Vigilante Justice

Chapter 9 Awakenings

The next time he opened his eyes the glowing numbers on his watch read five in the morning. Doing the math, he figured he'd managed to get four and a half hours of uninterrupted sleep. He wondered why he was awake at this hour of the morning though; Booth generally needed two alarm clocks to wake him up for work. Listening, he heard soft noises coming from his bedroom where he'd sent Bones for some sleep. After a minute, his curiosity got the better of him and he decided to go check it out.

"What are you doing?"

Bones was up and dressed, using the nightlight in the bathroom to brush her hair and apply a little makeup. She even had her shoes on. It was obvious she was planning to leave.

"Booth!" She said uneasily. "I was trying to not wake you." Turning to the bedside table she grabbed her earrings and necklace and slipped them into her handbag.

"Why are you sneaking out?"

Bones shrugged, not meeting his eyes.

"You've changed your mind, and you don't want to talk about it."

Booth grew angry as her intention became clear to him. He walked over to her, took her handbag out of her hands and tossed it behind them onto the bed. Keeping her wrists imprisoned in his clenched hands, he glared down into her eyes.

"Carson came very close to killing you last night. What if he is waiting out there for you? There are lots of places for him to hide between here and your apartment. Have you already forgotten the danger you were in last night? You don't have to do everything on your own. You have me. Why didn't you wake me up if you have to be somewhere? You said it last night: you're running again."

She stared down at her feet, her hands still firmly trapped in his, and something in her deflated. Booth's anger melted away at the sight of her acquiescence. Releasing her wrists, he placed his hands on her shoulders, still staring at her, trying to figure out what she was thinking.

"I didn't want to bother you," she said lamely, unsure what to do with her hands and finally allowing them to settle at Booth's waist.

"So you're leaving without telling me? Try to imagine how I would feel—what I would think—when I woke up and found you gone without a word of explanation. Look, whether you like it or not, you're one of the most important people in the world to me. You aren't a bother. I can think of lots of people who are, but you are not—and never will be—on that list."

"You're irritated with me right now," she protested.

"Actually, this isn't irritation. This is hurt. After all we've been through, I don't understand why you won't allow yourself to trust me, Bones."

"Of course I trust you," she protested, outraged. "You've saved my life more times than I can count."

"You don't trust my feelings for you," he stated bluntly. "You don't believe that I love you."

Booth sat down on the edge of the bed, pulling her down next to him.

"I didn't mean to hurt you," she said, her voice cracking. "You don't understand. I trust you, Booth; I do. But love is not trustworthy. A feeling based on biology and sexual attraction is temporary."

"What I feel for you is not based on biology and sexual attraction. I mean," he stuttered, "I am—very—attracted to you, but there are lots of women who I would call attractive. The thing I'm trying to say is I'm not drawn to any of them the way I am to you. It's you I love, everything about you, not just your physical appearance. I don't hide anything from you. I want to be with you all the time. Can you honestly say you don't feel the same way about me?"

She studied him uneasily. "You are very important to me," she hesitantly admitted.

"Glad to hear it. So what's the problem then?"

"I've known you for over five years, and while we make a great team and we have grown closer personally during that time, we've both had romantic relationships with other people that were great for a while and then fizzled out. Romantic relationships are not reliable. Remember Angela and Hodgins? They seemed to have something great, but that ended too."

"Well, I agree that it's tough for love to last. The truth is I have never had a great relationship. But I choose to believe that it's possible for a romantic relationship to be lifelong. What I do know is I have never felt for anyone the way I feel about you, Bones. That's the honest truth."

"The honest truth? How can you know that for sure?" Her tone was doubtful.

Booth dropped his head onto her shoulder and groaned loudly.

"Do you know how frustrating you are?"

"Okay; in evaluating my past relationships, I would also say I have never had a relationship with a man that was like what I have experienced with you."

"So," Booth growled, "Is that good or bad? Because I can't tell yet."

"When I figure it out I'll let you know."

Booth gasped for breath, his face contorting with a mixture of amusement and anger.

"I just bared my deepest thoughts and feelings for you and you're playing with me?" He glanced at her expression, which was now genuinely confused and a little frightened.

"No, Bones," he said, changing his mind, "I know you. You don't play games. You've lived through pure logic for so long you don't recognize your feelings for what they are. I can live with that. For now. But you need to figure them out, and soon, because this is driving me crazy."

"My feelings? Feelings are not important. Feelings are based on temporary fluctuations in brain chemicals. This is why I am skeptical when a man says he loves me when it's obvious he is just feeling amorous." She paused for a moment. He could see her thinking it through, her jaw tight, her brow crinkled.

"But there is a strong desire in me to spend time with you," she mused out loud. "I'm happy when we're together. To be honest, the thought of you spending time in a romantic way with another woman makes my stomach hurt. And when I think about what it would be like for you to walk out of my life, I feel… I feel…"

Booth grabbed her and filled in her loss for words with a forceful kiss fueled by frustration, impatience, and years of thwarted desire. She fought him for a few seconds, shocked by the unexpected assault, but then something inside her crumbled. As if she suddenly realized she was resisting the very thing that made her happier than anything else in the world, her arms wound around his broad back and shoulders and she abandoned herself to his kiss.

He felt it the moment she let go. Joy coursed through him. But he knew they weren't done with this conversation. And if they didn't resolve this, she'd be right back where she'd started: unwilling, or unable, to trust that this was real. With a heroic effort he broke off and struggled to organize his next thought.

