A/N: This fic was inspired by everything and anything, including TJ Thyne's "Validation," which everyone has probably seen but if you haven't, go do it. Obviously this is non-canon, all of it, but there are spoilers for ep 100 and beyond.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money, and I have a lot of fun.

Death of a Poker Chip

"Bones," Booth said. "You're not okay with it; I can tell."

He looked serious, talking about seeing other people. Before his gambler's confession several weeks ago, it had been hard for Brennan to take him seriously: he'd been Booth, odd-socks loud-tie Booth, who loved her (and she knew) but didn't say so (except for that once). But now. There was the threat of expectation, of a follow-through she didn't believe she could provide.

It was all right. He'd always been so kind. He'd let her feel loved and had asked nothing in return. It couldn't have lasted forever.

"I find it very reasonable," she said.

The sound went right through Angela's headphones. She took them off and went to look out her window.

Hodgins was out there. He was wearing a sleeveless shirt; it looked like he'd cut the sleeves off himself, maybe to show off that monstrous tattoo. He was standing at the door to her building, pushing the buzzer over and over and if she knew him at all he wasn't going to stop until she buzzed him in.

She didn't buzz him in. She went down to get him.

"How, Bones?" he asked. "It isn't reasonable! This isn't close to reasonable!" He sounded frustrated, exasperated, like her answer hadn't pleased him. Brennan immediately thought to herself, it should be the answer he wants, as if someone was listening to her thoughts and judging her for them. But the truth was that she knew why Booth was dissatisfied, she knew why he was asking these questions, she knew why he'd told her she was the standard and she even knew the thing he really wanted to hear.

She'd be damned if she were going to say it, though. Not because she's afraid he'd leave--he's almost convinced her he'd be there forever--but because she'd have the rest of her life to disappoint him.

"Jack," Angela said quietly. She was leaning on the door, neither in nor out. "What are you doing." It wasn't a question because she knew, though it wasn't like he was keeping it a secret. Now that she was closer she could see he'd brought her something: it was in his closed hand, silver chain spilling through his fingers.

"I made this for you," he said, and because hesaid made instead of bought she had to know. He reached for her arm, drawing her hand to him as he slid fingertips down her skin, and pressed something to her palm.

Angela brought it up to her face and uncurled her fingers. In the dim light it took her a minute to see it. Hodgins waited, his face glowing like a boy who knew he'd done good.

"Whatever you're afraid that I want from you," Booth said, his hands going to Brennan's shoulders, "you're wrong." She was wearing some fancy, Cam-like thing and sometimes he thought she wore those things to be more like Cam. Distant, professional, and over him. He was wishing for one of those old cotton t-shirts she used to wear, back when she let her hair sit in a messy ponytail while she told him to take his opinions straight to hell. Back when she used to be unafraid of him.

"Booth, you've included the entire scope of--"

"NO, Bones," he said forcefully. "Stop. I can't talk to the scientist. I love the scientist but I can't make this make sense to her."

Brennan didn't argue that it was nonsensical for Booth to address her as if she were multiple people, because she knew what he meant and a different argument seemed more important.

"I AM the scientist," she cried. "There's nobody else. There's nothing else."

"Oh, god," Angela said finally. The words came out with a little skipping cry. Hodgins took a step closer to her. He smelled like extremely expensive scotch, but he maintained the same penetrating gaze that had unnerved her when she'd first met him.

"I'm always gonna love you," he said, and he let the drunken slur happen, trusting that there was no possible way that she could think he didn't mean it, or that he meant it because he'd been drinking. He'd meant it for years, and he'd felt sober since she'd been gone no matter what he drank. "There's no alternative."

Angela stared at her palm. She was cushioning a little resin-dipped shrimp on a chain. Actually: two shrimp, conjoined at head and tail, the shape of a heart between them.

Booth had stepped closer. So close. She would have backed away, but he'd kept his hands on her shoulders.

"There's nothing else?" he asked, cocking his head. It was all only so far from an interrogation.

Brennan shook her head.

"Then," Booth said, his eyes sharpening, "the Scientist is Angela's friend. The Scientist found her dad and her brother and made them a family again." Brennan tried to interject with something about prison and fraud but Booth wouldn't have it. He gave her a look he'd never given her before and he prayed it would work as well with her as it did with Parker. "The Scientist," he continued, "loved me once. Or at least was willing to give things a try."

She looked at him, shocked and frozen.

"I know that, Bones, I know that," Booth said. "That's the Scientist. That's you. If that's all there is, then that's what I want. I've already seen everything I need: just give me a fighting chance to keep it."

Hodgins waited less than patiently. It didn't take Angela long, anyhow.

"Do you," she said, "want to come upstairs?"

"Do you want me to come upstairs?" he asked. There was a long silence on her end, and he assumed she was studying the pendant he'd made her but when she looked back up at him she was teary-eyed.

"Oh my god, Jack," she said, unusually subdued. "I'm so sorry. For everything." He furrowed his eyebrows and absorbed her as he always did.

"I'm all right," he said.

"No," Angela said, "but you weren't." She stepped into him suddenly, and if she hadn't had a railing on her steps they might both have ended up on the sidewalk. "And I'm sorry," she whispered into his neck.

