I'm back! Just a word of warning though: I'll be gone from July 3rd to the 8th for some much needed R&R. And I don't mean "read and review." ;) But don't worry! I might end up writing on the beach (perhaps something romantic?) and maybe a few more chaps of my current stories. And, I have a very special one-shot for the 4th of July everyone should keep their eyes out for.

Happy Birthday to me! (July 1st)

Twitter - Objectivemiss

B&B

Day 265

B&B

Brennan awoke with a start, jolting upright from her sleeping bag. She felt as if her heart was beating out of her chest; that wouldn't be possible though considering the placement of the sternum and skin. Never less, she could understand the illusion; her pulse (which she always took on her carotid) was extremely fast. She lifted her hair into a bun, attempting to allow the fresh air to cool her burning skin down. According to her watch, it was about five AM. The group always tried to start early; the Maluku afternoon was extremely unbearable and difficult to work in.

She glanced over across her hut; Daisy's sleeping bag was a messy puddle on the ground. At least the talkative anthropologist wouldn't be here to try to counsel her…again. The last time she woke up from an equally disruptive dream, the young woman had tried the psychology nonsense that she had picked up from her time with Sweets to try to dissect her dream. Booth was right; psychologists loved dreams. Dreams were just a succession of thoughts, images, sounds or emotions; it was the subconscious' playground.

But her dream wasn't of the nightmare nature. No, she had plenty of those over the last 265 days that she spent in Indonesia. They ranged from death by gunshot wounds, blunt force trauma, improvised explosive devices, to many other weapons that were common to the conflict in the Middle East. She had even dreamed of him never returning to meet her at the coffee cart near the Lincoln Memorial; sometimes she dreamed that he returned hand in hand with a faceless female companion.

Tonight's dream was one more of the…pleasant nature. In layman's terms, it was a sex dream. For some time she had tangled with her physical attraction to Booth. Noticing his desirable structure was as natural as breathing. After all, as an anthropologist, she knew better than anyone, that this was simply a response to encourage mating in order to pass on her well endowed genes to further the species.

It was the emotional attachment, however, that she had great difficulty with. The more and more she experienced, the more she became resigned to the fact that love seemed to be a component of the human condition. Brennan had already come to terms with the fact that she had both a physical and emotional attraction to Booth. The question was: what should she do about it.

This was one of those times that she wished that Angela was around; she had much more experience and sensitivity with relationship issues than she did. Daisy did mention that she was able to act as a sounding board for any thoughts she might have. But did she really want to approach Daisy about such…personal and private issues? The woman had already been engaged in her short life…more relative progress than she had achieved in her longer life.

Brennan threw on her usual fare. She meticulously laced up her well-worn hiking boots; the last thing she wanted was for them to be re-tied on multiple occasions, that would only was her valuable times. Daisy was bound to be around here somewhere…

"Keith!" she called to young, biological anthropologist sitting under the dining canopy with pastry smothered all over his lips. "You have something there," Brennan motioned to the mess on his face.

"What?" she quirked an eyebrow.

She made a wiping motion.

"Oh!" he hastily wiped the food off his upper lip. "What can I do you for Dr. B?"

"Have you seen Daisy?"

"Yeah," he looked around. "She was off running errands for Dr. Mikel. I think he had her ferrying test results from the communications hut to him. You might want to check over there."

Then in ignorance, I await my own surprise...

"Daisy?" Brennan peered through the hut's door. Sure enough, the woman looked absolutely exhausted. She was prone on the hut's couch. "Did you not get the doctor required eight hours of sleep last night?"

"I did, but I'm just soooo tired."

Do it Brennan!

"D-Do you think we could…talk?"

Daisy sat up immediately; her attention solely on her mentor. "Did I do something wrong? Because if I did, I will do anything I can to fix it. I'm really really sorry if I did, you know, I just look up to you so much and I would hate to disappoint you-"

"-Daisy…"

"-And then so it really wasn't my fault that happened and I'm really sorry."

"W-What wasn't your fault?"

She looked absolutely crestfallen; she had revealed something that she hadn't even intended to. Such things were the consequences for a steam-powered mouth. Or was it a "motor" mouth? Brennan really couldn't be sure and asking Daisy seemed like an unwise thing if she wanted to keep her attention on what she desired to talk about.

"I-It's not important. But what did you want to talk about Dr. B?"

Brennan leaned a bit closer. "First, may I say that anything said here remains confidential and should not and will not be mentioned outside this hut or at any other time. Is that clear?"

"O-Of course. Is this…" she lowered her voice, "a secret?"

"…It could be considered that."

"Oh I love secrets! And don't worry," Daisy assured, "I am an excellent secret keeper." She pretended to zip her lips shut.

