Chapter Four: Squeeze

After Booth had finally finished his paperwork, he gathered up his belongings and locked his office, intending on a quick trip to see if he could talk Bones out of limbo and into dinner. Unfortunately, he was waylaid by his boss, Andrew Hacker, who looked as though he was leaving for the day as well.

"Late night, Agent Booth?" Hacker asked. "Got any plans for the evening?"

"Yes sir. Just heading over to the Jeffersonian to get Bones for dinner - if I can talk her into abandoning her hundred year-old bones for the night." Booth chuckled.

Booth had been worried that his working relationship with Hacker would suffer when Brennan had explained to Andrew how she was uncomfortable dating him since he was Booth's boss, but everything had seemed to return to normal shortly afterwards. For his part, while disappointed, Andrew understood Brennan's view. Life was too short to dwell on a woman he had only dated for 20 minutes.

And the truth of it was, he genuinely liked Booth and found him to be not only an excellent agent but a good man as well. He also had a tiny suspicion that there really was more to Booth and Brennan's relationship than that "just partners" crap they kept trying to pass off as gospel. He suspected that they were in deep, deep denial about it. However, since it didn't seem to hinder their work, he didn't push the issue.

"Well, good luck with that, Booth. You have your work cut out for you, trying to get Dr. Brennan out of her lab before 8 PM." Hacker smiled back.

Booth nodded in silent agreement, wished his boss goodnight, and headed for the elevators. He was starving, and all he could think about was a cheeseburger and some quality time with Bones. However, his boss's voice stopped him before he could push the button.

"Oh, Booth! I almost forgot. You wouldn't happen to remember an ex-agent by the name of Timothy Sullivan, would you?"

Booth froze in place. Suddenly, his growling stomach was the absolute last thing on his mind.

~*~

Brennan stood over the bones of what had proven to be a 20-25 year old woman who had died in the late 19th century. Probably in childbirth. She welcomed the distraction; it helped to take her mind off the mild panic that had set in since she realized that she was in love with Booth.

She. Was. In. Love. With. Booth.

To be perfectly honest, describing how she was feeling as "mild panic" was oversimplifying it. She had already been trying to deal with the feeling of loss that pretending to date Booth had brought on, and to pile her general terror of relationships, her newly acknowledged love for Booth and her abandonment issues on top of that was almost causing her incredibly gifted brain to short circuit. However, there was also an undercurrent running through all those other emotions...something more, something less tangible - something good. It seemed to be trying to swim it's way through all her negativity and worry, almost as if it were battling them all on it's own. She also thought that it has been a bad idea to watch Braveheart again for the 20th time last night...her internal angst was turning into an epic battle, complete with broadswords, shields, knights in shining (standard FBI issued body) armor, damsels in distress and bow and arrows.

Whatever this good thing was that was trying to convince her to talk to Booth about how she was really feeling, it was still waging it's war...and the outcome was uncertain. The good news was that, two years ago, she would have been halfway to Peru by now, in a blind panic about these emotions she couldn't seem to quantify. Then, she had still been closed off to the idea of relationships being anything more than transient experiences...he11, even two months ago she would have flipped her lid at her realizations. Now, she was just trying to work it all out without running.

Why she had never tried this before, she didn't know.

Suddenly, she heard the unmistakable sound of her partner's footsteps coming down the hallway, accompanied by his voice rattling the walls.

"Bones! Bones, where the hell are you?!?!" Booth hollered, looking into the room and stopping with a jerk. "Oh. There you are."

"Yes, Booth. I've been here all night, just as I told you I would be." Brennan admonished lightly. "What on Earth is the problem? Are you starving to death again?"

Booth rolled his eyes and took a little bit of comfort in the well-practiced banter they had honed well over the years. "Well...yes, I am hungry. But that's not the problem, Bones. This is a doozy. Director Hacker stopped me on my way out tonight"

"Oh, no! I thought he understood my reasons for not dating him..."

"No, Bones! That's not why he stopped me.' Booth took a deep breath and stepped closer to Brennan, hands in his pockets and a wry smile on his face. "You're not going to believe who called him to ask for his old job back at the Bureau."

"Oh...my God! Please don't tell me that Sully is staying! Booth, I mean it...do not tell me that!"

"Honestly, I wish that I could do that, Bones. More than anything."

Brennan sighed and rolled her head around on her shoulders, trying to work out the stiffness in her neck that had suddenly become unbearable. "This is all my fault. I never should have lied to Sully in the first place. But no...I had to be a goose and avoid telling him the truth. Lies never end with the first one, they just compound. I should know that by now."

"It's chicken, Bones...not goose. But you're right. Lies never work out well. But you panicked, and acted irrationally. While I admit that is not your usual MO, it's understandable. Sully can be a real fly in the ointment when he wants to be."

"Well, at the risk of making both of us look like idiots, I am going to have to admit to Sully that I misled him and come clean. Hopefully he will take the hint and leave me alone." Brennan wasn't looking forward to that discussion one bit. Once Sully knew that she wasn't dating anyone, he was going to come after her with both barrels. It was not a scenario she was in any way looking forward to.

"Well, Bones...on the way here I thought about this, and I think I figured out a way for you to avoid that admission to Sully altogether. But you have to keep an open mind and heart about it. And trust me."

Brennan looked to Booth, face filled with hope. "Booth. Of course I trust you. And I think that at this point I would grab any other alternative than telling the truth."

Booth walked closer to Brennan, until they were almost touching, eyes boring into hers. "Well, then...I think that the only way out of this is to make the lie the truth. We should actually start dating. For real."