Disclaimer - Bones and all it's lovely characters belong to someone else.
A/N - This was written in response to a challenge (well a practice challenge) on another site. The challenge was to write something inspired by the proverb "Many a sudden change takes place on a spring day". This one-shot is what I came up with.
As she gradually awoke from her slumber, Temperance slowly registered that it wasn't the piercing trilling of her alarm that was waking her up. She was about to relax and settle back to sleep when she realised that her room was flooded in warm sunlight.
She stiffened instinctively and rolled over to pick up her travel alarm, worried by how much she had overslept. Although surely Booth would have been hammering on her door if she was really late?
As she forced her tired eyes to focus on the glowing digits she realised that it was only 6:00am. She set the clock back on the bedside table with a thud and buried her head in the pillow, one arm thrown above her head.
She lay still for a few moments before shifting restlessly, trying to get comfortable. As she lay there, she became aware of the birds singing joyfully outside her window.
The chorus of chirruping and singing was punctuated by a distant cockerel crowing. She grunted and burrowed further under the covers trying to block out the sounds.
Just as she was beginning to drift off, there was a slamming noise in the next room. Followed by the insistent drone of an extractor fan and then the whoosh of a shower.
She took a deep breath and then wriggled round to look at her clock again: 6:10.
With a sigh, she rolled onto her back and peered up at the ceiling. Instead of the pale neutrality of her apartment, she was staring at duck egg blue paint and a flowery, flouncy light shade. The rest of the room was done out in chintzy plaid and lots of pale oak. It was a little homespun for Temperance's tastes, but she'd stayed in worse places.
She heaved herself upright, gathering the beautiful handmade quilt around her, before dropping her head to her knees and stretching out her tense neck.
After a moment, she glanced around the room trying to recall where she had left her bag when she had stumbled tiredly into bed at 1:00am. She wrinkled her nose at the pile of damp clothes over the arm of a chair and the muddy bones leaning drunkenly against the leg of the desk.
She and Booth had left DC early the previous day and had driven well into the afternoon to reach this quiet backwater town. The weather had got steadily greyer and wetter as they had gone on. She had spent the bulk of the evening and good proportion of the night kneeling in a muddy trench recovering a skeleton from a makeshift grave. The local police had erected some tarps to cover the site, but the light, fine rain seemed to find its way through regardless, drifting around on the stiff breeze.
The huge arc-lights had provided illumination to enable her to complete the bulk of the painstaking recovery during the night, but she knew that she and Booth would be heading back to the scene today.
The prospect of another few hours in the mud and rain held little appeal. The only consolation she could find was that at least the lights would not be needed so she would be spared the clouds of irritating knats, moths and other insects that had billowed around them the previous evening.
After stretching her arms above her head, she hauled herself out of bed and towards the shower.
As she reached the window, she paused, before pulling back the drapes to confirm what sort of weather the day had in store for her.
Her eyes widened as she took in a view, which it had been far too dark to see the previous evening. Across the sloping roof of the inn that she and Booth were staying in, she could see a small stream glittering in the soft morning light as it wound its way through the village. Further away, along the horizon, there was a chain of low hills, little more than an undulating series of purple-green humps, edged in hazy sunshine.
Every blade of grass, each budding leaf on the trees were glistening in the heavy dew and trailing bands of mist rose up from the surrounding fields. Here and there she could see tiny lambs ambling through the grass.
She smiled as she spotted a clump of daffodils and then a vast draft of purple, white and yellow crocus.
Not a soul was moving and Temperance drank in the peaceful scene, so different from the busy urban view from her apartment in Washington.
After a while she tore herself away from the window and headed for the bathroom.
As her minty shower gel shocked her fully awake she thought about how little she noticed the subtle march of the seasons cooped up in Jeffersonian for so much of the time. A small part of her felt sadden by the realisation.
Once she was dressed, she sat on the cushioned window seat, sipping a fruit tea while brushing out her hair. As she watched, she saw a heron land in the stream and start to poke around in the eddying pools with its beak.
