Hi everyone! Thank you so much for reading this story and sharing the B/B love. I'm just so sorry for the massive delays between chapters! I will finish this but right now, life has taken me hostage. Work ramped up after a year of almost nothing and between kids and work, I have barely any free time. But I should have some time freeing up soon so I really hope to NOT keep you waiting long before my next post (because even I need to see what's next after this!) – enjoy and THANK YOU for the nudges, DMs, reviews, and support!

– Mac

Chapter 11

Booth walked in his front door and threw down his bag. He sat down heavily in his seat, trying to ease some of the tension that had been coiling around in his chest since he'd dropped off Bones and begun his drive home. He couldn't figure it out.

Jake Roman was a nice guy. He was his friend. He had reminded himself of this fact way too many times in the seventeen miles that carried him from her place to his own. And maybe that was it. Jake had been at her place. He knew her address. He surprised her with flowers.

Just how well had their date gone the other day? After all, the guy had asked to be her date to his wedding immediately following it, and now he was surprising her with gifts after she'd been gone for barely a day and a half?

The guy seemed serious about her. And… that was a good thing. That was exactly what he had in his life, with Hannah. Bones was his best friend; she deserved to find someone who could make her just as happy as he was. So, it was a good thing… right?

He was happy. Now she could be happy.

With Jake.

And… and he'd be happy with Hannah. Everyone had what they wanted.

So why couldn't his heart settle into a steady rhythm behind his ribs. He felt like it was racing. His heart. His breathing was doing that thing again, he noticed, right as Hannah noticed him from the kitchen and came over to wrap him in a tight hug.

"I missed you," she said, planting a warm kiss on his lips.

He returned the kiss and offered her a smile. "Me too," he murmured quietly, closing his eyes. As he took in her scent, her blue eyes, her light blonde locks that he ran his hands through now – he saw it all. Afghanistan, chasing after her, worrying about her, making love to her – their quick consummation followed by… love. He'd fallen in love.

Jeez, it felt instant, now that he thought back to all of it. He held her tightly now, reminding himself that no matter what had happened with his heart before he'd met Hannah, she had captured it pretty quickly. He'd given it to her wholly.

This was right. He kissed her again, begging his lungs to truly catch air. To breathe. Because his chest felt tight.

"Just a few days left and then you'll be kissing an honest woman," she joked.

He laughed, though for some reason her joke made him feel like his breath was not just coming out now, but coming fast. Too fast. Like he was building to hyperventilation. So he turned. Cupped his hands over his mouth, and slowly inhaled.

"Seel," Hannah said, her voice that deadpan quality she got when she was in banter-mode with him. "You okay?"

He nodded and closed his eyes.

He thought of Bones at the camp site. The "no" to that question.

Has anyone ever loved you?

No.

No.

The group returning without her.

And… that kiss.

He closed his eyes because this was ridiculous. That kiss was for work. They'd been undercover. There'd been no meaning in it.

Why did you do that?

There had been panic in her blue eyes. Bones. Her eyes had looked at him with… it had felt like broken trust. Like she couldn't believe… what? Her eyes almost looked…

Heartbroken.

"Seeley," Hannah said, more seriously now. She gently turned him to face her. "Talk to me. What's going on?"

He looked at her, willing his breathing to steady out. Finally he caught one big breath that filled his lungs, finally.

"I'm just tired. It was a long case."

"I thought it was supposed to be an easy case. Open and shut. No big deal. Back before food tastings."

He nodded and smiled as he collapsed into his favorite chair. "It was. But it still felt long."

She sat on his lap. "Because you missed me so much?"

He nodded. "Of course."

She leaned down and kissed him and he returned the kiss as a feeling in his stomach went to war with his racing heart and short breaths.

As Hannah kissed him, he let his mind go and he kissed her back. He kissed her hard, desperately… he kissed her with complete abandon. He finally relaxed.

He could finally breathe.

She pulled his shirt from the waistband of his pants and began to undo the buttons and he just kept kissing her. Kissing her, holding her…

And in a panic his eyes popped open in shock.

When he'd let his mind go, he'd really let it go. Because for a moment there, he'd been somewhere else.

Kissing someone else.

And feeling like he could breathe once more.

B*B*B*B*B*B*B*B*B*B*B*B*B*B*B

Booth stormed into Sweets' office a few days later, Friday morning. It was two days away from his wedding now and things hadn't gotten any better. Right as he stood there, Sweets opened his mouth to say something but Booth's phone chirped.

His stomach jumped. It felt like hope. And he looked at the phone. Something sunk.

It was Hannah.

Tonight, don't forget. Rehearsal dinner. Just us, your family, my family. No friends. Just like we discussed.

Right. "We." He closed his eyes.

