Chapter One: Affairs of the Heart
It was about 9.30am in the morning and Dr. Temperance Brennan had decided to take the day off work. Because last night a specimen of human bones had been delivered to the Jeffersonian to be identified, and normally Brennan would still be there identifying them. But one thing was different this time, she already knew the Identity of this person.
Tempe Brennan was a workaholic; everyone including Booth had told her that, he always said she needed to get out more, meet people. Angela Montenegro, Temperance's best friend at the Jeffersonian, was always saying to her, "Now sweetie, you really could use some male company!" and Brennan always replied by saying, "I'm fine on my own!", or "I don't need a man!", something that made her sound independent and strong, which is what she was, she liked being alone.
But on this particular day, she felt more lonely than usual, yeah she actually felt lonely, Booth would be surprised, she thought. She was still in her PJ's and was just about to get up off the couch and get herself some breakfast when there was a knock at her front door. Who would come to her house at this hour of the morning, especially when she was supposed to be at work—maybe it was someone from work coming to check up on her, just what she didn't want.
"Coming!" she yelled from the kitchen. But before she had a chance to get to the door, it opened and in walked Special Agent Seeley Booth, her colleague and friend, as suspected, coming to check up on her.
"Booth, what are you doing here?" she asked him in surprise and slight anger, she was mad now. "My door was locked, how did you.." she was puzzled.
"Let's say you should hide your spare key better" and he holds up Brennan's spare key to show her.
"If you're here to check up on me, I'm fine ok, I don't need a babysitter!" walking back into the kitchen to finish what she was doing.
"Hey easy Bones, I'm just being a shoulder to cry on—that's if you need one that is!" he said in surrender, he emphasised this by putting his hands up in the air in a surrender, like people do when they have a gun pointed at them.
"I'm fine Booth, you didn't need to come round and see me" she got her cereal and began walking over to the couch to sit down, but Booth stepped in front of her, putting his hands on her shoulders as if to stop her.
"Look, Bones, Tempe, I'm worried about you, we all are. Can we at least talk about this?" he asked, concerned.
She pulled away from him. "There's nothing to talk about Booth, my mother's dead and that's the bottom line, the end of the story!" This brought Brennan to tears. She started to walk away, but Booth pulled her back towards him, took the cereal bowl out of her hands and placed it on a coffee table nearby and hugged her. He hated seeing his friend and partner like this, more than anything he wanted to help her find her mother's killer, but he knew Temperance was stubborn and liked being independent with everything, but maybe, just maybe, he hoped, she'd let him help her, just like he'd let her help with the mobster case that nearly cost Brennan her life.
"Hey it's ok, you cry, get it all out" said Booth, trying to do his best shrink impression. Brennan pulled away and looked at him weirdly, sniffling and wiping away some of her tears.
"What, are you my shrink now?" she asked him. Booth got his hand and wiped a tear off her cheek and from under her eyes.
"I can be whatever you want me to be" He told her, brushing away some strands of hair that had fallen on her face. He looked at his partner and friend sincerely, as he had always wanted to. Tempe sensed something, pulled away, grabbed her untouched cereal from the coffee table and walked into the kitchen to sit there and eat. She tried to ignore Booth but couldn't, he was still there.
"Bones- I mean Tempe" walking closer toward her, "look, I'm just trying to do the right thing and be here for you, you don't have to talk to me, but you can at least listen to me right?" he told her, he was trying to do his best.
What he wanted more than anything right now was for Brennan to open up to him, let him in, but he knew that wasn't going to happen anytime soon.
"You know, I can help you with the case, you need some kind of authority to help you track down this murderous son of a bitch. I just wanna let you know that I'm your guy!" he said, trying to get through to her, trying to get her to show some expression other than a mopey one, but all she did was stare down at her cereal and shovel it around the bowl with her spoon.
But then, breaking progress, Temperance spoke.
"I want you to help me, can you help me find my mother's killer, it would mean a lot to me to have you on the case" she told him.
Right then Booth's heart almost literally jumped into his throat, that's what he wanted to hear all along, he never thought he'd see the day.
"You already know my answer Bones" he told her, putting his arm around Brennan's shoulder and kissed the side of her head.
Right then Temperance felt so happy, knowing that her friend was gonna help her find her Mother's killer, that she did something she wouldn't normally do in a million years, she turned around on the kitchen bar stool and half stood up and kissed Booth on the mouth.
Booth didn't know if this was a dream or not, but it sure felt good, he had secretly wanted to do that for such a long time, but the unexpected had happened, Brennan kissed Booth, not the other way around!
So he reciprocated this and kissed her back. And there they stayed making out for a while, like they had both wanted this for such a long time that they had better make the most of it while it lasted.
Meanwhile back at the Jeffersonian, Angela, Jack and Zach have been working on another case, they didn't want to touch Brennan's case without her permission, and they all knew how stubborn she was. In the mean time they were hypothesising about what Brennan and Booth had been getting up to back at Brennan's house, Angela was the one who had sent Booth over there in the first place to check on her, she could see the obvious chemistry between them, or "sexual tension" as she liked to call it, because they were always disagreeing with almost everything they ever did together.
