This one is a companion piece of sorts to "Tangible Pain". While the story line isn't the same or even related, each story reveals the emotional turmoil inside each character.

"She Isn't Enough" Summary: We get a look into Booth's thoughts as he is sitting there gambling as he deals with the emotional struggle thinking about his relationship with Hannah, and where he went wrong with Bones. Can Bones save him from himself? Two-shot, possibly three.

"Tangible Pain" Summary: How is Brennan handling Booth blowing her off for Hannah? When Angela discovers the truth she seeks the help of Booth, only to find out he knew and didn't do anything. Will guilt be enough for Booth to be finally able to get Brennan the help she needs? One-shot

All disclaimers apply: Not mine…yada, yada, yada…

Warning: this gets a little angsty. This stream of consciousness first person view is told from Booth's inner monologue as he has relapsed into his gambling addiction. His thoughts jump around, and are sometimes unfocused on just one thing, as I would figure he would struggle with in a situation like this. Or it could just seem that way because of the fact that I haven't written first person in about five years, as I am still getting back into writing. I would appreciate any feedback or advice anyone may have for me. :)

She Isn't Enough

I look around at the flashing lights, and I take in the sounds, the music, the people talking, laughing, the sound of coins hitting coins in the bins in front of slot machines. I listen to poker chips hitting other poker chips. I hear the roll of dice and the sighs and noises of disappointment along with the occasional sound of cheers at the craps tables. I hear the sound of the balls going around the roulette tables before settling into one of the slots on the board.

I look up and the black jack dealer is waiting for my wager. I sigh and slide forward some of the last few chips I have. I haven't been here long, but I've blasted my way through quite a bit of money at this point. I've only got a few left and I'm in some serious trouble. I have to get some of it back.

A waitress comes by our table with a round of drinks, no doubt designed to keep people in a haze as they sit there and lose track of time and all of their sensibilities as they gamble away what money they came with. I politely decline the free drink. I'm not a huge drinker in the first place, but then again I clearly don't need to have free booze tossed at me to stay here and lose everything I have. I seem to be doing a decent job of that on my own.

How have I managed to get back to this? The sad thing is that I know what my problem is, yet instead of fixing it, I broke. I gave in. I gave up on one of the best things that had ever happened to me because it seemed like it was all way too far out of the realm of possibility in recent circumstances. Bones turned me down, and now I'm moving on with Hannah.

I haven't been to church in the three months since we've been back in the states. I haven't been to confessional. I have barely seen my son, or even the people that I used to spend most of my free time with, even outside of work, mostly Bones.

Ya know, I thought I had everything figured out in my life. I have a good job, a dangerous one at times, but it's good. I've got a wonderful son. I kicked a bad addiction after a few years of being in a pretty bad place being in debt with loan sharks and watching my life pass me by. I paid back every person I owed money to, and that's a pretty long darn list. I had a wonderful woman working by my side, and then I fell in love with her. Hell, she's the reason I kicked the gambling addiction in the first place. We danced around each other for years before things took a horrible turn that led up to me being where I am today.

Bones is so beautiful. She's infuriating. She's gentle. She's blunt. She's honest. She's caring. She's horrible at being humble. She's smart, yet I love to explain the little things that as a genius you would think she should know. Things like colloquialisms, sports, social cues…love. Love, now that's a loaded subject with her. Love is just a chemical reaction in the brain where dopamine is released blah, blah, blah. I've heard her debate and debunk so many of my beliefs at this point, and many of them several times over, that I have her every argument memorized.

Can't she see how much I loved her? Hell, I'm still in love with her. There lies the problem. I love her, and she loves me. I can tell. Another problem: it scares her. Hell, I scared her when I pushed her, or maybe she isn't as in love with me as I thought. I really don't know what to think anymore.

Is there something wrong with me that everyone can see that I can't? Rebecca didn't want me because I put her in a situation she wasn't really ready for and proposed for the wrong reasons. Tessa didn't really give me a reason for leaving me, though I suspect that it might have had something to do with Bones' presence. Cam, well, I broke up with her not because of the fact that she could have been hurt because of my job. No, it's because I was in love with my partner. Since then (and it's been a few years!), who has there been? No one. That's just as well, I guess. I didn't really want anyone else, but her anyway.

