Thanks for the reviews. They've been great.

I don't own Bones.

Oooooooooooooooooooo

Bored, Max had been watching a game on TV when he heard Booth moan. Hopeful that his daughter's boyfriend was waking up, Max stood up and leaned over the man.

"Booth, are you awake?" Max held his hand on Booth's shoulder and stared at him.

Booth didn't respond.

Disappointed, Max sat down and glared at the Agent. "You know Booth, you can't stay like that. Tempe is worried and she wants you to wake up . . . Come on, wake up. You can't leave her Booth. She's not the person she used to be. She's allowed herself to love you and if you leave her, I'm afraid of what it would do to her. Please Booth, wake up for Tempe and that baby she's carrying . . . please?"

Booth continued to sleep, unaware of the fear that his coma was causing his loved ones.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooo

Not knowing where else to look, Booth drove over to the Royal Diner to see if Brennan was there. After he entered the restaurant, he found the place to be deserted just like the Lab had been. There wasn't a soul there. No customers, no waitresses, no cook and most importantly no Brennan. Shaking his head, Booth walked over to their favorite table and sat down. Placing his arms on the table, he leaned down and rested his head on top of his arms. With his eyes closed, he tried his best not to give in to his emotions again. As he rested at the table, he realized he was having a hard time breathing.

Alarmed, he straightened up and , he rubbed small circles over his chest. Alerted to a noise coming from the front of the building, Booth looked towards the main entrance and saw the young girl walk enter the building.

Cheerfully, the blond haired girl walked over to his table and sat down across from him. "Why do you think Temperance left you Seeley?"

He should have questioned why the child was following him, but he couldn't muster up the interest. "Because when I woke up this morning, she wasn't home and all of her stuff was gone from the house. That's pretty plain don't you think? She left me and she doesn't have any intention of coming back."

The young girl shook her head in disbelief. "Why would Temperance leave you? That doesn't make any sense since she loves you."

Booth looked at his hands and felt the sting of tears threatening to fall. Determined not to give in to them, he cleared his throat. "Because every woman I've ever loved has left me . . . Even my mother left me. She didn't want to stay with my father and she left . . . she didn't take me or Jared with her. She must have hated us so much to do that . . . I've . . . I thought for a while she left because she was broken and she couldn't take care of us, but if she had loved us . . . if she had loved me, she would have saved me . . . wouldn't she?"

Shaking her head, she said, "She ran away?"

He tried not to think about it too often, but the child probably deserved an answer. "Yeah, when I was ten years old. Dad used to use her as a punching bag and one day her hurt her so badly that they took her away in an ambulance. She never came back. She just ran away and left me with my father. I was ten years old and she left me behind."

The girl was determined and no matter how much the questions hurt him, he had to see things for himself. "Your Pops save you though. He loved you and he saved you and Jared."

Looking at the little girl, Booth nodded his head. "Yeah, my grandfather raised me and my brother. He was our real father not that sperm donor that called himself my Dad." Bitterly, Booth shook his head. "What kind of person am I? My father hated me and my mother didn't want me. What does that make me? I was such a terrible child that my own mother was willing to leave me with an drunken abuser. Maybe she was right . . . I am a loser."

Frustrated with Booth, the child tried to be patient. "You are not a loser. Your father was the loser. Your mother was broken and couldn't take care of herself let alone two young boys . . . Your grandfather loved you, your grandmother loved you. Your Aunt loved you . . . We aren't all lucky to have wonderful loving parents. Some children have to find that love when they're older but they can find it Seeley. You did. Temperance loves you."

"She may love me, but maybe she shouldn't." Booth sighed. "I don't really know what love is. I dream about it and read about it and I hope I will find it and . . . and I hoped that I had, but . . . "

His outlook was self defeating and the child was starting to hate his parents with her very soul. "I'm so sorry that your childhood was so bad, but Seeley . . . you did have a wonderful life once you were with your Pops and those women who have left you . . . I don't think it was about you. It was about them. Your love was an inconvenience for them . . . You're drawn to very independent women. You've always been drawn to women who were the exact opposite of your mother. Well, those women valued their independence more than they did you. That's not on you. That's on them. They rejected love when it was given. How was that your fault?"

Shrugging his shoulders, Booth shook his head. "I thought love is supposed to conquer all."

Sighing, the child reached across the table and placed her hand over his hand. "Even you know that isn't true."

Her touch felt light more like a feather than the weight of a child's hand. "I love brilliant women who know how to handle themselves. Bones . . . Bones is like that. She's a genius and knows how to protect herself. She's a real bad ass when it comes to her safety. I try to protect her from herself because she's so fearless . . . She's the one I've always dreamed of finding." Booth shook his head. "No woman that I have loved has ever loved me enough to stay with me. If they had loved me they wouldn't have left me. Even Bones left me and I thought she loved me . . . I hoped she loved me."

