It was dark. Blindingly dark. Dust clogged her throat. Her right hand was trapped underneath her body, but her left was free. She moved it experimentally. No pain, which meant that aside from some scrapes and bruises she was unhurt. There was something heavy on top of her. Her mind blanked. Then she remembered.

"Booth."

No response. Was he unconscious? Worse?

She was pinned. By Booth. In the dark. Underground. This wasn't happening. Couldn't be happening. Her heart rate jumped. Sweat broke out on her brow. She struggled to free herself.

"Booth!"

The space had been small to begin with, but now she imagined it closing in on her, squeezing precious air out of her lungs. They were going to die here. They would lie here, trapped under all this rock, and slowly suffocate.

No!

But it was a silent scream. Even now, with fear washing over her in great, icy waves, she knew better than to set off sonic reverberations in tunnels already weakened by the quake.

She shoved her free hand through piles of debris, grunting when her fingers slammed into rocks or snagged on jagged edges. Where were the damned flashlights? She had to find them. And they had to get out of here. Now. Before an aftershock brought the whole place crashing down on their heads. She squirmed again, desperate, her pulse pounding in her ears while she sucked in air that belonged to the dead.

There was a low groan. Above her, Booth shifted. His weight lifted off her, then his hand brushed against her arm. She flinched, startled by the contact, and listened to him cough and spit.

"Are you okay?" he asked. She clung to the sound of his voice.

"I'm fine." But her voice trembled, and she couldn't make herself stop shaking. She pushed herself upright and listened to rocks and gravel sliding off her legs as she stretched them out in front of her. This isn't the Gravedigger again. Don't panic. Think. But it didn't matter because in the end, nature and geology might accomplish what Heather Taffet could not.

She swallowed hard. Fought to steady her voice. She wouldn't let the panic win. "Can you find your light?"

"Um. Hang on a sec."

She heard him digging through rubble. Heard rock clatter against rock. The slide of gravel. Booth's grunt as he heaved aside something heavy. Forcing air into a throat thickened by fear, she shoved her hands through the rocks again and again. She strained to see something, anything, but it was no use. It was too dark. Darker than it had been in her car that time. Darker than - Nobody knew they were here. Icy fear rolled through her. Nobody knew. Why hadn't she told Tia?

"Bones." Booth's hand landed on her arm. She jumped, startled as a wild deer, then latched onto his fingers with a kind of desperate gratitude. "We're going to be okay."

"Nobody knows where we are, Booth." She hated the weakness in her voice. Frustrated, angry at herself for losing control, she concentrated on breathing. Inhale. Count to three. Exhale. Her head started to clear, but her hands still shook.

"I thought you told Tia." He didn't sound upset. He didn't even sound very worried. She felt his fingers tighten on her arm, then loosen again in a light squeeze that was probably meant to reassure her.

"Only that I was going to show you around. I didn't give her any specifics." She refused to cry. They were going to be okay. They were going to get out. Booth was with her, and Booth never gave up. Never.

"Don't you think she'll figure it out when we don't show up back at camp tonight?" Another stone clattered against the far wall.

Talking helped her focus. She was tempted to thank him, but it seemed strange to thank somebody for something as simple as conversation. "She doesn't live on this island. She's staying with a family over on Flores. She only helps out here part time."

"And if we don't get back before she leaves?"

Blunt mannered Tia wouldn't think twice. "She'll probably assume we're off having sex someplace."

There was a heartbeat of silence, and when he spoke again, he sounded a little strained.

"So ..."

"Well, she won't be surprised not to see us before she leaves today, and tomorrow she's flying back to Madrid to spend the holidays with her family, so ..."

"Okay," he said briskly, "so we're on our own. We'll figure something out. Starting with-" She heard a faint click, and suddenly the small chamber was flooded with light. "This."

She blinked against the sudden contraction of her pupils. Relief pushed a sigh from her lungs and calmed her hands, but when the light played over the chamber entrance she tensed.

"Oh, no."

It was filled with fallen rock.

Booth shrugged and looked around. "Well, we'll just have to dig ourselves out. Where's that knife?"

"Parang," she corrected automatically. "You can't cut them up, Booth."

He gave her a look. "I want to use it as a crowbar."

"Oh." She needed to pull herself together. She was no good to either of them this way. "I-" She'd been about to say she couldn't find it when her hand closed over the handle. "Here." She pulled it free and handed it over. "Booth?"

