Thanks to everyone who reviewed, favourited, and put me on alert. The response was great! I apologize for not getting this up earlier, but snowboarding gets in the way of writing sometimes!
Booth
Her voice floated through his mind as it always did, the different notes and inflections spelling out words in a language that sometimes even he couldn't understand.
It wasn't a normal 'partner' thing to do, coming over in the middle of the night, after a long day, exhaustion convincing him that the only thing that would make him feel content and relaxed would be the sight of his partner.
Partner.
How he hated the sound of that word.
Because how could he not, hearing it spill out of countless sets of lips, including her own, defining the limits to their relationship, confining him within the regions of the line that had once been so necessary.
Still was necessary.
Would likely always be necessary.
And how many times had he heard her say that she could, in fact, protect herself, defend her perfect body and perfect mind from harm, all on her own; who was he to say she needed someone to depend on?
Perhaps there were things she could protect herself from.
Perhaps there were things she couldn't protect herself from.
Perhaps he wanted to be there to make sure she didn't encounter any of them.
Seeley Booth was a chivalrous man.
And sometimes he felt that chivalry being lost on Temperance Brennan.
Other times, however, in a small smile or a slip of tongue, he could see the fading of her façades, of the restrictions that kept him away from everything he wanted with her.
Seeley Booth prided himself on being the 'feelings' guy.
His gut rarely let him down, and in the simple things, glances and touches and hesitations, he saw the connections between people, where they stood, how they felt about each other, what they wanted from the other.
How, then, had he not realized that what he had been feeling towards his Bones was love?
How could he have not connected everything she was to him to what he knew to be the most beautiful, delicate, incredible and dangerous thing in existence?
Maybe because he had only ever been 'in love' when the object of his affection had been similarly enamoured, as for the longest time, he had only seen his protectiveness as a need to keep his partner and best friend safe, his jealousy towards other men a result of her beauty and the proximity he had to it nearly every day, the emotional bond that they shared…
He had slowly been drawing closer, circling around the fortress she kept around her heart, looking for a way in, if only for a little while, before the guards of rationality and self-preservation threw him out; trying to get her to believe in the things she had given up on so long ago because he needed her to be happy, to be taken care of in the way that she deserved.
Perhaps he wasn't the feelings man.
Perhaps he was blinder than he had thought.
Because how could he have missed the butterflies, the increase in heartbeat, the rash of heat spreading up his neck, how couldn't he have linked all of these things to love, real love, love that made him want to scream to the universe that he would go to the ends of the earth for her, whisper to her softly in the quiet of midnight those sacred three words?
Who in their right mind would ever want to do harm to such a spectacular example of the goodness of humanity, the purity of science and the beauty of truth and innocence?
Apparently most of the world was insane, because it seemed at every turn she was put into danger, dinner dates turned sour, bombs set off when dancing should have been happening, shots fired, explosions on the road, criminals trying to escape, enemies after her and her family.
Her parents seemed to have set off the pattern with their sudden departure, a departure that had left holes in everything she had known.
He had heard the stories, gleaned from the cryptic comments that sometimes made their way out of her mouth that she had closed herself off, knowing, both from her experiences in abandonment and abuse at the hands of foster parents, that the only way she could deal with life's foul stench was to simply stop registering it as such.
Facts were clean, facts were quantitative.
Facts didn't set your heart racing, facts didn't make you want to vomit, facts didn't leave you gasping, wondering just why your luck had turned so sour so quickly.
Emotions did those things.
And he, slowly but surely, had reintroduced feelings and irrationality and unpredictability into her life.
Was she better or worse for it?
He didn't know what he was; though Temperance Brennan had changed his life so spectacularly and beyond anything he had ever seen coming when he had first laid eyes on her, the ice queen scientist, he was no longer sure he could continue keeping from her what he now knew he felt without cracking from the strain.
Her eyes, so blue and intelligent and full of platonic conviction, managed to chill and heat him at the same time.
Because every time she tried to tell him that he didn't need to hang onto gut feelings so stubbornly and blindly, he believed her a little bit more.
