Every Lament is a Love Song

by Peacockgirl

After five months of amnesia, Booth realizes something that brings him back to himself—and to the anthropologist that loves him. Three part post End in the Beginning angst fluff fest. NOW COMPLETE

2. Part 2

Author's Note: First off, a huge thank you to all my wonderful reviewers, and to all the lovely people who put this story on their Favorites/Story Alerts. Having my inbox filled with notifications from for days was a wonderful surprise!

Secondly, despite my delay in writing and posting (real life was quiet insistent about claiming my time last week) I had this story all planned before I read the latest issue of TV Guide. (If anyone wants to hear me rant about that particular article, feel free to private message me!) But hey, if Hart Hanson can ignore his own spoilers, then so can I!

Obviously, I still don't own Bones.

Part 2

For the first time in five months Booth awoke to find his mind clear, memories settled properly in place. Considering that the love of his life was also asleep in his arms, he thought he'd never had a more wonderful morning.

Except for the awful racket of her alarm clock, proclaiming it was six a.m. and time to get ready for work.

Bones wasn't moving, and Booth quickly realized he'd need to take matters into his own hands. Set to a radio-station broadcasting only static, the damned alarm was quickly tainting his new favorite memory, and he could definitely think of much better ways to wake up his Bones.

It took a few lengthy seconds to untangle his arms from his still sleeping partner. He nearly lost his balance as he leant over her, slapping at the snooze button on her side of the bed. Smooth, Seeley, real smooth—squash the girl while she's sleeping. But he averted any such disaster, stopping the noise before falling back beside her. He didn't try to stop the chuckle welling up inside him. He was in bed with Dr. Temperance Brennan—his partner, his love, his Bones. A little voice in the back of his head that sounded suspiciously like Angela declared, "Finally."

Taking advantage of this strange new opportunity, he watched her as she slept. The depth of her slumber worried him a bit, but after the state he'd found her in last night he was not surprised. There were dark circles under her eyes, though he'd wiped away all the tear tracks. Her face was relaxed, her breaths deep and even, and she looked entirely at peace, a state she was rarely in while awake. It was that contrast that sealed the deal for him—she was not going in to work today. Not on time, anyway. She could give him hell once she woke if she wanted to, but he'd face her wrath gladly if it meant she got a few more hours of desperately needed rest. Before their nine minute reprieve expired he leaned over her again—a bit more carefully this time—and turned off the alarm entirely. He also grabbed her cell phone off the nightstand. Frowning at the discovery of three additional alarms set five minutes apart, he cancelled them all and switched her phone to silent.

Despite what he'd guessed when they first started working together, Bones wasn't a morning person. He'd first discovered that when he'd barged into Angela's boyfriend's house in New Mexico, bearing coffee and news about jurisdiction for an investigation. Angela had been up and about despite the early hour, but Bones had blinked owlishly at him from the pull-out bed, declaring, "I'm not really awake yet." It had been minutes until she'd re-oriented herself enough to focus on the case. Every time they'd gone out of town or undercover and he'd been around to observe her first thing in the morning it had taken quite a lot of coffee to get her functioning. Never had he had the privilege of waking up quite like this—though it had been somewhat close, their last morning with the Circus. They'd gone to bed with as much distance between them as possible on the tiny bed in their tiny trailer, but Booth had woken with his face buried in Bones' hair, an arm slung around her slender waist still draped in that ridiculous costume. He'd extricated himself before she awoke, pulled himself out of bed and made the coffee, ready by the time she joined him outside the trailer to pretend nothing had happened—but he'd been in love with her long before that point and the poignancy of knowing that might be the only time he woke up with her in his arms had stuck with him a lot longer than his sadness over how the case had turned out—a makeshift family on the verge of destruction because of an accidental death and a legal technicality.

This morning—this moment—was indescribably better, but the multiple alarms still worried him. It was easy enough to decipher why Bones was having such a hard time making herself get up in the morning. Knowing that he was the cause of such extreme, prolonged suffering wrenched at his gut. He had put her through hell, yet here she was, his angel, asleep beside him, offering redemption he did not deserve.

