Call this what you want, it never seemed so close.

Don't pretend you care.

We both know that there were dreams we've had that were put on hold.

Aren't we more than we've told?

Don't say it doesn't matter anymore. This was made for us.

We've held all that we've wanted for so long.

This was made for us.

For a month, Brennan had tossed and turned with the decision to go to Egypt. She even went as far as to make a pros and cons list. Her only real cons had been Booth and Katie. She would have included her work at the Jeffersonian, but she had the tendency to leave every summer in the past, and nothing bad had ever come of it. Except for when everyone decided to leave. So her pros list was much longer than her cons, and the more she thought about it, the more excited she was. She hadn't been on a vacation of any type since Maluku, and she enjoyed the thought of being able to get a way for while and rediscover her roots in physical anthropology.

She wanted to go, she did, but her single two cons were really weighing her down. How could she just leave Katie for five months, that little girl needed her. And besides, she would be missing her 2nd birthday, how could she do that? And then there was Booth, to whom she had promised that she'd always be here. But it's not like she was abandoning them, she going to work…for five months. Plus it was something that she really, really wanted to do.

When Dr. Berryman finally did call her back, expecting her final answer, she gave in and told him yes. She had made a promise to herself that her career would always come first in her life. Of course she had made that back when she saw herself never settling down with a family…but still, she needed this. This was the final step she needed in feeling like herself again. If she could just get back out into the field, she knew she would feel better. Her only issue now was how to tell Booth…

"Bones, come on we're going to be late!" he called upstairs to her.

"Why don't you just go on ahead since you're in the wedding party and Katie and I will just meet you there?" she called back down.

"Saves gas if we go together."

"I'm good for it."

"Bones!"

"Okay, okay fine," Brennan said, appearing at the top of the stairs with Katie in her arms.

"Well don't you two look beautiful?" Booth smiled.

"Thank you. I still can't believe that Sweets and Daisy are getting married today."

"Why, because you're so against marriage?"

"No, because Sweets could do so much better."

"Bones! That girl worships you."

"Yes, I know. But that doesn't make her any less annoying."

Booth chuckled as he followed her out of their house and helped Katie get buckled into her car seat.

"Are you sure we should be bringing her?" he asked.

"Absolutely. Michelle said she was coming and has no date, so she would love to watch her for us."

"She just wants money."

"We'd be paying a sitter either way. At least this way, she'll be right there with us."

Booth got into the driver's seat and started to head to the church. In the back of her mind, Brennan knew that this was a bad time to bring this up, but she also knew that she would just feel guilty until she told him.

"Booth, there's…there's something that I need to tell you," she confessed.

"Are you pregnant?"

"What? No."

"Oh okay, go on then."

"Okay well, I was approached with the opportunity to go to Egypt next month and work on the discovery of this new hominid species."

"Ha, what'd you tell them? Thanks, but no thanks?"

"I told him yes," Brennan said looking over to gauge his reaction.

"Yes?!" Booth exclaimed, tightening his grip on the steering wheel. "For how long?"

"Five months," she answered softly.

"Five months?! You – what – you're going to miss Katie's birthday and – what were you thinking? You're just going to pick up and leave us?"

"They need me over there."

"We need you here. Jesus, Bones, think about Katie. Do you really want to be the second mom to abandon her?"

"Angela died, Booth. She didn't want to leave her daughter."

"But you do? You have a choice here, Bones. You're not required to leave."

"It's only for a couple of months; it's not like I'm leaving forever. And besides I go on these trips all of the time."

"Yeah, well that was before you had a daughter to worry about."

"It's not like I asked for this. I was just handed her by a terrible turn of events."

"But you wanted it. A couple of years ago you told me that you wanted to have a baby with my sperm. Would you go off on these crazy trips for months at a time if you had gone through with it?"

"Yes. My career is important to me, Booth, you know that. And I will not let being a mother change who I am, whether we're talking about a child I gave birth to myself or that little girl in the backseat we call our daughter!"

"Right, exactly, our daughter. You're right, you haven't changed, Brennan. You're running. Just like you always do when you get scared!"

"I'm not running! I'm sorry that you're not a scientist and you don't understand the importance of this discovery."

"You're right, I don't get it. Man evolved from apes; got it, great, good, move on already!"

"I'm going, end of story."

Booth pulled their call into the church parking lot. "I forbid you to go."

"Oh you forbid me?" Brennan laughed getting out of the car. "What is this 1952? I'm not your damn wife."

"No fucking kidding," he muttered, opening the back door to take Katie out.

"You're so insufferable sometimes. I hope you understand that."

"I know what insufferable means, Brennan. I'm not as stupid as you think I am."

