"True love is taking the risk that it won't be a happily-ever-after. True love is joining hands with the man who loves you for who you are, and saying, "I'm not afraid to believe in you." - condescension Lockwood, I Do (But I Don't)

14.

Hours later she stirred in his arms with a shiver. The lights were bright and his weight pinned her to the couch. She angled her arm to reach for the throw on the back of the couch, accidentally creating friction in a sensitive spot between them. His breath hitched and huffed and then he tightened his hold, effectively trapping her in place. She struggled briefly in panic and they both jolted into awareness.

"Ow Bones!"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she soothed. "I didn't intend to hit you there."

"You almost put me out of commission."

"You're being over dramatic. I hit your thigh."

"Your knee was really high."

"You were the one holding it there."

"I was sleeping!"

"I was trying to grab a blanket. I'm cold."

Feeling slightly chagrined as he realized their position, he loosened his hold and reached for the green blanket behind him, pulling hard to release it from where it was pinned behind them.

She smiled gratefully and accepted his offering, wrapping it around them both.

"Better?" he grinned.

"Much," she purred as she burrowed under the warm and into his grasp again. "So much better."

"Hmm," he agreed, enjoying the way her fingertips traced against his skin.

Minutes passed and he'd begun to fall back to sleep when she spoke up. "Booth?"

"Yeah Bones."

"Can we finish our conversation now?"

His voice was incredulous. "Now?"

"Uh huh. I am concerned that if we don't have this discussion it will fester."

"Ugh. Fester? That's not a good word. Makes me thing of pus and blisters popping."

She felt him shudder against him and hid her smile. "I think that it's a good metaphor if that is what it makes you think of. I don't want our relationship to burst under pressure, to ooze out and get infected."

He lifted his head to look at her, "Really Bones?" Then he sighed and pressed a kiss against the tip of her nose before settling down. "Okay, but we stay here, like this."

"Booth?"

"Yeah Bones?"

"Why did you think I didn't want to marry you? Before I explained myself, I mean."

He hesitated, but then reminded himself that they were going all in, no shortcuts, and no dishonesty. "I thought you were afraid."

"Of what?"

"Being trapped? Being forced to admit your feelings to others. Letting me in. Not having an escape route." He rambled off the top four things off his internal list.

She looked away from him. "You still think I'm going to run away."

"I uh, yeah, I guess I do," he admitted.

"Will I ever be able to convince you otherwise?"

"Yeah, you will, you are every day. I just have a hard time with it, and it's not just because of you, you know?"

"I don't understand. What other reasons are there?"

"You're not the only abandoned child in this relationship Bones."

"But you had your grandfather."

"Yeah, I had Pops. But that doesn't mean that losing both my parents didn't have an effect on me."

She hesitated. "I suppose that is true. I hadn't really thought of it that way before. I'm sorry."

"You don't have to be sorry Bones. Besides, it's not like I've ever talked about it with you before, have I?"

"No." She offered quietly, "You don't have to."

"But I should. I want you to be my wife Bones, but more than that I want to share my life with you like you said. And in order to do that I have to share my past as well as my future."

"Your past doesn't matter Booth. Only who you are now."

"But my past has an effect on who I am now. It has an effect on our relationship, especially if it won't let me trust you."

"Oh."

"Yeah, oh." He nuzzled her neck and she rubbed his bicep gently in response.

"Is it wrong that I am comforted that you also had a difficult youth?"

His breath rushed through his nose in a snort. "A little egocentric maybe, but not bad. I understand. It's nice. To have someone who gets it, who's been where you've been."

"We've been many places Booth, where…oh. Another expression?" His silence was her answer. "We responded very differently though. I push people away and you hold them close."

"Close but not too close." He murmurs into her hair.

"What does that mean?"

"It means that. Look, I have a lot of friends, right? I get along with lots of people. But look at me Bones; I don't have any close friends, not really. Not until I met you. A few of the guys from my Ranger days, but we don't really keep in touch. Hell, I'm not even close with my own brother."

"You have me. You have Cam and Sweets and Caroline. You even have Hodgin's and Angela. I think we all consider you a close friend."

