Hi Low and In Between

One day it just snowed I guess
And they closed the roads into your heart
You came home like a dead star
No light left, no loving anymore

Years ago, you sent a postcard,
It's the one that always made me laugh
It said "Send for reinforcements
'Cause there's too much here for me to love"

She was broken and it became my job to fix her. Her past, her horrible past, was what was keeping us apart. The terrible people who were supposed to love her hurt her. Her parents left and then her foster parents were abusive. She didn't ever deserve anything like that. She deserved everything life could give.

I was already six months into my deployment when I had my first (and only) day off. I was due to get a new bunch of soldiers to train the next day and my boss had suggested I take a day off to rest up. Luckily, I only had to share a tent with one other soldier, Joe Carver. He was a nice guy and only a few years younger than me. He had a family. He had what I wanted so bad. Sure, I have Parker, but having a son is just not quite the same as having a family. His wife, Madeline, and their twin daughters, Abigail and Olivia, were sending him mail constantly. I got letters from Parker on a weekly basis and I would respond whenever I could.

Joe would come into the tent, armfuls of postcards, pictures and letters from his girls. He'd show me everything his daughters would send him and I'd show him what Parker would send me on occasion.

"You got a girl?" Joe asked that night.

"No, Carver, you know that. Parker," I explained.

Joe laughed. "No, man! I mean, a woman! You got a girlfriend back home or something? You've never actually told me."

I laughed with him. "Oh, well, kinda. Maybe. I'm not exactly sure. But she's not exactly back home either."

He looked at me, waiting for me to tell the full story. "Bones is in Indonesia."

"Bones?" he clarified, scrunching up his nose.

"She's an anthropologist, works with bones. So, I call her Bones."

"Well, what's her real name?"

"Temperance Brennan."

"The author? Madeline loves those books!"

I smiled at him. I leaned back on my cot and slid a dusty shoe box out from under it. I opened it up. A small calendar was on top and I marked another day off. I set that off to the side and then emptied the rest of the box out on my cot. Pictures, drawings and letters spilled out and I sorted them. Parker's mail on one side and postcards from Bones on the other. I scanned through Parker's mail again, even though I had read his letters and stared at them on a daily basis. I set them back in the box and I read through Bone's postcards.

I assumed she only had time for a short message on a postcard. She was probably keeping busy with the remains she had been so excited about. I wrote her letters everyday but I never had enough stamps to send them all at once so I'd pick the best one and I'd take it to the mail office on a Saturday morning before my afternoon training sessions with the kids. They were hardly men.

'They have named the specimen. The people here remind me so much of you. Hardly any objectivity at all and constant speculation.'

'The rainy season has arrived and I'm sure you would be thrilled to have even just a small rain shower where you are.'

'The volcano is smoking. The locals doubt anything major will happen but I just wanted to warn you. And I promised you I'd be safe, so I'm staying away from it, despite my intense curiosity.'

'I took a page from your book and took a day off for myself. I went to the beach. It's the clearest water I have ever seen. It's beautiful. I wish you could be here with me.'

'There was a riot in the small town a few miles away. Nothing major but for some reason, I thought of you and I just hope you're staying safe.'

'I miss you.'

'I love it here. Maybe I will use my vacation days that I will gain after being reinstated at the Jeffersonian to come back here for a more relaxing visit.'

'I went snorkeling today with a few other anthropologists. I saw a fish that oddly reminded me of you. I wish you could've gone snorkeling with us. I'm sure there's nothing like this where you are in the desert.'

'The islands really are beautiful. I wish you could leave your post and come for a visit. You'd really enjoy it. I'm counting down the days until I get to see you at the reflecting pool.'

'Send for reinforcements because there's too much here for me to love.'

I chuckled. This was the last postcard I had received from her. It was dated almost a month ago.

I hadn't received anything else from her since even though I had sent her at least three letters with another one in the base post office right now. I knew she was probably just busy or maybe even ran out of postcards to send.

I put the postcards back in the box and told Joe to meet me in the mess hall for dinner later. I hated eating alone.

Taking a walk to clear my head, I ended back at the post office. You couldn't really call it an office. It was more like a double wide trailer with a few desks and shelves of mail to be sent everywhere around the world.

Every soldier on base had a mailbox here. I had just checked mine yesterday but I decided to check it again, just in case Bones had sent me another postcard.

Sure enough, reaching into the small box, I pulled out a small four by six card with a picture of a beach and the water on the front, a smoking volcano in the background.

Eagerly, I flipped over the card and read her short message. It almost seemed like a joke. Her words were extremely abnormal for her but it was unmistakably her handwriting.

'I love you.'

A/N: How 'bout them Flyers? Normally, I'm a Chicago girl all the way (Except for the White Sox) but I have to cheer for Philly this time around. Just because of Booth! Hahah anyway, let me know what you guys think! Any words of wisdom and kindness are welcome here! :)