Set towards the end of 6x14 "The Bikini in the Soup"
Sweetheart: Chapter 1
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With a sly smile, Brennan broke character and ended their charade. "I was very good," she giggled quietly, positively gleeful. He was so downtrodden lately, and she hoped closing a case would cheer him up a little.
Booth thumped the table victoriously, making the suspect jump. "Damn good!" She reached for a high-five at the same moment as Booth. As their hands connected, they slipped for just a moment back into the seamless team they used to be, once upon a time. "Damn good." The air seemed to sizzle between them at their touch. Startled, they broke eye contact.
Booth turned his attention to the evidence bag.
"I- I lied about the DNA, too," Brennan stuttered quickly, diffusing the electricity of the moment. The perpetrator slumped in defeat, berating himself for falling for such a low trick.
Chancing another glance back at Booth, Brennan smiled. "I was very good." Booth's face split into genuine smile that reached all the way up to his delicious chocolate eyes. She noted that her adrenal glands were producing an excess of adrenaline and cortisol at the sight, making it feel like she had a hundred butterflies in her stomach. She laughed, truly happy. He was healing. Maybe things could get back to normal after all.
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"I was very good," Bones giggled. Booth felt like someone had jump-started his dead heart. That tickling laugh and those sparkling eyes jolted him back to life. For the first time since Afghanistan, since Maluku, since the whole freaking Hannah mess, Booth felt a spark of something.
My god, she is so damn adorable, he thought.
They were good together, him and Bones. Maybe things could get back to normal after all.
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Booth shrugged the tension out of his shoulders. Taking careful aim, he unloaded five rounds into the nauseatingly lacy paper heart.
Everyone else had gone home to their respective lovers. He hoped that they choked on their chocolates, all of them. But he, Special Agent Seeley Booth, had no need for love. Valentine's Day. What a pathetic excuse for a holiday, he scoffed to himself.
With a click, the door to the shooting range opened. Before he saw who was on the other side of that door, Booth's heart gave a hopeful skip.
When he saw her, he couldn't help but smile. When he saw that gifts she had brought with him, he almost cried.
Another laugh, another jolt of electricity, and his blood was pumping again.
She knows me so well. Here was the woman of his dreams, who deserved so much more than he could offer, just content to be in his presence. She knew exactly what he needed tonight. She didn't push him to talk about Hannah. She even allowed him the dignity to claim that he was alone by choice on Valentine's Day.
He marveled at the tender way she took care of him. Every smile she threw his way was like a surge of power to his flickering heart.
Life.
Temperance Brennan was the only thing keeping him alive.
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Brennan hadn't felt so warm in months. Not that my body temperature actually is higher than normal,she clarified to herself, looking out the window at the snow. Emotional warmth. Yes, that was it. Booth was in the kitchen, quoting James Cagney lines from the movie they were about to watch.
"Stuffy, huh? I'll give ya' a little air!" She laughed as he mimed gnawing on... something while simultaneously shooting a gun from his hip. He could always make her laugh.
He had been talking like that at the shooting range, too. When Brennan admitted that she had never seen the movie he was referencing, Booth insisted that they drop everything and go watch it immediately. They had climbed into his SUV and headed straight for Hollywood video.
Booth was downright giddy. He hadn't been in such good spirits since before he proposed to Hannah. Brennan hadn't spent so much time with him off-the-clock in over a year. Just being in his apartment again, without Hannah, was wonderful. It felt like a hug, like a warm hug.
Kneeling in front of the TV, Brennan removed the movie from its case and slipped the disc into the DVD player. She heard the clink of the wine glasses coming down from their places in the kitchen. Booth was humming a tune she didn't recognize. Just as she was about to let loose a contented sigh, someone knocked on the door.
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I'll give you a hint. It's Hannah.
Gosh, I hate her. :)
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