He pressed a grateful kiss against her temple. "Thank you."

"I'm only telling the truth."

"Yeah, but..." He sighed, knowing she wouldn't really understand. "I still don't let them, you, anyone get too close."

"I don't understand."

He shifted and felt her soft skin brush against his arm. He angled his head to look her in the eye. "What have I told you about my past?"

She was silent a moment, calculating her reply to his request. "The first thing you told me was how many people you'd killed. You've told me that your mom wrote jingles and your dad flew planes in the war before becoming a barber. You told me your dad drank. You confessed to Dr. Sweets and I that if it weren't for your grandfather you would have killed yourself as a child. That's it I think. Oh. You also told me about your friend that you named your son after, Corporal Parker."

His laugh was without humor. "Seven years and I've told you less than a handful of things about my history, and most of them were about other people. Doesn't that seem odd to you?"

"No," she responded simply.

"No?" he asked incredulously. "It doesn't bother you that I know so much about your childhood and you know so little about me. You don't find it unbalanced?"

Temperance was quiet for a while. "I. I used to find myself annoyed with you that you expected me to share so much when you shared so little. It felt unfair that you could pick and prod around my painful memories, but yours were off limits. But, with my mother's case...my father being, doing what he did... You didn't have much choice to be involved. Your past has stayed in the past, and you seem content to leave it there. Why should I drag it into the open? I believe it would be a painful discussion for you, and I, I don't like to see you in pain. So no, I'd rather not know. Not if it isn't something you want to share." She glanced up at him shyly, afraid she'd said too much. She traced a finger over his acromion, feeling the muscles ripple beneath her touch.

He reached up and grabbed her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. "You make it less painful. The things I've told you. You being there, listening to me? It's helped."

She moved so that they were facing each other, but said nothing, only squeezing his hand back.

"Bones?"

"Hmm?"

"Can I tell you about why I want to get married?"

"Of course. I would like to understand your point of view very much," she said softly.

"When I was little, before my dad really started drinking? Before my Mom decided to pursue advertising full time? They were so in love Bones. They were the kind of happy together that people write love songs about. They didn't have much. Things weren't always sunshine and roses. But when Dad would get home? The smile on my mom's face was breathtaking. It made me smile too, and laugh. And he'd come in and twirl her around and they'd dance in the kitchen and kiss. And I was just old enough to be embarrassed, so I'd groan and cover my eyes. Dad would ruffle my hair and tell me that I'd get it one day, when I was grown up and had a beautiful woman like my mom as my wife. And it just was. It felt like everything was right."

"That is a very good memory Booth."

"It is. I just. I wanted that. I didn't understand it, but I knew, just knew that someday I was gonna have a life like that. And when things got bad, I kind of clung to that ideal. Thing was though, I didn't realize it at the time, but my mom and dad weren't married."

"They weren't?"

"My mom, she wasn't exactly the religious type. They got together just after dad got back from 'Nam. Was part of the free love crowd. My dad wanted to get married when she got pregnant with me, but she... she didn't want that. I don't know why. I was too young and then Pops, well, he thought it best to let old demons lie."

"Not getting married was a demon?"

"In my neighborhood it was. The other kids, I must've been eleven or so, and one of them heard his mom talking about my parents. He spread it all over the neighborhood that my mom was, well, less than virtuous, and he and I got into this huge fight. Black eyes, bruised knuckles, a crowd of kids cheering us on. I got in so much trouble. Pops tried to talk it out with me, but I wouldn't say much and that was all she wrote."

"All who wrote, your Mom?"

"No, it's an expression, means that's the end of the story."

"But that's not the end of your story. You grew up thinking your parents were in love and married, and then you found out they weren't?"

"Yeah. Things had gone bad already. Mom was gone. Dad was...not there. Finding that out, made me think I knew what had gone wrong."

"Did you ever find out what went wrong?"

He shook his head. "No. But I did talk to my Mom about it once, when I was older. I asked her why she left."

Brennan was silent, but stared at him with a questioning look.

"What?"

"I always assumed that your mother had died from the things you had told me."

