A/N: I'm glad everyone is liking this. I'd been waiting for someone else to write it but no one did, so I had to take matters into my own hands. Just so you all know, I dont have internet at home so this is getting updated when I have acess, which is variable. I also have a serial novel that I update every week. The addy is in my profile (not the home page link-I cant get it to change tho).

Pt 3

Saturday Brennan pulled into the driveway of a small white house with a 'for sale' sign in the neatly manicured front yard. She noted that the truck in the driveway looked about fifteen years old. She actually felt nervous and took a few breaths at the wheel before getting out of the car and going up to the front door.

Micah must have been waiting for her because he opened the door almost immediately after she rang the bell.

"Hi," he said, looking different out of his security uniform. He was wearing a blue polo shirt and jeans. He wasn't wearing shoes, just black socks. "You found the place okay?" he stepped aside so she could enter and was immediately accosted by a large striped cat, jumping onto the arm of the sofa situated next to the door and rubbing its head against her hip, no doubt getting hair all over her dress.

"Oh, you have a cat."

"His name is Socrates. Don't tell me you're a dog person."

"I like animals in general," she said, stroking the fat tabby. "Once I almost got a dog, but as a child I only had things like rodents and snakes."

"I bet you were very interesting when you were younger."

"Well, that's not how my classmates would have described me," she admitted. "You have a lovely home," she said because it was what people said. The truth was, it wasn't anything like she expected. She imagined all mens' homes to be a bit like Booth's place, full of vintage clutter and dark, masculine furniture. But the living room was painted pale yellow with a pink flowered border around the top of the walls. The sofa and love seat were floral patterned and there was a crocheted doily on the coffee table with an arrangement of silk flowers.

"My wife decorated, not me," Micah admitted, not quite meeting her eyes.

"Your wife?" Now she was confused.

"I'm-I'm a widower."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"It was a long time ago," he said, shoving his hands in his back pockets. "Cancer. You'd think I'd get used to it by now, but I always feel strange when I tell people."

"I can't imagine how that must feel," she admitted as he ushered her into a tiny dining room. The table was set with simple gold-rimmed white plates on blue placemats, her bottle of wine sitting in a bucket of ice near the center along with a bowl of salad, a basket of bread, and heavy covered dish.

"I'm not much of a cook," he said, obviously eager to move away from the conversation of his wife. "But I can make a mean chicken alfredo." He pulled out a chair for her.

"Well, everything looks wonderful."

"I'm glad you came over, Doc," he said, meeting her eyes for the first time since opening the door. "It gets lonely sometimes, here by myself."

"It's my pleasure," she said with a smile, and was glad she came.

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Micah did indeed make good chicken alfredo, and Brennan felt very full of both good food and good conversation by the time they had finished eating, and after three glasses of wine she was feeling particularly good.

"Why don't we take this party down to the den?" Micah suggested, standing up with a stretch. "It's where I spend most of my time anymore." Brennan nodded in assent and he picked up the wine bottle, which was actually a second bottle that he had bought (he informed her) that afternoon.

She followed him with her half-full glass down to the basement, where she immediately felt more comfortable. The den was finished with ugly wood paneling and green carpet. There was a battered brown sofa in front of a new plasma TV, a billiards table, and most importantly, an entire wall full of books and model airplanes. A table in one corner contained a new model plane project half finished. This room _felt_ like Micah in a way the rest of the house couldn't.

"It's a little shabby," he apologized. "But things tend to get that way when you've been in the same place for twenty years." Brennan had never asked Micah how old he was, but she estimated somewhere between forty-five and fifty.

She sipped her wine and wandered over to the bookshelves. The upper shelves held paperbacks-westerns, crime novels, science fiction. The lower shelves were arranged in the dewy decimal system and seemed to cover every topic imaginable. Most of them looked like library discards and many of them were college text books. "This is an impressive library," she said as she scanned the spines.

"I've read them all," he offered.

Her eyes traveled over to a framed photograph next to one of the model planes on a middle shelf. It was a portrait of a little boy of maybe ten. "I didn't know you had a son," she said.

