Me gustas cuando callas porque estás como ausente
(I like it when you're silent, because you're as absent)

Distante y dolorosa como si hubieras muerto
(Distant and painful, as though you were dead)

Una palabra entonces, una sonrisa bastan
(Then, a word, a smile is enough)

Y estoy alegre, alegre de que no sea cierto
(And I'm glad, glad that it's not true)

Pablo Neruda. Poema XV (Fifteenth poem)

In his nightmares, she always dies.

He's outside Thompson's house.

He knows she's inside despite his warnings and best advice, that she's unarmed and unbearably reckless. He also knows that Thompson's crazy enough to kill (He's done it before, after all) and that he must hurry unless he wants his favorite forensic anthropologist to be the next. He motions the SWAT to hurry and approaches the porch, and suddenly, there's a loud bang and the window splatters with blood. A loud THUMP follows, his heart skips a beat and he rushes inside, kicking the door out of the way, his gun raised, his steps leading him to the living room.

She's laying on the carpeted ground, face-first among a splatter of blood, her auburn-red hair spreading around her skull and mercifully hiding her features; Thompson's staring at her, his features still covered with sweat, wild and mad, the gun is still in his hands. He looks at Thompson, then her, and hesitantly calls her, even though he has the powerful hunch that she can't hear him anymore. When she doesn't even flinch and Thompson begins to stagger an unsure comment on how she was harassing him, he stops him by pointing his gun at him. The urge to pull the trigger is excruciating, but he just barely holds himself back, his eyes never leaving the inert body in the ground before him, and the sight he's furious and unbelievably sad.

The nightmare ends when the first unnoticed tear slides down his face.

Sometimes, they're in the street interrogating Duarte and the shooting starts.

As the crystals break apart and the metal clings, he acts on pure instinct, the only thought in his mind being to protect her, as she is unexpectedly fragile. He pushes her before him for shelter behind the nearest car, but he's not fast enough and a moment's hesitation leads to her being practically uncovered for at least four seconds.

Suddenly, he sees her writhe sharply, a strangled gasp leaving her lips, blood erupting from a wound that just appeared. She falls to the ground, clutching her side, right below the armpits. He takes her in his arms and tells her to hold on as the bullets hit the car they've taken refugee behind. The shooters' tires screech loudly as they drive away, having recovered their target. He couldn't care less, for the moment being. He repeats that everything's going to be alright over and over again and she mildly growls an unbelieving answer, shivering and gasping for breath, until a great quake runs through her body and she becomes limp, her bright celeste eyes frozen and dim.

He calls her, clapping on her face, shaking her. He pleads, and reminds her that there's an entire team of squints waiting for her back at the Jeffersonian. She doesn't come back. He feels the guilty and angered tears in the corners of his eyes as he cradles her, the distant sound of ambulance sirens approaching by the second.

The nightmare ends when the first sob breaks through his chest.

In another nightmare, he's in a dimply lit warehouse.

His whole body aching and the bug-loving squint is with him. A few yards further, he can hear her sobs, muffled by some sort of cloth, and the thought of that strong woman completely bended to fear doubles his rage. Gritting his teeth, he accelerates his pace until he's blinking under the twilight and spots Kenton's back in front of him, raising his arm in order to strike something with his gun's rear as he says something about not being a sicko. It dawns on him: He's going to do it. Right now. Right in front of him.

He doesn't have time to think, or even aim. He shoots out of instinct, but one second too late. Kenton's arm falls right before the bullet flies through the space where his hand had been just moments before. It happens in fractions of a second, but to him it's eternal. He's frozen, behind him the men call for Kenton to drop his gun and put his hands above his head, but he doesn't move from his position, his gun still raised.

He's missed.

He's killed dozens of men with one bullet for the sake of war, but he'd missed the target this time, even though it was for her sake.

As the SWAT team submits Kenton, and when he finally can move, he walks past them and goes to her. Her head is tipped to one side, her hair partially hiding her pale face, and her body is completely clinging to the hook her hands had been tied to. Seconds before, she'd been squirming, trying to get away, and now she just hung, like a coat, or the meat in a butcher's fridge. Feeling as though his hands belonged to someone else, he touched the curve of her neck, feeling nothing but skin that slowly lost its warmth. Ignoring the pain in his body, he unhangs her by putting her tied hands behind his neck and rising her painfully dead weight and then kneels on the ground, trying not to think of the way her body limply hangs off his neck, trying not to think at all. He doesn't even care about the fact that everyone's looking at him. His face contorts and the knot around his throat unbinds painfully as he begins to sob in long, throat-tearing screams.

The nightmare ends when he tells her, among sobs, that he's sorry he missed.

He particularly hates when he's digging with his hands on a grovel mine, hearing the rest of the group's shoes hitting the ground as they approach.

