This is another one in the Deep Regret storyline. There have been some stories and chapters done relating to the wide disparity between Booth and Bones in terms of money and how that could play out when they get together (one particularly good one is the later chapters of Nyre The Black Rose's story Happy New Year At The Hay Adams), but I decided to write this two chapter piece of my own in order to close up a gap since I mentioned that they lived in what amounts to at least a smaller sized mansion with a large amount of grounds around the estate. I hope you enjoy this one. Gregg.

Disclaimer: I don't own, or profit from, these characters or franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Seeley Booth was having a mild panic attack. His wife of five months, Bones, was really getting into the whole idea of them getting a home of their own, but every time she brought him to see a home that the real estate agent had picked out to show them, the damn thing turned out to be a freaking mansion! Not that he had anything against mansions, or even larger homes, but he was trying very hard to keep this relationship and marriage as close to a 50/50 partnership as possible, and there was no way he could afford anywhere near what his 50% of such a mortgage payment would be on any of these places! It looked like he was going to have to sit Bones down and have a little talk about the finances. It was something he had not done thus far, as she was not one to flash her wealth around by any means, but it looked like if he was going to keep this whole thing fair, he would have to have the dreaded TALK.

He arrived at their apartment, what was hers before they moved in together a month after they had began to have a relationship, and found her in the living room working on her laptop. He always enjoyed seeing her working on her novels, whether in her home or work offices, or in bed, or in the living room with the laptop propped up on her crossed legs. Her look of intense concentration was cute, and he would never get enough of it, hence he was always spending time whenever she was working just being with her. Usually that meant reading a, ahem, graphic novel, or playing a hand held game, but at least he was there watching.

"Hi!" Bones looked up at her husband and smiled widely. She'd been home for a couple of hours and had on some sweat pants and a light, loose t-shirt with the FBI logo on it.

"Hey, Bones," Booth smiled and leaned down to give her a kiss. "Sorry I'm late, but Cullen wanted to talk to me about a few things."

"Problems?" she asked quickly. Their relationship and subsequent marriage had not been looked on with favor at the FBI, but she and the rest of the Squint Squad (she still could not believe that she now thought of them as that!) had bluntly told Cullen and the Bureau that if the partnership was severed for anything less than a promotion for Booth, then they would no longer do any work with the Bureau, or any other government agency, for that matter. The FBI had backed off instantly and had not said a word since then.

"I'm up for a promotion," he replied taking a seat, having gotten a beer from the fridge, and had refilled her glass of wine. They had had dinner at the diner before he'd had to go back to the Bureau for his meeting.

Bones tensed, but kept calm. She wanted Booth to get all the accolades she felt her deserved, including some very well deserved promotions, but she also loved their professional partnership. It was a quandary, but the fact that they were together, and married, was the better part of any deal, so she settled for being happy for him, assuming this was a good promotion and he accepted it.

"What position are they offering?" she asked. There had been some recent changes made in the hierarchy of the Bureau, and a lot of the upper positions were new. Cullen had been named the Deputy Director of the entire Bureau several weeks before, and had been making a lot of changes under him.

"Cullen wants me to be his deputy, and also to be the head of the DC Field Office," Booth replied as he took another swig of his beer.

"That's a large promotion from where you are currently," Bones observed. Inside she was very happy for him as he was very good at what he did, and his leadership skills were exceptional in her opinion. "But that means our partnership is ended," she continued, this time a bit more subdued.

"That's what it boils down to," he nodded. He took her right hand in his left, stroking her knuckles with his thumb. Part of his anxiety this evening had been concern about how she would react to this promotion.

"You accepted," she stated, though she did not sound unhappy.

"Not yet, but there's no real way to do so without sounding completely selfish," Booth told her. "I asked Sam Cullen to give me a couple of days to let him know for sure."

"What do you want to do?" Bones asked, setting her laptop aside after she had shut it down.

"Well, the job is one I know I can do, and it's a damn good opportunity," he replied. "It's also more money." Thankfully she had given him the perfect opportunity to bring in the subject of money.

Bones frowned. "Are you worried about money?" she asked, trying to keep her confusion from showing.

"Yeah," he said, knowing that he sounded ridiculous considering his wife's wealth.

"I thought you had gotten beyond that," she said softly. It was something that she had worried about, frankly, but when he never brought the subject up, she had assumed that they had dealt with it sufficiently when he had "taught" her to fix a leaky pipe almost three years before.

"I thought I had, too, Bones, but these houses that we're seeing put it right back in my head again," he admitted. "I want this marriage to be a close to 50/50 as it can be. These homes, though, would make it impossible for me to live up to that."

Bones was happy that at least he was being honest, and she was touched that he wanted them to be equals, though she knew that there was a touch of the traditional Alpha Male sensibilities in there to some extent.

"Do you know what I'm worth, Booth?" she asked him.

Booth didn't know what she was driving at. He'd never asked her about how much wealth she had, nor had he asked to even be included in her financial arena. All he knew was was that she was very wealthy with the book deals and the movie rights and royalties that she had coming in. She'd been smart and contracted all the rights to her novels once the initial print run was completed for each of them. It had been very lucrative for her, and the selling of the movie rights had been shrewdly done, guaranteeing her a share of the movie revenues. The two movies thus far had been wildly successful.

"No," he told her. He watched as she got up and went to her home office, coming back with a file folder which she opened up when she sat down beside him.

"This is my current financial accounting from my accountant," she explained. "The whole file is a detailed itemization of my assets, but this sheet is the principal summary. This bottom figure," she said pointing to a figure at the bottom right hand corner, "is my current net worth, including all liquid and non-liquid assets."