The problem being, of course, that he began to see everything she said about truth and data and pure science and chemical love in their relationship, and he found himself constantly arguing about what he thought was evidence and what he thought was just the hopeful thinking of a love-struck man.
Brennan and Booth, Temperance and Seeley, he repeated the names in his head until he wanted to scream, because everything they had ever been through convinced him that she would be with him forever, and that forever would slowly become more and more agonizing.
It would hurt him too much, to see that genuine, friendly smile and know that it didn't mean enough.
It hadn't been so bad before.
It had never been so good.
Not when every little smile from her sent a thrill of happiness through him, not when every little injury she did to the art of figures of speech made him grin like a fool, not when every moment they spent together was better than all the other good moments of his life put together.
Seeing her raise a child, his child, alone, would have broken his heart.
Now, seeing the same thing would smash it into pieces so small he was sure even her expert hands wouldn't be able to reassemble it.
But he had survived; she hadn't needed to take his sperm to pass on the traits she thought she was so selfishly keeping to herself.
If he hadn't, if something had gone wrong during the operation, he would have been watching her from heaven (assuming that he made it there, of course; over the years he had begun to doubt that anyone could), seeing his little girl or boy grow up without him, without a father.
He hadn't had a father, not really.
Not when the man who was supposed to have raised him instead had beaten him to the ground, his self esteem shrinking with every lash of the belt, dreams of glory and worthiness destroyed with every drunken shout, everything finally collapsing in a crescendo of hopelessness that had only ended when his grandfather, his Pops, had intervened.
And so, knowing the importance of a father in any child's life, knowing that he was good to Parker, knowing that he wouldn't be able to stay away from his child and would cause trouble with the single mother picture Brennan wanted to paint, he had declined her request.
And then, in the form of a cartoon baby whose voice he had only ever expected to hear talking to the Griffin Family in Quahog, his world had come crashing down, once again, and for what he knew wouldn't be the last time.
The experience he had had on that boat had been dismissed as some sort of divine occurrence, but the conviction, the unadulterated concern on his partner's face as she asked him, in one of the most serious voices he had ever heard her use, to trust him, had told him that perhaps there was something wrong.
And there had been.
Before, there were late night dinners and discussions of love and the making of it; after, memories that weren't real: whispered confessions of love, bodies rolling over and over to make it.
Before, there was friendship, deep caring and affection, a sexual tension he wasn't even sure meant anything.
After, an exposed need for a more than platonic relationship, a connection whose depth was discovered and explored with hesitant urgency, desire so strong it stopped the words from coming out of his mouth.
Because sometimes, even though he knew it was supposed to be the easiest thing in the world, Special Agent Seeley Booth found breathing to be something that could be stopped instantly by the most innocent of things.
The thought passed through his head more times than he could count, but he couldn't help but thinking, a million times a day: she didn't know just what she did to him.
She didn't know how he made her feel, how the smallest little thing sent his brain into spirals of sinful thoughts, how even the most minuscule sign of danger to her sent him into panic mode.
Against all odds, Temperance Brennan had become a pillar in her life, a symbol of strength, of decency, of working and working and working until the mystery was solved.
He had known he loved her, cared about her, wanted to protect
He just hadn't known how far that love had gone.
Infecting his body, his mind, his soul, with everything that she was, the smell of her perfume, the movement of her frame as she navigated her way through a crime scene, clumsy and yet completely graceful at the same time, the feel of her head on his shoulder at the rare moments when she let herself cry, the little sparkle of desire he saw in her eyes that he was sure was just a trick of the light…
His list could go on and on.
And indeed, it did.
He could now spend days and days writing love letters, poetry, odes to the way the sun caught her hair in ways making it glow in the same way he had been told the halos above the angels of heaven's heads glowed, serenades outlining just how many ways he wanted to make love to her, ballads telling the story of what their lives could be, if only she loved him.
If only she loved him.
There was no special romantic element to their bond, none that she could recognize, only years of closeness that seemed to mean nothing more than friendship to her, suggestive comments from her best girl friend sliding off of her surface, a sexual tension that he wasn't even sure was there anymore.
