A/N: Merry Christmas, Bones fans! I bring thee: My longest Bones fic yet! Also, there's a little Gilmore Girls reference in here for my fellow Luke/Lorelai fans (it's blatantly obvious, I swear!), and a cookie goes to those who know what it is!

Disclaimer: I haven't opened my presents yet, but I'm pretty sure even though I asked for Bones for Christmas, I didn't get it. Darn. Maybe next year...

It had been months – four months and twenty six days, to be exact – since she had first discovered their relationship. And God only knew how long they'd been together before that.

She thought they would've broken up by now. Seeley Booth was too much of an Alpha male to succeed in a relationship for that long. Furthermore, hadn't Cam been the one to tell Angela that interoffice flirting didn't translate well into the outside world?

Brennan could see this was quickly becoming a very serious relationship. And she was finding herself more and more agitated with her partner, more and more annoyed whenever she saw him with Camille. She was always short with the pathologist and began to push her partner away, and her feelings were becoming more and more obvious to everyone who worked in the lab.

They were all now well aware that Dr. Brennan was nowhere near pleased with Booth's relationship with Cam. And she was taking it out on all of them as well.

Booth wasn't proud of his part in her newfound anger. He couldn't say he was pleased she was unhappy. He wasn't even sure if he was happy himself. For awhile, he'd been doing a little thinking about his relationship with Camille, but he still couldn't come to a decision on whether or not he wanted stay with her. It couldn't hurt his relationship with Brennan that much, couldn't it? He figured she'd get used to it eventually, and after long enough, things would be back to normal between them.

But he was horribly mistaken.

In four words – words that felt like a slap in the face to him – Brennan showed him just how many steps backward their partnership had taken.

"Don't call me Bones."

She hadn't said that to him in a year, at least. This time, her tone wasn't anything resembling teasing. It was a dead serious statement, sharp and curt. And when he looked into her eyes, they weren't that bright shade of blue-gray that he loved, they were cold and dark, fixing him with a steely glare.

It was then that he lost it.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

"What do you mean, 'what's wrong with me'?"

"You've been the ice queen these last few months. The squints are too scared to get within a hundred yards of you. Something's different. I want to know what it is." He knew exactly what it was, of course. But he needed her to say it, to admit to herself what she was keeping hidden inside.

"Well, I'm not telling you."

"Aha! You admit there's something different."

There was a pause as she struggled to scrape up a comeback. "There is nothing different, Booth. This is who I am. If you don't like it, find yourself a new partner."

Her voice was so harsh he visibly flinched. By the time he realized she was making a stealthy exit, Brennan was already well past the stairs descending from the lab's center platform. He rushed to catch up with her, finally grabbing her by the elbow as she exited the building's front doors.

"Get your hands off of me, Seeley Booth." She didn't turn as she spoke, but merely pulled her arm out of his grasp and continued at her speedy pace. In two swift strides, however, he had her by the wrist and pulled her to face him. Before he could register her movement, her free hand had curled into a tight ball and connected solidly with his right cheek. To her surprise, however, his grip never faltered. In fact, it only tightened.

"Don't play games with me, Temperance." His words were quiet but firm, never faltering. "I know all your tricks."

Brennan moved to lash out with her left hand again, but his larger one was no match for her fist, which seemed tiny in comparison as his hand closed easily around it. She began to thrust a kick towards his shins, but he was quicker, raising a foot at lightening speed and stopping her heeled boot mid-flight. She repeated the move, only the smallest evidence of hopelessness and defeat in her features. Booth blocked her again.

She struggled to free her hands from his grasp, finally crying out in a voice much more desperate-sounding than she'd intended. "My God, Booth, just let me go!"

When he heard the distressed edge to her voice, he hesitated a moment before releasing his hold on her. She took a step backward, putting distance between them, but didn't run.

For that, Booth said a silent prayer of thanks. "You need to tell me what's going on, Temperance. It's the only way I can help you."

She shook her head, her voice calmer now. "I don't need your help." And with that, she moved to walk away.

He followed quickly behind, calling out to her. "Bones, wait. Bones!"

Brennan swiveled around quickly. "Don't-"

"-call you Bones," he finished for her. "Sorry." Booth tried, unsuccessfully, to hide the smirk that was toying at his lips in response to her comment, despite the utter seriousness of their dispute.

She rolled her eyes at him as she turned to walk away once more. He didn't follow her, but his words made her stop in her tracks. "It's about me and Cam, isn't it?"

In an instant, she was right back in front of him, eyes ablaze. "What do you mean by that, Booth? Are you saying I'm jealous?"

He shrugged. "You said it, not me."

Yet again, she was at a loss of words to form a proper retort. So she simply spat out, "Go to hell, Booth." And just as quickly as she had appeared before him, she was storming off into the darkness of the parking lot.

"Bo… Temperance!" Booth found himself running after her again, catching up to her as she reached her car. "You're not leaving."

She didn't even turn to look at him as she replied, "Yes. I am."

Brennan moved to pull open the driver's side door, but his hand shot out and slammed it shut. "No, you're not." She tried again to pull open the door, but to no avail. Booth was much stronger than her, and she couldn't even get the door open a crack.

She turned to face him, and it pulled at his heartstrings to see the slightest glimmer of unshed tears glinting in her eyes. In a moment of impulse and revelation, he took a step toward her, and she moved to back away, saying quietly, "What are you doing?" Her voice wavered slightly, and his heart was broken that much more.

Booth's voice was nearly a whisper. "Will you just stand still?"

And before she even had time to form a response, his hand had moved from the door to her arm and he was pulling her to him, meeting her lips with his own. They stayed that way for a moment, until she pulled away, shocked.

After a moment of stunned silence, she stepped forward, and he mirrored her action from before, taking a step back. Booth cocked an eyebrow. "What are you doing?"

She smirked, her tone only slightly mocking. "Will you just stand still?"

And all of a sudden her lips were on his again, and he found his hand tangled in her hair as her fingers laced behind his neck. They were both mildly surprised at the way their mouths moved together in a familiar fashion, as if they'd done this a thousand times before.

The need for oxygen became all too dire, and they parted, breathing slightly labored. With a smile, Brennan reluctantly removed her hands from around his neck and moved to open her car door again, and this time her partner allowed her to do so. Before she shut the door, however, he called to her, "So I take it you were jealous after all, Bones."

She only laughed before closing the door and backing out of her parking spot, stopping only to toss a parting wave over her shoulder.

Booth smiled, humming a little to himself as he turned back towards the building. He was going to have to break it off with Cam.

And he found he wasn't the least bit sad about that.

End