(Blackout in the Blizzard)

I really don't own Bones.

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Sitting in Booth's apartment, the blizzard finally over, Brennan had talked with her partner about their future. "When I met you, I was an impervious substance. Now I am strong substance."

Brennan had been thinking about this for a while. When her parents had abandoned her, she'd realized that she could no longer rely upon anyone to help her. She had been placed in Foster Care by her brother and no one liked her or tried to understand her. After her last set of foster parents had endangered her life by locking her in the trunk of their car and she'd been rescued by her social worker, she had mentally separated herself from those around her. If she couldn't rely upon anyone to protect her then she would protect herself. She became impervious.

An impervious substance doesn't need to be strong and for a long time, she had felt impervious to what was going on around her. She had protected herself in such a way that she had rarely been affected by the messy lives of the people she knew and came in contact with. She wouldn't allow anyone around her to affect her life and she felt that saved her from a lot of heartache. She relied upon herself and with determination and resolve she finished maturing into the independent woman she needed to be to survive in a callous world.

After she started working at the Jeffersonian, she'd finally made a friend and Angela had helped her walk through the social minefields at work and at play. Though Angela had been her friend, her only friend, Brennan hadn't allowed the artist to affect her in fundamental ways. By protecting herself, she felt that on the day her friend finally walked away from her she wouldn't be permanently affected. She would move on with her life and she would still be impervious to the hurt others could bring into her life.

All of that changed when she found a new friend. Seeley Booth was different. He didn't feel it was necessary to try to change her. He accepted her as she was and that acceptance allowed her to let her guard down around him. Their friendship had flourished over the years until her partner had asked her to take a chance on a personal relationship and she'd been afraid to try. She knew she lacked the strength needed if their relationship failed and her partner walked away from her. She would not allow him to dictate her future happiness.

Now, after a trip to Maluku, after being separated from Booth for several months and seeing him move on with another woman she finally realized that it all had been unnecessary. She had the strength she needed to leave herself vulnerable to heartache and the strength to accept that allowing someone to love her and to return that love wouldn't destroy her if that relationship failed. She wasn't a vulnerable child anymore.

She was strong and no longer needed to be impervious.

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"I just need time, that's all." Booth had been angry for a long time. Outside the Hoover, when Brennan had turned him down, he'd thought he'd accepted what had happened. He would never force his partner to do anything she didn't want to do, but that left him alone and feeling that his life was empty. He'd tried to continue to be the friend Brennan needed, but he hadn't realized just how angry he was with the situation until he'd been in a relationship with Hannah and she'd turned him down too.

Now, he knew the flaw was in himself and not his partner or any other woman he had tried to love in the past. He lacked inner peace and it was important that he find it before he tried to move on with his life. Except for his grandparents and his son, his life had been loveless and he felt it had affected him in terrible ways. He'd been looking for love for a long time and up until now, he'd never really found it. He'd had expectations about what love is and those expectations had hindered him more than they had helped him. He knew that and he accepted it.

The blizzard had finally moved out of the area and his apartment was a refuge for both he and his partner. "I just need time to kind of . . . hang back and find that inner peace before I . . . you know, get back out there . . . You and me . . . you and love . . . happiness and life and fate."

Brennan said that she knew what he was talking about and he was thankful that she understood him. It was important to him that his partner understand that the problem wasn't with her, but with him. He knew that the only thing holding them back from having a real relationship was his insecurities and until he straightened himself out, they would remain good friends, but nothing more.

It was time he let go of the past and found peace.

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Because the roads had still been unpassable, Brennan had spent the night in Parker's bedroom. A noise in the kitchen awakening her, she had left her bed, dressed and left the room. Entering the kitchen, she found Booth stirring a batter in a large bowl while coffee was brewing on the counter.

"I didn't realize how tired I was. I slept later than I meant to." Brennan sat at the kitchen table and watched Booth move over to the cabinet and remove two cups, placing them on the counter.

