I now know what overwhelmed feels like - I never expected so many (or so positive) reviews for 'Storms'. Thank you so much, everybody - and to those anonymous ones I couldn't reply to, they really did mean a lot. It wasn't quite enough to get me up and finishing 'Past Futures' (although I'm nearly there on the next chapter) but it was more than enough to provoke me into writing again!

Not quite like the stuff I've written before... (And as usual, they aren't mine, because I'd upset them.)

Two weeks ago, she told him they couldn't do this anymore. He didn't argue, and she seemed almost disappointed by his compliance.

He's waiting for her to explode; he knows her too well to think she will just accept his easily-granted agreement. He knows she is watching him now, although she's trying to hide it – maybe today will be the day her frustrations boil over.

He isn't sure why she ended it, although guesses have run through his mind for a fortnight. He doesn't want to think what everybody else thinks: that she panicked in the face of intimacy and simply couldn't cope with being the focus of someone's life. People should know her better by now, he reasons. She isn't so lacking in self-esteem that she believes she isn't worthy of his desire. She far transcends the cliché some people try to mould her into.

Her movements have been sharp today, as she has gone about the lab, further indoctrinating him into the world of science. He wondered at first if she was hurt, until he recognised how tightly wound she was. Two weeks ago, he would have soothed that physical frustration with his hands.

"I filed a report about the disturbance at the scene," she says quietly, still peering at the fragment in her hands.

He bites his lip, reminding himself of her inflexibility when it comes to her work. "All that will happen is Roper will get reamed for not following procedure. He's a young guy, he'll learn, he doesn't need that on his record."

She meets his gaze, not the slightest bit repentant. "And this will make him learn," she counters firmly. "It's not the first time he's just 'moved things around a bit', and you know it."

His eyes shift to the ceiling and he knows that's his tell – the sign he agrees with her but doesn't want to admit it. "No, but I see no benefit in turning him against us."

She shrugs her shoulders. "I don't care if he likes me or not. And you're his superior, he has to treat you with respect."

He snorts. "Yeah, I can see that happening."

She looks up again. "Well, you always seem very respected."

"You have to earn it, Bones. I have to earn it."

She doesn't look away. "You earned mine," she reminds him, softly.

He wonders why the mood just shifted, and not to the reconciliatory air he would expect her tone to induce. "It took a while."

He knows suddenly why she invoked the gentleness in her voice: she is padding him against a fall.

She carefully repacks the bone fragment and starts to clear away her tools. "I think… There are some things we need to discuss."

He says nothing at the abrupt diversion in the conversation, even though there is a list of things he needs to discuss.

"Booth?"

"I don't think now is the time," he mutters, not sure why he's avoiding a conversation he's been expecting for days.

She bites her lip, clearly nervous. "We have to," she insists.

"Really? Now?" he asks, incredulously. "You pick now, when we've been working all day and we're exhausted and hungry? Hell of a way to pick your moment, Bones."

"I'm going out tonight," she blurts out, suddenly unable to even look in his direction. He watches her deliberately pull her hair band out so she can shake the auburn-brown waves over her eyes.

Two weeks ago, he would have pushed the barrier aside and told her not to hide from him.

"A date?" he checks calmly, feeling numbness spread through his body.

She nods, still refusing to look at him.

"Okay."

Her head lifts slightly. "You're okay with it?"

He wants to laugh, wondering if he's imagining the disappointment in her voice. "Suppose so." He shrugs his shoulders. "What can I do about it if I'm not, anyway?"

She hesitates. "Nothing," she murmurs, slipping her lab coat off her shoulders as she walks towards the office.

He follows, torn between wanting to shake her and wanting to run away and bury himself in denial. When had he decided that playing it cool would work for him?

"Where's he taking you?"

"I don't know," she tells him, her back to him as she shuts down her computer.

"You don't know? That's not like you."

"I thought… Well, I just decided that maybe I'd try letting somebody else take control for once."

This time, he can't restrain the bitter laughter that falls from his lips.

"You're laughing at me?" The surprise is evident in her tone and it's only now that she turns to face him.

"Yes. Yes, I'm laughing at you."

"I hardly think that's fair."

"Don't you?" he says, keeping his voice neutral even as his instinct wars with his rationality.

"I'm moving on, Booth. Isn't that what you call it?"

He stares at her, knowing his silence will make her uncomfortable.

"No, I don't," he murmurs, his tone undercut with a streak of viciousness that he normally buries. "I call it pretending. I call it running away. I call it ending something before it got to be something you had to work at."

Two weeks ago, this is an argument that would have ended with breathless, frantic haste against the wall of her office, surrounded by near contempt for the prospect of interruption.

"Well, I call it admitting something isn't working," she hisses back, and he knows he's tapped into the temper she hides so well behind her friend logic.

"Because your idea of something working is something that's easy! And nothing's easy!" he rejoins fiercely, conscious of his advance towards her forcing her towards the wall.

"You can't call this running away," she avers heatedly, taking her own step towards him and ignoring his accusation

And he knows that's what he loves, her unwillingness to back down, even as he swears to himself that he wishes just for once she'd see his side.

"Well, I do. I call it running as fast as you can away from something that could be everything you won't admit you want. And you know what else I call it? I call it everyone being right about you, Temperance, whenever they've told me you just can't handle our relationship," he spits out angrily, taking two rapid strides towards her that force her back against the wall He doesn't care, not now, that he's physically crowding her, and through the blur of his rage he can still recognise her unerring ability to inflame him. "And you know what? I've been wrong. I kept defending you, telling everyone they didn't know you, that you didn't have a problem committing. Fucking hell, I told myself you weren't scared. And I was so fucking wrong it's unbelievable. Because you are scared, aren't you? Scared to death I'm just like every other man and I thought you'd know better by now. You should have some fucking faith in me."

His hands are either side of her head and he's leaning close, too close, as he fires his uncharacteristic obscenities into her face.

"So you can carry on pretending. You can go out tonight and flirt and laugh and make him think you want him. You can close your eyes when you kiss him so you can pretend you don't care he's not me. You can take him to bed and fuck him seven ways from Sunday until you forget why you gave up mediocre sex with semi-strangers. I don't care any more. I can't care any more. I'm through with you."

His departure isn't emotional enough to be called storming out, his careful strides simply functional in removing him from her vicinity. He's sapped of all that made him arrestingly conspicuous, that thrumming energy that seemed to drain from him as he threw his savage final words at her.

And she knows he means it.

Yes, that's right, there's a Chapter 2: "Oh no," they protest, "just look at her track record with posting chapters within any reasonable time at all! We'll never see it!"

Ah, you will - have some faith, it's half-way there already. Honestly...