AN: This story takes off from the 6th season episode the Daredevil in the Mold with the exception that Hannah accepts Booth's marriage proposal. The whole story will be told from Brennan's POW. If you take the time to comment privately or post a review I greatly appreciate it. Hope you like it!

Adjustment

Chapter 1

It wasn't that she hadn't expected it. When he told her about the proposal she realized that it would probably not going to be a long engagement. When they had all gone out to celebrate with drinks the following Friday, it had been even more apparent to her. The wedding would be soon. She was still surprised to see the white envelope with ornate black letters spelling out her name and address on top of the pile of mail. Even though there was no reasonable way she could know, she still knew. She put the mail down on the counter and went over to the fridge. It was empty except for some eggs, milk and other at the moment rather useless ingredients. She could make an omelet she decided and got to work. Once in a while the envelope caught her eyes, but she firmly dismissed it. It was late, she was hungry and she needed to eat. Going through the mail would have to wait.

She sat down at the table and ate while flipping through the newspaper she hadn't had time to read in the morning. When she was finished she cleaned up in the kitchen and brought the mail with her as she went into her office space and sat down at the desk. She took her mail knife and cautiously slid it between the layers of paper so she wouldn't do any harm to the letter inside and made a clean and precise opening. She carefully folded it open and read:

The honor of your presence is requested

at the marriage of

Hannah Burley and Seeley Booth

on Saturday the 2nd of April 2011

It was only a month away. A month less a day to be more exact. She wondered why Booth hadn't told her they had set a date. There had been many opportunities. Today they had practically spent the whole day together, driving 4 hours back and forth to a crime scene where they had retrieved a thoroughly decomposed body. He must have realized that she'd get the invitation when she got home.

The rest of the mail was mostly bills and a request for a lecture at the Northwestern University. She filed them away in their proper place to be dealt with at a later time and opened a drawer to take out a card and an envelope. She wrote down her response to the wedding invitation, put it in the envelope and wrote Booth and Hannah's address. She'd mail it on her way into work the next morning.

The next day she was in the lab the whole morning. She was supervising Mr Vaziri's first attempt to reconstruct a skull, while also studying the x-rays trying to find something that could lead them to an id. Her student actually did a better job than she would have thought. She gave him the honor to bring it over to Angela after she'd signed off on the tissue markers and went back to her office. She was already deep in focus on the article about the hunting rituals of an extinct Inuit-tribe she'd been asked to review, when she heard a knock at the doorpost to her office.

"Lunch?" her best friend asked her. She recognized the concerned look on Angela's face which she always wore when she thought she needed her help to figure out some social or emotional situation.

"Already?" she looked down at her watch and realized it was already half past twelve. She wasn't hungry and didn't really want to take a break, but she could tell by Angela's face that it would only get worse if she refused.

Angela chatted the whole way over to the cafeteria and while they were standing in line. She wasn't surprised when Angela suggested that they'd bring the food back to her office so they would have some privacy.

"So Booth and Hannah are getting married," Angela said when they were back in her office sitting on the couch and enjoying their lunches.

"Yes, I got the invitation yesterday. I'm very happy for them both," she responded.

"But you knew already, right?" Angela said between bites. She obviously been as hungry as she'd stated on the walk over to the cafeteria, because her sandwich was almost gone.

"It's an expected development of an accepted marriage proposal."

Angela protested saying she thought Booth had told her in person that they'd set a date. She couldn't help but feel some sort of relief. She hadn't been totally out of line to be a bit disappointed by that.

"Are you going to go?" Angela asked.

"Of course I'm going," she stated "Booth is … well they're both my friends and even though I don't believe in this ritual, I know it's real and important to them."

"I usually berate you for running away to Guatemala, Maluku and God knows where, but honestly I would totally support you if you decided to join a dig in," Angela shrugged her shoulders "I don't know, like Peru or something."

"I know of no dig currently active in Peru that could be of any interest to me," she stated "But I get what you're saying," she tried to smile. She had never told her friend exactly what had happened, neither in front of the Hoover building nor in the rain in after finding out what had happened to Lauren Eames. Even though she now had even more reasons to keep the feelings she had had for Booth a secret or at least unspoken, she didn't have the power to deny it. "However I've adjusted. This is great for Booth. He is getting everything he ever wanted. How could I not be happy for him and support that?"

Her friend just looked at her and gave her a sad smile. They continued talking, but left the topic of Booth's upcoming nuptials and soon it was time to get back to work. She stayed late trying to finish up the review on that article with a well-grounded argument. Before Angela left for the day she had gotten a match on her facial reconstruction with a missing persons' database. She sent an e-mail with the information to Booth and then sent him a text to be sure he'd check his e-mails before he left. The victim had been dead six years and the next step of the investigation would have to wait until tomorrow. When she got home she just had a snack and sat down at her computer to work on her book. It was well past midnight when she went to bed.

She was woken early by the ringing of her phone. It was Booth telling her they had a suspect in their case and they needed to go and question him right away. He'd swing by her place in 15 minutes. She quickly got out of bed to take a shower and was just finished getting dressed when Booth knocked on her door. He was handing her a cup of coffee and continued to tell her they were going to go and have a talk with the estranged brother of the victim. He had been left to dispose of the whole heritage when their well off father had passed away from a terminal illness shortly after the victim had disappeared.

They were unusually quiet in the car. She sometimes glanced over to watch Booth. He seemed to be paying a lot more attention to the traffic than he usually did.

"We got your card," Booth told her still focusing intensely on the driving. "You could have just told me you were coming. No need to be so formal about it, we see each other every day."

His voice sounded different and she couldn't tell what the emotion behind it was. It wasn't his usual explaining the ways of social interactions, he wasn't teasing her and he didn't seem angry with her. She looked over at him, but he didn't look away from the traffic to meet her eyes. "You wrote me an invitation, I thought it would only be appropriate that I answer in the same way." She decided to follow his example and looked straight forward. "It's very soon," she commented.

"Why wait?" he said and looked over at her for the first time since they started driving.

She shrugged her shoulders "You must be busy with all of the planning."

"It's not that much. We just want a small wedding with our closest friends and family. Grandpa, Jared and Padme is coming down, Hannah's mom and stepdad and then just some friends here in DC. We don't have that much family either one of us."

After a couple of minutes she got out the case file and started to review what they knew. She got an update from Hodgins concerning the particulates he had found on the body which proved that the murder site wasn't the same as where they'd found the victim.

They had only questioned the brother for half an hour when they had gathered enough evidence to bring him in. They watched the transport drive off to take him into custody and got back into the car to return to the lab and Hoover building respectively. She fastened her seatbelt, but Booth didn't start the car. He was leaning back on driver's seat. His eyes were closed. She thought he looked tired and was just about to offer to drive, although she knew he would probably refuse regardless how tired he was.

"I need to know that you're ok with this," he finally spoke. His eyes were still closed.

She thought she knew what he was talking about, but she still asked "Ok?"

"With the wedding. With me marrying Hannah."

"I … I'm happy for you," she said slowly. She was actually surprised by the regret that was so evident in her voice. "I want you to be happy," she tried again. That was easier to say with conviction she realized.

"Are you sure?" He looked at her more attentively than he had in several months "Because I can't even imagine how I'd feel if the situation was reversed."

"You moved on," she stated "And I've adjusted." She needed this conversation to end quickly and told him she was needed back at the lab to compile all of the evidence in the case.

An hour and a half later she was back at the lab and by the end of the workday the case was finished as far as they were concerned. When Booth called her and wanted to go to the Founding Fathers for a celebratory beer she accepted. Because that was what an adjusted person would do.