The little girl removed her hand from Booth's hand. "She does love you. She loves you so much that she's worried about you."

Not really listening to the child, Booth stared at his clenched hand resting on the table. "I was in love with Rebecca and I thought she loved me and when I asked her to marry her, she left me . . . Tessa . . . Tessa said she loved me and when I wanted to get closer to her, she left me. Hannah . . . what can I say about Hannah? She told me that she loved me and when I asked her to marry me, she turned me down. She didn't want what I had to offer her anymore than the others did."

"But you left her," she spoke softly, but clearly. "Didn't you tell Hannah to leave?"

He had to admit that was true. "Sure, because I knew that since I couldn't give her what she wanted, I knew she would leave me eventually. I just forced the issue by asking her to marry me that's all. Deep down, I knew she would say no, I was just desperate to hear her say yes. For once, I wanted someone to love me enough to say yes."

The girl stared at the defeated man and worried that he wasn't really aware that he was loved. He really thought no one cared if he lived or died and that made her sad. "What did Hannah really want?Do you know?"

Booth nodded his head. "She wanted a lover with no strings attached. I couldn't give her that. I want someone to commit to me. I wanted her to at least try."

"But she couldn't because that's not who she is." The young girl sighed. "There is someone who loves you very much, but you're so afraid that she's going to leave you and you're protecting yourself from being hurt. Don't you see that?"

"Oh I see more than you seem to think I do." Booth moved his gaze out to the empty street outside the window. "She left me you know . . . In fact, she's left me twice. The first time, I asked her to love me as more than a friend. I wanted her to give me a chance, us a chance and she said no. She said she was doing it to protect me, but . . . She pulled away from me and she left part of our friendship behind. She was still my friend, but suddenly she wasn't the close friend we always had been. She was tired of working with me. She wanted to leave murder behind and she went to Maluku. She didn't want to be with me any more and she left for an island half way around the world. She didn't want to be my partner. In fact, at the time, I didn't think she wanted me in her life at all. I couldn't understand how it all went so bad, so fast and I couldn't stay here. Not without her . . . the temptations to go back to the old me, the gambler was too strong so I went to Afghanistan. I thought if I went away it would help me to be strong. It helped a little, but not like I'd hoped it would."

Shrugging her shoulders, the little girl frowned. "But you came back home and she came back too, didn't she?"

There was no denying that. "Yes, she came back, but I really didn't know what she wanted from me. Our friendship was the only thing she wanted and even that . . . she never wrote me . . . I gave her space and she never tried to contact me . . . I moved on with Hannah. Well, I tried to move on with Hannah. I told you how that worked out."

Giving Booth a sad smile, the girl boldly stated the facts as how she understood them. "You and Temperance hurt each other and in the end you forgave each other, didn't you? You love her and she loves you. You're happy now."

"I'm happy." Booth turned his attention back to the child. "I just don't know if Bones is. She says she loves me, but I've been worried that she might leave me. Now she has. No one stays . . . no one wants what I'm offering."

Shaking her head, the girl stood up. "I don't think so, Seeley. She hasn't left you. She loves you. You just need to go where she is . . . You need to go to her favorite place."

His hand slowly rubbing across his chest, Booth's breathing became short and painful. Closing his eyes, Booth swallowed. "I don't know where she is. I've been to her favorite place. She wasn't there."

Oooooooooooooooooo

Max had been listening to the sports report on ESPN when he realized that Booth seemed to be breathing harder. He looked to be in a lot of pain. Quickly standing, Max walked out of the room and down the hallway to the nurses' station. Leaning across the counter, Max spoke to the nurse facing he hallway. "My daughter's boyfriend, Seeley Booth, seems to be in a lot of pain. Can't you do something about it . . . It looks bad."

Nodding her head, the nurse rose from her chair, hurried around the counter and walked swiftly to Seeley's room. Entering his room, Nurse Sheila saw that Booth was breathing hard and that he was sweating profusely. She had been given instructions to be careful about the use of pain medicine because the Agent was under the influence of anesthesia and he was in a coma. His doctor didn't want to over medicate him. The nurse had been told to use discretion when administering Seeley his pain medication. Seeing that she may have been too cautious, Sheila gave him a normal dose of pain medicine and not the half dose she had been giving him. After a few minutes, Booth's face cleared and his breathing became easier and his body was more relaxed.

Thankful that Booth was starting to look better, Max sat down next to the bed to keep a better eye on the man. "Thanks . . . Thanks a lot."

Smiling, Sheila left the room.

Once she was gone, Max stood up and leaned over Booth. "Quit being stubborn, Booth . . . Wake up."

Booth continued to sleep and all Max could do was sit down and wait. What else could he do?

Oooooooooooooooooooo

I hope you're still interested. The end of the tunnel is coming up. I hope I haven't made you too anxious. I didn't realize I was going to write it this angsy until after I wrote it.