Oh, but he'd take it. Even if he could deny himself again—which he was beginning to doubt, the way her slumbering face and bare shoulder made his chest constrict with love and longing—he would not deny her. And she had made it quite clear last night that she wanted him—even though he wasn't sure why.

He'd spent too long making a mess of things. His freak brain-surgery amnesia had nearly pushed them to the breaking point, but he'd been throwing obstacles in their path long before that. It was time to man up and stop letting his own insecurities get in the way. Because he didn't want to see her staring up at him, so overcome by the unexpected end of heartbreak she couldn't even speak. He wanted her breathless and giddy, like she'd been in the Founding Fathers when he'd told her they were going to dine and dash—shocked and overjoyed and ready to follow him anywhere, even if she pretended to protest. He'd do anything to return her to that state, because no atonement she could demand would be too much.

He watched her for a long time, lightly tracing lazy patterns over her bare skin, fascinated by its softness under his calloused fingers. Never before had a woman so entranced him. She had seeped into every aspect of his being, and the thought that maybe now they could live their lives together—instead of fighting so hard to be separate—was a wondrous relief.

He only considered waking her once she began to stir on her own. A frown creased her face, and the soft keening noises she made deep in her throat were obviously sounds of distress. Unwilling to let her suffer through her nightmare—and far too certain of what the content of that nightmare was likely to be—he whispered, "Bones," in her ear, pausing to place a kiss just below her earlobe before calling her again and shaking her gently. "Wake up, sweetheart."

When her eyes snapped open they were filled with the fear he'd dreaded but half-expected to find if they ever did wake up together. But he knew that in the last five months the reason for that fear had changed dramatically. He no longer worried that she would shy away from their new-found intimacy, her flight response causing her to lash out and then run. Now she was afraid to trust what she was seeing, what she remembered—when for so long it was his memory that was a failure.

This he could remedy. "I know who you are, Temperance Brennan," he assured, reaching out to brush a few pieces of hair away from her face, hoping she'd take comfort not just in his words but in their corresponding memory, when he'd held her in that barn. "Daffodil, daisy, Jupiter," he continued, punctuating each password with a kiss—first one shoulder, then the other, then her forehead. "I know that we kissed for the first time in your office under mistletoe because you were blackmailed by Caroline Julian, but I also know that I wanted to do this long before then—and since." His lips met hers in a soft kiss, and he opened his mouth to her but pulled away before things got too heated.

"Morning, Bones."

She blinked a few times, as if trying to orient herself in this new paradigm shift, before a soft, languid smile spread across her lips. "Good morning."

For a few minutes they just stared at each other. Booth was happy to let her work out their change in relationship in that squinty head of hers. As long as she kept smiling at him like that, there wasn't much else in the world that he needed.

"What time is it?" she eventually asked. Instead of waiting for an answer she twisted in his embrace to check for herself.

"Nine thirty!" she squeaked in response, sitting up so quickly it was only Booth's sniper reflexes that kept him from getting clunked in the face. "I should have been at the Jeffersonian hours ago! Why didn't my alarm go off?"

"It did. And man, Bones, static? Could you possibly wake up to a more awful sound?"

"The more abrasive the sound, the less likely a person will be able to ignore it and remain asleep."

"Nice theory, but it took a good forty-five seconds before I figured out how to turn it off and you didn't even twitch."

"My phone alarms should have gone off as well."

"I turned those off, too."

"Why?" she demanded, pulling on the sheet to wrap it around herself, which only made her look even more like some angry goddess, eyes flashing and hair sensually disheveled. This was his Bones, not the strange sobbing woman he'd come upon last night. He'd never admit it, but he liked when she was riled up—he'd never met anyone else with so much spunk.