He generally couldn't breathe still. And Hannah apparently thought he was an old-fashioned crazy person because until he could honestly clear his head, he didn't want to engage in any kind of sexual…

… well he'd put a stop to it that night he came home. He'd taken a cold shower. And he'd worked really hard to clear his head from a kiss that was just for work. A kiss with someone who he'd handed his heart to a long time ago – someone who had not accepted his heart, just handed it back. Someone who then changed her mind at the worst possible moment. Someone who he couldn't figure out how to even work with anymore.

And that was another thing nagging the edges of his mind. With no case to work, he had no reason to even talk to Bones since their emotionally-charged non-murder weird-couples-retreat case. He had no idea what was going on with her. And he shouldn't care.

He didn't care. They were partners. And friends, but…

Why was she on his mind? She had no business jumping into his mind's eye when he was trying to make out with his fiancée. He had a vague idea that she was not skipping out on making out with Jake because of her kiss with Booth at their undercover dinner. Oh no. Bones could compartmentalize. She wrote the book on it. If something could have an emotional ramification, she could move right past it without blinking an eye.

That quality of hers… it drove him nuts.

Because he could've had a hot, sexy reunion with his fiancée. But instead, his brain betrayed him with… what? He didn't understand why on earth he was even thinking about any of it.

Her "no" to that question, that kiss. It was undercover nonsense. And the kiss had been his idea. She met up with a guy practically as soon as it was over, not thinking for a moment about that kiss. She'd moved on. And that was good.

Just like he'd moved on.

He had no romantic feelings for Bones anymore. He could kiss her on an assignment and go home to Hannah and it just should not matter. Not anymore.

He rubbed his eyes. This wedding, all of these little events, the shift in his work dynamic with -honestly – his entire team… all this change. It was taking its toll. That's all this was. His mind was clamoring to grab something familiar. So it grabbed Bones. Their history. Even his old feelings.

His exhausted brain grabbed something familiar and now it was confusing the hell out of him.

He was with Hannah.

"What can I do for you, Agent Booth?" Sweets finally said as Booth took a seat.

Booth sighed. He opened his mouth to talk, but couldn't find the words. He closed it again and shook his head, emotions threatening to brim over.

"Is everything okay?" Sweets asked, concern in his eyes.

Booth nodded and sat back down.

"I just… I can't breathe." He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.

Sweets looked at him. He looked at Sweets, his old friend. And he let his eyes be honest. In the chaos of his thoughts, all he could offer Sweets was the one honest fact he knew right now. "I can't breathe."

Sweets nodded, as if he completely understood everything just from those three words.

B*B*B*B*B*B*B*B*B*B*B*B*B*B*B

Brennan sat down at a large folding table, beside her publicist. She was surrounded by hundreds of copies of her latest book, the Heart in the Bone. She looked into the audience and smiled as she spotted Angela, Hodgins and even Sweets and Cam. They'd never come to a signing before. They must really like her newest book. She really didn't think it was her best work, honestly, so it felt good to see that she had some die-hard fans in her midst. And… was that Jared? He waved at her and she smiled sadly.

For a moment, she remembered the first time they met, how she thought he was exciting and she berated Booth for always playing it safe. She'd upset Booth. It was yet another reason that someone else would always be the better match for him. She had pushed him over the years. Pushed and pushed, like she hadn't cared about the man inside, his feelings, what he'd been through…

She just pushed.

Eventually she'd even pushed him away.

She hadn't realized that was possible, honestly. Or she never would've pushed him so much. Or at all. She'd never meant to lose him. She took a deep breath as he publicist greeted the crowd.

"Thank you for coming," Brennan said, when it was time for her to talk. "I hope that you enjoyed the beverages and hors d'oeuvres. My publisher paid for them and since I am one of their most popular authors, they really went all out. So the food… it's expensive."

Angela smiled but made a finger motion, indicating she may want to wrap up this line of thinking.

"Expensive and good," she said, smiling. "So… enjoy it. And line up as best you can without bumping into people in front of you. I'll be here for three hours so you have plenty of time to get my autograph. I want to get to everyone, but I know that's not always possible. So I think it would be best if you lined up according to your intellectual standing. Doctorates first—"

Katia, her publicist, stepped in front of her and took over. "First come, first serve." She smiled and threw an exasperated look at Brennan.

Brennan sat down and her phone chirped. She looked at it briefly. It was Jake. She sighed. She'd felt nothing at his kiss on their first date and had been trying to figure out how to gently let him down since then.

He was a good man. A nice man. And, at the very least, he had given her the gift of knowing it was possible to move on. There were other good, handsome men out there. She would find that feeling again. She'd love again. Just… not with Jake.

She noticed Jared leaving, with a sweet wave, before her first signee came up to her and stole her attention back.

"I'm your biggest fan, ever!"

She smiled. "Everyone says that, so it's instantly untrue."

She signed. And signed.

And as her heart constricted for some inexplicable reason… she signed some more.