When I finally tell her how I feel, I mess it up because I see the panicked look on her face. It causes me to chicken out and add a qualifier that even she looks disappointed to hear. Even though she looked panicked for a second, maybe things would have been better off if I had just left it as it was to see how it played out.

Then, there's Sweets. Good Lord, I outta rip that kid a new one. The nerve he had! You don't go around telling recovered gambling addicts to take a gamble. On anything! Gambling is gambling, no matter the currency being put up as the wager.

This time it was my heart. Her heart. I showed my cards to her. I revealed my hand. I pushed her, and I know it. She told me that I'm the one that needed protection from her, and that we can't because of the FBI. Protection? Shit, this hurt me more than anything else in the world. She left me a broken man with nothing left to protect. From that day forward our relationship was strained. We had some good moments, but it hasn't been the same since that day.

We even tried to go to separate parts of the world to see if putting distance between us could fix us. She needed perspective. She needed time and space. I get that. I needed some time and space to myself as well I guess. I took that stupid tour of duty in Afghanistan because of it.

I couldn't sit at home and do what we do every day without her there! It isn't as if I could stay there and then just tell the bureau not to give me any cases or assign me a new partner in her absence. So going to Afghanistan was logical, right?

Ugh, listen to me, I sound like her!

Looking back on it, I don't see how I could have taken off to do the very thing that had me so torn up and into gambling in the first place. I suppose it might have had something to do with Parker's insistence that I go and help save lives over there. I don't think that he truly understood that it meant that I might have to take someone's life to save others. I can't place the blame on my innocent nine year old for not understanding what truly happens in this world. In the end, it was my decision to go.

When I first got out of the army, adjusting to civilian life was no easy feat. A few buddies and myself would take trips to Atlantic City, and we would spend some time numbing ourselves and ignoring real life in the casinos. It started small. Just a few bucks here and there. No big deal. We won big one day, but as we were trying to push our luck and win more, we lost it fairly quickly. We kept losing, and ended up trying to borrow money to get it back. Soon, I ran through everything I had. I borrowed money from everyone. On weekdays, I didn't drive to Atlantic City, as that was something I tried to do only on weekends so that I could work my job as a rookie FBI agent during the week to pay for my habit. I would spend the weekdays in a pool bar whenever I wasn't at work. Everything I had worked for was put into my addiction. I tried to quit numerous times after Parker was born. I wanted to be a good father. I didn't want to have this cloud looming over me every time I visited him, which wasn't very often because Rebecca didn't think that I would be good for him. I went to so many meetings at my church and so many confessions, but I never completely walked away from gambling. I got close, but there was always something that took me back to the casino or pool bar, and each time it seemed to be worse than the time before.

Until one day, I was advised to consult with Dr. Temperance Brennan on a case. From the moment I laid eyes of her, I knew. She was the one. One look at her, and I knew I was done wasting my life in a pool bar. Even after we parted ways, with a lot of hostility towards each other after that case, I still had no desire to go gamble my life away. I quit, cold turkey. All it took was for her to walk into my life. Sure, we spent the year apart, but somehow, I knew that she wasn't done being a part of my life.

How did I manage to screw up so badly with the one woman I know I'm meant to spend the rest of my life with? How did I ever allow myself to think that I could just move on from someone like her?

During my time in Afghanistan, I moved on. Or I tried to, anyway. I found someone who was able to love me the way I needed. It was clear to me that Bones didn't want me in her life in that way. She said she didn't have my kind of open heart, which meant to me that she couldn't love me like that. So, I had to. I had to move on. I had to try.

I met a wonderful fun loving woman, Hannah, while I was in Afghanistan. I arrested her when she showed up, and ended up saving her life as well. When we started to sleep together over there, first it was just her way of thanking me for saving her life. Then, it continued as a way to pass time between getting sand in our eyes and sending kids out into situations they had no business being in. I don't know when it started being more for her, but I do know now that it could never have been more for me. I don't think I knew that at the time, but I still didn't expect her to follow me back to the states. I didn't expect her to pack up her nomadic life and move in with me.

Looking back on all of this, I can't help but think who invites themselves into someone's life like that? Even if I were in love with her, which now I know that I'm not, it's typically common courtesy to wait for someone to ask you to move in with them. I understand that she felt like she didn't have anywhere to go once she got here, but she does have a job and a steady income that she could have used to get herself a decent room to stay in somewhere. It was just intrusive, and I'm not sure I handled that situation the right way.