"What?" He was already digging at the rocks that blocked the tunnel, grunting occasionally as he heaved aside some of the heavier boulders.

"Never mind." She wasn't going to ask what if questions. There was no point. One of two things was going to happen: either they would dig themselves out, or they would die.

When she finally found her own flashlight she gripped it hard, her fingers pressing into the ridged rubber until her palm throbbed a complaint. She should put it in the pack. They only had two, and using both at the same time would be a foolhardy waste of battery power. She knew that. But it still took every ounce of will she possessed to drag the day pack into her lap and shove the flashlight inside.

With her jaw set so tight her teeth ached, she zipped the pack closed, set it aside, and moved to help Booth.

It took a while to clear enough rubble so that they could work their way out of the burial room and through the short connecting passage to the central chamber. When she finally got to her feet beside Booth at the other end, Brennan was glad to straighten and stretch, flexing the ache from her wrists.

"Damn it." Booth's low curse drew her attention to the dusty track of his flashlight beam. Part of the ceiling had collapsed, blocking the entrance to the main tunnel, and judging by the size of some of the boulders, there was no way they were going to dig themselves out this time.

"I don't suppose you know another way out?" he asked, his shoulder brushing against hers.

Staring at the blocked tunnel, she shook her head and pressed fingernail-shaped crescents into her palms. "No."

They both followed the slow track of the flashlight beam through the cavern, but the only openings were the one they'd just emerged from and another, smaller hole some twenty feet away.

"Any idea where that leads?"

"No, I've never been that way."

His light tracked back to her, the beam lighting her face, but she dropped her eyes and turned her head away, hoping he wouldn't see how worried she was.

"Let's hope it isn't a dead end," he said quietly.

She wished he hadn't said that. "Maybe we should stay here."

"You were the one who just said-"

"I know. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe Tia will think to check the cave." She couldn't make up her mind, couldn't think straight. The feeling was both unfamiliar and highly unpleasant.

"Maybe."

"Booth, what if we never get out of here? What if ..." It was a pointless, self-defeating question, one she'd sworn she wouldn't ask, and a perfect example of negative thinking, which she abhorred. But she couldn't seem to make it stop running through her mind. Would they excavate her skeleton some day? Would a forensic anthropologist pore over her bones and Booth's and determine that they'd died of starvation, or worse, been crushed to death by a massive cave-in? The thought sent a chill racing up her spine.

"Hey." His voice, grim and determined, brought her eyes leaping back to his. His jaw was set, and he looked almost angry, but his gaze was warm, soft. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you, okay? We're going to get out of here. Together."

"But how? The tunnel's completely collapsed. Nobody knows where we are. And even if they did, there's no way to know how badly the system was damaged by the quake. We're trapped down here." Despite herself, she felt panic rising in her throat. "I don't want to die here, Booth. Not like this. Not buried alive." It was her worst nightmare coming true, and she fought the urge to claw at the rocks.

"Bones!"

Sharp and hard, his tone brought her eyes around to his face as he grabbed her shoulders, squeezed, and then shook her, not enough to hurt, but enough to snap her out of it. She stared at him, her throat aching with the effort to draw in enough air.

"We're going to be okay. I promise."

"I'm sorry. I-" She swallowed hard, forced her chest to expand. "I'm not helping."

"Hey, if anybody has the right to fall apart in a situation like this, it's you."

She shook her head. "No. I shouldn't have allowed myself to lose control. It was completely irrational."

He stared at her for a long moment, and she wondered what he was thinking. Then his hands fell away from her shoulders. "Right. The first order of business in any survival situation is to take inventory. What do you have in that pack of yours?"

"I told you earlier." She disliked having to repeat herself and had to fight the urge to snap at him. "First aid kit, water, and flashlights."

He shook his head. "Specifics, Bones. We need to know what we have to work with." It was clearly his soldier voice, the one he probably used with his trainees. While she didn't appreciate his tone, she knew he was right. She blew out a breath and dragged the pack off shoulders that already ached from tossing aside rubble.

Ten minutes later the contents of their pockets and the daypack were spread out around them on the cavern floor. They had two and a half liters of water, a small flint, fifty feet of parachute cord, a rudimentary first aid kit, a can of Sterno, an emergency rain poncho, two packets of powdered bouillon (one chicken and one beef), two granola bars, and one four ounce bag of trail mix. They also had some insect repellant, a collapsible aluminum pot, and one more item, a set of laminated cards held together at the corner by a metal ring. Booth poked at it.

