was… incredibly… brutal…"

His eyes stung and he closed them. She had to be thinking of the way he'd put down the wounded men. Would she ever be able to look at him the same way again? He felt sick to his stomach once more.

But she wasn't finished…

"But it was also exactly what was needed. You knew what was right, and you acted. Decisively. Even though following protocol would have been far easier. You saved so many lives…"

He opened his eyes and looked at her, totally caught off guard by this unanticipated direction.

"You were magnificent," she finished.

His throat tightened again, and his vision blurred. He'd thought he was doing ok after talking to Cullen, but he didn't realize just how much he depended on her understanding and approval. It was the strangest role reversal, but ever since he'd considered picking up a rifle again she'd become his guide, his touchstone.

Some 'strong shoulder' he'd turned out to be. He couldn't handle the compassion in her eyes and had to turn away as he tried to blink back the tears that threatened to overwhelm him.

A few simple words were all it took…

"I am so very, very proud of you."

He almost managed to choke it back at first, but then he was utterly undone.

Heaving sobs wracked his entire body as all of the accumulated tension and fear, guilt and grief suddenly began leaving him in an unstoppable torrent. He could barely breathe, and all of his wounds hurt. It nearly felt like he was dying all over again.

Half blind, he turned to her…