The look on Bones' face when I told her about Hannah was bad enough. She tried to make the point that I had arrested her, too, at some point. I now see that she was trying to tell me not to give up on her. I could see it in her eyes. Maybe she was ready to move on, but then I had just laid the giant news of finding another woman on her. I could see the hurt. She was so excited to tell me that she hadn't engaged in a sexual relationship, that it really should have sent alarm bells off in my brain that she was trying to tell me that she was holding off for her return. For me.

For the most part Temperance Brennan has an amazing ability to hide what she is truly feeling, but not from me. I can see the miniscule things in her expressions that give her away. I can see the tender woman who cares so much about so many things that it tears away at her until she closes off more of herself. I don't know what it is; maybe I pestered and annoyed her to the point where she finally let me in just to shut me up, and allowed me to see her vulnerabilities. Yet, for some reason, right after our return, my brain didn't seem like it was able to process anything having to do with her. I couldn't tell that she was implying that she had been ready upon her return to make a step forward in our relationship.

Well, I couldn't until Hannah showed up while we were having lunch at the diner, I could immediately see the hurt in her face as I left the table, but I was either too shocked or too stupid to stop myself from abandoning her at that table. Just like I left for Afghanistan, and just like everyone else leaves her, I left her at that table to watch as I run to Hannah and kiss her until Bones comes over and interrupts us very awkwardly. I just stood there stupidly as she had to introduce herself to the other woman I know she had to have been at least somewhat jealous of. She may not have realized it, but I know she had to be. Hannah was taking the place in my life that she could have had, the place in my life that she may have been ready to admit to wanting, had I not blindsided her with moving on.

What baffled me the most was the fact that they became friends. The woman I have been pining for over the past six years and the woman I'm trying to love are being friendly with each other. That tells me that she wants me to be happy and she doesn't want to mess this up for me. All I can think about is, but what about her? She deserves to be happy, too. The fact that she is willing to sacrifice her happiness for mine just makes me love her even more. Talk about a vicious cycle as far as moving on is concerned.

That made it very hard for me to continue trying to move on with Hannah. It made me realize that I am just using her. She isn't the one for me, and I know that. Only now, I am able to admit to myself that this whole thing with her is a mistake. I feel as if I've cheated on Bones.

I'm not sure Hannah realizes that the person she is in love with isn't real. Can she not tell how fake I seem? I don't even recognize myself. I know the squints can see through my act. Even Bones had to have seen that I'm not myself. Maybe I was waiting for someone to call me out on my crap, but no one did.

All Hannah saw was the fun part of Seeley Booth. She hasn't seen the real me in the months prior to my return, and she definitely hasn't seen the real me in the three months since we been back in the states. She doesn't know the factors in my life that led to me being who I am, and I'm sure she has no clue about the things that are troubling me today.

Hannah obviously knows that I've served in the army since she was there, but does she know what that does to me inside? Does she know how much it eats me up to take a life, even one with just cause? I doubt it. I've never told her. Whether in the Army or because of a case working with the FBI, taking a life is something I hope to avoid if possible. Bones knows; she's had to take a life. The most prominent example that comes to mind is Pam Nunan. Bones shot and killed her after the crazy bitch tried to shoot Bones and I jumped in front of the bullet for her. Bones knows that she had to act quickly because Pam was prepared to fire another shot so she had to shoot in self-defense, but part of me can't help but think that the sensitive Bones that I know beats herself up over taking the crazy woman's life. Talking from experience, having taken a life in self-defense, I know that I have a tendency to think, what if I did it on purpose or as revenge. I know she has to be struggling with something like that. Gordon Gordon helped me to see that I wasn't sure how I felt after Epps' death. Did I really try to save him, or did I cave let him drop to his death on purpose as a form of retribution for all of the shit he did? It makes you start to doubt yourself and your choice. Did that person really have to die?