"What's this?"

"An insect and reptile guide. Hodgins made it for me," she said, and found herself wishing he were here. He would understand, probably even better than Booth, what it felt like to be trapped down here. "I told him I loved him, too."

Booth looked at her, eyebrows raised.

"What? You're the one who told me that the proffering of overly solicitous advice was indicative of love."

"I said that?"

"Yes."

He looked doubtful, but instead of arguing with her he dug in his pockets and added a pack of gum, a pocket knife, a bandanna, and a handful of coins to the pile. Brennan tossed in a hair band, a ball point pen, and a notepad. They also had the parang and their flashlights.

Finished, they sat back on their heels. Booth was the first to speak.

"Well," he said, "I've been in tighter spots."

"But none of these items are useful. We need pickaxes. Shovels. Head lamps. And we only have a day's worth of water."

"There's water here in the caves. We just need to boil it."

"One can of Sterno, Booth. And it's a small one."

"You can boil a lot of water with a single can of Sterno."

"So we just wait it out?"

"No. No way am I going to just sit here." He glanced at his watch, then angled his head toward the hole they'd noticed earlier. "We'll get some rest, then see where that leads."

After they'd each taken a few sips of water, they packed up the gear and settled down with their backs to the wall.

"Bones ... We should turn off the flashlight."

"Oh." She looked at the light. They'd stood it on the floor while they worked, its beam pointed upward so they could see what they were doing and still have their hands free. Even thinking about turning it off made Brennan's heart race. But the light wouldn't protect them from another cave-in, and they needed to save the batteries.

"You're right, of course." Her hand closed around the rubber barrel, her thumb hesitating over the switch. She told herself to turn it off, but couldn't quite bring herself to do it.

"It's okay, Bones. I'm right here. And I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

She stiffened. She didn't need his sympathy. She didn't want to need him. Part of the reason she'd taken this job was because she had realized just how much she'd come to rely on him. It had taken most of the past six months to stop missing him all the time so that she could devote her full attention to her work. And then the instant she'd looked up and seen him standing there with that little-boy smile on his face it had all come flooding back, and she'd had to fight a ridiculous urge to run into his arms. Damn it, she'd walked away from him in that airport because she'd had to, because even though it was one of the hardest things she'd ever done, it was always better to be the one leaving than the one being left.

With a brisk, sharp movement, she flicked the switch, plunging the cave into darkness. Then she drew up her knees, wrapped her arms around them, and concentrated on taking slow, deliberate breaths, determined to subdue her fears without any help from him.

"I've been meaning to ask you something," Booth said conversationally.

"What?" she snapped, hoping to discourage him. She didn't feel very much like talking. But he went on, either unaware of her mood or ignoring it.

"That picture in your tent. The one of you and Angela."

"What about it?"

"When was it taken?"

"Cherry Blossom Festival," she said, and relaxed despite herself as the memory of that day teased out a reluctant smile. "Last year. Angela found out I'd never been, and she insisted we go."

"I've only been once myself. I took Parker a few years ago. He thought the flowers were cool."

"Angela took her sketchbook," she said. "Of course, Angela takes her sketchbook everywhere."

It occurred to her belatedly that her comment might be interpreted as criticism when she'd only been making an observation. But Booth said nothing, and she rushed in to fill the silence.

"I don't think I've ever seen so many people in one place," she said. The memories - the sun shining through flower-laden branches, the families sprawling across brightly patterned blankets with their coolers full of food, the kids chasing each other, shrieking and laughing - were some of her favorites. "Angela drew this picture ... A little girl with a red balloon. It was quite good."

"Angela is a talented artist."

"Yes, she is."

"So that's why you brought that picture with you? Because it makes you happy?"

He sounded like he was searching for something, some answer she didn't have and couldn't give. "No. I brought it because Angela gave it to me at the airport."

"So, you hadn't planned on bringing pictures at all."

She shook her head, then remembered that he couldn't see her. "I came here to work, Booth. Not to look at pictures."

"Ahh."

He'd been doing something while they talked. She knew, because sometimes his shoulder or arm brushed against hers in the darkness. Curiosity piqued, she tilted her head in his direction. "What are you doing?"