But he also liked being the one to calm her down. He reached out to grab her wrist, stopping her departure. "You were exhausted, Bones. You haven't been getting nearly enough sleep for months, and don't try to tell me that you have. I didn't exactly help matters by keeping you up so late last night." He couldn't resist waggling his eyebrows, and he almost lost his train of thought entirely when she actually blushed in response. "And I was also hoping we could spend the day together. The Jeffersonian is not going to fall to pieces if you don't show up, just this once, and I'm sure no one there will hold one day off against you. So whaddya say, Bones? Play hooky with me?"

He expected an irritated: "I don't know what that means," followed by an adamant refusal. He had a couple of plans for convincing her otherwise, but he was shocked when she rendered them all unnecessary, sinking back into the mattress with a firm, "Okay."

"Okay? Really?" He couldn't stop his grin, even if he had been somewhat looking forward to the convincing process. There would surely be many opportunities for that later.

"Yes. You presented a series of very rational arguments. And I would like to spend the day with you."

She was honest—she was always honest—and the fact she wanted to be there, lazing in bed with him rather than at her beloved Jeffersonian touched him deeply. "Thank you," he whispered, knowing his response was far from adequate.

"Thank you for coming back to me.

So soft, so vulnerable, like the little girl he'd never been able to envision until she'd trusted him enough to show him her parents' file. After he'd looked up her foster records he'd pictured her like that far too often—an amazing, lonely girl desperate to discover why she wasn't getting the love she deserved. As much as he'd grudgingly come to respect the man, sometimes Booth wanted to go back in time and beat some sense into Max Kennan before he abandoned his children, even if it meant Temperance never became his world-renowned forensic anthropologist partner.

"I never should have left. I'm so sorry, Bones. I'll never be able to say it enough."

"That really isn't necessary. You didn't choose to develop a brain tumor or have complications during surgery. You had no control over your memory loss, and it would be unfair of me to blame you for it."

Part of him wanted to agree and let the matter rest, but they'd both done too much lying to each other by concealing the truth. If they were going to work—really work—they needed to be honest.

"I'm not sure that's entirely true." He could almost see her walls rising back up as shock and pain flickered across her face. He reached out to her, the side of one thumb sliding over her cheekbone, trailing down her neck to rest solidly, with the rest of his hand, on her shoulder.

"I need you to listen to me, all right? Let me tell the whole story, and then if you want to kick me out I'll go."

She nodded once, eyes wide with a fear he desperately wanted to rid her of forever.

"Do you remember when I first woke up in the hospital, how I was rambling about some dream?"

"Yes. Dreams can be quite vivid but typically fade upon waking. You never mentioned it again, and I assumed you had forgotten."

"I didn't forget. I still remember it today just as clearly as I did in the hospital. When I woke up I knew there was something not right about what I'd just experienced. It didn't make any sense in the context of where I was. If I tried I could remember everything about myself until about eight years ago, and much of it didn't fit with what I had just seen."

"What did you see?"

"You." He trailed his hand back to her face, wanting to be reassuring, afraid that maybe this was the last time he'd let her do this. "We were married. We owned a nightclub called The Lab. You'd never been an anthropologist; we didn't deal with death every day. But most of our team was there, working for us. Angela was the hostess, Hodgins was some sketchy mystery writer who was always hanging around, Sweet was the bartender."

"My interns. They were there, weren't they? That's why you remembered their names."

"Yeah. Wendell was a bouncer, the British guy was the DJ, and Daisy—well I'm not sure what Daisy did, exactly, except be annoying and then fall for Sweets when she found out he was in a band."

"And Zach?"

"Was your assistant." It all made sense now, how she'd been so freaked by who he'd seemed to know when he'd awoken, and who he hadn't.

"It wasn't that I didn't recognize you," he told her, knowing now that those three words he'd unwittingly uttered were the most devastating he could ever say to her. "I knew you from my dream, but I knew that dream wasn't right, as much as I wanted it to be, and I couldn't find any actual memories to correspond with your face. In our dream a body was found in our club. Everyone we worked with thought I'd done it to protect you. They all lied to the police to protect us, and the killer turned out to be Jared, but none of that really mattered. What mattered was we were in love, and so happy, and then I woke up and you were telling me that we were just partners, and I understand now why you reacted like you did but at the time I was just so confused."

