Booth sighed mentally and downed the last of his beer, tipping the bottle up to get the last drops out. What the hell had he gotten himself into? He'd always been an idiot for love, but this… this was a new level of stupidity. This had catastrophe written all over it.

And yet, he couldn't take his eyes off her, couldn't keep his hands off her, couldn't block her out of his mind for more than a few seconds. He kept finding excuses to put a hand on her back, or an arm around her shoulders, any reason to touch her. How pathetic, he silently rebuked himself. Seeley Booth, copping a feel like a timid middle schooler. You're turning into one of the squint squad.

And now here she was, half asleep on his couch, blissfully ignorant of his inner turmoil. How could she be so brilliant, and at the same time so oblivious? Of course, at times like these Booth was grateful for her inability to see the obvious, because God knows everybody else in the lab already saw straight through his professional façade. Even though this undercover love, these stolen moments of intimacy were torturing him like hell, he thought it might really kill him if she ever straight out rejected him. He felt panic at the mere thought of her ending their partnership because of his un-professional emotions. She would do it, too, if she ever found out. He remembered how freaked she'd been when her father came to work at the Jeffersonian; it would be just like that. She hated for her scientific life to be invaded by illogical sentiment.

She sighed and snuggled into the couch, a case file resting in her lap. Her eyes were drooping, and the pretence that she was reading the information in the file was growing shakier and shakier.

"It's getting pretty late, Bones," Booth said, flipping his own folder closed. "You wanna call it a night?"

"I only have a few more pages," she murmured, lazily flipping a loose sheet of paper. She shifted her weight and curled her stockinged legs up onto the couch between them, having long since abandoned her shoes.

Oh God. Booth loved and hated moments like these. He itched to run his hands along those legs, like he had in his dreams, to caress her smooth skin and God, just feel her to see if she felt as incredible as his drug-addled mind had imagined. She was so alluring, too, when she was drowsy, so unselfconscious and effortlessly beautiful, sitting with him in comfortable silence. Not that he didn't get turned on by some of their more heated debates, but it was nice just to be with her, not needing to win or compete or prove a point.

He wished he could go back to where he was before the surgery. He'd been attracted to her then, too, but he'd only barely begun to realize exactly how far gone he was. He'd always brushed it off as the natural chemistry between two members of a great team – they were Holmes and Watson, Abbot and Costello, peanut butter and jelly. The electricity that crackled between them was the result of two minds working in perfect concert, not some personal attachment. And anyways, the idea of being anything more than colleagues was impossible, so he tried his hardest not to pursue it.

She stretched her legs a little, and rested her foot against his leg. Booth groaned inwardly and ignored his first instinct to scoot away. That would raise more questions from Bones ("I'm sorry, am I invading your personal space? Or are you just uncomfortable with feet?") and he didn't want to disturb the moment. Besides, deep down he knew he couldn't move away. He loved it too much. It was just like how he couldn't stop glancing at her when he thought she wouldn't notice.

All too soon she closed her file and stood up from the couch, stretching and yawning. "See you at the lab," she told him, grabbing her coat from the rack by the door. "Thank you for the Chinese."

"Bye," he called, his farewell punctuated by the closing of the door. He moaned and pressed the palm of his hand into his forehead, wishing he could unsee everything he'd seen in his coma dream. This shit was getting harder every day, and it sure as hell didn't look like she was going to make it any easier.