"Me too." The coffee made, he poured some of the brew in both mugs and carried them over to the table where he deposited them. "We're having waffles for breakfast." Returning to the cabinets, he removed a waffle maker from the lower right cabinet and placed it on the counter. "I have some strawberries if you want them with your waffles."

Sipping her coffee, Brennan appreciated that Booth was such a good host. "Thank you, but the waffles will be enough."

After he poured some batter in the now heated waffle maker, Booth turned to face his guest. "When I was a kid, my grandmother taught me how to cook. She said it was important that I knew how to take care of myself when I became an adult. She was a great cook . . . She taught me how to wash clothes and clean up messes, budget my money . . . I miss her. She was my Mom you know . . . my real mother couldn't . . . well, um she taught me how to dance . . . before she ran away." He wasn't sure where this conversation was going and he could see he was confusing his partner. "I'm a complicated mess, Bones. I know that and . . . well, I've been angry with a lot of people for a long time . . . not you, never you . . . my parents, Rebecca . . . I guess I can include Jared and Hannah . . . they all just . . . They just didn't want me in their lives and . . . I don't know . . . I know that sounds pathetic, but sometimes the truth sounds that way . . . I'm not making excuses for my life, I just need you to understand that I've had a lot of crap happen to me in my past, but I can't let my past dictate who I am. Not anymore." He still wasn't quite sure what he was trying to say to Brennan and he was getting annoyed with himself.

Not clear what Booth was trying to tell her, Brennan sipped some of her coffee and placed the cup down on the table. "Both of us have had things done to us by someone who should have loved us . . . it has complicated our lives."

"Complicated . . . yeah, it's done that." Booth turned back to his waffle maker and turned out the crispy waffle onto a plate. Placing the plate on the table in front of his partner, he handed her a fork. "It might be extra crispy. Sorry."

Unconcerned, Brennan cut up the waffle into small pieces. "I prefer crispy waffles over limp ones."

"Yeah." Booth poured more batter in the waffle maker and turned back to face his partner. "I shouldn't have let Sweets push me into asking you to take a chance on us . . . I knew you weren't ready, but I just thought we could work through it together. I'm usually more cautious than that . . . Anyway, I shouldn't have let Sweets influence me. He thinks he knows us, but he really doesn't. Hell, most of time I don't understand me and I let a kid . . . anyway, that was a mistake . . ."

"Booth." She felt she needed to stop him. "It is true you allowed Sweets to influence you, but I think sooner or later you were going to ask me to start a relationship with you and the outcome would have been the same. Like I told you last night, I used to be impervious and that imperviousness would have never allowed you to get emotionally close to me . . . I have given up my imperviousness because it has kept me isolated for too long. When my parents and brother abandoned me, I had to find a way to protect myself since no one else was going to do it. I didn't want to believe that love was real and . . . well, I know that it does exist. I want you to know that . . . I've let what happened to me as a child influence my adulthood and like you, I need to move on. Neither of us should let the past influence us anymore. Once I'm completely free from my imperviousness and you're no longer angry, we will move forward together. I am confident that will happen."

Grateful, Booth smiled at his partner and friend. "I am too." The smell of burning waffles made him realize that he was burning his breakfast. "Damn." Turning, he flipped the charred waffle onto a plate and laughed. "I like crispy waffles, but not that crispy." After he threw it away, he poured more batter in the waffle maker and turned back to face his partner. "Why don't we play hooky from work today. It's probably going to take all day for the streets to be cleared and well . . . I think we deserve a snow day."

"I think that is an excellent idea, Booth." Brennan rarely missed a day of work, but sometimes it was pleasant to do nothing. She hated doing nothing for long periods of time, but once in a while, a day of rest was needed. "Don't burn your waffle."

Turning towards the waffle maker, he checked it and shook his head. "It's fine . . . I was thinking of making lasagna for lunch."

"You haven't eaten breakfast yet and you're thinking about lunch?" Brennan found her partner's capacity for food to be amazing sometimes.

"I'm thinking of the future, Bones. I'm moving on."

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