A/N: Just a short one-shot in Booth's POV...Spoilers for episode 5x10 The Goop On The Girl

"She's burying her son, alone, on Christmas," she says, and he knows her well enough to hear the buried pain of every Christmas that she has spent alone. "I think that's heartbreaking."

And this, this is why he will wait for her, moments like these. Because despite all of her scientific sermons about how the heart is only a muscle in the body, that it cannot actually feel, she finds this story of a mother's loss heartbreaking. She believes in that heart muscle more than she'll ever admit, and it is this knowledge that prompts him to supply her with her own logic. He knows she is not ready to hear the things he really wishes to say.

"You know, when I say, 'Heartbreaking,' you say that the heart is a muscle so it can't break, it can only get crushed." He knows that hearing him posing as the logical one for once will draw out a smile, and he is right, she laughs quietly. The pain momentarily lifts form her face before descending once more.

"Isn't it heart crushing?"

And as the words leave her lips, throbbing with the ache of shared pain, he hears in them her unspoken plea to make it better, to stop the hurt. That is his role, he is her self-appointed protector, he will give her everything she needs, especially the things she never allows herself to ask for.

He will fix it, "Do you want to go to the funeral?"

She does. His Bones knows what being alone feels like, has felt it for most of her life. But it is different now. He has spent the past four and a half years showing her that she is no longer alone, and now she wants to give a piece of that comfort to a woman in whom she sees a bit of herself.

His own heart beats faster. She amazes him, he has never been more proud of her.

"You know what Bones? Sometimes I think your heart muscle is bigger than people give you credit for."

A/N: For some reason this convo that they have in Booth's car really gets to me. I couldn't help but write about it. This is my first Bones fic so please feel free to leave me some constructive criticism! Thanks!