Disclaimer: See Chapter 1.

Author's Note: Thank you, everyone, who's read and reviewed. I appreciate every single one, even if I don't respond personally. And now for the real plot of this story and the idea that started this entire thing…

Learning About Love

Chapter 2: Problem and Solution

Temperance Brennan prided herself on being logical.

When she had a problem, she identified it and then thought through possible solutions in a calm, rational, logical manner. It was what she did.

And right now, she had a problem. A problem which could be summarized in two words: Seeley Booth.

She lusted for him. She could not deny it any longer.

Yesterday, after the funeral, he'd driven her back to the FBI building so they could finish up the paperwork having to do with Heather Costello and as he drove, she'd found herself distracted by staring at his hands on the wheel. He had very nice hands for a man, she reflected, strong and capable but, as she also knew, his hands could be very gentle too. He drove and gestured with one hand as he talked and she'd found herself staring at his hands and wondering what those hands would feel like on her body…

She felt a flash of heat go through her at the thought. She had no doubt he would be wonderful. He was physically fit and a very nice example of masculine musculature which boded well and moreover, he was kind and considerate which made the likelihood that he would also be a considerate lover higher.

She found herself glancing at him sideways throughout the drive and then later in his office and when he'd driven her back to the lab after the paperwork was done.

He'd leaned close to her to look over the file at several points and she'd been very aware of the scent of him, the warmth from his body, and had to fight the urge to lean back and turn her head so their lips would touch…

He'd noticed her distraction and commented on it and she'd managed to shrug him off with an excuse that she was thinking about a Limbo case she'd been working on earlier that morning.

He'd just smiled and shaken his head a little—and she'd had the sudden urge to kiss the corner of his lips where they curved upwards.

She shook her head to clear it of the memories; that was getting her nowhere.

The point was that she had a problem. She was physically attracted to Booth and this physical attraction was distracting her at work and making her less efficient than she liked to be.

She wished she could have simply satisfied her biological urge with some other man—one she did not work with—but her body had quite clearly made up her mind that it wanted Seeley Booth and no other, at least not at the moment. She'd deliberately tried, more for academic purposes than anything else, to view some of the other FBI agents as potential lovers but found that her mind persisted in merely comparing them to Booth.

She had a problem but she'd thought about it and she'd found a logical solution. Not an ideal solution but then this wasn't the ideal situation and she dealt with reality as she found it, not as she wished it was.

She knew Booth found her attractive. She had caught the way he looked at her sometimes and the way he touched her, on her back or her shoulder or her arm, light, protective, all indicated a degree of physical comfort that spoke of some level of attraction.

She glanced at the clock to see that it was past 8 at night and the lab was empty except for her.

Good. She didn't want anyone else to know about this.

Decision made, she quickly pushed the speed dial button on her cell phone for Booth; he was the first number on her cell phone now and she idly wondered when that had happened.

"Hey, Bones. What's up?"

"Hi, Booth. I- uh- I was wondering if you could come over to the lab."

His tone changed, became sharper. "What is it? Is something wrong?"

"No, no! It's just—I wanted to- to show you something," Brennan improvised quickly, reflecting that it wasn't a lie. If she had her way, she'd be showing him something alright.

"Okay… You're sure you're alright?"

"Yes, Booth, I'm fine. You don't have to go all alpha male on me." She would never tell him that she didn't mind it, usually, when he was. She'd missed having someone be concerned about her, someone who looked out for her, in those lonely years after Russ had left and somehow Booth had become that person who always looked out for her.

Except that her feelings for Booth were not remotely sisterly.

She could hear his smile in his voice. "Okay, I won't. I'll be there in a few minutes."

She closed her phone and glanced around at her office to see that it was in its usual neat state.

She closed the blinds on her windows; there might not be anyone at the lab now but there was no point in taking chances if anyone decided to return for some reason.

She was aware that her breathing was shallow, her pulse quickening in anticipation, could feel her body heat rising as well and, after considering for a moment, deliberately took off her lab coat and then, after another moment, unbuttoned her blouse a little more.