"No. She got a job offer in another city. Decided that she didn't want to deal with my dad's PTSD and drinking anymore. Was tired of playing mom. At least that's what she told me later. She said that she was sorry for being so selfish." He shrugged. "She died when I was on tour in Iraq. Cancer. I never told her I forgave her."

Her gaze with full of sympathy and open curiosity, "Do you?"

He leaned back his head into the couch cushion. "Some days."

"And others?"

"I get angry. I realize that I'm waiting for the people in my life to leave me, and I get angry."

She lifted her hand and ran it gently through his hair, gently palming his scalp with her fingers and brushing her thumb against his cheekbone. "I wish I could promise you that I'll never leave, but I can't do that. Life is too unpredictable. Our jobs..." her voice trailed off, leaving him to fill in the blanks. "And I do fear that I will not be what you need in the long run. However, I cannot contemplate a scenario in which I'd willingly leave our child, just as I cannot contemplate not loving you."

He pressed his lips to hers.

When he retreated, she continued. "I find that I do not like your parent's very much."

He shuttered his eyes to prevent her from reading his emotions. "Eh..." He shrugged, fighting the urge to defend them despite his own feelings on the matter.

"I do not mean to insult them Booth. They obviously had good qualities in which to raise a man like you. But I know what it's like to feel unwanted by those you love and I hate that it is an experience we have in common. I wish I had known before."

"I didn't want you to know."

"I never understood why you encouraged me to reconcile with my father."

"Because he didn't want to leave you and because I didn't want you to have the same regrets that I have."

"Your father didn't leave you willingly, you know."

"What?"

"Your grandfather, he told me. He wanted you to know, but was scared to tell you. He told your father to leave. He saw him beat you and he told him to go. Your father left. He couldn't keep you safe. Your grandfather could."

"I don't know what to. Pops told you that?"

"Yes, he was quite worried that you wouldn't understand."

"Bones, I."

"We don't have to discuss this right now. I just thought you needed to know."

"Can I?" He reached his arms out and she nodded, snuggling into him.

"You are loved, Booth," she whispered.

His eyes stayed open for a long time before he too drifted off to sleep.

(.xxx.)

"A great marriage is not when the 'perfect couple' comes together. It is when an imperfect couple learns to enjoy their differences." - Dave Meurer

(.xxx.)

The sun was nearing its apex before Booth finally woke the next day. He was strangled in the throw they'd used to cover themselves the night before and Bones was missing. His back ached a little as he rose to a sitting position and looked around the room. The apartment was quiet. A note sat on the coffee table beside him informing him that Brennan had lunch plans with Angela. He groaned and shuffled towards the bathroom.

A shower and two aspirin's later his head was feeling clearer, but his thoughts kept drifting back to his and Bone's 'debate' that wasn't. He felt a wave of conflicting emotions wash over him and tried to push them down. He wandered aimlessly from room to room before deciding to throw on his shoes and go for a run. His feet pounding on the pavement and the rush of air in his lungs drowned out the emotion, but didn't stop his mind. His thoughts whirled, refusing to settle in any one direction. Sweat trickled down his back. He ran until he was tired and then turned around and ran some more.

Bones was still gone when he got back, this time a text on his phone informing him that she was meeting Cam at the Jeffersonian for a budget discussion at one. A second text at two indicated that she'd been sucked into more interesting work at the lab and wouldn't be home for hours. Booth dropped his phone in frustration and flicked on the television. He toed off his shoes and leaned back into the cushions.

He awoke with the rattle of keys in the door to darkness. The hinge creaked open and the tap of heels entered the room before a pause and the door creaking close. The steps continued across the room before hesitating at the couch. "Booth?" Normal people would have whispered; only Bones would have asked in a regular voice, neither loud nor softened with the time.

He struggled upright for the second time that day. "Yeah Bones?"

"Oh. You're awake?"

"Yeah, shouldn't I be?" He squinted toward the clock.

"It's quite late." He heard the clunk of her heels and felt the couch settle beside him.

He leaned in for a kiss. "Mmm. I missed you today.

She hummed then leaned back. "I was quite busy."

"You weren't avoiding me?"

She looked away.