Booth called the ability to carry out something tough "guts." Typically, it would be "to have guts." As she had pointed out before though, every living person had entrails; they were needed to function. Personally, she preferred "audacity" to describe how she had to act. Speaking of her feelings was an extremely difficult and uncomfortable task.

It's now or never Tempe…

"Let's say I were to feel a strong emotional attachment to a person…how would you suggest I act?

"Well, you're the one who always stresses being specific so that's something I've adopted into my own philosophy. So I think I'm going to need more than that. You know, like what kind of 'attachment' is this?" Daisy looked a bit too eager to dissect her idol's emotional problems.

"I believe that this is a developing romantic relationship."

"Does Agent Booth know about this? Because it seems like something he would want to check out. As my sorority used to say, 'never hear a secret that could hurt two of your friends.' Or…I guess…co-workers too."

She couldn't do this. Not with Daisy. Not with anyone. This was a completely private manner.

"Forget about it," she headed out from the hut.

"Did I say something wrong?" the young anthropologist called after her. Luckily, she didn't pursue; out running Daisy would be doable, but if she had as much energy as she talked with, tiring.

Just because she didn't feel comfortable thinking about her feelings. Earlier in her trip, she told Angela over the phone that she thought she loved Booth. But the more and more time she spent mulling over that exact concept, the more she came to believe it. Love, by definition, was any of a number of emotions related to a sense of strong affection and attachment. She certainly felt attached to Booth; time without him felt empty and without purpose. Affection was something that she felt also; all those "guy hugs" and close contact surely fulfilled the criteria for affection.

The Greeks divided love into five main categories. "Agape" is ideal and pure love; love of the physical sense. Booth was very pleasing to look at, but that wasn't the only way that she felt attracted to him. "Eros" is passionate love; some translate it as "love of the body." The love (if that was indeed what she felt) that she felt was certainly passionate and sensual as Eros describes. "Philia" motivated by practical reasons; one or both of the parties benefit from the relationship. It was most like a platonic relationship; a manner in which she had described their partnership many times. The remaining two forms were "Storge," natural affection for offspring, and "Xenia," the Greek hospitality.

Their relationship was caught in a middle ground. Should they escalate it to romantic? Or keep it where it is? Quite frankly, Brennan wasn't sure what would be the best for them.

Booth said that love isn't rational. Thus, is it rational to think of it in a rational way?

For just a moment, she let herself think of what she wanted; not what would be best. She wanted a closer relationship with Booth. She wanted to love him

But she wasn't sure that she could. That bloody insecurity to love of hers kept surfacing. She felt like a young child on the edge of a very cold pool. Once one jumped in, it wasn't so bad. But getting one's head underwater for the first time could be difficult.

"That's it," she said to herself, reemerging from the recesses of her mind. Her mindlessly walking body had brought her to the water's edge. "When I get back, I will talk to Booth about this. I won't become nervous and lose the courage needed to speak my mind. I will tell him how I feel…I promise."

Although she had said it to only herself, speaking it out loud was almost like signing a contract. And even then, Brennan wasn't one to back down on her promises.

Just 100 more days not to change my mind…

B&B

"Hey Boss, I got a question for ya," Herring said.

The two guys were in the communal bathroom for the barracks. Luckily, the facility was large enough for each guy in the unit to have his own sink; it was sort of like their personal space. Because in the Army, you might as well forget the words "personal bubble" until your enlistment is up.

"What Herring," Booth managed as he shaved, scraping the last stripes of cream off his jaw.

"Why don't you put up a picture of your girl like the rest of the guys?"

It was almost a unit requirement; a picture of your girl on "your" bathroom mirror. Of course, there were the obligatory Megan Fox pictures that many of the men had up, but most actually had a picture of a girl waiting for them back home.

"I don't want to be hassled about the picture…that's all."

"I've seen your girl, she's hot hot hot!" Herring nudged Booth.

"She's not my girl," he growled, washing the last of the rich lather off his face.

"Then why do you carry around a picture of her in your pocket at all times?"

"None of your business," he snapped.

"But in case you're worried," Herring leaned over to him. "I don't think the guys would make fun of her bein' ugly or nothin'." He whistled approvingly to further accent his point.

"That's the exact kind of response I wanted to avoid."

"Your deal bro, but you're kinda bein' overprotective you know? Now I don't know about you, but I'm starved. I'm headin' to the mess," the Master Sergeant patted him on the shoulder, taking his towel with him as he went.

Was he overprotective? Bones accused him of it all the time. "You don't need to walk me to my car Booth"; yeah, well the Gravedigger got you in that parking garage. "Booth, you don't need to walk around my apartment to make sure it's safe"; yeah, well Howard Epps got into there and was ready to kill you in the shower. But could he really be overprotective of a picture? It was just a snapshot of her; Bones was such a dynamic person. But never the less, he refused to take part in his unit's ritual; it just seemed needless. Wow, now he was beginning to sound like her too.