Temperance Brennan, monarch of rationality and logic.
Who but he could dive beneath her surface and discover that the ocean beneath the ice was filled with life, exotic and beautiful and teeming with things to discover?
Who but he could be naïve enough to be slighted in his search for love; her conviction that love, true love, the stuff of myth and legends was so impossible removed all hope for such an astronomical affair between the two of them.
And yet, everyday now, he dreamed of their potential…
Days and days he could daydream, he had certainly proved that with what he had experienced in the coma, but to miss days and days in the flesh with the best real version of Temperance Brennan he could get was something he couldn't do.
Not when there were a thousand moments to try and leap on, hope dashed dozens upon dozens of times a day, and yet…
When they had one of their moments, when their eyes met for what seemed like an eternity, when a smile was met with another secret, just for them smile, Booth knew it was all worth it.
It was worth it to keep the hope up, because what he felt for her had solidified and now he knew what he wanted, what he needed, what he was sure she needed.
He would wait.
Maybe forever.
Maybe for nothing.
Maybe for something.
Maybe for the moment when all of his inhibitions could be cast aside, his mind, body and soul thrown All In.
He was no longer a gambling man.
He had priorities: his son, his job, his Bones.
When he took a risk, he knew the likely outcomes, and only sacrificed when it was absolutely necessary, when living without what he was trying to save would be worse than any torture.
If she was content with what they had… well, there was no way she couldn't be.
Not when she had the ability to change it all in an instant, not when she had the powers of logic and intelligence and confidence, not when… not when he wanted it so badly he ached despite his efforts otherwise, and surely she could pick up on that, because she was, after all, the brain of their partnership.
Not the order-giving, life process-sustaining organ, although he supposed she was some of that too, but the part of their partnership that could judge things, interpret the facts, know the connections and the history behind things with her careful examinations.
How then, could she possibly not know that he had started getting closer to her, despite his best efforts, despite all the evidence that told him falling in love with Temperance Brennan would only lead him to pain?
How then, knowing that she could so easily end the suffering of the part of himself Seeley Booth had learned to embrace, could his Bones not give him what he needed?
The only logical explanation was, of course, that she didn't want to make love to him, just like he described so reverently, and so, she let them remain partners and best friends, because it was important to her
She just didn't feel that annoying, bad and yet oh so good burning on the inside that he felt when their eyes met in the way that made everyone else in the world disappear from his mind, for minutes, for hours, for days.
Because of this, there was a time bomb on their relationship, the timer set to the amount of strain he could take before running off in search of an emotional relationship, because at least in emotion the feelings were out there and explained and discussed, not hidden and mysterious and tabooed.
Maybe he could survive off smiles and hands at the small of her back, maybe he could survive off Christmas dinners and mistletoe kisses that meant nothing to her, maybe he could survive off fantasy and imagination, scenarios that he was painfully aware would come nothing close to the real thing.
Maybe friendship was enough.
Maybe he didn't want it to be.
But taking the plunge, diving off the ten meter board, was foolish, not without knowing how deep the water was beneath it.
Happiness had come rushing back into his life, along with the pain that had accompanied his memory confusion, for surely it was no coincidence that she, too, could allow a world where there was no line to cross to become her reality, if only in her fictional world.
Then again, he had dreamt about a life with her, about her, in his coma; hadn't that been a hint? Hadn't the fact that he had fleshed out what he desired and imagined it fully while he was in a coma been enough to make her realize that no, he was not content with the way things were?
He had been desperate, and so, boundaries no longer seemed important.
Seeley Booth had waited a long time to tell Temperance Brennan that he loved her, even though over the years it had evolved from the need for some sort of acknowledgement that they had a romantic connection to the actual desire to say the words, but once again, he became scared.
Obviously she had been uncomfortable with the possibility of him fathering her child and having an active part in its life, a role that was most commonly associated with having a romantic bond with the mother.
Obviously when he told her that he loved her in a professional, atta-girl kind of a way (which he simultaneously regretted and was thankful for), she had been unsure of what he meant, for why else would she have responded in the same way, trying out the new term as she usually did with figures of speech and pop culture references.