"You were avoiding me?"

She nodded. "In a way. I thought we both could use some time to corral our thoughts."

"Did you?" He was genuinely curious.

She shook her head. "No. Nothing's more distinct today than it was before we spoke. You?"

His response mirrored hers.

"I will marry you if it will make you happy," Brennan offered, hesitantly.

Booth's heart leapt and fell in an instant. "Would it make you happy?"

"I am sure I could learn to accept it. Angela says that one has to compromise in relationships. And she appears to be quite content in her marriage with Hodgin's, so I suppose it wouldn't be that bad. I would adjust."

Thud. His hopes drooped. "No Bones, I can't let you do that. I want you to want to marry me. Not feel guilted into it because your friends and boyfriend make you feel like you should."

Her expression fell as she realized her attempt to please him had failed. "Isn't that what you would be doing if you gave up on marrying me?"

"Look, I'm not saying I'm going to stop wanting it. I still think that being married means something, that it provides a safety net during the tough times. But I did some thinking today. You're a lot like my mom, you know? Career minded, intelligent, driven."

She stilled beside him. "One could say that you have a type. Your previous girlfriends that I have met have all shared those characteristics. Perhaps that is why they failed, because as much as you admired them you also faulted them for being like your mother."

His temper flared at her comments and he forced himself to stay quiet as she spoke.

"I cannot right the wrongs of your mother for you Booth... It is unfair for you to compare us. I am not her."

"Geez, are you Sweets now? I know you're not her, or any of the rest of them Bones! Geez." He grumbled.

"Then what was the purpose of the comparison?" She asked calmly.

"You have qualities that I admire in women, yes. But there's a difference between you and her. And I guess all my ex's too now that you've so thoughtfully pointed it out."

"Which is?" she prompted impatiently.

He grinned, "You need me."

"What?"

He could sense her coiling up to attack in rebuttal and jumped in to explain. "I can you give something that other's have not been able to give you. A home. A place to feel safe. Other's have tried, but I'm the only one you've let in." He gave her a knowing look as she struggled to respond to his assertions. "I know, you don't need me, need me. But you want me. You want what I can give to you. The other's, my mom, they didn't want what I had to offer. You do."

"Booth, I don't..."

"You give me something no one else can, you know that Bones, right? You know what you mean to me?"

She gaped at him, uncertainty flashing in her eyes.

"You have faith in me, you love me, and you want me. That's everything Bones."

"Is it enough?" She asked timidly.

He tilted his head to look her in the eyes and nodded. "More than." He swallowed. "Is it enough for you?"

She blinked and took him in, the stubble resting on his chin, his strong body, the sincerity in his eyes, and answered, "Always."

The End.

(.xxx.)

A/N: Whew, glad that's over! I just wanted to send my sincerest thanks to all of you who've taken the time to review, or favourite or alert this story and apologise for not taking that same time myself to respond individually - I never quite know what to say except for thanks. Delving into this fandom has definitely been a learning experience!

I know a lot of you will be disappointed with this end, but hopefully a few of you will find some satisfaction in it. I debated the direction of the story several times - was I being too hard on Booth? too easy on Brennan? The traditional part of me expected this to end in marriage, but the independent, single woman in me kept asking why? Why do we expect that relationships have to end with 'I do's' in order to be happy? Why is it that Booth's honest belief in matrimony trumps Brennan's equally honest disbelief in the same? I just...chafe at the thought that just because Brennan doesn't immediately conform to Booth/Angela/et al's point of view she is somehow in the wrong. (Which is not to say that she can't be wildly wrong and offensive at times, but at least she usually admits the errors of her ways, eventually). Anyway...I digress. The thing about compromise - sometimes it's not about meeting in the middle, sometimes it's about knowing when to give way to the other person. Sometimes compromising your beliefs isn't a bad thing - sometimes it gives you things you never expected. That's what I wanted to accomplish with this fic - to show how Booth & Brennan learn this lesson. I'll leave it up to you to decide whether I succeeded or not.

And for those of you still hoping for the more traditional happily ever after? Stay tuned for next season - I'm sure you'll get your wish sooner or later!