She didn't normally indulge in the usual female rituals to attract males but for this once, for Booth, she figured it couldn't hurt.

The memory of his bare chest flashed through her mind, sending another flicker of heat through her body. The first moment she could, she wanted to strip his shirt off him and explore his chest with her hands and then her lips…

"Bones, what is it?"

She turned to smile at him as he entered her office, glancing around quickly.

"Hi, Booth. That was fast."

He shrugged a little, giving her a quick grin. "I was curious. So, what do you have to show me, Bones? I don't see a skeleton."

She closed the door, softly but firmly. "I didn't really want to show you anything. Not really."

He gave her a questioning look. "Then why--"

She slid onto the couch next to him, invading his personal space.

He leaned back a little. "Bones, what…."

She gave him a smile that telegraphed her intentions clearly and she saw his eyes widen a moment before she said, softly, "I wanted to do this," just before she kissed him.

He stiffened in surprise but a moment later, he'd responded, had pulled her against his body, as he deepened the kiss, slanting his lips over hers, the motions of his lips and his tongue effectively clearing her mind of anything at all except the desire to be closer to him.

He moved on, his lips tracing over the curve of hers before moving on to caress the line of her cheek and her chin, and as if from very far away, Brennan heard someone give a strangled moan, only to realize belatedly that it was her.

She slid her arms around his chest, tugging his lips back to hers, so she could kiss him with more force.

She'd wondered, for longer than she cared to admit, if Seeley Booth was a good kisser. And now she knew. He was an amazing kisser, his lips and tongue just seemed to know how to engage with hers…

Her body was positively burning now and it took a colossal effort to drag her lips away from his, breaking off from their kiss, and then hastily retreating backwards until she was standing a few feet away. She couldn't think straight being so close to him, certainly not with his eyes dark and hot with desire as he stared at her…

"Bones, I…" he began before trailing off, his eyes wandering over her flushed face and then down over her body, lingering on the cleavage revealed by her blouse.

She had to fight for some coherence. Think, Temperance! She'd never been so powerfully affected by a kiss before and the realization only strengthened her resolve.

"I- I think we should have sex," she blurted out.

He blinked, stared at her, as her flat statement fell into the silence in her office, broken only by the sound of their breathing.

Booth felt as if his world had just tilted, leaving him dizzy and disoriented—for the second time in five minutes. Only Bones could do this to him…

He'd walked into her office, a little concerned as to why she'd called him, only to have to fight his distraction at the sight of her. Her expression had been… soft, her face flushed, and she'd looked as beautiful as he'd ever seen her. (Admittedly, he'd never seen her look not-beautiful, didn't think it was possible, really.)

And then she'd sat down, so close to him, he'd forgotten to breathe and given him that smile—a seductive smile—which he'd never seen on her before—and he'd thought he might just have died and gone to heaven.

And then she'd kissed him—and he knew he'd died and gone to heaven.

God knew he'd dreamed of this—of kissing Bones, of having her kiss him—often enough and it was… It was… better than any dream, hotter than any fantasy… The reality of her, her warm and soft body pressed against his, the taste of her, the feel of her lips and her tongue, had all been infinitely hotter than anything he'd ever imagined…

He didn't know what he'd done but he thought he might have to be more grateful the next time he went to Church because this was a miracle. And then he forgot to think at all and only felt…

And now—he felt like he'd just been punched in the head.

Her blunt words had been about as unromantic as… as… a pile of bones and for the first time, he felt a flicker of dismay break into his haze of desire and love. Something was very wrong here. "What?"

She swallowed and looked down before she looked back up at him and her expression had the same effect on his arousal as a bucketful of ice-cold water would have had. She had her detached, rational expression on, even if it did contrast oddly with her still-flushed cheeks and swollen lips.

"I- I've figured it all out, Booth. It's the logical, rational solution to this problem," she began.

Booth inwardly flinched. Problem. She called this a problem. He was a problem… Pain was beginning to seep into him as he began to realize just what this was.

