Hello all again!

This is a little something that came out of my mind the other day, when I was hearing "Everything I do" by Brian Adams. Hope you enjoy it. I'm preparing another story that I hope to post soon… We have to do something while we wait for season 4 to start, don't we?

DISCLAIMER: Bones is a property of all fanfictioners while Hart Hanson and Co. give us more material to write ;-).

PS: I feel the need to point out something: if you find some grammar mistakes, please forgive me. English is not my first language.

I'd die for you…

"Come on, Bones! Give me a break!" Special Agent Seeley Booth was arguing with his partner as always. It seemed like that was something they had to do every single day or the day just wouldn't be complete for them. "If I knew you hadn't been notified, of course I would have broken any protocols to let you know! You can't possibly think I don't have any concerns about you!"

"Perhaps you do have concerns, but they are not about my well being! Why didn't you double checked if I had been notified? What if it had been Rebecca and Parker?" Dr. Temperance Brennan argued with the same level of passion that her partner did. Her blue eyes shone with the same intensity than the brown ones of the agent; whatever they were discussing it obviously was a very sensitive topic for both of them.

"I did! I asked if you had been notified and the agent said they had already delivered my list! I assumed you had been! I've told you that's why I thought you weren't crying at my funeral!" Somehow in the middle of the discussion their faces had ended up very close, their warm breaths tickling the other's skin.

"Well, obviously you were mistaken! And I see you will never understand why I wasn't crying!"

"Perhaps you could start explaining your reasons to Agent Booth, Dr. Brennan…" the voice of Dr. Lance Sweets, their FBI assigned therapist, interrupted the argument. Both partners turned to face him, faces a little flustered as the proximity between them hit them at the moment.

"Sweets!" Booth exclaimed.

"What are you doing here?" the scientist said, even if it was not that strange that the psychologist dropped by her office.

"I supposed I would find you two here… Looks like I wasn't wrong…" he got in and closed the door behind. It obviously surprised the two partners why they were getting locked in the middle of the Jeffersonian medico legal laboratory.

"We didn't have an appointment. We're scheduled up to next week…" Brennan said walking to take a seat behind her desk. Whatever Sweets was up to, she wouldn't be part of it.

"But you have many issues to discuss, Dr. Brennan, and this is the best time…"

"Issues?" Booth asked defensively. "What do you want, Sweets?"

"I wanted to tell you that I did make an experiment with Dr. Brennan concerning your death…" the younger man confessed and he got a very threatening look from the agent as well as a very mad one from the scientist.

"You did what?"·Booth snapped, ready to pull his gun out and shoot him.

Sweets raised his hands in a defensive attitude. "I felt I needed to expose her to a very difficult experience so I could get her to face her emotions and started voicing them, but I realized she was not doing what I expected. I thought I would eventually find her crying, mourning about your loss, but she just didn't. She closed herself up and wouldn't allow anyone to be close to her and help her handle the moment…"

"No one knew what I was going through!" Bones snapped and stood up quickly. "How could you expect I shared my feelings with someone if no one of you know what is it like to have a partner with whom you share everything? The only one who could have understood me was Booth, but he was dead!"

Her words went right to the agent's heart. He turned to look at her with an intensity Sweets hadn't seen in his eyes ever before. Booth knew she was right, only he could have understood what it was like to lose his partner. Yet the only thought terrified him: he understood then why she was so mad to him. He wouldn't have handled her death any better.

"Although you didn't turn to me or your friends to talk about your emotions, you did reveal them to me, Dr. Brennan…" Sweets offered. "And I confirmed what I thought with your comments on the service…" Brennan clenched her jaw: she knew she was about to be exposed to Booth and that made her feel totally vulnerable. "You said you would have taken that bullet willingly… so your partner hadn't died…"

Booth, who had turned to see the psychologist, faced his partner again, his eyes showing the anxiety he was feeling at the moment. "You would have died for him…" Sweets completed in a low voice, allowing his words to sink.

"Bones…" Booth tried to speak, but he was at loss of words.

"Giving the opposite situation, Dr. Brennan, that you saw someone pointing a gun at your partner, would you step in and get in the middle to spare him from harm?" the psychologist asked, trying to get the answer straight from his patient.

Brennan's heart was racing wildly. She knew the answer, she had no doubt about it, she had voiced it out loud at his funeral, when her heart was still broken thinking he was inside that coffin that was about to be buried. But confessing it to Booth directly, when he was alive and standing right in front of her, was going to be a lot more difficult. After all what was the need of it? He wasn't dead, there was no point in making suppositions that were not happening at the moment… She felt Booth's sight over her, but she just didn't have the courage to look at him too.

"Would you, Dr. Brennan? Would you take a bullet for Agent Booth?" Lance repeated his question. He knew they had to get things straight between them if they were supposed to go ahead together.

Booth thought her eyes had never been a deeper blue that when she finally lifted her face to see him. "Yes. I would."

Three words. That was all that had taken for the tough agent to feel tears stinging in his eyes. He had always known what kind of woman his partner was, but hearing her say she would give up her very life for him was more than he could handle at the moment. To him, of course, her life was a lot more valuable than his. That was why he had taken that bullet for her.