He paused, trying to gauge how she was taking his story. She was looking at him like a bone on her table, so he waiting a bit longer, letting her process.

"You called me Bren. In your dream. That was your nickname for me, wasn't it?"

"Yes. In my dream world you'd never seen a dead body, so 'Bones' was hardly appropriate. Apparently my alternate self was a lot less creative. Had a rather bizarre sense of style, too. He kept wearing this floppy old hat like the one my grandfather used to wear."

"I still don't understand why this is your fault."

His desire to touch her was so strong he finally realized maybe he needed to run his hand down her arm to reassure himself she was there, and not the other way around.

"Because the more I was assured we weren't romantically involved in real life, the more I clung on to that dream world. I didn't believe you about being just partners—not immediately. The nurses told me you'd stayed at my side the whole four days I was out. And I knew you were upset when I didn't remember you—you cried. But then you didn't cry again. Not that I saw. We spent all that time together, but you never shared anything personal. You anecdotes were all very—"

"Cold?" She was drawing in on herself, and that was not his intention, but she needed to know this. He had to tell her now, before he lost all nerve to do anything that might upset her just because he needed her in his arms.

"Clinical," he corrected. "I get it now Bones, I really do. I know you were devastated, and you were just falling back on all your familiar coping mechanisms. But I'd forgotten how you dealt with pain, so I didn't understand. And then Angela would say things—"

"I told her not to tell you all her theories about our relationship!"

"She didn't. She didn't tell me anything useful at all. But it was always obvious that she wanted to say something. And she would show me these pictures, and most of them involved the two of us. We were never too close—well, except for that one of us in Vegas—but in many of them we seemed, well, intimate. You'd be on the platform, bending over your bones, and I'd just be looking at you. Or all the squints would be in the picture, but we'd be making faces at each other as if no one else was there. I'd beg Angela to explain and she'd just say things like, 'You spent a lot of time together.' But she was always so sad when she said it. I'd get the same kinda vibe from Sweets, whenever I mentioned you or asked why we'd started seeing him in the first place. So I started to think that the problem wasn't that we'd never had feelings for each other, but that we had and something had happened."

"And then, about six weeks after I woke up, I did have a memory. You'd come with me and Parker to the park where I used to take him. We sat down on that bench while he played and—"

"Oh God," she moaned, sitting up and wrapping her arms around herself, ready to flee with just a little more provocation. "We've crossed that line now. Are you sorry?"

"No!" He pushed himself up so he could pull her into his arms. She didn't return the embrace, but she didn't fight him, either. "I'm not sorry for anything that happened since I stepped into your apartment, except for all the pain it took to get us here. What I'm sorry for is drawing that damn line in the first place." She buried her neck in the crook of his shoulder, and he ghosted a hand down her bare back, causing her to tremble. "Please look at me."

She pulled away only enough to peer up at him, and he wanted to forget all this emotional honesty crap and just kiss her senseless. That seemed a much easier way to reassure her of his love.

"I never told you the reason why I drew that stupid line. Yes, Cam got hurt, and I wanted to prevent something like that from happening again. But Cam didn't get hurt because we were sleeping together. Epps was going after you, not me. I knew that, and I was so terrified that he was going to succeed. Cam knew that she had to take her time with the autopsy, but I was so worried about you that I pushed her to rush, and she almost died. I shouldn't have been with Cam again in the first place when I knew it would never go anywhere serious, and I never felt nearly as much for her as I do for you, but she's a good woman, and a good friend, and she almost died because of me. Drawing that line was an excuse to end it with Cam, but it was also a way to punish myself, because after almost losing you to that gravedigging bastard I knew that I wanted to be more than partners someday. But I shouldn't have let that almost get Cam killed, and I felt so damn guilty. Later I figured I was saving myself a lot of heartbreak in the long run, because you deserved someone far better than me, and surely you knew that."

He was still rather afraid she'd realize that now. He'd never met anyone else good enough for her, but surely such a man existed, somewhere. It was just always obvious to him that the men she dated did not qualify.

