(Season 5)

Like most of my stories, this story is AU.

I don't own Bones.

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She was distant and she was barely talking to him now. Booth knew he was part of the problem, but he wasn't sure how to fix it. Ever since he had asked her to take a chance outside the Hoover things had gone from bad to worse. He'd made a mistake and he knew it. Brennan didn't believe in love and he knew she was afraid that if she got too close to anyone, they'd eventually leave her. It was her history. Her parents, Russ, Peter, Sully, Mark Gaffney. Well, he wasn't sure if he should include Mark the deep-sea diver since he broke up with Brennan because she was dating two guys at the same time. Still, Brennan's personal record was pretty bad. About as bad as his was.

He had thought after all of these years as her friend that she could see he was different, but clearly she couldn't. He had promised her early in their partnership that he would never walk away from her and he had meant to keep that promise. No matter how bad their situation was, he couldn't give up on her friendship. Besides his son, her friendship was the most valuable thing he owned. He knew that even if she didn't.

During the Gravedigger trial, Brennan had been tense and started to distance herself from him even more and he'd finally asked her what was going on. He'd tried to understand, but her reasoning seemed odd to him. She was afraid he was going to die, but everyone dies. No one gets to live forever. Then she started talking about a dig in Maluku and he knew she was going to run from him as far and as fast as she could. It's what she did. If she felt her life getting too emotional or she was in an emotional situation she didn't want to deal with she found a dig to go to. She had done it after his brain surgery and she was going to do it again.

Unhappy with the situation, he wasn't sure how to stop it. He was just her partner and he didn't have a right to interfere with her life. He knew that. But he wanted to. He wanted her to see he was there for her. He was the man he had been before his tumor and before the Hoover. She didn't have anything to fear from him. He would never force himself on her. Surely, she knew that. Didn't she?

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He had asked her to take a chance on a relationship outside the Hoover and she was certain he didn't understand that he was still being affected by a dream he had during his coma after his surgery. She knew that even if he didn't.

Brennan loved Booth, but she wasn't sure if that love was as a friend or something else. She had never trusted love. It had been proven to her that love left you vulnerable. Her parents and brother had abandoned her when she was fifteen and that proved to her that love was temporary. If your parents and brother could stop loving you then she knew that love was just a convenience and could be set aside when necessary.

She had thought that Sully had loved her and she had been willing to try love him, but he had given her an ultimatum. Leave her job and move with him to the Caribbean or watch him leave without her and because she couldn't leave her job he had left and sailed away leaving her behind. At that moment, she knew that she had been right after all. People claimed they loved her, but when she became an inconvenience, they left her. It was a hard lesson to learn, but she had learned it and it couldn't be unlearned.

She couldn't allow Booth's feelings toward her to influence her. He wanted to take a chance on a personal relationship, but she knew it would never last. She knew that even if he didn't.

The Gravedigger trial had been a heavy burden for her to bear. She had started to dream about her partner drowning and she couldn't save him. It left her shaking and crying in the dark of the night and she couldn't seem to stop the dreams. She knew that being Booth's partner meant that it was possible that he might be killed someday because she couldn't save him, that no one could save him and she wasn't sure she could bear that loss.

How could she allow herself to love him and then lose him? If he died, she'd be abandoned again and she knew that she couldn't live with that heartache. She was alone in the world and she had been since she was fifteen. If she allowed herself to become involved with her partner, she risked ruining her happiness what little she had and that seemed an awful burden.

She needed to distance herself from Booth. She needed space and time to think about what she wanted in life. She needed to think about Booth and if what he wanted was doable. She didn't think it was, but she didn't want to let him influence her in any way. She needed to do what she loved and see if that was enough. Was her job all she needed or wanted? Up until then she had thought that was true, but now she wasn't so sure. She feared love and commitment because that meant that someone else could dictate her happiness. She'd had little happiness in her life and she knew, she absolutely knew that if she allowed herself to love Booth and he left her that would destroy her emotionally.

Uncertain how she was going resolve her problems, she felt that time and space would help her. She knew that Booth didn't want her to go on a dig, not for a year, but this was for her. She needed the isolation. She needed to disconnect herself from Booth and Angela and anyone else that might be able to influence her.