Obviously they were what they were, and would never become anything else.
He was grateful for what they did have, for it was unlike any relationship he had ever had before, and yet…
He, selfishly and irrationally, wanted more.
Who would mess with something so good, for the opportunity for a lover?
Who wouldn't take the risk, for the opportunity to have everything?
It was a constant battle, two sides within him arguing over pros and cons as interpreted body language and speech, studied by the very woman that caused him internal conflict.
She was so good for him, and yet, in being so good, she was the worst thing that had happened to him since his father had started abusing him.
His carefully laid barriers would crumble, he would revert back to her thirteen year old self, reckless and scared and unsure of how to protect himself and his brother.
She would be with him while he broke down, awkwardly comforting him while he cried, and it would hurt so much, but he wouldn't be able to throw her away, for who else would offer him such unadulterated concern?
Who else could heal him and harm him at the same time, all with a clumsy smile and awkward eye contact?
Perhaps he wasn't meant to have it all, perhaps he was meant to forever search for second best.
Perhaps he wasn't made for diving.
Not when every opportunity to jump was met with a pounding heart and heavy breathing, the air not making its way to his brain.
Who could think like that?
Who could judge distances, temperatures, signals and depths with all that noise in their heads, every little breath and movement exaggerated as adrenalin coursed its way through their system?
He certainly couldn't.
Not when he wasn't fighting a selfless battle.
Not when the only thing on the line was his own heart, not when there weren't any innocent lives to be saved, not when he wasn't serving his country.
No, he couldn't be so brave with her.
Not when every smile could mean pain or pleasure.
Not when every hand at the small of her back could mean acceptance or further withdrawal.
Not when the water looked so cold, and yet so invitingly refreshing.
If the time ever came, he was sure he would take the chance.
So sure.
He had been ready to, when they had almost kissed (he was sure of it, that they were about to touch lips) at the Egypt exhibit, but the squints had interrupted.
Or perhaps prevented a disaster, because who knew what would have happened?
Maybe she hadn't been gravitating towards her face, but noticing something on his cheek, a rebellious smear of barbeque sauce.
And maybe she when she had straightened out the tie that wasn't crooked she had noticed that they had been moving towards something she wasn't comfortable with and wanted to balance it out with what she thought was a friendly gesture.
Maybe she would never want the same thing he did.
Maybe it was better that way.
Maybe he didn't want to believe that.
Maybe he needed to.
He needed to stop all of this faulty interpretation of evidence, because when had pure facts ever gotten him anywhere?
No, Bones was the science woman; Bones was the woman to piece information together to come up with an explanation.
He couldn't do that.
He needed his gut, and his experience, his training, to figure things out.
Perhaps there was something in the little looks she gave him, in the way she studied him for what seemed like hours, something in the way she had begun to warm up to his affections.
But you cannot interpret in a language you do not understand, and the signals that Temperance Brennan sent out were constantly enigmatic.
And so, he was lost, in desperation for the unknown to be over, for the depth and safety of the water beneath to be discovered.
And there was no way to know without swimming down to the bottom.
He was a man of the terrible beauty of emotions and passion.
And yet there was a part of him, growing angrier and stronger every time she kissed him on the cheek after he drove her home, that didn't want to be one, that wanted to be able to sit and watch and record everything that happened and come to a logical conclusion.
With Bones, he wouldn't risk everything on a whim; no, he would assess and observe and…surely the scientific method, the thing that she depended on most, the thing that never let her down, would do the same for him.
He would try an experiment, not a full-blown dive off the thirty-foot board, not yet, not without knowing how deep the water was below, but a depth test, seeing just how far he could swim.
And if there was enough room to let him fall without hurting himself, without hurting her… they would take the fall together.
And that was why, when she answered her door, pajamas hanging adorably off her perfect, womanly frame, expecting a case file or takeout or a movie or a case of beer or something that in no way would ever come close to meaning he was in love with her, he tested the waters.
"Bones, would you like to join me for dinner tomorrow night?"