"You have a tendency to be unnecessarily hard on yourself," was her eventual response, as she turned one of the arms trapped between their chests so she could trace his abdominals.

The touch, and her words, made him gasp. "I've killed people. So many people."

"So have I."

"Only because of me."

"What happened after you remembered the line?"

She kept touching him, and he allowed her change in subject. "I only remembered our conversation—not what had led up to it or why I had said what I had. But I figured if we had ever been involved, I'd ended it—which I found incredible stupid, but it seemed to fit the situation as I saw it. It would explain your distance, the looks everyone gave us. I didn't want to make things harder for you, in case I'd broken your heart. But I couldn't let go of the picture of us in my head. I clung even tighter after that, because it seemed like my dreams were the only place where I could have you."

"I think I stopped myself from remembering," he confessed, and her hands stilled, just as he feared they would. "I stopped actively trying to remember, at any rate. I was so afraid that once I remembered my real life, I'd forget what I dreamt. And I didn't want to lose the feeling of making love to you, of joking together in our car about being outlaws, of us trusting each other completely even though everyone thought you were unfaithful and I was a murderer."

Never had he wanted to read her more than in that moment, but her expression was neutral. If she pushed him out of bed he wouldn't blame her, though she didn't make a move to do so.

"What made you let go of that?"

He let go of her, lying back so he could stare up at the ceiling and avoid her eyes. "You came to see me yesterday, and there was no reason—you just came. And then you cried again. And I finally realized how absolutely devastated you still were that I couldn't remember. You weren't coping. You hadn't moved on. And even if our relationship had ended, you still had feelings for me. You loved me. You ran out of there and I suddenly knew why. I wanted to follow you, but there was nothing to say. I knew the only thing that would make you feel better was if I remembered. And I wanted so desperately to make you feel better because I knew that I loved you. It wasn't some by-product of my dream—my dream was probably some by-product of the fact I'd been in love with you for so long. I went to the diner for dinner, and the memories started coming back."

He'd tried to concentrate on his paperwork and clock in his last few hours of the day, but all he'd been able to see, over and over, was her face, crumpled in tears, her emotions lying raw just under the surface while he looked away and let himself be blinded by a fantasy. He went to the diner because she'd mentioned they'd gone there together a lot—so many times, he figured, that he'd even dreamed about it. Instead of choosing from the menu he asked the waitress what he usually ordered, and she'd looked at him a little strangely before bringing out a burger and fries. The food was good, but there was something daunting about how many fries there were on his plate, which seemed such an absurd thing to bother him. Burger gone, he stared at them until he could see her nimble fingers snatch one away while her voice lectured him in a teasing lilt he had not heard since awakening. When the waitress returned and asked him if he wanted a slice of pie he nearly bolted from the booth at the explosion of images in his mind.

It was a small miracle that he made it back to his apartment in one piece, because being in his SUV prompted even more memories—countless arguments and discussions in nearly every tone imaginable. He stepped into his apartment and remembered how her voice had trembled when she'd revealed the abuse she'd suffered from some of her foster parents, how she'd been nearly as fragile when she'd come to admit that she wanted to believe in love. His mind and his heart seemed ready to burst with the intensity of everything that came flooding back to him, and it had taken hours to make sense of what he was experiencing, putting the pieces back in chronological order until he finally knew how he'd come to be in that hospital bed, with some gorgeous yet mysterious woman keeping vigil at his bedside.

"It took a few hours to process everything, but I came by as soon as my brain had settled. You know the rest."

He felt her lie down beside him, their shoulders brushing, but he didn't dare look at her. In the silence he could hear her breathing, which was just a little too pronounced.

"I did have a reason for going to see you. It was irrational, but it was a reason. It was five months from yesterday that I realized I was in love with you."

He'd known for a long time that she had a lot of heart, but just how much stole his breath away. He turned to find her watching him with wide, bashful eyes, as if afraid he'd shy away from her admission.