The silence that surrounded the moment was so thick Sweets could have cut it with a knife. The psychologist knew that was going to happen the moment he made the two partners face what everyone around them could see. "You'd give your life for your partner, Dr. Brennan, and he obviously would give his for you. You both think your partner's life is worth your own life. Do you know what that means?" Lance said.

Neither Booth, nor Brennan said a word, although both their eyes were bright with the emotions they were hardly handling at the moment.

"That is love", the young man said. "Giving up your life for someone… you only do that when that person is the most important one in your life. You only do that when you love that person so much that you don't care about yourself anymore, because your complete life is that special person. I can't believe it took a life or death situation for you to see it…"

The partners were still silent; the only dialogue the one between their eyes. "You are right…" Booth finally said, looking briefly at the therapist and then back at his partner. He was about to make the biggest confession in his life and nervousness was nearly betraying him. "Bones… She's just the most important person in my life. When I was requested to give a list of people I wanted informed about my underground assignment, the only one I could think about was her. All that mattered to me was that she knew I was ok… And along the two weeks, she was the only one in my mind…"

A lonely tear ran across Brennan's cheek but she didn't dry it. She couldn't take her eyes off Booth. What she was hearing was confronting her to so many emotions she wasn't sure she could handle them at the moment. Somehow her heart seemed to be working faster than what her brain could process, this time she was not rationalizing the words she was hearing, all she was thinking was about Booth's eyes on her and how, suddenly, her heart was feeling a lot lighter than it had felt for weeks every time she thought about that day in the Checker box restaurant. "If taking a bullet is what it takes to keep her safe, I'll do it as many times as it is necessary…" the tough agent said with a tenderness no one would expect coming from a guy like him. He took a step closer to Brennan and reached a trembling hand to wipe away the tear that had crossed her cheek.

She took a sharp intake at the light contact and closed her eyes, her head leaning lightly against his strong hand. Still, alarms rang in the back of her mind and she quickly pulled away. "No, Booth! No!" she said, and it totally confused Sweets to find utter panic in her voice. "People like us, working in high risk situations should not be involved! You said so yourself, Booth! You got shot because that woman thought we were together! Remember the line, the line that is between us!"

"To hell with the line, Bones!" Booth exclaimed getting almost frantic. He had exposed his heart to his partner, and to their therapist, being sure that he was going to be corresponded, and she was not doing what she was supposed to do. She was retreating again, building up the walls he so patiently had tore down along the years. "I know I drew that line! I did it trying to convince myself that I would risk you like I risked Cam if I got to confess my feelings for you! But truth is that Epps didn't know I was dating Cam! He didn't mean to hurt her specifically but Hodgins, Zach, you or whoever opened the head! I drew that stupid line, but since I realized this, there had not been one single day I hadn't regretted it!"

"You have?" the scientist asked so surprised that Sweets had to do a big effort not to laugh. Booth always teased her on how bad she was in reading people, and truth was that although she more or less read her partner, she was still far from understanding him completely.

"He's not only inviting you pie, Dr. Brennan…" the psychologist added, referring to the conversation he had had with her days ago: he had told her that Booth's constant efforts into making her like pie were really a way to try to seduce her.

Brennan looked at Sweets briefly and then again to Booth, waiting for him to answer her question. "Yes, I have…" he said in a low voice that almost fell into desperation.

"But…" she tried to say.

Knowing that if she started to rationalize things his chance was gone, Booth crossed the distance between them and cupped her face with strong hands, forcing her to meet his eyes. "Temperance… I'd die for you… Isn't that enough?"

She swallowed hard while she kept her eyes fixed on him. "More than enough…" she murmured and then threw her arms around him, hugging him tightly, her face resting over his chest. She had first said she hated him hugging her when she got scared, but as time went by, she got used to his arms and the comfort she'd find in him. She had wanted to hug him this tight when she had discovered he wasn't dead. Yes, she had knocked him down, but she had also wanted to run and hug him.

And he was feeling this hug with all in his heart. It was no longer his friend in search of comfort, it was now the woman he loved in his arms and she knew it. He sighed in relief at her response, his arms engulfing her so tightly and yet so tenderly. Yes, that's what he had wanted all this time: to have her in his arms, knowing what he held in his heart. He too closed his eyes, overwhelmed with all the force of his feelings. "I love you…" he whispered softly to her ear, "… more than you know".

She tensed in his arms, but didn't pull away. Her mind was starting to rationalize what had happened between them, but somehow it didn't seem to be as scary as she thought it would be. His words only made her feel warmer inside, like if her heart beat faster, but in a pleasant way. She only could think of one thing to say from her place over his chest. "I love you too…"

Sweets smiled and discretely left the office, feeling like he had just fulfilled an important mission. He didn't see when Booth pulled away from her embrace and slowly and tenderly cupped her face and leaned over until his lips found hers, this time really savoring what it was like to kiss the woman he had loved for the last three years of his life.

The end