"Just ... one ... second ... There. Give me your hand."

Curious, she did as she was told, misjudged, and felt her fingers slide along his cheek instead. It confused her until she realized he had his head down.

"Easy there, Bones. You almost put out my eye." Then his fingers wrapped around hers.

The contact sent an unexpected tremor through her. She hadn't forgotten how lean and strong his fingers were, but she had worked hard to put the memory out of her mind. The unexpected tactile reminder was disconcerting.

She tried to pull away, but he held fast. "Booth ..."

"Open your hand," he said softly.

"Booth, I don't know-"

"Open your hand," he said again. "Please?"

Her breath hitched in her throat. When he pitched his voice low like that she always got an odd, though not unpleasant, feeling in her stomach. No other man had ever had that effect on her. She found the fact distinctly unsettling. Slowly, she let her fingers unfurl.

"Thank you." He dropped something in her open palm. Then he curled her fingers back in and released her. "Careful. Don't crush it."

She drew her hand back. "What is it?"

"Guess."

She opened her fingers and traced the edges of the object with her other hand. As it took shape in her mind, she smiled. She hadn't known he could do origami.

"It's a star," she said, touched.

"Well I figured that since you can't, you know, be out there with the sky, maybe it'd help if you had a little piece of it in here."

She touched one of the tiny points. "Diffraction spikes," she said.

"What?"

"When viewed by the naked eye, the brightest stars appear to have spikes emanating from them. They're called diffraction spikes. Did you know that Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs depicted stars with five points?"

"No, I didn't."

She closed her fingers over the gift, cradling it in her palm. "Thank you," she said.

"You're welcome."

"What did you use to make it?"

There was the faintest hint of embarrassment in his answer. "Gum wrapper."

Silver foil, then, and he'd folded it by touch. "I didn't know you were so creative."

She must have sounded surprised, because when he answered there was a hint of defensiveness in his voice. "There's a lot you don't know about me, Bones."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. I only meant-"

"Forget it. Let's just get some sleep, okay?"

"But I'm not tired." And sleeping seemed like a bad idea. What if she didn't wake up? What if he didn't?

"Try. It could be a while before you get another chance."

Dread curled in her stomach. "What do you mean by that?"

"Nothing. Just ... humor me, okay?"

Reluctantly, she subsided, tucking the tiny star safely away in her shirt pocket and closing her eyes. But she was restless, unable to relax. She tried to be still, but when Booth grew quiet for what seemed like a long time, she started to worry.

"Booth?"

"Hmm?"

He sounded drowsy, which puzzled her at first, because it wasn't that late. Then she remembered. Jet lag. Of course. She'd been selfish not to think about that earlier.

"I'm glad you're here."

He didn't answer for so long that she thought maybe he'd already fallen asleep.

Then his voice drifted to her ears, soft and oddly intense. "So am I." She heard him yawn. "Still can't sleep?"

"No."

"You could rest your head on my shoulder if you want."

"Why?"

"Because you'll be more comfortable." She felt him pluck at her sleeve, pulling her toward him. "I promise I won't bite."

"Do you often bite people who put their heads on your shoulder, thus necessitating a promise that you won't do it this time?" It was the sort of thing Zack might have said once, and she expected Booth to respond accordingly, so his low laugh caught her off guard.

"No, I don't. In fact, I almost never bite."

"Oh. Well. That's good." Though she knew from personal experience that there were occasions when the properly timed application of teeth to certain parts of the human anatomy could be quite pleasurable.

Frustrated with herself, she clamped down on that line of thought. Then, because it really was more comfortable, she closed her eyes and let her head settle against Booth's shoulder. He said nothing, but his arm shifted against hers, and she felt him let out a deep sigh.

She didn't know how long she slept, and at first she wasn't sure what had woken her. Then Booth shifted restlessly at her side, his shoulder jostling hers, and he mumbled something unintelligible under his breath. She was about to ask him to repeat himself when she realized he was dreaming. She couldn't make out his words, but there was a kind of frantic desperation building behind them.

"Booth?" She touched his shoulder, unsure how best to wake him up without making things worse. "Booth, wake up."

"No!" His shout reverberated through the cavern, startling her and setting off a small avalanche of pebbles and dirt as he rocketed to his feet. "Get out of there!"

