Chapter 1

"The roaring seas and many a dark range of mountains lie between us."

― Homer, The Iliad

Leaning forward, Booth rubbed his hands down his face letting his jaw drop as he went. The rough feel of stubble chased by a long exasperated sigh. He collapsed in on himself. Elbows on his knees, head in his hands as he stared down at his coffee table. A bottle of scotch, a tumbler, only the remnants of two fingers resting at the bottom of a glass, his cell phone, all lined up in a row. Another breath, heavy and forced. He looked over towards his bedroom. It wasn't fair. Not to her, or him for that matter, not to any of them. The overwhelming injustice of it all rolled over him in unrelenting waves.

Hannah's silhouette hovered in the doorway between his living room and bedroom, a silent witness to his nightmares. She just stood there, arms crossed protectively across her chest bunching up his oversized Flyers t-shirt. She was barely a silhouette, haloed in dim moonlight which crept around her through cracks in the blinds. This happened regularly, often enough for them to develop a routine. Often enough for her to stop asking what she could do to help, tired of his terse answer. "Just give me some space."

This was not the heroic soldier that rescued her, not the one she played with under the shade of fig trees. And while she knew about PTSD, having reported on it numerous times, living it was certainly different. He was different. Her soldier seemed to be getting worse the longer he was stateside, not better. Letting out a loud huff, she retreated back into the bedroom.

He watched her go.

Jaw ticking violently, every muscle taut, he reached for the tumbler but grabbed his phone instead. The punishing light momentarily blinding him as the phone sprung back to life. The keyboard was still up, cursor still flashing where he deleted his latest attempt at a text.

"Now you remember, Shrimp. it's all in there, everything you need to know." Pop's voice echoed in his head, the comforting repetition of advice given over and over through the years. Words of wisdom from the grandfather that saved him, taught him how to be a man, a good man. Booth rubbed the center of his chest, missing the strong tap Pops always placed right over his heart. "You just do what it tells you."

"Do what it tells you." There was an answer in that, had to be.

"Hey," he typed, then closed his eyes and hit send.

Startled by the sound of her phone, Brennan sat up abruptly, scrambling back until she backed into the headboard of her bed. She must have fallen asleep reading, bedside lamp still on, Journal of Forensic Anthropology still open, highlighters, pens, and post-it-notes strewn around her, all evidence of her constant battle with insomnia. Booth's text left her heart pounding. It was vague, sending her mind spinning.

Concern twisted in the pit of her stomach as she posited different scenarios and contemplated possible responses. Better to ask, she told herself, concerned. Tucking her lip anxiously between her teeth she answered.

"You okay?"

It used to be easy between them and while she tried to pretend that everything was normal, she missed that ease most of all. Everything felt strained now, like an unsuccessful attempt at pretending to themselves. They were a hollow shell of what they used to be. Staring down at the screen of her phone, she waited for a response. It was fast, faster than she expected.

"Better now." Gasping for air, she choked on her strangled sobs. He did that to her, reached right past her best defenses, twisting her fragile unprotected heart. She wiped frantically at her fast falling tears, fighting the watery haze that made it impossible to see.

His words called back to a happier time, when they were unapologetically close, sharing nearly everything in the name of partnership. A time when they relied on each other in both their professional and personal lives. A different kind of family, one they chose, that's what he sold her. In those days, he would call her when a nightmare terrorized him in his sleep. She did the same. It was something they used to share. He'd hear her voice, whispering through phone lines that tethered them to one another in the middle of dark nights. "Better now," he'd say. And it was better.

"Nightmare?"

He couldn't answer that, wouldn't, he told himself. Reaching for that bottle of scotch in a futile attempt to keep the aftershocks of his nightmare from drowning him. He poured himself a little more, downing it in one long swallow. Bracing himself for the burn, he waited for the promised warmth that came with hard liquor. He settled back into the couch, holding the tumbler with both hands, his phone resting on his thigh.

It was raining, pouring really, and she was bent down in the middle of the road piecing together the last few minutes of Lauren Eames' life. He saw her, in real life, he saw her and the car heading straight for her. Rushing into the street, he grabbed her, pulling her to safety. It was what he did, save her, his self assigned job. And while things were different because of Hannah, he hadn't entirely abandoned his post.

Only this time, he wasn't on the side of the road, he was driving. He was the truck hurling toward her in the deluge. It was him that screamed and honked and slammed on the brakes sending his truck skidding, sliding side to side. In his dream, it didn't matter how loud he yelled, how hard he hit the brakes, they didn't work. Nothing worked.

His body jerked at the memory of hitting her, it was so vivid it seemed real. The way she flew through the air, up onto the front of the truck, into the windshield, then rolled lifeless, her whole path in reverse, down to the cold wet asphalt beneath her. He killed her, in his dream, the woman he loved, had loved, for so many years. The woman who stole his every thought and breath and heart, then broke it, was lying lifeless at his feet.

He'd seen too many dead bodies, his mind held those images in reserve, waiting to dredge them up through his subconscious for moments just like these. He couldn't look away, no storm left in those stunning blue-green eyes of hers, they were open and empty. Blood streamed down her beautiful face, joining rivulets of rainwater, flowing endlessly into dark, watery puddles. It was all so real.

"Yeah." He didn't mean to send that but he did.

He begged her to live, reaching to drag her limp body up into his arms, but he couldn't move, paralyzed by some unearthly force that bound him. Watching the life drain out of her until her cold, dead eyes fixed and unmovable, stared at him. He did that to her. He killed her. Waking in a panic, he cursed God, pleading for forgiveness. Heart pounding, drenched in sweat, it wasn't the first night he had this particular dream or some variation of it.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Staring down at the text message, he shook his head. Talking was too painful lately, torment.