"That's not what I meant. I meant…you know what I can't deal with this right now. I'm going inside. Give her to me."

"Are you sure? It's not like you wanted her to begin with or anything."

"Give her. To me," Brennan commanded, glaring at him. He grumbled something incoherent and handed her over.

"Whatever happened to that dream of having your own kid anyway?" Booth asked her retreating back. "Why'd you give up on it?"

Brennan stopped in her tracks. "Oh I don't know, let's see. You had a brain tumor that resulted in a coma which caused you to believe I was your wife. Avalon came around declaring our love for each other based off of those stupid tarot cards. Just when things felt normal again you decided to tell me that you were in love with me, but I wasn't ready to admit that I was yet. I left for Maluku and you left for Afghanistan, and when we came back and I was finally ready to tell you I wanted to start something…fucking Hannah shows up! So there, Booth, that's what happened to my precious dream."

"I knew it! I knew you were lying when you said you were over the Hannah thing."

"Oh well excuse me for feeling bitter about the whole thing. Maybe it's just easier for me to blame her for all of our problems in this relationship than to actually accept the fact that we're the screw ups."

"Right, cause it's totally her fault that you want to leave and go play Indiana Jones in Egypt for five months."

"You know that I hate being compared to fictitious characters," Brennan said through gritted teeth. "Look, can we just finish talking about this later? If I knew this was going to start World War Three, I would have waited until after the reception."

"What'd you think would come out of this? My undying support?"

"Yes. If you really love me, you should support my decisions."

"Not when they involve abandonment."

Brennan huffed and walked into the church, turning her back on him and this conversation. Let him act like a twelve-year-old about all of this. She didn't need his constant approval anyway.

The ceremony had been beautiful. Daisy looked gorgeous in her fluffy white princess dress and the look on Sweets' face when he saw her had been priceless. And unlike the last wedding he had attended, the bride wasn't already married. No, things had gone smoothly and perfectly. Expect, the entire time he was standing up by Sweets acting as best man, the only thing Booth could focus on was Brennan out in the audience. Katie happily sat on her lap, not knowing that anything was wrong, not knowing that her mother was leaving her for five months.

When it had come time to exchange the rings, Sweets had to poke Booth to get his attention.

"Everything okay?" Sweets asked, taking the ring from him.

Booth just nodded, trying to focus on the actual ceremony for what was left of it. But then they were saying their vows and his head turned back to Brennan. How could she just leave him? After everything. Had he done something wrong again?

The ceremony eventually ended, and they drove to the reception in silence. She didn't even speak to him as she unbuckled Katie from her car seat and headed into the hotel ballroom. He didn't get why she was mad, she was getting her way and leaving. He was the one who had every right to be pissed.

Upon entering the ballroom, Booth headed straight for the open bar. He was going to resort to drinking away his conversation with Brennan. This probably wasn't the best idea considering he still had to give his best man's toast later, but at this point he really didn't care.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Sweets asked him moments later. "You seem…distracted."

"She's leaving me," Booth told him, drinking a swig of the rum and coke he'd just ordered.

"Who's leaving you?"

"Brennan."

"You can't be serious."

Booth just stared at him, taking another drink.

"Well did she say why?"

"She's going to Egypt for five months for some anthropological something or other."

"Oh that's all?" Sweets asked, sounding relieved.

"That's all?" Booth repeated. "She's leaving me for five months! She's missing Katie's birthday! Why am I the only one who sees this as a bad idea?"

"She's just doing what Brennan does, Booth. Relax." Sweets patted him on the back and headed towards his table to find Daisy.

"She's running!" Booth called after him. "She's a coward!"

And of course, after Booth had downed one drink too many the maid of honor was finishing up her speech and the microphone was being passed to him. He stared at it in his hands for a minute trying to remember the speech he had prepared. But he couldn't get passed his anger, and the alcohol in his system certainly wasn't helping. So he just started speaking his mind…

"Okay then, well," Booth started, slightly fearing what was about to come out of his mouth. "Hello, hi everyone. Sweets and Daisy, they're some pretty great kids. But enough about them, I want to take this time to tell you all a little something about love."

Oh no, here we go.

"I'm going to quote this guy, Neil Gaiman," Booth continued. "He had some pretty some great advice… Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, wanders into your stupid life…You give them a piece of you."

He was speaking directly at Brennan now, watching her squirm uncomfortably in her seat.

"They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you, or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so a simple phrase like 'maybe we should just be friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love."

Brennan had handed Katie to Michelle and was now running out of the ballroom.

"To Sweets and Daisy, may that last part never happen to you," Booth said in a rush as he handed the microphone off to whoever was next to him and ran after her. "Brennan!"