He reached over her head and she was aware of him standing close behind her. He plucked another frame off a higher shelf and handed it to her. "This one is a little more recent." It was a snapshot of a short, round-faced young man in a graduation cap and gown. He had his arm around an equally short, frail looking woman with bright eyes and an even brighter scarf tied around her head. "He's twenty-one now, in college out west." He didn't mention the woman in the picture, who must be his wife shortly before she died. "He's doing well, but he's too much like his old man."

"How's that?" she asked, replacing the photo and turning around to face Micah.

"He's more into knowledge for knowledge's sake than any actual application of it."

"What is he majoring in?"

"A double major in History and Sociology."

"I always liked History," she said, sitting down on the couch. "And Sociology is very similar to Cultural Anthropology. I don't disapprove."

"Me either." He joined her, sitting on the middle cushion and turning slightly to face her. She noticed that their knees were pointing towards each other, a subconscious sign of attraction. She didn't usually think about things like that, but Sweets had mentioned it in relation to her and Booth once and it had stuck in her brain.

"We've never really had personal conversations before," she said. "Why is that?"

He shrugged. "I haven't done anything personal for quite some time. I guess after my wife-her name was Melissa-died, I didn't really want to get personal with anyone."

"I'm not always good at getting personal either," she admitted, and more importantly, felt comfortable admitting. "But that's because I have such a hard time understanding people and being understood."

"I always understand you," he said.

"I know. It's…nice."

They both fell silent and sipped their wine. She was starting to become slightly drunk and knew she should probably stop before she wasn't able to drive home. "Would it be nice if I kissed you?" he asked quietly.

She drained her glass the rest of the way and set it down on the coffee table. "I don't know," she admitted. "I suppose it depends on how good of a kisser you are."

He smiled a little. "I admit I'm out of practice. But I think we should find out."

As it turned out, he was a very good kisser.

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Pt 4

Dr. Brennan had been planning to come in early Sunday morning to work on the golf course victim (Tom Volger, age 56, cause of death still to be determined) but Micah was used to staying up all night, and it took her a while to feel sober enough to drive so by the time she staggered into the lab without enough sleep it was already ten in the morning. At eleven Angela called her.

"Well?" she demanded instead of saying hello. "How did it go?" Brennan felt herself blushing, which was ridiculous because there was nothing to blush about.

"Well-" she started, but Angela cut her off.

"Wait! Don't tell me now, let's do lunch. I'm about starving anyway."

Brennan glanced at the cleaned bones on her table. She really wanted to work-but at the same time she hadn't told anyone else she was having dinner with Micah and she discovered she wanted to talk to someone about it after all. "Okay. The diner in an hour?"

"Can we make it half an hour? I think I'd drop dead of starvation first."

"That is highly unlikely," she informed her friend, but agreed to meet her in half an hour. She pulled off her lab coat and went to gather her things. She was never going to get anything done at the rate she was going.

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Angela made her wait until they had their food, and she watched with distaste as Angela delved into her cheeseburger, fries, and double order of onion rings. "So spill," her best friend demanded.

"I kissed him," Brennan admitted. "A lot." She couldn't help but smile at the memory. "It was good."

"There's something to be said for older men," Angela said around her fries. "The young ones might be in their sexual prime, but experience…."

"He was married," Brennan said, stabbing at her salad. "His wife died a few years ago."

"Poor thing."

"He has a son in college."

"Wow."

She looked up from her salad. "I didn't think I was attracted to him, Angela. But I am. What should I do?"

"What do you mean? Go date him!"

"It's just…I don't usually date men like him…"

"You mean out of shape and balding?"

"I _shouldn't_ be attracted to him. It's confusing me."

"I've gone out with unattractive people lots of times," Angela said. "It's totally no big deal. See, you're attracted to his _soul_, which is better than liking someone for their face or their body."

"I don't believe in souls."

"Tell the truth. You're just afraid of letting anyone else in. Booth rejected you, so now you're making up excuses to avoid any other intimacies. Look, going out with Micah might be just what you need to get over Booth. Micah's a sweetie-pie. I thoroughly approve."

"But what if I hurt him the way I hurt Booth last year?"

"Love hurts. I think someone wrote a song about it." She grinned over her burger. "It'll be okay."

"I don't love him," Brennan said was a grumble, stabbing at the lettuce on her plate. "I just like him a lot."

"That's how it normally starts."