"A ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for." - William G.T. Shedd

8.

It was only a split second; a moment of hesitation, but in the hours that followed Temperance found herself repeatedly retracing the sequence of events, trying to find out where things had gone so wrong. Logic dictated that the fault lay with the person who committed the crime, but her mind was refusing logic. She blamed herself for insisting on being his partner, for endangering him. He had told her she was a distraction. That she was not properly trained to be his full partner. But she hadn't listened, placing her own contentment over his safety. She had almost gotten him killed, again.

It had been their first confrontation with a suspect in months, since their holiday vacation and conversation. They'd had several successful cases in the interim, but the criminals had been surprisingly acquiescent when it came to arrests, at least until this day, until this case. They had shown up to the victim's house, ostensibly to collect samples for comparison to particulates that had been found on the victims shoes, but more so because Booth's 'gut' had been metaphorically speaking to him that there was something that they were missing, something that could be found in the victim's life. The door had been ajar. That was the first warning that things were not all right and Booth had insisted she remain in the car, which she refused. With a resigned shake of his head, Booth had entered gun first, cautiously clearing the rooms while she trailed behind at a distance, at the very least cognizant of his request that 'guns go first'.

A pattern on the radiator had caught her attention and she had knelt down for a closer look. With the slightest brush of her gloved hand the cover fell to the ground with a loud clatter, causing Booth to whirl back in her direction. "Booth..." she started to say, but then her breath caught in her throat, a man was standing in the doorway behind him, gun drawn.

At her voice, Booth lowered his pointed gun and missed the movement behind him. He started to speak, but noticed her eyes widen. His gut kicked in and he leapt towards her, spinning and raising his weapon in the same movement.

The shot resounded and time slowed as she watched him move towards her, then flinch before flattening her to the ground. Red seeped from his shoulder and she clasped the weapon from his limp hand, firing at and incapacitating their attacker. Her aim was true, so she grabbed Booth's handcuffs and further restrained the man lying before them before shuffling towards her partner, who was, to her relief, pressing down on his bicep and groaning slightly. He was going to be okay. But he may not have been. If she hadn't distracted him...

It was all her fault.

(.xxx.)

"Good cops make their bosses look good, and Hector was a one-man beauty school." – Edward Conlon, Blue Blood

(.xxx.)

Booth was awkwardly opening his office door with his nearly full coffee cup wedged in his sling, when his boss's boss appeared behind him. "Agent Booth!"

Startled, Booth almost dropped his coffee. He nudged open the door, and slowly turned. "Assistant Director Hacker."

The man appeared to be ready to slap him on the shoulder and he winced in anticipation. Realizing his mistake, Hacker paused in mid air and smoothly switched direction to grab the other man's coffee cup. "Here, let me give you a hand."

Booth smiled begrudgingly and nodded toward the desk. "Thanks. Did you need to see me about something?"

Hacker smiled. "I just wanted to make sure that you're doing alright."

Booth stopped himself from rolling his eyes. "The doc says a month, six weeks at most before I'm back in the field."

"Well, that should be just about right."

"Just about right?" Booth echoed.

"Well, with Temperance going on leave for seven weeks, it almost works out. Do you think there's someone else at the Jeffersonian that you could partner with until she's back?"

Stunned, he repeated, "until she's back?"

"Sure, one of the other, what is it you call them? Squints! Yes, that's the charming little moniker you've dubbed them with, isn't it?"

"Well sir, it's more of a term of..."

Hacker waved him off. "Just tell Dr. Saroyan to send me the details. Unless you'd rather I assign you one of the junior agents?" Off Booth's frown, he continued, "Okay, message received, loud and clear, no junior agents. Oh, and please tell Temperance congratulations from me again? I think it's a great initiative she's taking. Should have thought of it myself years ago."

"Years ago," he agreed, numbly wondering if he'd lost his mind as well as his ability to speak.

"Well great. Heal up soon. I can't have my best agent down for too long. Gotta keep those solve rates up you know, don't want my division to look bad." He rapped on the door frame briefly with a quick grin.

Booth watched in silence as the man sauntered out of the room, confusion and panic warring inside.

(.xxx.)

When you have been with your partner for so many years, they become the glove compartment map that you've worn dog-eared and white-creased, the trail you recognize so well you could draw it by heart and for this very reason keep it with you on journeys at all times. And yet, when you least expect it, one day you open your eyes and there is an unfamiliar turnoff, a vantage point that wasn't there before, and you have to stop and wonder if maybe this landmark isn't new at all, but rather something you have missed all along." – Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper

(xxx.)

"You're leaving?"

She jumped, spinning in her chair to face her boyfriend hovering at her office doorway. "Booth! You startled me! I thought we were going to meet at the diner for lunch?"