Startled by the vehemence of his reaction, Bones twisted to her knees and reached out, slicing her arm back and forth until it made sharp contact with his leg."Booth! It's okay! It's just a dream!"

She'd been so caught up in her work that it never even occurred to ask him about Afghanistan. And this was exactly why she shouldn't be in a serious relationship - with him or anybody else. She'd spent too much of her life thinking only of herself. She didn't know how to think about anybody else.

"Booth. We're in the cave. In Maluku. Remember?"

With her hand still on his leg, she sensed the moment he became fully aware of his surroundings, but she didn't let her hand fall away until he sank to the floor beside her.

"Geez, Bones. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."

"I'm fine. Besides, it wasn't your fault."

"I just ..." His voice sounded strange. Not like him at all.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked.

"No!" Stones rattled against each other as he felt for something in the dark. "No," he said again, his voice quieter but still tense. "I really don't."

An instant later, the flashlight came on, and Brennan blinked in the sudden brightness.

"We should get going." He aimed the beam away from himself and reached for the pack. "And it's my turn to carry this."

She would have protested, but he turned away, and she scrambled to grab the parang and hurry after him.

On the far side of the cavern Booth dropped to his knees and shone the light into the hole they'd noticed the night before. The way the light faded into the narrow fissure made Brennan shift uneasily as her concern for Booth was hijacked by the reminder of where they were.

"It's going to be a tight squeeze," he said over his shoulder. "But I think we can make it on our stomachs.

She focused her attention on him, refusing to look at the hole. "Booth-"

"Stay close. The last thing we need is to lose each other in here."

"Booth." She said it more firmly this time, determined to get his attention despite the restless twitch along her spine.

"What?" He swung the light around, and when he tilted it to see her face, she got a glimpse of his, as well. His jaw was tight, his eyes haunted. She'd never seen him like this, and it frightened her - not on her own behalf, but on his. He'd always seemed so strong, so completely in control. Was it possible all that was just a facade?

"Shouldn't we leave some kind of marker?"

"Marker?"

Booth was a smart man, so she assumed his lack of understanding was because he was distracted, and not because her question had been unclear.

"Yes, so that if anybody does come looking for us ..."

"Oh." He flashed the light back the way they'd come. "Damn it. Just ..." He scrubbed his free hand over his face and sucked in a deep, shuddering breath. "Okay. I'm sorry. Yes, of course we should."

He strode back across the cavern, and she watched him go, his body no more than a bulky silhouette in the looming darkness. When he knelt and started gathering stones she crossed to see what he was doing.

"It's called laying trail," he said at her approach. "We'll use stone, since that's what we have. This," He stacked two medium-sized rocks on top of each other, "marks the trail. This," He took another, smaller stone, and placed it to one side of the two he'd stacked, "shows which direction we went. And this," Three successively smaller rocks balanced one atop the other, "is a warning. It means stay back, stay away, keep clear ... whatever."

He twisted his head around to look up at her. "Got it?"

Even when she'd been a child she'd resented being treated like one. "Of course I do. It isn't difficult." But she hadn't known there were standardized signs for this kind of thing. What would she have done if she'd been here without him? Arrows? His method was much more efficient.

"Good."

Booth set up the first marker, walked part way across the cavern, crouched again, and reached for more stones. "We'll set markers every ten to fifteen paces," he said. "That way people don't assume they've lost the trail and double back.

She moved past him and set up the third marker while he watched.

"Good," he said, nodding. "Okay. Now we're ready."

He dropped to his stomach and wiggled into the opening, and when the light disappeared with him, she was quick to follow.

Movement through the tunnel was slow. Barely wide enough for their passage, it was cluttered with earthquake debris that Booth passed back to her, stone by stone, to be dropped behind them as they went. They didn't talk, all their energy focused on moving forward, but several times Booth stopped and shone the light back along the tunnel, and she knew he was checking on her.

The work took on a kind of routine monotony, every inch of forward progress gained at painstaking expense, and she was sweating hard when Booth finally called out that he'd reached a new cavern. A minute later he slithered forward, disappeared, and then he was bending down and shining the light in at her.

"Give me your hands," he said.

She did, lying flat on her stomach and stretching her arms as far as she could over her head. He wrapped his hands around her wrists and pulled, and a second later she found herself standing beside him.