The tall oaks and cedars that ringed the garden of the inn were alive with smaller birds. Every now and then, one would leave the sanctuary of the trees and flit down onto the lawn to collect a twig or a piece of grass ready for nest building.
Absorbed by the tranquillity in front of her, she jumped at the quiet tap on her door, before putting her cup back on its saucer and padding over to the door.
She unbolted the lock and pulled the door open to find her partner, hair still damp from the shower, standing with a hand braced against the top of the doorframe and a half smile on his face.
"Morning Bones." He said, "Sleep well?"
She laughed slightly and stood aside to wave him in, "Fine, thanks Booth. Longer would have been nice though."
She walked over to the kettle and waved a second cup at him questioningly.
Booth sat on the edge of the bed and nodded, "Coffee'd be wonderful."
She turned away to fill the kettle and pour the contents of a coffee sachet into the cup.
"How'd you sleep?" She asked, turning back to face him and finding that he had laid back on the bed his hands linked behind his head, his eyes shut. His action had caused his t-shirt to ride up revealing a narrow strip of toned flesh.
Temperance found her face getting warm as he levered himself into a half sit-up to look at her while he answered her question, the muscles in his stomach flexing visibly.
"Fine. Like you say, more would have been good." He loosened one arm to wave at the window, still holding his crunch position. "They need heavier curtains in this place, I thought it must have been midday when I woke up."
Temperance smiled slightly at his comment, recalling her own confusion.
Booth's head dropped back onto the bed, "I was out of bed and halfway to the shower before I thought to check the clock." He smiled at the sound of Temperance's quiet laugh,
"Didn't seem much point in trying to go back to sleep." He continued, listening to the clink of the spoon in the cup as she stirred in the creamer and sugar before walking over to him.
As her shadow passed over him, he rolled onto his side propping his head up with his hand, "What's your excuse?" He asked with a grin.
She put the coffee down on the table and faced him with a quizzical look, hands on hips, "Excuse for what?"
His grin widened, "Why you're up so early?"
He sat upright to give her room to sit next to him, his grin melting into a concerned look, "You must be exhausted after last night."
She slumped next to him with little of her usual grace, "The sun woke me up too." She said with a tired sigh.
He patted her arm in gentle sympathy.
She looked down at his hand quickly and then turned away, "You know, it's interesting how quickly our bodies tune into natural rhythms, regardless of how out of synch our daily lives are normally."
Booth shook his head, "Please tell me you're not coming over all anthropological at this unholy hour?"
She tapped his knee in reprimand, "It's a well known fact that our modern lifestyle has detached us from seasonal, and even daily, variations."
"Kidding Bones." He replied flashing her a smile before reaching round her with his right hand to grab his coffee. As he did so, he had to lean in very close and, before she could stop herself, Temperance found herself breathing in his warm, masculine scent.
He had placed all his weight on his left hand as he had stretched round and as he sat back he realised that it was brushing against her thigh.
He drew the hand back sharply and started to drink his coffee.
"Thanks." He added as the warm liquid slid down his throat, saluting her with his cup.
They lapsed into an oddly tense silence.
After a couple of minutes, Temperance asked, "Should we head out to the scene?"
"Bones, are you trying to make work come between me and the home-made pancakes promised on the breakfast menu?" Booth asked with a pained expression.
"I just thought that we could get on with the case, as we're both up and about..." She trailed off as Booth's hand came to rest on the small of her back.
"Food, then case." Booth said decisively. He glanced at his watch and then stood.
He looked at her expectantly, "Come on Bones..."
She tilted her head questioningly and he offered her his hands and then hauled her upright.
The motion brought them very close together, their hands still linked together. Their gazes locked and neither made any attempt to move away.
Before he realised what he was doing, Booth reached across to brush a stray lock of her hair that had become tangled in her lashes.
His hand lingered on the side of her face, gently caressing her cheek.
Temperance's eyes widened slightly and her lips parted as she leant in towards him.
Their eyes closed as their lips slowly come together in a kiss that was sweet and full of promise. Just like a spring morning.