A/N: Happy Easter! A little Bren-on-Booth comfort here for your Easter basket. I do hope you enjoy.

Loves.

She wasn't very good at comforting. Actually, she wasn't very good at being comforted, either, so it was not surprising that when it was someone else who was hurting, feeling pained or alone or scared, that her brilliant mind had one of those rare moments where it went completely blank. What should she do, what should she say? It never came naturally. When were the times that, as Angela said, a simple touch was enough, and what were the circumstances that required more? She had come to accept that she might never be the person who intuitively knew the answers to these questions, but sometimes, later, after the crisis had passed, she thought about other ways she might have been able to help. Ways that may have been more telling, and more impactful.

There was the time when Booth had been kidnapped. For a change. Temperance Brennan had been kidnapped before. She had been bound, held at gunpoint, knocked unconscious, buried alive and held for ransom…a whole assortment of unpleasantness. But she had never been tortured. Not like Booth, who had been tied up and beaten and burned by the very criminals they had been trying to capture. She remembered how sick she had felt, every fiber of her being recoiling at the thought of what might be happening to Booth while he was missing. She had reacted to that feeling by doing everything in her power to find him. When she did, she found that all the scenarios she had played through her mind were not too far from the truth. They had hurt him. Badly.

And afterwards, when he was safe, she sat across from him at the diner wincing sympathetically with his every movement, and he brushed off her concern by telling her that he had been tortured worse in the past. Somehow, that did little to ease the ache in her own gut, and she felt helpless in the face of all he had been through. In that moment, she did the only thing that went through her mind…she shared with him the song that she herself had found so comforting when she was a child. And he had sung with her and seemed touched that she would share with him in this way. But when she went home afterwards, it still did not seem to be enough. She couldn't imagine what would ever be enough to heal the wounds that he had acquired.

Later, she thought that maybe, she could have tried harder, done more.

She could have gotten the courage to go back to him later that night, at his apartment. He would have opened the door, surprised, hair damp from the shower he had taken to try to wash away all the aches and the fear and the memories.

"I brought you something," she could have said, holding up her excuse from being there. He would have raised his eyebrows at his inability to read any of the characters on the tube in her hand.

"Do I want to know?"

She could have explained how she got the salve from Thailand, and how it healed burns faster than any traditional medicine she had ever tried. He would have looked at her warily, questioningly, but he would have trusted her…because he did. She could have led him to his couch and urged him to sit back into the cushions, him protesting that she didn't need to come over to take care of him. "But you always take care of me after I've been kidnapped," she could have explained, fingers running lightly over the white bandage that covered his inner thigh, and he would have fallen silent. It was true.

He could have read her face as she removed the bandage and saw the angry, swollen red skin there from where the crime boss and his crony had burned him, trying to get him to tell them where Kennedy was, trying to break him. "Not pretty, huh?"

She couldn't have answered that. It would be painful to look at, for sure, reminding her of all the pain he suffered while her and her team and her father fumbled around, trying to find him. But it couldn't have been ugly. Not on him. It would have been just another, visible example of his strength.

"Booth," she could have asked, her fingers gentle, applying the balm with a feather-light touch. "Was this the worst part?" Knowing that it likely wasn't, and that he wouldn't talk about it unquestioned, without help. He did not like to share his pain…if she wanted it, she would have to coax it from him.

"No," would come the expected answer, and she could wait for him to continue because it would take awhile. Her hands could work on preparing the new, clean bandages to cover this painful, exposed part of him, helping it to heal. "They held the picture I carry of my son. Told me I'd never see him again."

She could lay the gauze down gently on his wound as she kneeled before him, smoothing it over his strong thigh as she looked up and into his eyes.

"That made it worse than anything. More than anything that happened there, or in the Middle East. I have so much more to lose now."

She had no illusions that she would have known what to say then, any more than any other time, but she could have conveyed her empathy through her gaze, through the hands that remained resting lightly on his knee.

