Note: Loved the latest episode. I've watched it 3 times, which is about 2.5 times more than any other episode for the past 2 seasons. So naturally, I started thinking of ways to mess it up.

What if: Brennan hadn't changed her mind in Indonesia?

AU? Yes

BbBbBb BbBbBb BbBbBb BbBbBb BbBbBb BbBbBb

While she was rebuffing a very attractive archaeologist and mulling over whether a relationship with Booth had a good enough chance of success to risk ruining what they already had, he was falling in love with a reporter.

It hurt, a little, but it reinforced the conclusion that she'd come to – the possibility of success was too low to make it worth the risk. Booth had always wanted to fall in love, to build a life with someone, and Hannah gave him that opportunity.

Besides, if he was able to fall in love again so quickly, she was right to conclude that any sort of sexual or romantic relationship between them would not have lasted. It was just their proximity that made him mistake their close friendship for love.

She had to be sure that she'd made the right decision, and so she asked questions, trying to make the pieces fall into place. Had he talked to Hannah since he left Afghanistan? Did he miss her? Was Hannah as serious about him as he was about her?

The evidence showed that they were very serious, that Booth had found someone he could spend his life with.

She had made the right choice.

She wanted him to be happy, so she welcomed Hannah into his life. Hannah was a good person, and they had Booth in common, so they even began to become friends – meeting for lunch or a drink, even when Booth wasn't there.

She even started to consider moving on herself, finding a new sexual partner. Maybe the remaining awkwardness she felt with Booth would disappear once she, too, had someone else in her life.

And then Booth asked Hannah to marry him, and it all fell apart.

BbB

When she got to the bar, Booth was already intoxicated. She slid onto the stool beside him and listened to his fears – that he was an alcoholic like his father, that he wasn't worthy of having a lasting relationship – and felt a solid ache in her chest. Booth was a good man, and he deserved more than he'd gotten.

She had believed Hannah when she'd said she was as serious as Booth, but if that had been true, Hannah would have been happy to marry him, happy to help him build the kind of life he wanted.

She should have seen that Hannah wasn't as emotionally invested in their relationship, should have been able to warn him.

It was her fault that he was so hurt, so angry, but even so she was surprised when he made it clear that their relationship would go back to strictly partners, dashing her hopes that they would be able to resume the friendship they'd lost when she'd turned him down all those months ago. She didn't argue – after the way she'd hurt him, it was a surprisingly rational decision.

BbB

Being partners with Booth was harder than she'd expected. He'd always been the one she depended on for help navigating the disconcerting world of human emotion, but consulting him about her changing friendship with Angela was outside the new parameters of their relationship, so she struggled through it alone. Her dad appeared from wherever it was that he had spent the last few months, and she didn't even mention it to Booth.

Occasionally, she caught him looking at her with an expression she couldn't quite decipher, but she didn't ask, just tried harder to stay within the parameters he had set for their new relationship.

The night Mr. Nigel-Murray died, she stayed with Angela and Hodgins. As she lay sleepless in their guest room, his words "I don't want to go. Please don't make me leave." repeating in her head, she wondered how Booth was doing.

Was he lying awake, haunted by Vincent's death, knowing he still had to stop Broadsky?

Somehow, she made it through the night. He caught Broadsky. They loaded Vincent's casket into the hearse for his trip back to his mother, and they gathered in the lounge for an impromptu wake. As they sat there, telling stories of Vincent, she caught Booth looking at her, an expression she couldn't quite read on his face.

And then they had to go undercover as a couple. It was disturbingly nice, being able to touch him whenever she wanted, feeling his arms around her.

She had to compartmentalize, to remember that it wasn't Booth with his arms around her, it was Buck with his arms around Wanda.

Wanda wasn't her.

She wasn't Wanda.

None of it was real.

She wondered whether she should put more effort in her search for a new sexual partner. She'd been busy lately, but the truth was that the men she'd met were all too short or too tall, too clingy or too detached.

They weren't Booth.

Angela had her baby, and Brennan wondered at the look in her friend's eyes. Childbirth was a grueling ordeal, yet Angela was so thrilled with her son that she seemed to have forgotten all about the pain.

It made her wonder if that was how she would have felt, if she had gone through with her plan to have Booth's child. Would she have loved her child as much as Angela loved Michael?

Would Booth have looked at her with the adoring look she saw on Hodgins's face?

None of that mattered now. She and Booth were partners, and if you can't call your partner when you're sad or scared, you certainly can't ask him to father your child.

She left her friends clustered around Hodgins and the baby and slipped through the door. She was a block away from the hospital when she heard someone running up behind her.

She turned, ready to defend herself, and was surprised to see her partner. "Booth?"

He jogged to a stop in front of her. "Hey, Bones."

"Is something wrong?"

"No", he answered "I was just going to ask if you wanted to go get something to eat."

She wanted to say yes, but she knew she had to say no, to respect the boundaries he'd suggested. "I don't think so, Booth."

"Come on, Bones, it'll be like old times. Besides, you gotta eat."

The look on his face was so hopeful, so vulnerable, that she couldn't turn him down. Surely one meal together wouldn't hurt.

He could see her hesitating, and he asked, "Please?"

Against her better judgment, she nodded. "You gotta eat."

BbBbBb BbBbBb BbBbBb BbBbBb BbBbBb BbBbBb

That's not where I thought this was going. Those two have minds of their own.