She spun around just outside the ballroom doors and advanced on him. "At what point did you think any of that was a good idea?" she asked, poking him in the chest. "What goes on between us is ours, you taught me that. You don't need to broadcast our problems to the entire party."

"I'm a little drunk, all right? Sorry."

"Sorry? That's all I get? You tell everyone that being with me is the most painful miserable thing in the entire world and all you can say is sorry? I didn't break up with you. I still love you. My leaving has nothing to do with you."

"Well if it's not me, then what is it? Why do you want to go do this so badly?"

"It's my career we're talking about here, Booth. This could be huge for me."

"Bullshit. That's not the real reason and you know it."

"Excuse me?"

"You are a best-selling author who has also published countless scientific articles already and you are the best forensic anthropologist in the world. You've done enough work in your career already to leave behind a legacy. And so what this discovery could get your name in textbooks or something? Making your name just another one of the hundreds that students have to memorize? You don't need this to help your career. So tell me why you're really leaving."

Cam had appeared out in the hallway by this point. "I hate to interrupt, but we can all hear you arguing in there."

"Great, wonderful," Brennan muttered, walking away from the door of the ballroom.

"Answer my question, Brennan," Booth said, walking after her.

"So what you can't call me 'Bones' when you're mad at me?" she asked instead.

"Apparently not," Booth sighed, crossing his arms over his chest. "Now, why are you really leaving?"

"Where exactly are you going?" Cam butted in.

"Not now," Brennan answered at the same time that Booth said, "Stay out of this."

"Okay, I'll check back later," Cam responded, excusing herself back to the ballroom.

"I just need this, okay?" Brennan finally said.

"But why?"

"I feel like I've lost myself. For the past ten months I've been forced into this role of mother and girlfriend and part-time botanist…all things which I'm not. My life has become Cheerios and mindless cartoons and stories about letters climbing trees and I just need a break. I need to feel like myself again. And going to Egypt and working on this project would give me that. I love you and Katie, but lately I feel like I'm drowning. Like overnight I've become this domestic housewife and that is not who I am."

"Well I'm sorry that being part of a real family is just so terrible for you."

"Booth, I never said that. I –"

"No, you didn't have to. You're used to being alone, I get that. I can take full custody of Katie if you want me to."

"No! No, I don't want that. I still want us to be a family. Just because I'm leaving –"

"You don't want this, Brennan. You just said that. If you feel so trapped by all of this, then by all means, leave. If Katie and I aren't enough reason to keep you here, then enjoy your five months in Egypt. But don't stand there and tell me that this isn't you running."

She was crying now, but he couldn't make himself care at this point.

"Your toast…is being with me really that awful?" she asked, wiping at her eyes.

"No. I love you and I love being with you, but the thought of you not being here for five months? I can't be apart from you for that long again, I need you. Katie needs you. Just suck it up and stay."

"I can't stay. Even if you don't understand, I need this."

"Fine. But don't expect things to just pick up where you left off when you get back."

"Are you breaking up with me? Over this?"

Booth remained silent.

"You see? This is why I told you no outside of Sweets office, why I fought this for so long. Because I knew I would just end up hurting you in the end."

"When do you leave?"

"First week of August. Now we can spend these next two weeks being happy like we were or you can spend them hating and ignoring me. It's your choice."

"I don't want you to go, Bones."

"I know."

Sweets popped his head out from around the ballroom door. "Everything okay out here?"

"Sorry about that toast," Booth apologized, brushing past him and heading back into the reception without a word to Brennan.

She nodded, biting back more tears, as she realized that Booth had chosen his latter option.

"Hey, what's going on?" Sweets asked, moving over to try and comfort her. "Is he still being a baby about you going to Egypt?"

Her head snapped up to meet his. "You actually don't think I'm a terrible person for leaving for five months?"

"No. You're Dr. Brennan. It's what you do. Anthropology is really important to you."

"Why can't he see that?"

"Because he's in love with you. He's being selfish and only thinking about himself."

"He's thinking about Katie too."

"You can always Skype," Sweets suggested with a shrug.

"Will you talk to him? He may not want to listen to me, but maybe he'll listen to you."

"If he won't listen to you, I doubt he'll listen to anyone else."

"Just try okay? Because I need to get him to understand. We've come so far in these past ten months to go back to that place where we hate each other."

"Okay I'll try, but I doubt it will be as effective as Angela yelling at him."

Brennan couldn't help, but laugh.

"One way or another, Dr. Brennan, you and Booth will get past this. You guys are just…meant to be."

AN: *Hides in a corner.* So what does everyone think she's going to do? Is she going to stay? Leave for the full five months? Leave and then realize her mistake and come back early? Send me your guesses!