"Careful." He steadied her while she found her balance. "There's a drop off here. Looks pretty deep." He aimed the flashlight beam downward, but it faded into the darkness without finding bottom. And when he dropped a rock over, several seconds passed before they heard it hit something far below.

Brennan mopped her face with her shirt sleeve and watched Booth set the trail markers -one for the direction they were going to go next, and two warning markers near the drop off. Back on his feet, he tugged the daypack from his shoulders and pulled out one of the bottles of water.

"Go easy," he said, handing it to her. "We have to conserve, but we can't allow ourselves to get dehydrated, either."

She glared at him over the top of the bottle. First the thing with the stones, and now this. "I do know basic survival skills, Booth."

"Good," he said, seemingly unmoved by her tone, "but we're going to need more than the basics if we're going to get out of this place alive."

The only thing that kept her from throwing the bottle at him was the fact that he was right. Still, she couldn't help feeling a simmering resentment as she unscrewed the cap and tipped a mouthful of water past her lips. She wouldn't be here at all if it weren't for him. She'd be out there, analyzing artifact number 6359B, instead of trapped in here where she had to fight, every second, against her memories of that damned Gravedigger.

She recapped the bottle and was about to hand it back to him when a distant rumble made her pause. Before she even registered what she was hearing, Booth cursed and pushed her back against the wall, shielding her with his body as the ground beneath their feet started to twist and roll. The shaking quickly worsened, and she spread her feet, widening her center of balance, then splayed her hands flat against the wall behind her. Booth shouted something, but it got lost in the cacophony of falling rock and shattering formations.

"What?" she yelled.

"Get your head down!"

The barrel of the flashlight knocked against her temple and then he was forcing her head down against his chest and bending his own head over hers. He was being a hero again. Well not this time. Not here. Not now. And not because of her. She struggled, pushing against his shoulders as she tried to lift her head.

"Let me go!"

But he only shoved her harder against the wall, his strength more than a match for hers. He was going to die protecting her. He would fall off the ledge or get hit by a boulder, and he'd be gone and she would be alone again. The floor heaved beneath her feet, and rocks rained down around them, some hitting Booth, others landing on the floor or bouncing off of it before rolling off the ledge. And then instead of fighting him off she was flinging her arms around his waist and holding on, her strength fueled by fear and desperation. She couldn't protect him from the falling rock, but maybe she could anchor him so that if the ledge broke away, it wouldn't take him with it.

Seconds later, the earth gave one last mighty shudder and then gradually grew still. They were left with the sound of their labored breathing and a last, slow slide of settling rock. Neither one of them moved, and the darkness that closed in around them seemed to Brennan darker and thicker than ever before.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

His voice was muffled against the back of her neck, but when she nodded he eased his hold, and she lifted her head. She kept her arms locked around him, certain that if he stepped back the ledge would give way and he would fall.

"What about you?"

There was a pause, and she imagined him taking inventory. "I don't think anything's broken."

Not broken didn't mean not bleeding. The thought made her tighten her hold on him again.

"Hey," his voice was little more than a whisper at her ear. "Take it easy there, Bones. I still need to breathe, you know."

"I'm sorry." She forced her arms to relax, but she couldn't quite let him go. She tried to tell herself again that she didn't need him, that she was better off alone, but the sudden brutal reminder of just how easily she could lose him paralyzed her.

"I dropped the light," he said. "But I don't think it went over the edge. It's probably buried in the rubble somewhere."

When he turned his head to look - a pointless gesture in the pitch black interior of the cave - his lips brushed against her temple. It was a light touch, barely there, but it was enough for her to feel the moist warmth of his breath against her skin.

He hesitated, still pressed against her. He had one hand on her shoulder, the other at the curve of her waist. Her heart skipped a beat and then raced ahead as lack of sight heightened her other senses and drew her attention to the intimacy of their position. His body was leaner than she remembered and tightly muscled, and hers responded instinctively, each point of contact throbbing with new awareness. A part of her mind analyzed and catalogued the chemical reactions that were taking place in her brain even as her tongue slipped out to moisten her lips. This was a bad idea. She knew that. Her rational side was screaming warnings at her even as her hand sought out the curve of his spine. But need too long denied was impossible to ignore now, and instead of backing off, she reveled in Booth's swift, shallow intake of breath.

"Bones ..."

His voice sounded strangled, but he made no attempt to move away. If anything, his hips settled more firmly against hers.