B*B*B*B*B*B*B*B*B*B**B*B*B

Jared walked into the rehearsal dinner. He walked over the bartender discreetly.

"Hey, man, can you put on Channel 5?"

The bartender furrowed his brow. "That's the news. People usually like to see Sports when they're over at the bar."

Jared slipped the man a $50. "Please."

The bartended smiled and pocketed the bill. "You got it."

B*B*B*B*B*B*B*B*B*B*B*B**B*B*B

Booth smiled as his brother sat down next to him. It had been nice to have him here the past week. The Booth boys always had tension between them. From years of overprotecting (him) and under-behaving (Jared), and just their general upbringing, they had never been able to just chill and be there for one another. Booth had supported his brother, though, when he married Padme. Though… it had been with Bones's help. She hadn't judged Padme for her career and she'd helped him remove the stigma he'd been holding tight to since he'd uncovered it.

And now, it seemed, his brother was fully supporting him and his upcoming wedding. That felt nice, despite the general chaos racing around in his brain.

When he'd seen Sweets earlier, Sweets had fully agreed with his doctor that Booth was suffering from panic attacks, likely caused by everything on his plate right now, with the wedding just days away. And all of the change. And he'd told him. He'd needed to tell someone.

He discussed their last case.

Well, not their last case. No way. Though lately it had certainly felt like that had been it.

He told Sweets about the game, and that question and Bones' answer. And the kiss. And his ability to call it what it was – an undercover tactic – except when he'd gotten home, and gotten all caught up in old comforts, grasping for familiarity as everything around him changed.

Sweets agreed that was likely what his mind was doing.

"But why can't I stop thinking about it?"

"The kiss?"

He'd shook his head and released a quivering breath. "Sort of that, but no. Not that."

"Then what?"

"Does she really think that no one ever loved her?"

"Maybe."

Booth closed his eyes and slammed his back against the back of the chair. "There's no way."

"It makes sense to me, especially knowing Dr. Brennan."

"She thinks that I never loved her, Sweets? And… you think that makes sense?"

"I do."

"The whole world knew I loved her. The entire bureau. All the squints. You wrote a book on it," Booth said. "She knew. She knows."

"She knows that you kissed her. That you asked her to take a chance. And that you found someone almost immediately after to love and now to marry."

"But… Hannah has nothing to do with my feelings that I had, what I felt, all those years. Hannah has nothing to do with any of that!"

"Look, Booth, I get it." Sweets sighed and considered his words. "I think you love Hannah. Obviously. You're marrying her."

"And somehow that means that I never loved Bones? Never?"

"Hannah being here makes me wonder."

Booth's mouth fell open. "You think it too? That no one has ever loved her? You know better. You know the truth, here."

"Why does this matter to you?"

Booth looked at him sharply. "What do you mean, why does it matter?"

"I mean… why do you care?"

"Why do I care about my partner?"

"Yes," Sweets said, nodding. "She's your partner. A friend. If she believes honestly that no one has ever loved her, even if it's untrue, that's her prerogative. She can think that. Why does it bother you? Why are you upset thinking about her answer?"

"Because… I can't be another person who pretended to love her and then left her. I can't be like her family. I can't. I've never lied to her, not once. In all of our years. I've always told her the truth."

"Unless I missed it… did you ever tell her you loved her?"

"She knew. She had to know. After… everything-"

"She knows you tried to date her. And that she turned you down and hurt you. She knows you moved on. Quickly. And… you were allowed to move on."

He nodded hard and for some reason a tear slipped out of his eye. God, what was wrong with him?

"I can't handle her thinking, Sweets… that no one has ever loved her."

Sweets nodded. "Because you loved her?"

Booth nodded. He'd loved her.

He'd loved her.

Dammit… he'd loved her.

B*B*B*B*B*B*B*B*B*B*B*B

Thread: Squint Squad

Jared: What's going on guys? My brother's looking pretty deep in thought. Honestly, what happened on their trip? He looks like his dog died.

Angela: She seems fine.

Sweets: I'd say not totally fine. She looks like she has a lot on her mind.

Angela: Right, and you can tell this between the raging fans forcing her to take weird selfies. You can see she has a lot on her mind. Because all I see is someone who looks deeply disturbed by her readership.

Cam: Ditto. With Angela on this one. She looks uncomfortable. Is it me or are her fans a little intense tonight? Are they always like this?

Angela: I haven't attended one of these things in a few years.

Sweets: I love it. True fans. Andy and Kathy shippers.

Angela: Honey, no. No, no. Anyway…

Jared: I know if I go to the bar, he will follow me. So… let me know when the reporter gets here so I can text Chris.

Cam: Isn't that the person with the microphone and camera, annoying Dr. Brennan right now?

Angela: Ooh! Yes. Jared. Go. It's all set. Text Chris.

Jared: Just did. Show time. :)