Dancing Phalanges

Disclaimer: I don't own them, I didn't create them, and I certainly don't profit from them. I do however enjoy borrowing them from time to time.

Author's Note: This is a post-ep for Baby in the Bough and is dedicated to all of my readers because I truly appreciate each and every one of you.

Seeley Booth couldn't help but smile. He was sure that Bones thought that he hadn't really noticed the way she'd taken to Andy despite her earlier protests that she wasn't qualified to handle a baby. Sure, she wasn't the least bit interested in changing a diaper until he'd walked her through the process and she'd thought it was a little odd that babies cried for no apparent reason, but she couldn't help herself from letting that baby steal her heart.

He'd seen her wiggling her fingers to get the baby to laugh all the while sounding as squinty as ever with her dancing phalanges. He had noticed the way that she'd made sure Andy had a stuffed elephant that was the correct color so that he wouldn't grow up without the truth; she was passionate about the truth. He'd noticed that when she thought he wasn't looking that she'd blow a raspberry on Andy's belly just to hear him laugh. She wasn't CIA material and so it was fairly easy for him to watch her being so natural with Andy; the same way she was with him in those moments when she let her guard down and allowed him in just a little bit closer and he saw a glimpse of the whole woman. She'd taken to looking after a baby with the same gusto that she'd study a pile of bones and then be able to tell him not only who they were, but how they died and what they'd done with their life. She might think that she wasn't mother material, but her hands told a completely different story.

In short, those hands of hers were amazing, she was amazing.

He was just as disappointed as she was when it was time to give Andy over to his new family; although his disappointment was more about the fact that this thing that he and Bones had bonded over was over. For a while they were stand in parents for this little boy and he had gotten a glimpse of what a life with her might be like. He had certainly thought about it before, but this time it seemed almost real and he'd found himself slipping, referring to Andy as their boy. And as he watched her hand that little boy over to the woman he would know as his mother, Booth felt a pang for what he didn't have with Bones.

And that of course made his mind drift to having one of their own together. He could see her resolve about not wanting any children slipping just a little and he wasn't sure if she'd picked up on him implying that that big house he kept telling her that she needed to build was one that he wanted to share with her; 103-inch plasma screen TV aside, he just wanted to be with Bones. She hadn't launched into a speech laced with anthropological implications of his suggestion of semi-cohabitation in that house that she had no intention of building. The fact that she hadn't immediately decked him or squashed him like a bug gave him hope that maybe she had been thinking about it too. Her little shove had been enough for him to spill his coffee, but not enough to even bruise his ego because she was flashing that radiant smile at him and those fingers of hers had reached out for him.

So he found himself thinking about those dancing phalanges of hers. The way they danced over human remains and solved mysteries; the way she reached for him and his 'guy hugs' when she was scared or upset; the way that she broke Epps arm for being a perverted sociopath; the way she could reach out and offer a gentle hand on his arm to show her support when she didn't know what else to do; and how in the world could he forget the way those fingers had curled around his lapel underneath the mistletoe at Christmas to pull him in a little closer during that kiss. That kiss was nearly his undoing and perhaps it was that event that had brought these thoughts of not just her, but of them together to the forefront of his mind again and again.

He knew that if he ever had the chance to have her phalanges dancing over him that he would never be the same. He'd never be able to deny her a thing; as if that was really all that different than things were now. He'd done things for her that he'd never do for anyone else simply because it would mean bending the rules. Hell, he'd bend the world in half for her and her hands that brought so much peace and closure to so many people who'd had it ripped away in the darkest way possible.

Maybe someday he'd have the courage to push things a little further; he had been the one to draw that damn line that seemed to hold them back from what seemed to everyone else inevitable and he knew that he would probably have to be the one to erase it. And so they sat in the back of his SUV talking about Andy, life, and that big house he thought she should build; the view of the river below them offering a bit of distraction as they sipped coffee and then spilled coffee all over the place.

Then the revelation that she'd bought a bridge for a town that was almost dead because of one little boy that had touched her heart so deeply; a little boy who had lost his family just as she had lost hers. It was clear that she would give up whatever it took to protect and care for the ones she loved; if it was within her grasp to do so.

And maybe it was then that Booth realized that she loved him too; she hadn't given up a seven figure book advance, but she had given up the safety of her lab and she'd given up the prison she'd locked her heart away in to work beside him everyday. And while he wasn't sure he could classify her feelings as being in love with him, her hands told him a different story.

His mind drifted back to that kiss under the mistletoe and the way her fingers had curled around his lapels. A smile flickered across his face as they sat there on the tailgate of his SUV and a courage filled him that he hadn't seen coming. Sure, he believed that everything happened eventually, but it seemed that now was eventually as he caught her eye and leaned towards her tentatively. The fact that she didn't move away but seemed to be drifting towards him gave him the boldness to lean in and close the distance between them. The softness of her lips seemed to meld together with the sensation of her fingers sliding through his hair and he knew that all of those hopes he had to be with her someday would come true;103-inch plasma TV and big houses aside, all he really wanted was to be with Bones.

The End