A/N: This has been bugging me for a while. So I am going to try to get it out before November 1st.
The light table was on, though the overhead lights were off. A hum from a ventilation shaft buzzed in his ears as he ascended.
She didn't look up from the remains on the table at his approach, she didn't have to. Booth always found her, especially when she wanted nothing more than to hide.
"I'm fine, Booth," she muttered, turning the tiny femur over in her hands. "I slept on the couch this afternoon, I've had plenty of coffee and I ate dinner before everyone left at 7."
A grumble from her belly made him smile. "Liar, liar, pants on fire."
She knitted her brows together, "I don't - -"
"Know what that means. Yeah, I know, Bones." Booth sat down next to her and glanced at the remains on the table. A tiny, female infant. The body had been found in a dumpster behind an elementary school, badly decomposed, and wrapped in two garbage bags. Booth shuddered at the memory of the scene.
A warm hand on his arm snapped his attention back to the platform."Are you okay, Booth?"
He chuckled and nodded his chin towards the table. "Not really. Anyway, do you want to come with me to the diner? I'm starving, Bones."
She placed the femur back on the table in its proper anatomic place. "I highly doubt that, Booth. But, you are right that I misled you about having eaten. I could go for some fries. Or Thai food!"
She was carefully packing the bones away for the night. Booth just shook his head, bemused. She was an enigma this one. One minute she was ignoring him, and trying to work herself into an early grave and the next she was jubilant as a child, trying to find something to make him laugh.
Sometimes he wondered why he held back all the time. Sully had definitely nailed it on the head. He was hot for his partner. He watched her walk the container of bones to storage, her hips swaying gently. His eyes were stuck on her round backside, which was, in his opinion, perfect.
Shaking his head as she disappeared from sight, he tried to force his brain to stop thinking of her like that. It definitely was getting harder to do.
Bones slid the plastic case into modular storage, and breathed out heavily. Booth was definitely distracting her lately. She hadn't looked up when he walked onto the platform because she'd already known he was there. She could smell his cologne and soap, long before she could see him.
What was it about cologne that made her heart skip a beat? She didn't have allergies, and it wasn't a cardiovascular problem, her doctor had checked when she asked him about it. So why did she feel all fluttery when he was around?
When he leaned close to her at the examination table, she had to force herself to breathe. The mere presence of his strong arms, broad chest and muscular abdomen stole the very breath from her lungs. Even through his suit.
She shook herself hard. She had to stop thinking of her partner like this. Which was getting harder and harder to do.
They left the Jeffersonian a few minutes later, walking very close, his hand on her lower back, her hips gently tapping his as she walked.
'Just partners,' they reminded themselves silently.