The agent entered the room and closed the door behind him. "You're leaving?" His voice demanded a response.

She crinkled her forehead and rose to greet him. "Booth?"

"Hacker stopped by today. To make sure that your leave matched up with my desk duty." He didn't look away from her, just stood there with one hand clenched in his coat pocket, the other balled in a fist in his sling, waiting.

The confusion cleared from her expression only to be immediately replaced with guilt. "I was going to discuss this with you at lunch today."

"You're leaving."

"I can explain." She noticed the look of pain on his face but attributed it to his injury. "Would you like to sit down? I'm sure you're..."

He angrily cut her off and paced across the room away from her. "No I don't want you to sit down. I want you to answer my question!"

She followed him, gently placing her hand on his uninjured shoulder, which he immediately shrugged off. She sighed. "Yes. I am leaving, to go to Virginia for seven weeks."

He exploded, "Seven weeks! And you're just telling me! What happened to no running, to discussing these things as a couple?"

"Booth, I am going to Quantico, Virginia," she stressed the name. "I will be attending classes and seminars for FBI recruits."

"What?" He felt flattened, confused.

"I only spoke to Andrew this morning about the possibility. You recently explained to me all the ways I am lacking as your partner and after last Friday I am inclined to agree. So I decided to enquire whether additional training was available for me."

His frown deepened, but the knot of worry began to unfurl in the pit of his stomach. "You should have discussed this with me."

"I have discussed this with you and you dismissed my concerns at the time. I distracted you. You got shot. You don't think I'm capable of protecting myself and put yourself in harm's way for me. I can't live with that. I need to be a better partner to you or not at all."

Oh wait. Whoa. He needed to nip this in the bud. "You are an amazing partner Bones. And what happened wasn't your fault. I should have paid better attention to my surroundings."

"No, I am impulsive and a distraction and you don't trust me when the bullets are flying." She countered.

He cursed her eidetic memory. "I also said a lot of good things about you too."

"Yes, but I did distract you and it got you hurt, again. That is a fact. I no longer trust myself in that respect and you never have."

"It's not that I don't trust you it's just that..." He trailed off, looking for a better explanation, not knowing how to express the fear he had for her.

"You don't. I realize this seems out of the sky for you but I really had only intended to inquire about opportunities for training with Andrew. I'm not sure how it happened, but one moment I was asking him questions and the next he was on the phone arranging TEVOC training and setting up a shortened version of the recruit training program. I had no opportunity to discuss it with you."

"You could have stopped by my office afterwards."

She looked away. "You were in a meeting and then Cam called..."

He interrupted her excuses. "You thought I'd say no."

Reluctantly, she nodded.

He sighed. "I can't say I'm crazy about the idea. Seven weeks is a long time."

"I realize that Booth, but seven weeks is much preferable than twenty, is it not? Besides, we have been apart for longer periods."

"Yeah, but." He wanted to point how miserable those longer periods had been, but hesitated, sensing her inability to understand.

"I need to do this Booth."

He sighed. "When do you start?"

"Wednesday. I will miss a few of the introductory discussions, but I should be able to get up to speed. I have a steep learning curve, you know."

At this he smiled, "Oh trust me, I know. Will you have time off?"

"Yes, although I will be housed at the dormitory I insisted that I be allowed to return home periodically."

"You insisted to the assistant director of the FBI?"

"Andrew was very considerate of my request."

"I hate that you still call him Andrew."

"You still address your former dates by their first names."

"Yeah, but Hacker's my boss," he protested.

She raised her eyebrow and looked at him, waiting for the realization of the double standard to drop.

"Oh. That. Well, that's different."

"Different how, exactly? Do you not still call my boss by her first name? And as I seem to recall, you were involved with her in a sexual relationship, which is something Andrew and I did not engage in. Should I hate that you call her Cam? Or that you still engage in that silly ritual where you both ask the other not to use your first names?"

"We don't do that so much anymore."

"It was becoming quite repetitive," she agreed. "But, should I be jealous as you seem to be of Andrew?"

"No Bones, Cam and I, what we had, it's long gone. We're just friends. Good friends, but friends."

"Is that like how we were just partners?"

He gulped, "No."

She smiled and teased, "Are you still jealous that I call Andrew by his first name?"

"No," he muttered. She brushed a kiss to his cheek.

"Now go away. I have a lot of work to accomplish before we meet for lunch."

He stalled despite her gentle push to the door. "You are an awesome partner Bones."

She smiled. "I know, but I can be a better one. Now go. See you in an hour Booth."

"One hour," he promised and left, but not without a backward glance in her direction. She waved at him cutely and he laughed.