Does Hannah know about my father? No, probably not. Why? Because, I've never told her. She doesn't need to know the personal Hell I went through as a child. She wouldn't understand. Bones does. While our situations were not the same, there are similarities in our pasts that allowed us to lean on each other and help each other through some tough situations in our partnership. I helped her through some a few hairy situations concerning her family and their past. Bones helped me with Pops when I thought I could take care of him after he assaulted that male nurse in his retirement center. It was tough seeing him feel like he was losing everything that made him who he was, his independence. He really liked her. I don't think he would like Hannah too much. She's can come off as sort of fake. Pops really seemed to like Bones' ability to just say shit without sugar coating it. He genuinely loved her and accepted her as family. Pops is a good man, and I should have taken his advice. Perhaps if I had listened to Pops instead of Sweets, this would have turned out different. I should never have thought of taking a step forward in our relationship as a gamble. It wouldn't have been a gamble. It should have been a sure thing. Maybe that's what scared her away. Did she think that I wasn't really sure about what we could be because Sweets called it a gamble? If so, she probably thinks that she isn't worth anything but taking a gamble on. She's worth way more than that. She's worth dying for.

Forget the fact that Hannah doesn't know about my family life, I don't really know anything about her other than she is a journalist and travels a lot. I know so much about Bones. Some of it was learned by accident or circumstance. Maybe it was fate; Bones would say she still doesn't believe in fate. Either way, I wouldn't change anything that makes Bones who she is.

Does Hannah know about my history with Bones? I know I talked about Bones, but I never told her what happened between us or my reason for returning to the army. No, she doesn't know that we were practically like a married couple. Everyone thought we were together. Everyone speculated about us. She doesn't know that Bones asked me to father her child. She doesn't even know that I had a brain tumor. She doesn't know that I took a bullet for Bones. What does she really know about me at all? I mean really, know about me. I know she's seen the scar from the bullet that pierced my chest, but she's never asked about it. I know that she's seen some other scars, but she's never asked about them either. Bones knows everything about me. Even the things that aren't visible on the outside, like my feet. I have no doubt that Hannah has noticed the amount of time it takes me in the morning to get my feet ready for the day. She's never asked. How can someone who loves me not ask about something like that?

Does Hannah even know about my gambling problem? No, I've never told her that, either. There's just so much that I cannot tell her because she won't understand where I'm coming from. She's seen too much of my happy-go-lucky façade for me to tell her any of this and expect her to understand why I didn't tell her.

She really doesn't know much of anything about me. How is that fair? How is it that she thinks she loves me, when she doesn't even know the whole me?

I'm currently sitting in Harrah's blowing my whole paycheck at the black jack tables. She wasn't enough to keep me from coming back to destroying own life to make up for the other wrongs I imposed on others in Afghanistan. Sure, I was only supposed to be there for training, but I knew that was a load of bull when I signed up to go. Why did allow myself to do it anyway, knowing that I would have to kill again?

Hannah wasn't enough. She's not enough for me to tell her the truth about my life. She isn't enough for me to tell her about my childhood, my addiction, or the emotional pain that manifests itself into my heart so deep, that it becomes physical pain.

She was sitting right in front of me at the diner when I heard the register ding that familiar ding that sent a flash of desire through me. The ding as the register drawer is opened and closed. The sound of change hitting other change in the drawer. I mentally turn it into the sound of chips hitting chips, coins being dispensed from slot machines, and with each passing minute as the waitress checks out more and more people the desire becomes overwhelming. The desire to hear more dings, to hear more coins hitting coins. The desire to see the flashing lights and hear the music. The desire that makes my palms itch. The desire to numb myself with sitting in the windowless casino for days on end without knowing if it is day or night. The desire to escape the fact that I knowingly returned to active duty knowing I would have to kill again, to escape how much I messed things up so badly between me and Bones. Seeing Hannah's face right in front of mine was not enough to keep me from immediately driving to Atlantic City right after parting ways with her after lunch. If I loved her, it would have been enough.

I should be at work right now, and I know it. Bones is probably wondering when I'm going to return with the evidence she was waiting for, or at least I hope she is wondering. She would be very disappointed in me right now, if she saw me.

Maybe that's what I need right now. I need for the one person in this world that knows me and what I've been through to help me through this. I've reached my breaking point, and I think there is only one person who can help me through this.

Bones.

Maybe she can help me fix this. She can help me fix us. She was the reason before, so maybe she can be that reason again.

I don't know, but one thing I know for sure. Hannah is not enough.

Please let me know what you think.

This could honestly stop here, but at the same time, I think it does need a little closure.

Next chapter may be told through Brennan's stream of consciousness, but will still be Booth centric. Maybe, if I can pull that off. :|

Shameless self plug alert! If this one left you needing a pick me up, I suggest reading my "Bailed Out" series. Or if you have a ton of time to kill, you could give "The Jelly Bean in the Bones" a try.

XOXO,
CrayonClown