Booth tidied up his area and slung his wet towel over his shoulders. He stepped out from the barracks to the morning sun of Afghanistan. The morning was like wolf in sheep's clothing; it didn't reveal the scorching heat it would deal out in a few short hours. It was like it wanted to lull him and his men into a false sense of security. Plenty of soldiers had said it: it seemed like the terrain itself was working against them.

He started up a brisk pace to the mess hall, not wanting to dally and miss any of the good stuff. He pondered about Bones as he went. Recently, he had debated on whether or not he should wait for her. After his profession of love, he said that he would move on. But despite his dating, he really wasn't moving on; he was staying right where he was. She ran from him for Christ sake! Not only ran away, but halfway across the freaking world. Could he really make her feel that scared and insecure? He certainly hoped not; the last thing he wanted to do was cause her pain and discomfort.

But what if she really never became ready for him? Was he just going to sit and watch his entire life pass him by? Yes, Bones was important to him. Extremely important. But what about his dreams of getting married? His dreams of having children? His dreams of having grandchildren? These were all things that he desired to obtain, but they were items that he considered well worth benching for a chance to openly love Bones. But could she really love him back? Well, she was one of the most caring people he had ever met in his life, but she enjoyed building walls. She was like a little girl on the beach, hopelessly reinforcing the walls of sand castle as they were being pounded with waves. Losing the walls was inevitable.

Booth hated feeling so pessimistic; it was probably just job pressure. Well, then you're in the middle of a dangerous warzone teaching men to catch bad guys, stress happens, and pretty easily at that. Suddenly, he lost his appetite.

"Hey Booth!" a few guys near Herring wave him over.

Lately, all of the veteran Rangers turned trainers had begun to sit together at any opportunity. It was nice to be with guys that knew exactly what you went through. That was the hardest thing about adjust from Army life to civilian life; people not understanding. But Bones almost always understood. Even if her words were pepped with "I don't know what that means," he could see the empathy in her eyes. He was sure that was why some said that the eyes were gateways to the soul. But Bones didn't believe in the soul, surely she didn't.

"No food?" Herring asked, swirling the mystery meat around with a fork.

"Not hungry."

"Not even for stolen hospital pudding?" Major Moore approached from behind.

"Not even," but Booth couldn't help but crack a smile.

"Well this man's in a funk," the surgeon dropped to the bench next to him. In all the time he knew Moore, he learned that it was useless to try to explain officer to enlisted protocol. Either he was deaf and dumb, or he just really didn't care. He was pretty sure it was the latter. "Why the long face?"

"Just…stress," he said. It was mostly true. He was stressed…about Bones. It wasn't a crime to let him assume it was solely work pressure.

"Well I get that. This one time, I was working on this guy with an abdominal aortic burst-"

"Gross man," Herring looked over in disgust. "How many times have I told you not to tell that kind of crap while I'm eating?"

"You're the one that talks about blowing the heads of terrorists and watching the blood spurt out," Moore quirked an eyebrow.

"Okay I get your point," the Master Sergeant said quickly.

But seriously, Booth knew he might have to move on…and for real this time. He just couldn't wait for her forever; his time on earth had a time limit, just like hers. And while she aspired to make game changing anthropological discoveries in her life, he just wanted to spend his with a woman that he loved. Was that really too much to ask? But he loved Bones, he knew that well…in his bones. The last thing he wanted to do was give up on her too soon.

If she really wanted to enter a loving relationship with him, she would have to make the first move this time. He had already barred his heart to her, only to have it crushed. She would have to be the one to take the risk this time, and he hoped to God that she would do it. You couldn't force Bones to do anything; ; she had to consciously choose to do it on her own.

"Are you sure you don't want the pudding?" the Major slid the plastic container over. "I had to smuggle it over here and everything. The least you could do is…well…reward my efforts."

"Fine," Booth almost reluctantly opened the lid, pulling out the folded plastic spoon. Ever since he was in the hospital for dehydration, Moore knew that pudding was a wonderful way to persuade him.

"Now that you're eating...do you want to tell me why you aren't having your group sent over for the preventive medicine stuff."

"I just don't think it's needed."

"Come on, it doesn't hurt. Hey, I know why you don't want to do it."

"Why?"

"You don't want to deal with the beautiful Captain Foley."

"That's not true. And you were definitely not a psych major."

"Nah, but they made us take it. Just bring your boys over to the complex; it will take no time at all."

"I've got to get going," he said goodbyes to everyone at the table.

Then he knew: if Bones wanted him, she would have to make the first move.

Just 100 days left to go…

B&B

How's that for emotional development? Leave me a review! I love them. And thank you (even you silent readers ;D ) for your support. It's always nice to know that you're wanted…or at least, the chapters are wanted.

Twitter - Objectivemiss