"You're afraid I'm going to leave you, the way you were abandoned by your parents and then Russ. And you'll do anything to make sure you never feel that way again. Believe me I know. You've heard Sweets tell me that the things my father did to Jared and me have created "intimacy issues." "

"He's told us both that," she agreed.

" But we don't have to let the past control us, Bones. Right now, it's you and me, and there's nothing to be afraid of. I'm not going anywhere."

"Oh. I see."

"What? What do you see?" He took advantage of their rare closeness to push his luck. Just in case she talked herself out of this whole romantic thing he was going for it while he had the chance. He casually pushed a lock of her hair behind her shoulder. She shivered when his hand tickled the sensitive skin at the base of her jaw and he smiled triumphantly at the involuntary reaction. He slowly locked his fingers behind her neck.

"You and I were both abandoned as children; therefore we both know how important it is to feel loved, because we lived without it at a very crucial point in our development. We were both injured emotionally."

"Wow, you almost sound like Sweets there."

"Booth!"

"Sorry. Anyway; go on. I think you're onto something."

"I therefore believe that it is logical that we can trust and depend on each other, since we are both deeply aware of how painful it is to be betrayed by someone who says they love you. I can trust that you won't abandon me, because you are also afraid to be abandoned. And likewise, you can trust me for the same."

"Are you saying you love me back?" Booth probed, leaning his forehead against hers.

Tears glistened on her lower lashes. One spilled out and ran down her cheek. Chewing on her bottom lip, she seemed frozen, unable to respond. But she wasn't pulling away either; in fact, her arms were inexorably tightening around his waist. She seemed to be in a painful internal struggle. A wave of hurt for her swept over Booth. He'd gone too far and he could feel her closing down again. He swallowed bitterly.

"Shh," he soothed her, cradling her head against his shoulder. "You don't have to say anything if you don't want to. I shouldn't have asked you that."

"You have every right to ask me," she replied. "You know, Sweets talked to me when I got back from Guatemala. He warned me that you were suffering after-effects from the coma, that for the six weeks I was away you went through a process of realizing we weren't married, but you maintained that you were still in love with me. He said it would go away, along with the other side effects."

"I know; he told me that too. This isn't a side effect. It's not just some mysterious feeling I woke up with."

"I am beginning to believe that. I wish I could be what you want me to be, but I don't think I can," she whispered, her voice breaking. Booth held her with steady arms, comforting her with his body and soft sounds.

"You don't have to be anything for me. Just stay exactly the way you are. I'm still going to be here unless you tell me to go. And you can take that any way you want, and you can choose to respond or not."

"Why are you being so understanding?" She cried.

"Because I'm perfect?" He said coyly.

She laughed through tears and he chuckled with her. Looking down at her familiar face, he wished this moment would last forever. Her eyes were shining like sapphires washed in tears, and she was staring at him so intensely he felt like a searchlight was blasting through him, lighting up every corner of his being.

"Why are you up so early? Do you really have to go somewhere?" The thought occurred to him that maybe she really did have an appointment or something. Bones was a busy woman.

"No, you were right. I was running away. I'm sorry, Booth."

"And now? Do you still feel like you need to run away from this? From me?"

"I'm not going to lie to you. I'm afraid that moving forward with our romantic feelings for one another will jeopardize the close working relationship that we have. And working with you—it's something I don't want to mess up."

"Of course not." He released her shoulders and got up. "You're probably right. I'm sorry I pushed you into something you're not ready for, Bones. Just… don't go anywhere alone, please? It's not safe."

He walked to the doorway of the bedroom before he turned and gazed back at her, his expression holding nothing back. Then he quietly pulled the door closed behind him. He left her sitting on the bed staring after him.

Settling back onto the couch, Booth knew trying to get any more sleep was a lost cause. He was way too wound up now. A million thoughts chased themselves around his mind and his body felt like he'd been through electric shock treatment. He forced himself to lie still with his eyes closed, but his fists were white with tension.

He hoped desperately he hadn't scared Bones away forever with his impulsive kiss. She had to have felt the impatient passion behind it. Way to go, Booth, he berated himself. He'd probably just proved her theory about hormones and brain chemicals and whatever it was she was always going on about. He started to flip over onto his side before he realized the couch was too narrow for that sort of movement. Miserable and on edge, he tried to relax enough to doze.

"Booth?"

His eyes flew open and he sat up halfway, turning toward the sound of her voice, which was very close to his ear. Was he dreaming?

"What?"

"Are you asleep?"

"Uh, that would be a no."

"Me either." She sat down on the coffee table next to him.

"Booth, I know we don't have to get up for at least two, maybe three hours, but I can't sleep now."

"I know how you feel."

When he sat up and made room for her next to him, she slid into the empty spot and crossed her arms as if she was protecting her inner self. After sitting there in silence for a few awkward minutes, Booth's face brightened.

"Hey, the diner opens at 6. Let's go get breakfast," he suggested with a grin. "Come on, I'll wake up Parker."

"Don't we have some issues to resolve first?"

"They can wait. It will all work out in time. Come on, Bones."

He grabbed her hand and tugged her into Parker's room.

To be continued in Chapter 10: The Disappearance of Andrew Carson

A/N: This chapter was relationship-heavy because it just kept working its way into the story line. My take on Booth is that he is very much in love with Brennan and he is tired of waiting for her to get it. I really enjoy their interactions on the show and I try to remain true to the characters in my stories… but my favorite theme is exploring how B&B could end up getting together. Thanks for taking the time to read!