The Night Starts Here
"New Year's resolutions aren't about successes. They're about your short-comings and making a change, doing something you don't normally do, something that will make you happier. And bonus points if the resolution makes others around you happy too."

Author: alongthoselines
Words: 1,373 (one-shot)
Rating: K+
Spoilers: Very very vague references to 4x26 "The End in the Beginning"
Characters: B/B, a mention of the Squints
Notes: So it's me again, back with another B/B! Tallie (aka Qwicksilver) and I now share this account, so yayyy! This was written for manual84 for a Christmas fic exchange (run by the lovely zerodetorres) on LiveJournal, so I thought I'd post it here too. The title is from a Stars song (of the same name) and I recommend listening to it because it's amazing. Enjoy and happy holidays to everyone!

There's something about being in the bar the night before New Year's Eve that keeps them both wanting more.

The both of them can feel it, heavy in the air, all around them. Their co-workers, however, seem oblivious to it, Brennan notes as she nurses her drink. Sweets chokes on his beer after hearing a particularly raunchy joke from Angela. Hodgins snickers his rebuttal, to which Cam responds with a quip that has the whole table erupt in laughter.

Everyone, that is, but the two of them.

This is normal, she thinks. The whole team – Squints plus Booth and Sweets – out for a few celebratory drinks. As normal as it all is, Brennan can't help but feel like she'd been the one with amnesia instead of Booth. This…feeling. It's foreign and strange and it eludes her comprehension.

Cam is the first to leave; after all, she has a newly adopted daughter to get back to. At this, Booth takes another sip of his whiskey on the rocks and feels the liquor burn more than it should. He would have had a kid to go home to as well; that is, if Rebecca and "Super Dad" hadn't decided to whisk the boy away on a camping trip. It was supposed to be his weekend with Parker. It's not even camping if you're in an RV the whole damn time, he thinks with a huff.

Everyone else follows Cam's lead and slowly begins to shuffle out. Angela kisses Booth on the cheek and hugs Brennan goodbye. Hodgins nods his farewell while Sweets says something about a New Year's party the following day on his way out.

It's just the two of them now, nursing their drinks and reveling in each other's company.

Booth starts when he feels a hand gingerly touch his forearm, bringing him out of his thoughts. He blinks for a moment and gives Brennan a small but grateful smile.

"Is something wrong?" she asks quietly as the others continue to talk amongst themselves.

Booth shakes his head. "It's nothing. It's just…well, I was supposed to get Parker for New Year's since I didn't get him for Christmas. But Super D—uh, Rebecca's boyfriend planned a surprise camping trip for the weekend. He'd already rented the RV, and Parker seemed so excited…"

"I would hardly call that camping if there's a recreational vehicle involved," Brennan says sardonically, echoing his earlier thoughts.

"Exactly!" Booth, feeling a familiar rush of warmth for his partner, raises his glass to clink with hers.

"From an anthropological perspective, many people—men in particular—enjoy camping trips because it emulates the days of early Homo sapiens, giving them a chance to feel as close to nature as our ancestors once did."

"Well, I don't know about all that, Bones," Booth says, hiding a smile, "But it's nice to just get away sometimes, you know?"

Brennan nods. "I too enjoy a good camping trip every so often."

"You? You like to camp?" Booth tries but fails to hide the incredulousness in his voice.

"What?" Brennan asks, feeling somewhat self-conscious.

"You don't seem like a camping kind of person. Well, unless there are bones and dead, rotting things involved."

"While I will admit that I do find pleasure in things that most people generally find grotesque, I also enjoy socially acceptable things like camping." Brennan hesitates for a moment, and then goes on. "My father used to take Russ and me on trips to Yellowstone when we were children. I haven't been since…" she trails off to find Booth looking rather intently at her. "What?"

Booth puts his drink down. "I think I know what's going on the top of your New Year's resolution list."

Brennan rolls her eyes. "Don't tell me you partake in such a juvenile and shallow--"

"Whoa, whoa, whoaaa. You've never made New Year's resolutions before?"

"I don't see the point in making a list of long term objectives to achieve when there are many shorter term goals that can be just as effective and completed in less time. I make daily goals that I accomplish everyday--"

"Bones!"

"What?" she mimics.

"New Year's resolutions are about improving yourself as a person."

"I happen to think that I am a very successful human being, thank you very much. I'm academically accomplished, I've written multiple best-selling novels, I--"

"New Year's resolutions aren't about successes. They're about your short-comings and making a change, doing something you don't normally do, something that will make you happier. And bonus points if the resolution makes others around you happy too."

"Like what?"

"For example, this year, I'm resolving to spend more time with Parker, which will not only make me happy, but it will make Parker happy too." Booth finishes off his whiskey. "All right, your turn."

"So I'm supposed to come up with something that should benefit me as well as someone else who is important to me," Brennan says slowly, unable to take her eyes off Booth for reasons beyond her current capabilities.

"You got it."

Brennan tries to ignore the flutter in the pit of her stomach and attributes the misplaced desire to the alcohol. Booth is her friend…her physically exceptional and charming friend. Normally, even through her thickest of inebriated mind hazes, she can usually rely on rationality to win out and get her through this. Tonight is different, however. As try as she might, she cannot find one rational reason why she should not feel this way.

And finally her rationality kicks in, amidst her growing panic, firing off something about pheromones and proximity and lowered inhibitions and feelings that have been there all along –

-- Feelings that have been there all along? Brennan knocks back the rest of her Jack and coke, reveling in the after burn that snakes down from the back of her throat to her esophagus. Apparently her rationality is also being affected by whatever it is in the humid, smoke-filled air of the bar tonight. There's the obvious inebriation slowly working its way through her veins, but there's something else there too, something she cannot place. Whatever it is, it's making it increasingly difficult for Brennan to focus on the words coming out of Booth's mouth as opposed to the way his lips look and how good it might feel to—

"Bones? Hey Bones, you in there?"

She blinks owlishly at him, trying to force the haze away, but to no avail. "I'm sorry," she murmurs. "You were saying?"

Booth studies her carefully. "Are you okay? You don't seem to be exactly…all there at the moment." She glares in response; Booth frowns. "Hey, I'm not the one staring off into nothing with google-y eyes."

"I don't know what that means."

"My point is," he presses on, leaning in closer to Brennan, "you haven't come up with a resolution yet."

Brennan shifts in her seat, unsure if she is trying to move away or closer to Booth. Instead, she pinches the bridge of her nose in an attempt to gather her thoughts through the haze. "Okay, this year…I will resolve to spend more time with Angela."

"See? That wasn't so hard, now was it?"

"Also, I'd like to see Pops more often, if you don't mind."

Booth raises an eyebrow. "Really? Why?"

"Well, he's a pleasure to be around. Also, he's important to you, isn't he? And you're important to me. That qualifies for double the bonus points, doesn't it?" She punctuates her question with a somewhat shy but vibrant grin.

Booth finds that he can't seem to catch his breath at her statement. "I am?"

"Of course you're important to me."

"Oh. Uh. Okay. You're important to me too, Bones," he concedes, placing a hand over her folded ones with a smile. She smiles back at him, wider this time, and he feels his heart swell.

It isn't exactly the conversation he's been hoping to have with her since his surgery months ago, but it's a good step in the right direction. He makes a mental note to make another resolution when he gets home. It will take time, but he has a whole year to get it right.

He can't wait to see what the New Year will bring.