Angela thought they'd make the cutest couple if they ever got together, but secretly, her own secret by the way, everyone knew, she had a crush on Booth, she thought he was the hunkiest FBI Agent to ever walk the planet. But little did she know, he was in Brennan's territory now.
Back at Dr. Temperance Brennan's house, Booth and herself had moved to the couch and were laying in each other's arms talking about what had just happened. Neither of them regretted it, both had wanted it for a long time.
"You can't tell anyone about this" stated Brennan.
"I don't intend to" Booth reassured her. "I don't kiss and tell"
This got a smile out of Brennan, a rare event, but Booth had seen many smiles from his partner, all of them when she was around him.
"So when do you wanna go back to work?" He asked her.
"Shit!" She sat up suddenly, "I forgot all about work. We have to go!" Brennan got up off the couch ran into her bedroom to get ready for work.
"But I thought you wanted to take the day off today?" he asked. She replied by saying "How can I afford to take a day off when my mother's killer is still out there!" she told him, and ran into her room.
"Do you want me to wait for you?" Booth yelled from the living room.
"Ah—yes please, I need to put my car in for a service, oil check" she said
"Ok. I could check it for you if you want, I'm pretty good with cars"
"No thanks. I'd rather have a professional do the job. But thanks for offering" she told him.
"What are you saying, I am a professional! I know quite a lot about cars!"
"I'm sure you do. But let me just remind you Seeley Booth of who changed your Crown Vic's tyre when you got a flat out when we were investigating that black bear case in the Virginian woods!" she said with attitude
"Ok ok, I confess—but that was a one time event, I'm perfectly capable of changing a tyre myself!" He didn't know what else to say, once again he was outsmarted by Dr Temperance Brennan, a woman. He was embarrassed but no way was he going to let it show, especially not to Brennan, He was never going to live this one down.
"Ok whatever you say big, smart FBI man. Just wait for me, I won't be too long. Grab a soda out of the fridge if you want" she said, as if she and Booth were a married couple, Angela always said they fought like one.
Not long after, Booth and Brennan were in the car and on their way to work. Booth was driving and Brennan was in the passenger seat. Booth noticed that Brennan was being unusually quiet this morning, especially after what happened earlier that morning. He thought he should bring it up.
"So, this morning" Booth said. Brennan was immediately snapped out of her quiet trance, she looked at him.
"This morning?" she asked.
"Yeah, don't you wanna talk about it?" Booth really wanted to talk about this; he didn't want it to be a mistake.
"There's not much to talk about. You and I both know what happened this morning, and we both know how we feel about each other" She told him.
"Do we?" asked Booth. "Coz I don't think we do. That's why I wanna talk about this, if that's ok with you"
"Ok. Well, it was real I can tell you that much" she said.
"It was?" Booth swore he felt his heart skip a beat just then.
"Yeah, I thought you knew that?"
"You didn't tell me"
"Well, I'm sorry" Brennan pauses, then speaks again, she never thought she'd say what she was about to say, not to Booth anyway, even though she felt like she had known him all her life, this was a big step for her. But she was gonna say it because she knew he felt the same, she could see it every time he looked at her. She swallowed and spoke.
"Booth" she said, she didn't know how to say this.
"Yeah?'
"Booth, i—I love you"
At that moment, Booth wasn't concentrating on the road and had almost driven onto the opposite side of the road and into oncoming traffic; another vehicle's horn snapped him out of his trance.
"Booth!" yelled Brennan. She almost had a heart attack then.
A moment later, they were back into the speed they were travelling at before Brennan took away Booth's attention from the road, which was a bit over the speed limit with Booth's driving. Tempe always liked to annoy him by complaining about his driving.
"Maybe if you weren't driving like a maniac in the first place you wouldn't have drifted into oncoming traffic" Brennan teased with a smirk.
"What, I wasn't driving like a maniac, that is how I normally drive, you distracted me!" he argued. She got him, score.
"I'm joking, sorry" she confessed.
"Bones, you nearly killed us. Please don't do that again"
"What, say that I love you? It's not very often I get to say that. He has to be someone pretty damn special" she told him.
With this Booth pulled his Crown Vic over onto the side of the highway. He leaned in close to Brennan and stared into her eyes.
"Yeah but next time, don't do it while I'm driving ok?" Tempe thought he sounded sincere.
"Ok, promise. But you have to reciprocate"
"What do you mean?" This was the usual Seeley Booth response. Tempe knew him all too well. And she knew how to handle him.
"Booth!"
Booth smiled his embarrassed "I've been exposed" smile, Which Tempe loved, and leaned in closer than he already was, and kissed her. Then he just said "I love you too Bones" and sat back up in the driver's seat, pulled the Crown Vic back onto the busy highway and continued driving to the Jeffersonian Institute where they had a very important case ahead of them.