The grovel scratches his knuckles and the space between his fingers, and he can feel some of the smaller rocks getting under his nails as he keeps going, calling her in a husky, strained voice. A white, bruised hand appears among the dirt and he pulls it, and a red-auburn head appears, as well as the other arm. He pulls her from under her arms, pulling her out of the earth, uneasily noticing her lack of movement. Not far from them, another hand erupts from underneath the stones and the rest of the group rush to help the owner; but he's too busy cradling her while softly calling her and assuring everything will be OK. He's waiting waiting for her to take a breath or open her eyes, but she doesn't, despite how many times he calls, or how much he softly shakes her. He caresses and kisses the dirty bangs at the top of her head expecting a response, even the mildest one, but it never comes. His chest is stricken by a sharp ache as he realizes she's not waking up and the lack of breath that's suddenly come over him is overwhelming, as if a metal claw were constricting his torso. Two tears fall on her dirty, pale face, washing away the dirt and she doesn't stir. Soon, more of them fall too, as he finds he can't hold them anymore, as he breathlessly whimpers out one last call for her to wake up.

He was too late. Despite his best efforts, despite his strong feelings, despite everything he was too late.

After what seem hours of cradling her, he inhales and then screams out, his voice echoing on the grovel mine. He takes another breath and screams again, and again, and again, almost as if expecting his voice could reach her and make her come back. The muscles in his neck ache in effort and soon his throat begins to ache too, but he doesn't stop, he can't because as soon as he stops he's going to have to face the fact that he couldn't save her. He buries his face on the crook of her neck, still sobbing in screams that taste of blood.

The nightmare ends when his voice refuses to come out at all.

In a specially blurry one, she is singing.

Around him, their friends cheer on her and clap their hands at the beat, she's pretty good, for someone who doesn't know half of today's songs. It's just like the song says they just wanna have fun and they're doing it. He can't take his eyes off her, but then he hears someone calling for him, a voice that's dangerously despaired. Turning his head to look, he finds Pam and she says she's doing it for them. Instinct kicks in when he sees her raise her hand, wielding a gun. His body moves almost in its own accord and he hears the gun fire, but doesn't feel any pain.

Instead, he hears everyone scream and the awful sound of a microphone hitting the ground, he turns and sees her stagger and fall on her knees, a crimson stain growing right below the collar of her shirt, a river of blood surging from her mouth, her bewildered eyes wide and glimmering.

He rushes to her, as well as the squints; for once, she can't speak. A terrified, strangled cough is all that comes out of her bloodstained mouth. They call her, each in their particular way, but she can't reply, and just looks at them, her eyes wide, tears falling from them. They make her empty promises about her welfare, but she's not listening to them. Her hands grapple on anything she can hold on to, and they end up grabbing onto his arms. He's practically screaming to her, telling her to hold on, to stay with them. She blinks the salty tears off her eyes and coughs up, red bubbles growing on the corners of her mouth, and her eyes start to close. He calls, he pleads, he begs, but her eyes can't stay open. They finally close and she goes limp against the arms that hold her. Behind him, the same despaired voice from before is saying they can be together now, now that she's out of the way.

Something just cracks inside him. Before he knows what he's doing, he's taken out his gun and shot Pam, over and over again. He keeps pulling the trigger, even though his gun is out of bullets and Pam's already dead in the ground. His face is damp and his shoulders are shaking, and he seems to have lost the ability to speak emitting animal growls from between his gritted teeth. He wants to keep shooting because he wants to undo what has been done. He wants to keep shooting because he wants someone to hurt as much as him.

The nightmare ends when a hand carefully removes the gun from his hand.

These, among others, are his nightmares. He sees her die and he can't stand it. Each moment is different, and their bond is different in each one of them, but in each one of them he can't stand the fact that she's dead in front of him.

That he won't get to hear her say she doesn't know what something means again, that he won't get to hear her babble in her squint-language anymore. Her eyes won't flash to him with badly-concealed amusement when he makes a religious-related commentary again, he won't get another chance to explain her why she shouldn't be amused. They won't argue again, they won't have coffee or go in the car together. He won't be alarmed whenever she makes an unnerving comment in front of Parker, he won't get to spend some time with her and her father, that he reluctantly respects. They won't cuddle together at the end of a particularly hard mission, they won't feel that awkward yet electrifying attraction.

He'll never get to say he loves her.

He jerks awake like a drowning man breaks into the surface of the water. He doesn't scream or jump in the bed, just flinches violently, his hands contracted over the sheets, his skin covered in a sickening cold sweat, his breath quick and his body shivering. In the dark, his fears seem so real, just like when he was a boy and he feared the toy clown from the movie 'Poltergeist' was going to get him. He can still hear her breathing in effort, coughing up, and he can almost see her, her eyes wide, her face pale and contorted with pain.

She wakes up and sleepily asks him what's wrong. He never answers, but he kisses her forehead, eyes, cheeks and mouth with a devotion she's only seen him profess in church. He holds her like he wants her to melt into his skin and make sure they won't hurt her unless they kill him first. He repeats to himself that her breasts pressing against his body, her hands rubbing his arms and shoulders, her breath brushing his skin and the warmth of her stomach where their child is growing is real and that her cold, dead body is not. She hugs him and he mutters thankful prayers for the God that was merciful enough to make the nightmares just dreams. He thanks Him for giving him the strength to protect her, he thanks Him for allowing them to come to the present moment.

He's not afraid to go back to sleep because he knows that, as bad as the nightmare might get, she'll be there when he wakes up.

C.C. (a) the author here. My first BxB work. I've loved the show and the pairing for at least two years now, but for some reason never quite got around doing anything related. Recently, I was trying to draw pregant Brennan and Booth sleeping and the question 'What do they dream?' came to my mind. I don't know how I ended up writting nightmares, though.

Reviews are very welcome.