Response to a prompt: Four times Booth did something, and the one time he didn't.

Just a little something to clear the creative log jam in my brain. With thanks for FauxMaven for her beta skills.

Disclaimer: The only thing I own is my soul, and I even lend that out on occasion, but only if you ask nice. Anything that even looks familiar in this story probably belongs to someone else (except the actual story - that's all mine, Mine, MINE [*maniacal laughter*]!)

ONE

Brennan stood at the entrance of the bar, inspecting the other patrons like they were some sort of alien stick insects. Booth chuckled at the look on her face and edged back a little, out of her direct line of sight, content to just watch her for now. Damn she was hot. He took a pull on his beer and watched her progress through the throng of Friday nighters, admiring the way she dealt with several colorful comments directed her way with a haughty look straight down that pretty nose.

They were in Harrisville, New Hampshire investigating the discovery of remains preserved in a bog only a few miles from the small town centre. Until Bones was convinced they weren't looking at some old guy from a million years ago, it meant staying in the area for a few days. This was the fourth time they'd overnighted somewhere to follow up a case and it still felt weird. Booth was finding it difficult to maintain the professional distance that came so easily to him when he was in his office wearing a suit and she was squinting at something in the lab wearing a baggy blue coat with that goofy magnifying headgear.

Tonight she was dressed casually in jeans that were snug in all the right places and a slim fitting blue shirt with some sort of fancy stuff on each shoulder. Her hair was loose, swinging against her face as she scanned the crowd looking for him. Damn, damn, damn she was hot. And out of bounds. He shut his eyes for a second, pushing back the desire that spiked his heart rate.

"Booth? You okay?"

His eyes flashed open and she was there in front of him, her face close in to his so she could be heard over the music and laughter filling the bar. Her lips were inches from his and he wondered if she'd ever heard the expression 'what happens on tour stay on tour'. He would only need to lean forward an inch or two and the game would be changed forever.

"Angela's identified the remains." Brennan's expression changed to confusion at his lack of reaction. "Fifty-nine year old male from Des Moines who disappeared two years ago."

Booth still didn't speak.

"C'mon Booth, we've got to get everything back to the Jeffersonian." She flicked a look at his half empty bottle. "And I'm driving."

She spun around and marched towards the door and Booth found himself smiling ruefully. "Like hell you are."

TWO

Booth put the change the bartender handed him flat on the bar with a slap as Brennan left to go on her date. The force behind the movement took him by surprise. His palm was still stinging as he lifted the glass to his lips. He shrugged off the vague feeling of irritation; in fact he felt pretty pleased with himself. It had been a good day. The squints had worked around the clock to identify the teenage boy whose body had been found partially submerged in concrete, he and Bones had done their stuff to identify the doer. The perp - the kid's father - had crumpled under Booth's interrogation, fuelled by Sweet's insights and Bones' astute dissemination of the timeline of events. In fact, Bones' cool recitation of the facts had been the tipping point. She was getting better at interrogations, learning to read his cues. He smiled, thinking of her game face, which was pretty darn cute.

He glanced over his shoulder in the direction his partner had just gone, in time to see her face light up as a low slung classic sports car pulled up to the curb. Damn if it wasn't a Shelby Cobra, an original not a 'continuation' model, adding insult to injury. Booth watched the scene play out with an expression just short of disgust, his arm frozen with the drink halfway to his lips. The blond haired male in the driver's seat leaned over and opened the passenger door, a welcoming smile creasing his good looking face. Brennan got in, still smiling.

Booth swung his eyes away from the sight, tossing back his drink in one gulp, the unmistakeable rumble of the Cobra pulling away from the curb ringing in his ears.

Dammit. Goddamn dammit. He ordered another drink, slapping his money on the bar with even more force than before, enjoying the sting.

THREE

Brennan wrapped her scarf more securely around her neck and tucked it into her jacket; Pennsylvania Avenue was like a wind tunnel tonight and her hair whipped around her head in a wild halo. Booth put his hands in his pockets to keep them warm, and maybe to keep them still, too.

"Wanna go for a drink?" He asked, already turning to walk towards their favorite bar.

Brennan shook her head, the moue of her generous lips signalling her regret. "My editor has organised some sort of formal dinner that she informs me will be 'awesome' although I seriously doubt that a meal with a room full of business people will fill me with wonder." She chuckled at her clumsy joke and raised a hand to hail a cab. One pulled up almost immediately but they both stood there, irresolute, until the cab driver honked his horn impatiently. Booth jumped and pulled the passenger door open, and made to help her in, but his hand lingered on her arm. Brennan looked up at him questioningly, one foot in the cab.

"What?"

He hesitated, trying to find a way to ask her to give the stupid dinner a miss but couldn't find the words.

"You getting in or what, lady?" The cab driver's tone was disinterested; another fare was only a few feet away.

Brennan kept looking at Booth but he released his grip a little self consciously and frowned. "Nothing. You have a good time tonight Bones."

Brennan gave him an uncertain smile and sketched a quick salute as the cab pulled away from the curb.

Booth waited for the cab to disappear into the flow of traffic then spun on his heels, his feet taking him towards the Founding Fathers. His hands were curled tightly in his pockets, nails biting into the flesh of his palms, but he didn't notice.

FOUR

"Sláinte." Brennan raised her wineglass towards him. The background noise seemed to ebb away, and Booth let his eyes rove over his partner's face, eventually locking on her eyes. She looked back at him serenely, a contented smile curving her lips.

"Back atcha, Bones." Booth gently touched the neck of his beer bottle against her glass, and their smiles morphed into smug little grins. Neither spoke, each reluctant to break the intimacy of the moment. Time stretched, and it was only the sound of Jack and Angela's laughing approach that seemed to snap them out of it.