"I feel like such a dog, Bones. I hurt you—so much—and even though I didn't mean to, I did. I was selfishly holding on to some dream world when you were right in front of me, ready to offer everything I'd ever wanted. I put you through hell, and it took me five months to realize it. So much for my gut."

"You did hurt me. Although it's impossible to quantify, these past five months have certainly felt like the worst in my life." Her words hurt like her right hook—always so blunt, his Bones—but she made no move to actually assault him, even though he deserved it.

"But you were not the only one at fault," she continued. "I gave you little indication of my true feelings—feelings even I wasn't totally cognizant of at the time. Indeed often I acted in direct contradiction of them. I assume that I've caused you pain on more than one occasion. I shouldn't have accompanied your brother to that gala, and I never should have believed his disparaging words against you."

That had been one of the least pleasant memories he'd re-experienced, but there seemed no need to bring it up now. "We've been over that already—"

"And the baby. I was extremely inconsiderate of your feelings when I asked you to make the donation. I should have taken into account your situation with Parker rather than focusing on my own selfish desire. If I hadn't pushed the issue so forcefully, perhaps the last few months could have been prevented."

Her eyes were tearing up again, and he feared a return to the hysterical state he'd found her in last night. While part of him was relieved she was able to recognize there had been something cruel in her request, he found he'd rather brush that aside than let her take responsibility. Certainly he couldn't let her blame herself for the last five agonizing months. "Now wait a second. That may be the least rational thing I've ever heard you say. And I don't mean that in a good way. My brain tumor didn't suddenly appear because you asked me to father your child, and I agreed without discussing conditions. It'd been growing up there for a while. If anything, me flaking out may have been the best thing that could have happened. Otherwise who knows how much it could have grown before anyone realized. It was awful, but I'm here now, and I'm fine. As for the baby—"

"I don't want to talk about that. It was a selfish, impulsive request that I'd like to forget I ever made."

"That's a shame. Cause I meant it when I said you'd be a great mom. And I think any kid of ours would be pretty darn cute. And brilliant."

She tentatively met his eyes. "You'd have a baby with me?"

"I'm pretty sure I already told you that," he teased, suddenly picturing her swollen with his child, grumbling as he talked to her stomach; cradling their newborn, hair plastered in curls to her face as she beamed at the baby with more radiance than he'd ever seen; rocking the infant to sleep as she sang lullabies with that beautiful voice of hers; images that had come upon him so strongly when she'd first voiced her request that he'd been unable to deny her, even though the situation she'd suggested was absolutely ludicrous. When she'd mentioned the possibility of other fathers he'd known he'd suffer all the heartbreak of having a baby with Bones without really having a baby with Bones, because it would be better than watching her raise some other man's child. There was always a chance that someday they'd finally get on the same wavelength, and then there would be a ready-made family, already waiting for him.

But now… Now it could be different. Better. None of this sperm bank donation crap. Their baby would be conceived out of love, the way God intended, and he'd be there for every step of the process. That is, if that's what Bones wanted. But he figured it had to be, the way she was still lying beside him rather than hopping a plane to Guatemala so she didn't have to deal with all these emotions.

"When you mentioned having a baby with me I wanted that—so much—that I was willing to ignore the circumstances. The thought of having a family with you—even though I knew it would be messy and complicated—I couldn't say no to that. Now I think we're well on our way to cleaning up that mess, and there's little I want more than having kids with you. Although I vote for putting that off for a little while. Having a kid—it changes your life. I'd like some time for just you and me, before we throw another person into the mix. But someday…"

"Someday soon," she decreed, and he was a little puzzled by the edge in her voice as she emphasized her second word. Was she remembering his dig about her biological clock, back when they were taking care of Andy?

"Soon," he agreed. A year ago he'd been sure she'd never want to have children and now here she was, impatiently waiting to have one with him. It was almost as hard to grasp as one of her squinty sentences.

"So you forgive me?" she asked.

"Of course I do. Do you forgive me?"

"It isn't rational. I should be angry. But I'm not. I'm really, truly not. Isn't that part of love—forgiving someone when they hurt us, because you know they don't mean to?"

