Hodgins yawned, eyes blinking slowly. It was a few weeks after he and Dr. Brennan had been buried alive, and he was still working the Gravedigger case. He looked down at the pile of his and Brennan's clothing. He had been up half the night trying to analyze the soil left on the clothes, trying to find something that could lead them to the killer. He rubbed his eyes, sighing. He had resumed working when he heard footsteps behind him.
"Jack?" Angela put her hands on his shoulders gently. "You need to go home. It's late, and you're obviously exhausted."
"I'm almost done, Ange," he said, trying to convince her along with himself.
"No, you're leaving," she said forcefully. "Now. You go get in the car; I'll put these away and meet you there."
"Fine, I'm going," he said with a grin. He knew better than to argue with Angela. He left the lab, heading to wait as she had ordered. Angela picked up the clothes one by one and put them back where they were being kept, until Brennan's jacket was left. She picked it up by the bottom, and a sheet of paper fell out of an inside pocket. She picked it up curiously, and saw the words "Dear Booth" in Brennan's handwriting. She read the first line, then gently folded it in half. She placed it on Brennan's desk, where she knew she would find it in the morning. As much as she wanted to, she didn't read it. But that didn't mean she wouldn't ambush Brennan tomorrow to ask her politely what it said.
The next morning, Zach was the first person to arrive at the lab, as always, promptly at 7 a.m. Brennan usually arrived around the same time, maybe a little later. Today, however, she was a little late, and all the squints were there before she was. Booth arrived around 7:30.
"Where's Bones?" he asked Angela. "In her office?" Without waiting for an answer, he went in. She hadn't arrived yet, so he sat down to wait for her. She was never very late, he thought. So he wouldn't have to wait long. Getting a little bored after waiting a few minutes, he tried to entertain himself. He looked at one of her anthropology books, but that didn't help. It actually made him even more bored. He looked around at her office trying to occupy himself. He was pacing back and forth when he saw something on her desk. A white sheet of paper just sitting there invitingly. It probably has to do with a case, he told himself. And I am her partner. There's no harm in reading it.
He picked it up.
"Dear Booth," he read.
"I'm writing this now, not knowing if I'll see you again or if you'll ever read this, but it doesn't matter. We've been partners for a while, but it's always been more than that, at least to me. Our dinners at the diner, our stupid arguments, solving murders together… I don't think I'd be the same person without you. If I can't say it in person, I'll say it here. I love you. I know it's not logical; we're completely different. But I suppose contradictory objects exert a pull on each other. There's probably a colloquialism for that, but I don't know it. That's one thing I love about you, among many others: you always know the right thing to say. You make me laugh when I'm unhappy, and you put me in my place
when it needs to be done. I'm sorry I've never told you how I feel about you, but that's how I am. Great with the dead, not so much with the living… Just like you always said. I have to go now; there's not much air left. I wish I could say this in person, Booth. I love you.
Yours, Bones"
He read it once, twice, three times, before it sank in. She loved him? No, it had to be a joke. One of the squints had written it. But it had her written all over it: the logic, the not knowing the phrase "opposites attract", the words he had spoken to her so many times… it had to be written by her. Besides, it was her handwriting.
He was so deep in thought that he didn't hear her come in until she was halfway across the room.
"Hey, Booth. Do we have a case? What are you read-" She stopped talking when he looked up at her. His face had an expression she had never seen before, his dark eyes blazing and staring into hers intently. Her heart skittered in her chest.
"Booth, what's going o-" She didn't have time to finish her question before he was across the room, his arms around her, kissing her like she'd never been kissed before, like she'd imagined him doing a million times in her head. Her mind went completely blank, something that doesn't happen too often to Temperance Brennan. Now she wasn't thinking anymore, just feeling. Feeling the warmth of his lips against hers and his arms around her. She never wanted this to end.
Angela finished her skull reconstruction and decided she had earned a break. And by break, she meant interrogation of Brennan. She had to know what that letter said. She walked briskly from her office to Brennan's.
"Sweetie, I-," She stopped dead in her tracks, her mouth gaping and her eyes wide at the sight before her eyes. She collected herself after a few seconds and finished her sentence a little differently than she'd been planning. "I'll leave you two alone."
She backed out of the room slowly. With each step her grin grew wider. After she cleared the doorway, she turned around and took off at a run.
"Jack! Jack!" she screamed happily. "You'll never guess what I just saw!"