Booth looked at the figure and almost had a stroke. He mentally calculated an average per book, eight books now (he counted the two movies to be a part of the books), and was stunned. She was now averaging $23 million per book, net. Of course some of this was from the return on sound investments, ongoing royalties, and advances on her next three book contract, but the bottom line was she had a net worth of $184 million. He glanced through the summary and saw that her liquid assets totaled $54 million in various bank accounts, money market accounts, and other forms of readily convertible asset forms. That left $130 million in property and other non-liquid assets that she controlled, which he knew about as she had purchased high end condominium complexes in several East Coast cities, a couple of vacation homes, as well as her own apartment. She also, with that $130 million, had a number of charitable trusts set up, as well as ten very specific scholarship funds that she had direct control of at the Jeffersonian as well as several very high quality institutions. There were a couple of trusts that were not labeled, too. She had also begun to do anonymous, but under her control, philanthropy work on behalf of small communities suffering hardship in bad economic times by enhancing travel opportunities for tourists through road and bridge repair, as well as small business block grants of modest amounts, generally 20-30 thousand dollars. Very few authors, even those considered very successful, had ever been as financially successful as she had been, but like with everything else, she had succeeded beyond anyones reasonable expectations.

Bones took in his shocked expression. She had not really thought of letting him know until they had to make new arrangements for tax purposes when it came time to file jointly for the first time as he hadn't mentioned anything about the money issue, but now she wished that she had. He might not look angry, but he did look concerned.

"Booth," she said gently. "I'm not about to say that I think you should simply let me do all the financial side of things in our marriage. I love that you want to contribute on that side as much as possible. It shows me that you want me for who I am and not what I can buy, or do for, you. But at the same time, I think that you have problems with my wealth that you haven't spoken of in the past."

He looked at her and saw that she was really looking beneath the surface. Her showing him the accounting was her way of making sure that he knew that she was considering his deeper concerns, even if she wasn't aware of the main one in his own mind.

"There is one," he told her, reluctantly.

"What is it?" she asked. "I won't judge you, Booth. You know that, even if I might think you are misguided at times."

He inwardly chuckled at her use of the word misguided. It was her sophisticated, Squinty way, of saying he was wrong. "Bones, that kind of money scares me," he admitted.

"Why would it scare you?" she asked, not really thinking of the one thing that may be worrisome for him.

"I'm a gambling addict, Bones," he told her. It was something she was well aware of, but he knew that she didn't look at him as if he was.

"Ex-gambling addict," she corrected.

Booth chuckled out loud. "No, Bones," he told her. "Addiction is addiction, whether it's drugs, alcohol, or even gambling. Once you're an addict, your an addict for life. Why do you think I still go to meetings once a month?"

"You're worried that if you don't pay an equal share, it'll be too easy for you to fall back into gambling, and use your access to our money to finance it," she caught on. "That's why you've been reluctant about the houses we've been looking at," she figured it out.

"Uh, huh," he told her, closing the file and handing it back. This was so embarrassing. He hated showing a weakness about anything, but his gambling was something that he was so personally ashamed of that it had colored his views about money and wealth more than he had even realized over the years. It wasn't that he had bad feelings towards people who had money, as most of them had worked hard to get where they were, like Bones. It was more the temptation and attitudes that such money often engendered, though he was honest enough to admit that there were plenty of wealthy people like Bones and Hodgins that didn't let it go to their heads.

"Then we have a problem," she told him bluntly.

"I know," he replied.

"No, I don't think you do," she informed him. "In the very near future we will have to file our tax forms jointly, and as a result of that, some changes will need to be made with respect to the financial resources I brought into this relationship. I did not, nor will I ever, agree to anything less than you having equal access to that and any future monies I have. Nor will I stand for you making yourself out to be some weak individual who can't be trusted. We will be going and seeing another house tomorrow, Booth. I already have seen it and really want you to consider it."

"You're not going to take no for an answer, are you?" he asked, a sheepish look on his face. He was still very uncomfortable with her trust in him regarding so much money, but he would at least look at the house. If they argued about it, then so be it, but at least she now knew what was bothering him.

"No," she told him bluntly. She sighed. "Look," she said calmly. "If you're that worried about your addiction, we can put some benign controls and limits on your access to the money at any one time, but I honestly don't think it's necessary. As for the house, I want to be able to get a home that gives you some of the things that would make life for you very enjoyable away from work. Parker's getting older and a large yard to play in would be wonderful for you guys, as well as a pool. I know you enjoy working on classic cars, so an outfitted garage for that kind of thing is also a possibility. You've given me more than I think you realize, Booth, and with this I have a chance to give something tangible back to you. It's important to me."

"All right," Booth agreed, knowing he would in the end anyway. "No promises on agreeing to the place, but I will give at fair chance."

"Good," Bones said with a smile. She handed him one of his favorite comic books. "Now here's a comic book and you have your beer. Sit there and relax while I get more work done on my novel." She wouldn't admit it to him, but she enjoyed having him nearby when she worked on anything. As for having him near when she was working on one of her novels, she had an ulterior motive as she used him as a guinea pig for the sex scenes. It was easy enough to feign writer's block on those scenes and drag him to the bedroom for some inspiration.

"GRAPHIC NOVEL," he growled with an affectionate smile, defending his second favorite reading material, his favorite being her novels, of course.

"Read," she ordered with a chuckle. She was looking forward to the next day.

A/N: Well, there's the setup for the home buying scene. I hope you enjoyed part one, and I will be posting the second chapter tomorrow afternoon. The next chapters for Venting Frustration and An End To Celibacy will be posted during the rest of this week. Thank you for the continuing interest in the Deep Regret storyline. Gregg.