A Love/Hate Relationship

Title: A Love/Hate Relationship
Author: saraluvzbonz
Rating: K+
Summary: Booth reflects on his gun.

AN: It's been a while since I've posted anything. I wish I could say that it was because I'm working on something big. Alas, it's simply because life is busy. Hope you enjoy this. It would not be the story it is without redrider6612. With a well-placed sentence, she helped me pull things together in the end.

Special Agent Seeley Booth nudged the door closed behind him and dumped his wallet, keys, and badge on the entry table. As he entered the main living area, he shrugged out of his suit jacket and set his primary weapon down on the dining room table.

A few minutes later he returned to the table dressed comfortably in jeans and a T-shirt. He set down a toothbrush, rod, patches, solvent and oil, and then pulled out a chair. He started disassembling the gun, separating the barrel and slide assembly from the frame, removing the recoil spring and sliding the barrel out. His thoughts wandered as he went through the routine of cleaning his gun.

Gordon-Gordon had been right. All he'd needed was to have Brennan there. He'd passed the test with his usual flying colors and they'd both gone back to work. After a day of paperwork and meetings, he worked off his excess stress at the shooting range. A small part of him feared that his morning performance was a fluke, but the shots on the first target ended up exactly where he'd aimed. With a surge of joy, he set a series of harder and harder tests for himself and was pleased with the results.

"How can you be pleased with something that allows you to take the lives of others?" asked a mocking voice in his head.

"There's nothing wrong with taking pride in being good at something," he thought fiercely. Yet, at the same time, he was overwhelmed with guilt about the lives he had taken.

He picked up the barrel of his gun and pushed the patch through. A gun was nothing more than a tool. It was how he used it that was important. It could be used to kill people and he had used it that way. His gun allowed him to protect both the citizens of his country and his loved ones. Sometimes he saved people's lives by taking another, like the time he'd shot the terrorist. He felt little remorse about that.

A smile quirked his lips as he glanced across the room at a framed picture of Bones and Parker. The moment he'd found out Rebecca was pregnant, a fierce protectiveness filled him, and it had grown stronger over time. He would do anything necessary to protect his son – whether that meant taking out a threat or taking him to Sweets after Parker found that bone in the tree.

Bones was another matter entirely. Her innocence in spite of her life experience appealed to him in a unique way. She dealt with death every day, yet somehow she wasn't cynical or inured and indifferent to the tragedy. Sometimes he wanted to protect the world from her (most often when she was too frank when they informed a family member of the death of a loved one or when she talked about sex in inappropriate places), but most often he wanted to protect her from the world. They interviewed psychos and put away killers weekly, and he wanted – needed – to keep her safe.

He'd never been in a relationship like this before. The fact that she accepted his past without judging him met a need deep in him. While she'd initially scoffed at his "cosmic balance sheet," when she'd realized he was serious, she had joined him in his quest. In the years since, his need to balance the scales waned as she'd healed parts of him he thought were unredeemable. Determination welled within him as it always did when his thoughts strayed to her. He needed her, plain and simple, and he'd do what it took to protect her.

He finished oiling the gun and slid the pieces back into place. At the end of his time with the Rangers, he'd come to fervently hate his sniper rifle and everything that it represented – the lives he'd destroyed and who he'd become. He'd turned down the offer to reenlist with such vehemence that the recruiter had barely mumbled good-bye before he'd fled.

As Booth put the gun in the closet safe, he reflected that he didn't mind this gun so much. He used it when necessary and never took a life without considering the cost. That was enough.

He locked the safe and then grabbed a beer from the fridge. A knock on the door interrupted his trek to the couch and whatever game was on. He smiled as he changed directions. Bones had dropped by.

He glanced at the closet as he walked past. He might have a love-hate relationship with his gun, but he loved the woman on the other side of the door with all his heart and he would do anything to protect her.

Glad to have you back again, Sara. I guess things are starting to settle back down again, huh?

I liked this, wandering through Booth's thoughts as he does a chore he's probably done a thousand times. Very nice.