"It hurts, Bones."

And she could have done the thing she remembered from when she was hurt as a child…the one thing that always made it feel better. She could have leaned over and gently placed a kiss overtop the bandage she just laid, letting her lips linger softly for a moment. Her cheeks could have colored just a little bit as she met his eyes again, and they would have been looking at her more intently than ever before.

"Does that help?" she could have asked, knowing that there is no scientific reason why a kiss would decrease pain or help a wound to heal, only knowing that when her mother did it, it seemed to have exactly that effect.

A smile would have touched the corners of his lips, the way it did at the diner earlier when they sang together. "It would. It does. But…"

"But?" she could have encouraged him, wanting his honesty and very nearly being devastated when he gave it to her.

"But it hurts everywhere, Bones. Everywhere."

Reflected in his gaze, she could see evidence of a thousand hurts, a hundred tortures, all culminating in the knowledge and fear that when he went to work in the morning, he could never be entirely sure that he would return to his life, his family, to hug his son, to do the things he loved. So she could have done the only thing she could think of to do.

"Lay down," she could have offered softly. He couldn't have known what she intended, but he would have done so. Because he trusted her.

She could have started with his feet, both because they would have been easily accessible to her and because she knew they had once been the recipient of blows that he received, wounds he had attained. She could have heard his surprised, sharp intake of breath when she took his bare foot in her hands and her lips first brush his toes, gently, and he might have startled a bit off the pillow that lay behind his head. But as she made her intentions known, continuing her trail of kisses down to the soles of his feet, down over his heel and around to his ankle, he would have settled back, watching her with wonder.

She could have been slow, and methodical, leaving no inch of uncovered skin unkissed. She could have moved up his calves, his knees, his thighs, finding a few scars along the way but not lingering on them, letting him know that every part of him was just as important as the rest, the wounds just as valuable as the smooth, healthy skin that surrounded them. When she reached the edge of his cotton shorts and traced her way around them with her lips, she could have moved to the other leg, working her way down this time with the moist, light touches of her mouth.

When that was finished, it would be his hands, his arms…she could have kissed each of his fingertips, resisting the urge to give them special treatment and touch her tongue out to the soft pads. His skin could have been velvety under her mouth, and his muscles hard, and she could have poured as much comfort and care and empathy into every touch of her lips against him as she felt. Reaching the sleeve of his t-shirt, she could lean over him to begin the next arm, her body pressing into his side as she hovered, unwilling to miss a millimeter of what was available to her.

Then…his face and neck. His eyes could have fluttered shut while she trailed her moist kisses over his chin, his cheeks, his forehead and down the bridge of his nose, being mindful of the injuries he had attained today, the gentleness of her touch contrasting starkly with the punches and blows he had received. When she reached his eyelids, his lashes softly tickling her lips, she could have been just a little surprised to taste the saltiness of tears there. She would have backed off, speaking to him for the first time since she began this an hour ago.

"Did I hurt you?"

Eyes opening, he would have shook his head 'no' sharply, fists rising to his eyes to brush away the tears.

She could have glanced down his body, seeing the expanse of it that was covered by his clothes. "I would have done the rest," she could have whispered. "But I'm not sure it would have been right. Not now."

Still not speaking, he would have reach up and took her by the shoulders, crushing her to him in a hug so tight that she was certain that it had to hurt him, but he would not seem to care. He'd hold her there, and she'd feel the warm wetness from his tears at her hairline.

"I'm glad you found me today, Bones," he would have murmured, refusing to release her.

"I'll always find you," could be the words that automatically left her lips. She could not have known what prompted her to make the promise, but the small sigh of relief she heard from him let her know it was the right thing to say.

"I'll always find you, too."

And then, she could have raised off his aching body, eyes falling on the one exposed part of him she hadn't yet kissed. And as she lowered her head to finish what she had begun, lips trembling against his, she could have known that this was the second time this day that they had found one another.