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The Army was trying to recruit him and Booth was wary of the situation. He had served his country until he could no longer bear the burdens that service had cost him and now, they were after him again. He had killed 50 men before he'd left the Army, but the straw that had broken the camel's back had been the assassination of Josip Radik. The man had been a monster. He had been responsible for the murder of entire villages in Serbia. Whole families slaughtered because they weren't Serbian. Men, women and children. Radik had been responsible for ethnic cleansing in his country and since he had been untouchable, Booth had been sent in to get rid of the man. He had found Radik at his home having a birthday party for his son and he'd shot the man from a rooftop. Radik had died instantly in front of his son and family and the screams of the blood covered boy had haunted Booth until he couldn't take it anymore and he left the service.

Now the Army wanted him to go to Afghanistan to train men there to hunt down insurgents, but Booth suspected they really wanted to use him as a sniper. He had a special skill that the Army and the CIA coveted and he knew they'd like to use him again. He couldn't allow that to happen.

Sitting in the diner facing Colonel Pelant, Booth had been handed a letter from the Secretary of Defense asking him to sign a contract with the Army for one year. After he read it, he handed it back to the Colonel. "No."

Not willing to take no for an answer, the Colonel leaned forward on the table. "The Secretary is asking you to serve. You have the balls to say no? Really? I thought you loved the Army. I thought you were a patriot. Am I wrong?"

Annoyed, Booth shut down his emotions, and stared at the man. After a few moments of silence, he finally spoke. "I'm not twenty anymore. Your words are just words. I'm recovering from brain surgery. I have a weak spot in my skull. There is no way I can serve in a war zone like that. All it would take is a glancing blow to that spot and I'd be a dead man, not that you care. I'm just a body to fill a spot that you need. You think a letter will influence me and if I was that twenty year old boy then it probably would work but I'm 39 years old. I have a small son that needs a father. I have a job that is important to me. I make a difference . . . the most important thing of all, I'm no longer willing to kill men because you want me to . . . I . . . Because the CIA needed it done, I killed Josip Radik at a birthday party. He was my last job for the Army and the CIA . . . I did that in front of his son. After I killed Radik his son stood there covered in his father's blood . . . screaming. I still hear that scream in my sleep . . . I'm staying here. I'm not going anywhere and no letter is going to make me change my mind."

The Colonel knew that Booth was a lost cause. He could hear the anger in the man's voice, the horror of war was real and Booth had been in the thick of it. Still, they needed him. "Booth . . . we need you."

"No, you don't." Booth shook his head. "You and I both know you don't want to use me to train anyone. Not really. You want to use me as a sniper because we both know I'm the best but I won't let you use me like that. I'm done with that. I can't do that anymore."

"We really want you to train men in Afghanistan." The Colonel didn't enjoy being called a liar.

Slowly shaking his head, Booth reached over for the letter, tore it up and dropped the pieces on the table. "I'm not a fool . . . the answer is no. Nothing you do or say will make me change my mind. No letter will influence me . . . Don't bother to give me anymore. I will tear them up. Just leave me alone."

His words seemed final and the Colonel knew that Booth meant what he said. "You disappoint me. You aren't the patriot I thought you were."

Laughing, Booth shook his head. "When you kill someone at a birthday party and watch their child scream because he's covered in his father's blood then get back to me. You have no idea what I did for my country, but I've done enough."

Since they were done, Pelant stood up. "You aren't the man you used to be."

"No shit." Booth picked up his cold cup of coffee and drank some anyway. "Contact me again and you'll regret it. I know people too."

Since Booth was a lost cause, Pelant knew that he'd have to accept his refusal. "I was counting on you."

"Too bad." Booth finished drinking his coffee. "Life is full of disappointments. We don't always get the things we want . . . We don't all get to have a happy ending."

With nothing else to say, Pelant turned and left the diner. He knew the people he answered to were going to be unhappy, but he couldn't force Booth to accept a contract with the Army. They'd just have to find someone else. "I was so sure I could talk him into it . . . Damn it."

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