Maybe this was his post brain surgery coma dreamworld. That or an honest to God miracle. "Yeah. Yeah, it is. I'm so proud of you, Bones."

She beamed, and he reached out to claim her hand in his, entwining their fingers. He'd thought it might be awkward, the two of them in bed together, but it felt like the most natural thing in the world.

He thought she'd started to drift back off to sleep when she spoke again. "While I was waiting for you to wake up in the hospital I started writing a book. You and I owned a nightclub staffed by various employees of the Jeffersonian. One night a cadaver was discovered in the bathroom. I never finished the book—never decided who had done it. But sometimes, after visiting hours were over the hospital was so quiet, and I was just too tired to write anymore, so I would read parts of it aloud to you. There's been documented proof that some coma patients can hear what's going on around them."

"You think that I heard you, and my subconscious expanded on the scenario?" he asked, amazed at the thought that they'd been so in synch, even when he was comatose.

"I think we both wanted the same thing, and were too afraid to admit it, so we sought alternate methods of experience."

"Wow. That's sounding awfully psychological for you, Bones."

"That's because it's subjective and entirely unable to be proven. Please don't tell Sweets."

He chuckled. "I won't. So, were we married in this book of yours?"

"No. But we were together. In love. More than just partners."

He could live with that. Maybe she'd never let him slip a ring on her finger. But she let him lie there beside her, despite everything. As much as he hated seeing her in pain, her despair had finally vanquished his insecurities. He could no longer doubt that she loved him just as strongly as he loved her, and even though many obstacles surely still stood in their path—he was not looking forward to explaining this to his boss—they'd overcome them together. The life they'd share would be better than the one in his dream, because this would be built on their past experiences, their four years of dancing around each other as they learned to share and trust and love.

"Sounds perfect," he told her.

"Nothing is ever truly perfect."

"Well, we'll just have to get as close as we can."

"I'm sorry I was such a mess last night. I was experiencing an unexpectedly strong emotional release that I was unable to compartmentalize."

He reached out to catch her chin so she would have to look at him. "Hey, no worries. You can cry on my shoulder—or any other part of me—whenever you need to. You were exhausted, and overwhelmed, and glad to see me, I hope. We all break down every once in awhile. It doesn't make us any less strong. It just makes us human." He loved when she watched him like this, and he knew he was actually teaching her something—something even more important than all that squinty knowledge in her genius head. But he didn't want to end on too serious a note—not after how serious their lives had been for so long. "But I hope every time we're together doesn't end up quite like that. So many tears, and a guy starts to worry about his technique."

In truth he almost hadn't been able to do it. It went against something deep inside him to make love to a woman who was so obviously upset. He'd imagined their first time together a thousand different ways, but none of them involved her bawling and speechless. He'd almost been a gentleman and denied her request until she was thinking more clearly, but he'd realized that leaving her then would do far more damage than doing what she wanted; she'd wake up mortified and reassured that no one loved her enough to stay, and all the progress they had made with their admissions would be lost. She was his rational empiricist, and what she needed was proof: proof of his presence, his memory, his love. And he could give her that, even if there was none of the romantic lead-up she deserved. He'd sacrificed all his plans so he could bring her back to herself in that moment. God willing, they'd have plenty of time later to recreate some of his more preferable scenarios.

"I don't think you have to worry about that," she replied, her voice a sultry purr that reminded him of the beginning of their partnership, when she'd infuriated him but something about her made him want to throw her against a wall with maddening frequency.

"And Seeley?" She arched one perfect eyebrow before inching even closer. Her penchant for saying his first name in moments like this was making it his new favorite word in the English language, and he'd spent more than thirty years hating his first name.

"Hmmm?" he managed to utter. It took all his self control to wait for her response rather than devour her right then.

"I don't feel like crying now." Then she pounced on him, her body crashing against his as their mouths collided. He laughed when they broke apart for air, deep belly laughs he couldn't control or contain, and though she looked at him for a few moments like he'd grown a second head soon she was laughing along with him.