"I am very physically attracted to you, Booth. It's been distracting me at work and I just can't have that. My work—it's too important to me, and to, well, the victims. I need to be able to focus and I haven't been able to lately, because of you. So I thought that we should just have sex and I could get this—get you—out of my system and then I'll be able to give my work the attention it deserves."

Every word she spoke—and worse, the tone she spoke them in, her cool, logical tone—sliced at him with all the surgical precision of a scalpel and if it hadn't hurt so damn much, he might almost have laughed, bitterly, at how he could go from euphoria and arousal to this so quickly. "No, Bones," he finally managed to grind out.

She stared at him, looking confused. "No, what?" She had the gall to look confused after what she'd just said?

"No, I won't have sex with you," he clarified, almost welcoming the flare of anger he felt, nurturing it. Anger was better than hurt. He'd rather be angry at her. It made this easier.

"But- but you're attracted to me too."

Booth let out a bitter, unamused laugh. "No, Bones, you don't get it. I'm not attracted to you. That isn't what this is to me; it isn't what you are to me."

"I don't—I don't understand."

"Yeah, I get that you don't understand," Booth retorted, his tone clipped. "I thought—I thought you might but I guess I was wrong about you." He paused, trying to contain his breathing. His heart felt like it might burst out of his chest, swelling with pain and anger, and he had to look away, focused on his shoes, on her desk, on anything but her, as he forced himself to continue. He didn't know exactly why he was confessing all this except some part of him made him. Let her know just what she'd done. "I'm not going to have sex with you," he repeated, "not like this. Never like this. I want you, Bones, I won't deny it but it's not only that. It's because—it's because…" God, was he really going to do this? In all the times he'd imagined telling her the truth, he'd never once thought that his tone might be so harsh, never thought his heart would be aching like this, even as he was, simultaneously, so angry at her he felt as if he could shake her. "I'm in love with you, Bones."

She shook her head in automatic, instinctive denial. "No, you- you aren't. It- love is just about the chemicals in our brain--"

"Don't, Bones!" he cut her off sharply. "I really don't need to hear you listen to another of your attempts to reduce things down to their anthropological or biological roots. Love is real and it can't be explained away by science. And until you learn to accept that some things like love just can't be reduced down to bits of science, you are going to be one very lonely person."

He stopped, running out of words, and simply looked at her for a minute as she stared up at him with her eyes wide, with her usual expression of mingled confusion and denial whenever she was confronted with anything that didn't fit into her neatly-ordered, scientific world.

He suppressed a sigh. She was still so beautiful to him… But at that moment, he had to accept that it was over. He loved her but she could never give him what he wanted, needed, in a relationship; she wasn't capable of it. He understood that it was because she'd been too badly hurt in the past; he knew why it was so hard for her to trust. Once burned was twice shy, after all, and Bones had been burned more times than he cared to think about. But understanding didn't make it any easier to wait until she was ready and he was beginning to doubt if she would ever be ready. He couldn't do this anymore. He couldn't keep hanging around, trying so hard to be everything she needed and hoping she would one day realize that he loved her and would never hurt her.

He'd thought his heart had broken when Rebecca had refused to marry him years ago—but this, this hurt so much worse… He had to fight the urge to clutch his chest in an irrational attempt to ease the pain. He felt as if he were dying.

"Goodbye, Bones," he said quietly and walked out of her office.

Leaving Bones to stare after him, feeling oddly as if her chest had been hollowed out—a physiological impossibility, a small voice in her head spoke up—but for once in her life, she ignored the rational note and just accepted the metaphor, because it was the best description of how she felt.

And she had the sudden feeling that, rather than leading her to a solution, this time, her ultra-logical mind may just have led her to a very big mistake.

~To be continued…

A/N 2: *ducks and hides* If I promise to make things better, will you not kill me? (Although, maybe, if I ask very nicely, I can have a certain former sniper turned FBI agent be my personal bodyguard… A girl can dream, right?) Thanks for reading and please review!