"I don't know how," Brennan said, echoing herself. This time, Booth was ready. He'd had a month to think of the right response, and the one he'd found was simple.

"It's this," he said to her. "It's exactly this, what we already do, except I get to...kiss you, and tell you I love you."

"You've already told me you love me," she protested.

"Yeah, but you get to say I know, or me, too, or goodnight or good morning," he said. His hands had worked up to the back of her neck, the base of her hair. He was leaning into her with the force of his persuasion. "Don't you want that? I know you want that," he pleaded.

She didn't know what to say. He wasn't using logic. What he wanted existed outside of that.

Angela held the door for Hodgins. They climbed the narrow wooden steps together. He pinned her to the wall at every landing, planting grateful, delicious kisses on her neck.

"Hey," he murmured, "I have an idea." She knew what he was going to say. She loved knowing what he was going to say.

"Page 187?" she said. She felt his grin expand against her skin.

"Page 187," he confirmed. She broke away from him, tearing up the stairs toward her door. He raced after her.

"Bones, do you think I'm smarter for having known you?" Booth asked gently. Brennan seemed a little shell-shocked.

"Yes, of course," she answered.

"But I didn't know anything about you or your squinty, science-y business when I started working with you," he said. "You taught me."

"Not everything," she countered.

"No, not everything," he said, fighting the desire to roll his eyes, "but you taught me, and I'm better now. I'm a better person now."

"It's you who made me a better person," she said suddenly, too fast, without thinking. He seized upon it and brought her face even closer to his. Inches away.

"Then what can it hurt?" he asked her. "Let me teach you. Trust me." She seemed on the verge. She was searching him, for a sign, for assurance, for one last push. "Trust me," he said. If he had any authority in her eyes, ever, he wanted to cash it all in now.

"I'm not sorry I wrote about that," Angela breathed.

"I'm sure there are plenty of people who aren't sorry you wrote about that," Hodgins said. His face was on her pillow, head turned to watch her in profile. "So, did you and Wendell ever..."

"Did we ever what? Page 187?"

"Yeah."

"Jack," Angela said, turned on her side to face him. "Wendell? And I? We couldn't page 187." Hodgins licked his lips.

"Why?" he asked.

"You know why," she said. Hodgins watched her.

"You have no idea how much I wanted that to be your answer," he said, pulling her into a horizontal full-body hug.

"I," Brennan started. She'd had two false starts already. Booth was being slowly destroyed by the tension of holding her at the edge of yes.

"Say yes," he told her. "Just say yes. It's an experiment."

She looked at him with wide eyes.

"What is it, Bones?" he asked.

"Promise me," she said tentatively, "that if it goes...if the outcome is negative...you won't--" She couldn't finish because the request seemed so ridiculous. That he would stay. Where would he stay? How would he fit? Why would he want to?

"I won't leave," he said instantly. "I stay, Bones. I stay. Look at Parker. Look at my brother. Look at you," he said.

"What about me?" she said defensively.

"You told me you didn't love me," he said.

"You're dating an...interesting woman. I don't see how you would be upset at me for that," she said.

"I'm not upset that you told me you didn't love me. I was upset that you lied."

Angela pulled back first. She stroked Hodgins' scruffy cheek.

"Hodgie," she said. "I need another page 187." Hodgins smiled.

"I have an endless supply," he said. "Ready?" Angela snuggled into the mattress and adjusted her head on the pillow.

"Ready."

Hodgins put their faces nose-to-nose and looked intently at her. His eyes softened, his lips parted and his eyebrows did something subtle that, even after all this time, she had yet to be able to draw afterwards. He put his hand out to her, stroking her hair.

"Angela Pearly-Gates Montenegro," he said, his voice so rough she could feel it. "I love you. I love you so much."

Angela hummed her pleasure. "God I've missed this," she whispered to him.

"Shh," he hushed. "Page 187 works better if you just lie back and take it." She laughed. He'd always known how to make her laugh. "I've known I would love you since the day I met you. I loved you on the swings. I loved you in the supply closet--" Angela giggled at the supply closet, always "--and I loved you in the Egyptian Room. I love you. I love you. You have no idea how much I love you. And I admire you, I admire you when you paint, and I admire you when..."

And he kept on talking as long as she wanted to hear it.

Booth was exhausted, and so was she.

At some point during the night she'd given up, given in, got tired or confused or hopeful enough to take him at his word. He'd seen his break and he'd gone for it headfirst, kissing her the way she'd kissed him the first time. Except this time, no cab ride. She'd let him; she'd let herself. He driven her all the way down the hall, one section of wall at a time. Most of the time she'd kept her eyes closed, but when she'd opened them he'd been there, reassuring her.

"I'm here," he'd said, lightening his touch momentarily, "and I want you, exactly the way you are." She'd smiled broadly and let her head fall back under his lips.

When they'd collapsed into bed and he'd taken off his pants, he'd laid out his pocket things on the bedside table, as always. Phone, keys, lighter, St. Christopher medal, dice.

When he put his pants on in the morning, he left the poker chip where it lay.