Forty-seven minutes later she rolled away from him with a satisfied sigh. Sensing she was about to drift back off to dreamland, Booth poked her twice in the ribs. When that provoked no response he started to tickle her stomach.

Mind still a bit hazy from their love-making, he was not expecting it when she pulled a pillow out from under her head and whacked him with it.

"Oomph," he groaned, falling away from her. "What was that for?"

Her eyebrow cocked again, but this time it was all feigned innocence. "You told me I needed my rest. I was resting."

"You also need to eat. You're skin and bones, Bones. I can count your ribs." He couldn't help but smirk at his juvenile pun.

She rolled her eyes. "Homo sapiens have—"

"Twelve pairs of ribs, I know," he finished, leaving her to wonder whether he'd really counted or had actually listened to one of her anatomy lessons. "But they shouldn't be so prominent. Breakfast time."

"I suppose we could go to the diner."

"Nu-uh. Not today. I'm making pancakes."

"You really don't have to do that."

"I want to. You've been taking care of me for months, Temperance. Let me take care of you." They had one of their moments, staring into each other's eyes while the world fell away, but then he kissed her soundly, relishing in his newfound permission to do that. "I won't burn down your kitchen, I promise. And I make some pretty good pancakes, if I do say so myself."

"You just did."

He chuckled, and thought, far from the first time, that sometimes she did that on purpose. Maybe he did act dumber than he was to let her sound smart—but if he was still a betting man he'd put money on the fact that his expressions didn't trip her up nearly as often as she pretended they did.

"I don't want to share you with the world today."

"What about Parker?"

"He's already at school, and he has Boy Scouts tonight." Funny, how thrilled he was to be able to remember such a detail. "I'll call Rebecca this afternoon, see if I can pick him up from school tomorrow and spend the rest of the day with him. But today is for you and me."

She nodded once, and then she was sprinting out of bed. He barely had time to admire the view before she'd plucked his t-shirt from the floor and pulled it over her head.

The sight of her in his t-shirt and nothing else stirred something inside him she'd surely label as "alpha-maleness" or some such anthropological nonsense. For a few seconds he was overwhelmed by how right it seemed for her to look that way. Then he realized that for the first time in as long as he could remember he was absolutely, positively content.

"Not that I'm complaining," he pouted after ogling her just a bit too long. "Cause I'm really, really not, but what am I supposed to wear?"

He half expected her to pull out some small, girly t-shirt and hand it to him with a smirk. He knew he'd probably wear it, because he'd learned long ago that he couldn't deny her much of anything—except for a gun and driving privileges.

Instead he watched her long, tantalizing legs, only the top few inches covered, as she pulled a gray t-shirt from her closet and handed it to him. He let it unfold, shocked to find "FBI" written on the front. He'd given this particular shirt up as a casualty to the gnomes that stole clothing from laundry machines at least a year ago.

"Where'd you get this?" It felt softer than his laundry ever did, and it smelled of her.

"After you were shot I … took it."

He could see it all so clearly now—that which he'd never suspected. She'd known where his key was that day she stormed his bathroom because she'd already found it. He'd been dead, and she'd broken into his apartment to what—steal some of his clothing? Sleep in his bed, maybe? Surround herself with his things, dwell irrationally on the person who had promised never to leave her, but had anyway. Oh God. And he'd been hurt, once he came back, that she hadn't seemed to care that he had died. But she had. Oh she had. He'd been causing her pain far longer than he had realized.

They had to work on their communication.

She turned, going back to her closet to pull on a pair of pajama shorts. He put on the shirt she had given him before retrieving his boxers and sweats from the side of her bed. When she hadn't moved by the time he finished he approached her quietly, placing a hand on her shoulder.

He expected tears. But she spun, and her eyes were dry. The smile she gave him was small, but genuine. And he knew he'd been forgiven again.

The past was the past, and could not be changed. But the future? Oh, the future.

"Breakfast?" she asked.

"Breakfast," he echoed with an answering smile of his own. Instinctively his hand sought the small of her back, but instead of staying there his fingers drifted, curling around her waist and pulling her beside him toward the kitchen.