He had several different names for her, rotated occasionally to prevent boredom, but primarily to suit his own needs.

Sometimes, he called her simply my partner. This was, he believed, her least favorite of all of his references. What she didn't understand, however, was that sometimes, it was exceedingly necessary. Sometimes he called her my partner when he wanted her to blend in the background. She had an incredibly capacity for calling attention to herself while in the vicinity of a vicious murder. My partner was used for thrusting her behind him, taking the focus off her, no matter how good she thought she was at martial arts. He had called her my partner when he'd shoved a gun into the mouth of a mobster, ready to kill to protect her.

Ironically enough, he also called her my partner when he was feeling too protective. Often in the same situation, surrounded by danger, some logical part of him perhaps hoped, in vain, that calling her partner would alleviate some of the fear he felt on her behalf. As his partner, she was equal, and fully capable of taking care of herself. This delusion never worked for very long.

The majority of the time, however, he gave her this cold title because he liked the word my. The "alpha-male" part of him, as she always put it, got extreme satisfaction out of the fact that she was inarguably his. At least in that respect.

He frequently called her Dr. Brennan. He referred to her as such to his colleagues, when he vehemently denied any secret relationship or underlying feelings. Dr. Brennan was good for evoking a sense of detachment he had no illusions of feeling. Dr. Brennan called to forth pictures of a cold, unfeeling scientist in a stark, white lab, callously examining the remains of war heroes, murderers, and children alike.

Temperance was for when these pictures didn't work. Even as he called her Dr. Brennan, he pictured Temperance, sitting in her warm, colorful office, struggling to regain control of her emotions after identifying the remains of her own mother, or falling against him helplessly after finding her brother's blood. He avoided calling her Temperance. It made him ache.

More often than all of these different labels combined, he called her Bones. Bones was his favorite. He called her Bones even as he pretended to be irritated at her for needing 'just five more minutes' with a victim who had been dead for centuries. He called her Bones as he attempted to explain to her who Michael Jackson was. He called her Bones to his son, proudly telling him she could name all the bones in dinosaurs, Parker's newest obsession, without even seeing one. He called her Bones as he pulled her out from being buried underground, fighting to control his emotions, his anger of the past 24 hours dissolving into relief. He called her Bones because he couldn't call her what he truly wanted to. Sweetheart, Honey, Darling.

Love.

Heyy, hope you liked. Please, please, please review. I know I'm shamelessly begging, but this is my first Bones fic, and I'm a little undecided as to how it turned out. Thanks! )

I don't own the title, for the few who didn't recognize it, it's from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

Oh, and obviously I don't own Bones. Unfortunately. David Boreanaz. Mmm.