He knew, taking her home that night, the minute she said she made a mistake, he knew the confession she was about to make was not about the case. It was about him, about her feelings for him. He wasn't ready for that, nothing on earth could have prepared him. He panicked, his eyes darting back and forth between her and the road, drowning in the unfairness of it all. All he could do is deny her, he moved on, she understood he had to move on, and now, after all this time, she wanted him to know she loved him.

"I'm with someone." He told her even though he knew she already knew that. It seemed ridiculous to say, even as it was passing over his lips and ringing in his own ears. But he needed to say it because on some level he needed to hear it himself. It hurt like self inflicted torture, a double edged sword plunged deep into his heart.

"She's not a consolation prize." He added, watching helplessly, as his words crushed her vulnerable heart, the heart he'd sworn to protect. He didn't want to do that to her, God, he didn't want to hurt her like that. Closing his eyes momentarily, he drove the last nail in the coffin. "I love her."

Her sobs echoed through him, raw misery. Even now, weeks later, he could still hear them, couldn't shake them.

"I understand." She choked out.

Gripping the steering wheel he willed himself not to reach out to her, he couldn't, it wouldn't be fair to her to lead her on like that, confuse her, give her a false sense of hope. "I can adjust." She promised, stiff upper lip. He sat there watching as the strong woman he fell in love with added another layer to her already thick walls, this time by his hand. "I'm fine alone." Her words, those heart crushing tears, haunted him because she wasn't fine alone and she hadn't adjusted, she just hid.

Three days, she told him, three days for the world to turn right side up again. Those days came and went with no new case, no word from Bones, and he let them, something he'd never done before. And when he finally reached out, not to her, but to Angela, he got nothing but a stern lecture that ended abruptly with, "if you're really concerned about her, ask her yourself."

He didn't, couldn't.

She retreated to bone storage until they had a new case and he let her go, hoping that when it was time to work together again this would be behind them, long forgotten. It worked, at least he thought it worked, accepting her compartmentalized surface as the world righting itself allowed them both to pretend that nothing happened that cold rainy night, it was easier that way.

Booth, sniffled, sucking in a deep breath, tipping his glass all the way back to get the last couple drops of liquor. Easier. It was easier with the exception of the relentless nightmares. Still, talking didn't seem like the answer. How would stirring it all up again help anything? It would only prolong the torture, right? Make things worse.

"Can't talk. Just need to know you're safe."

Can't. Won't. It didn't matter. The moment was lost. Looking down at the palms of her open hands, she wondered just how and when this thing that was them slipped through her fingers. When she refused him, turned him down? When she left for Maluku? When she didn't write or call? Regardless, it all came back to her. She did this to them. And even though telling him she got the message was supposed to leave her with no regrets it seemed like it only compounded them.

She hurt him. She saw it in his eyes when she told him, the pain almost unbearable. Even the way he looked at her on that first case back after her confession, she could see the remnants. There was no way to fix that, she couldn't take it back, and in many ways, in the multiple iterations that ran through her mind in the days that followed, she decided she wouldn't even if she could. She said what needed to be said, for better or worse.

But, this night, when his words quietly reached out to her in the middle of the night, breaking her solitude, she could give him what he needed. A little comfort, no matter how small a thing that seemed to be, she could do that for him.

"I'm safe, doors locked, security system armed, in bed."

An audible sigh of relief filled his small apartment. His shoulders dropped, his body fell limp as every muscle released its tight hold on him.

"Good," he typed, "stay that way."

"Good night, Booth."

Sometimes he envied her ability to compartmentalize. It seemed so effortless. He wanted that now, needed it. Maybe there was just too much water underneath their bridge, too many shared memories, too much history for him to do that.

His eyes rolled over the words, their messages back and forth.

Where were the lines? He wasn't sure anymore. Partners? Friends? Some sort of makeshift family? More? Wandering back to Hannah, he tried, unsuccessfully, to reconcile it all.

He told her the whole thing, all of it, confessed like the good Catholic boy he tried to be. In the interest of full disclosure, no secrets, he promised that he was over all those feelings he used to have for Bones.

"Whatever I felt, I don't feel it anymore, except for you."

Was it all a lie? He didn't think so. He loved Hannah. He did. She was beautiful and strong and easy to be with. But lately he caught himself looking at Bones the way he used to, unable to resist the pull she held over him.

No, he told himself. No. I've moved on. She's moved on. It is over. I'm done.

Swiping his thumb across the screen, Booth brought his cell phone back to life, backed out of his text messages, returned to his home screen, then locked it, sending it back to black. He took a long fortifying breath and slapped his hands down on his knees as he pulled his stiff body up.

Hannah was in bed, facing away from the doorway where he paused to watch her. He would climb in next to her and pull her close, holding her tight against his chest. Curling into her when she let her hand drift over his, intertwining their fingers. He wanted to drown himself in her, hoping to forget the storm raging within him.

ooooo0ooooo

A/N: Well, what do you think?

I promise I won't leave you in this awful state! This story will go all the way from this sad state, through the awkwardness, and right through until they are safely in one another's arms!

The idea for this story has been rattling around my brain since I was writing Need, begging for attention. I don't want to give anything away so I'll keep all those thoughts to myself for the time being and maybe share a few of them as we go along.

I've given myself a little head start on this one in hopes of posting more regularly. I'm currently working on chapter 6. A special shout out to Snowybones for her continued support and willingness to read. I owe her a lot for that.

Thank you in advance to everyone for reading and reviewing. There isn't much point in writing if no one is there to read it. Knowing that people are reading, hearing that they are enjoying the story, they they are moved in some way by it, makes it all worth doing.

Much love

~DG