Booth tapped the bottle in his hand. "This is exactly what we need after the day we've had. After the week we've had. A little booze, a little laughter, a little music, a little food -"

"Thai?" Brennan inquired with a chuckle. "I've got a coupon."

"That can be arranged." They chinked drinks in agreement. "The perfect end to a crappy week." Booth said with a satisfied sigh.

Brennan took a sip of her wine and focussed on something over Booth's shoulder. She frowned almost imperceptibly, and turned back to the rest of their colleagues who had now found their way to their spot at the bar. The tension of the last few days had turned to exuberance; they'd solved the case. Sweets and Daisy were giggling like school children and Vincent Nigel-Murray was well on his way to making an alcohol-fuelled pass at Dr Saroyan.

Booth felt happy, surrounded by this odd collection of squints, his friends. And knee-to-knee with his partner. When, seconds later, Hannah placed an arm around his neck and kissed him lightly on the cheek he jumped guiltily; he'd forgotten they had a date.

"Sorry I'm late, Seeley." Hannah smiled her greetings to everyone in the group before turning back to Booth. "Well, I hate to break up the party, but we'd better get going if we want to make our dinner reservation."

Brennan looked up, surprised. "Oh. You're not staying?"

Booth looked uncomfortable and slowly rose to his feet, placing his unfinished drink on the bar. "Nah. Hannah and I, we've got this dinner thing ... " His voice trailed away. "Right. Better get moving." He raised a hand in general farewell, avoiding looking at Brennan directly. "Another time, yeah?"

Brennan smiled stiffly and nodded, keeping her eyes downcast and echoed his last words, "Sure. Another time."

FIVE

Booth signed off on the last document and placed it on the file, closing the manila cover with a sigh. He rubbed a hand over his eyes wearily. The last five weeks had been full of tense surveillance, all nighters, ghostly paper trails and bookwork, never ending mountains of bookwork. He hadn't seen hide nor hair of a squint for weeks, hadn't even talked to Bones for almost as long. He'd never thought there'd come a time when he missed the sight of a good, solid, truly disgusting corpse.

"You coming for a drink, Agent Booth?" Sweets stood at the open door of Booth's office, his coat over his arm and obviously ready to leave. "We're all meeting down at the Founding Fathers to celebrate."

"All?" With a jolt Booth realised that the bullpen was empty; everyone on the floor participated in the RICO bust and he didn't have any difficulty imagining the crush there'd be at the bar. And the bullshit passing for bonhomie. Booth didn't think he could face it, not tonight. Exhaustion was etched on his face.

"Nah. I think I'll just head home and chill out in front of the boob tube." He stretched, wincing as his vertebrae cracked and creaked in protest. He felt old.

"Seriously? You're the hero of the hour. I'm pretty sure you won't have to buy a drink the whole night. In fact, first one's on me." Sweet's voice rose, trying to cajole Booth into coming along.

"It was a team effort, Sweets. Besides I've got bottle of something very special in my liquor cabinet that I've been waiting for a good enough reason to crack open. I think now I've got a good enough reason."

"Fair enough." Sweets considered his colleague thoughtfully for a few moments. "Enjoy your night, you deserve it."

Booth shot the younger man a grin. "Thanks, Sweets. See you next week." He watched the psychologist weave his way through the empty bullpen, switching off lights as he went until the only glow of light on the eighteenth floor of the J Edgar Hoover Building was from Booth's office.

It took all of thirty minutes shuffling and reshuffling papers before Booth was finally satisfied with the state of his desk. He was reaching out to flick off his desk lamp when the ringing of his cell phone distracted him. It was Bones.

"Hey." The warmth in his voice overrode the abruptness of the single word.

"Hey. Sweets tells me that you had a win on your RICO case. Congratulations."

"Thanks, Bones." Booth's weariness fell away at the sound of her voice.

"What are you doing to celebrate?"

"Ah ... you know." He hedged. "There's a big bash at the Founding Fathers, you know the sort of thing."

"Oh, right. Of course. I'm sorry, I should have realised your colleagues would wish to commemorate the resolution of such an important case with you." She paused, and he heard the sound of someone crashing into a trash can somewhere in the bullpen, closely followed by a soft curse on the other end of the telephone line.

"Bones?" He walked to the door of his office and squinted into the gloom. She was about halfway from the elevator to his office, her figure in silhouette against the subdued glow of the security lights near the stairs.

"Booth?" She zeroed in on his figure and made her way gingerly towards him until her face was reflected the soft glow cast from his desk lamp. She looked beautiful, and a little unreal.

"Bones, what are you going here?"

She shrugged, "Sweets said you needed me."

"What - when? Sweets said that?"

Brennan nodded, "He rang me and I came straight over." When Booth didn't reply she was suddenly uncertain. "You don't actually need me, do you? To help you celebrate? You have your own plans." She bit her lip in dismay. "I feel very foolish."

Booth reached out and ran the back of his hand along her cheek, the need to feel the softness of her skin overwhelming. A hundred times he'd stopped himself from doing the same thing. A thousand times he'd convinced himself he'd be rebuffed.

"Oh I need you, all right, Bones." His voice cracked on the words, waiting for the axe to fall.

But she didn't flinch, or shatter, or step away in horror. When he turned his hand, palm cupping that same cheek, she leant into its warmth, her eyes never leaving his face. When he stepped closer and drew her into the circle of his arms, she didn't shout at him or pull back or resist at all. In fact their bodies fit together perfectly, two pieces of the same puzzle.

So many times he'd done the right thing; walked away from his feelings for the sake of their partnership.

This time he didn't. And although the equation was irrational, what happened next was perfectly logical, and they both were the better for it.