"Temperance."

When he said it like that, lingering over the syllables like they were Belgian chocolates or fine wine, she felt special. Treasured. She gathered in a breath of her own, his name sounding on the exhale as little more than a whisper.

"Booth ..."

She couldn't have said if she meant it as invitation or supplication, but it didn't matter because he was already blazing a trail of kisses down the side of her face. And when he bracketed her head with his palms and found her mouth with his she pulled him closer, fingertips kneading at his spine as the pressure of his growing arousal triggered an answering emptiness deep inside her womb.

He tasted of dust and the salty tang of sweat, and smelled of insect repellent, deodorant, and yes, more dust, but beyond all that she found the heady, distinctive smell she'd long since come to recognize as belonging only to him. She strained closer, drinking him in, asking for more, offering more, and his arms came around her as he drove his tongue deep inside her mouth. She let her head fall back and flicked her tongue along the edge of his, teasing and tasting until somebody, she wasn't sure who, uttered a muffled, hungry groan that made heat curl and snap in her stomach.

His hand slid from her face to explore the curve of her breast, and she arched her back in silent encouragement, her body responding to his in ways that weren't about rational thought at all, but only primal need. How often had she wondered what it would be like to have him touch her this way, and to touch him in return? How much time had she wasted fantasizing about him instead of getting any work done?

It was the thought of work - of science and bones and history - that snapped Brennan back to reality. Stunned at how close she'd come to losing control, she jerked her head away, only to bang it against the cavern wall.

"Damn it!"

"What the-?" Booth steadied her with one arm around her waist and the other loosely draped across her shoulders. "What the hell was that?"

"Nothing. Just ..." Then the pain hit and she swore again. "Just give me a minute, okay?"

He tried to gather her in again, but she pushed him back. She needed to think. They both needed to think.

"Here." He pressed her back against the wall. "Sit tight for a minute while I get out the other flashlight."

She let the wall take her weight and waited for the throbbing in her skull to ease while she listened to the sounds of Booth shrugging out of the pack and unzipping it. That kiss had been stupid. And inexcusably cruel. She knew what he wanted from her, what he yearned for. She couldn't be that for him, no matter how much she might wish otherwise.

An instant later the spare flashlight clicked on, its light angled toward the floor of the cave.

Part of the ledge had indeed broken off and fallen away under the force of falling rock, but it wasn't as bad as she'd been afraid it would be. There was still room for them to cross the chamber safely. Booth knelt and dug through the rocks and gravel that cluttered the ledge around them. It didn't take long to find the other flashlight, and shortly after that he came up with the parang as well, though Brennan didn't remember dropping it.

Tucking one of the flashlights back into the daypack, Booth got to his feet. He propped the parang against the cavern wall and zipped the pack one handed, holding it and the active flashlight in his other hand. But instead of watching what he was doing, he was watching her.

"How's your head?" he asked.

"Better. Thanks." She busied herself kicking loose rocks and gravel out of the way, but she felt his eyes on her. With a sigh, she looked up. "I'm sorry," she said softly. "That was a mistake."

"It didn't feel like a mistake to me. In fact-" Booth took a step closer, then stopped when she took a corresponding step back. "It felt to me like we were finally getting it right."

"No." She shook her head. "It was just a crisis induced adrenalin response. That's all. It's normal for people to feel sexually aroused after a near-death experience. It's nature's way of insuring the survival of the species." She was talking too fast, the words tripping over each other as they spilled out of her mouth. She stopped. Took a breath. "That's all it was, Booth. Just adrenalin."

He studied her for a long, tense moment. Then he blew out a breath. "Adrenalin. Right. Whatever you say, Bones." She could tell by his tone that he didn't really agree with her, but he let it go. "Did the tunnel collapse?"

The abrupt change of subject caught her off guard. "What?"

"The tunnel we just came through," he said patiently. "Did it collapse?" He pointed his light at the small opening, and Brennan bent to check.

"Not as far as I can see."

"Good. Then why don't you reset those markers."

"Oh. Yes. Of course." She did as he instructed, careful to make sure she chose big enough rocks that the markers would be readily identified as such.

While she worked she attempted to convince herself that she'd been telling him the truth about adrenalin responses and human nature, but no matter how hard she tried she couldn't seem to put aside how good it had felt to be held in his arms.