Chapter 4
Booth enjoyed eating with Bones. He always did for some inexplicable reason or another. That was why he always made it a habit to take her out to lunch and occasionally, when she didn't have any plans, took her out to dinner. It was almost always the same places, either at the diner or take-out at her place. They always went to her place, not because he didn't like to clean up – although he didn't, but because he felt… closer to her, at her apartment. Although when he first started the habit of showing up at her place with take-out, it was just because her place was much nicer than his and bigger, definitely bigger.
As he was staring down and playing with his fries, he looked at Bones from the corner of his eye and he watched her eat. He watched as her long, slender fingers picked up a piece of French fry and dabbed it a bit in ketchup. Now, he knew he was losing it if he got off looking at her putting ketchup on her fries. But he couldn't help looking at her still while she put that fry into her mouth and bit by bit chewed on the fry until it was wholly consumed by her.
He looked at her lips, they were very fine lips. So fine in fact that he could have sworn that they were the best looking set of lips he had ever seen in his life. They were perfect for kissing. Nice and full and pink, now he knew he was staring, but didn't care. He wondered how those lips would feel if it touched his, when he parted them and how she would react when his mouth ravished hers.
Then he was broken out of his spell by his partner waving her hand in front of his face, looking at him like he was a Martian or like he had grown a second head or something. And he suddenly realized that he must have certainly looked like a fool. "Booth, were you staring at me?" To which Booth gave a stupefied, "Uh… no. Of course not" He shook his head and took his eyes off her and looked at his fries and his burger… that wasn't touch nor were his fries.
She scrutinized him with her scrunched up eyebrows and her look of determination; the same one she got whenever she was determined was analyzing bones, trying to find its identity, trying to piece together its story – although she probably wouldn't put it that way. Then suddenly her eyes exploded with amusement and mirth. "You were staring at me," she had said matter-of-factly. He looked up from his eyes and saw that she had a smug look on her face. But it wasn't a look of derision. She had a smile on her face that could have lighted Alaska.
He loved those smiles, which was why he always did everything in his power so she always managed to smile that smile when he was with her. He couldn't help thinking, when she was like that, all loose and with a smile on her face, as if she hadn't a care in the world, she was beautiful. God she was beautiful, Booth thought to himself. And it was the same thought that had crossed his mind countless of times ever since their drive from the crime scene. What had brought on this sudden and, above all, constant reinforcement of her beauty? He couldn't understand it. Not that he didn't think about the fact that his partner was beautiful, but the fact that he was thinking about it so damn much was disconcerting to him.
It must have been the rose. Yes, definitely. There was no other explanation. He didn't even know why he gave her the rose. All he knew was he got a sudden impulse to buy it from a florist that opens very early near his apartment and lay it on top of her desk. It was that change, that desire to do something for her, something out of the ordinary that made him purchase that rose. Still, he was afraid. He was afraid of this thing between them. That was why he didn't leave a card or note or anything, for that matter, that would indicate the identity of the giver. He was afraid of what her reaction might be, if that would change anything between them for the worse. He knew she hated those kinds of emotions, that kind of vulnerability. And it gave him a sense of pride that he was one of the few people that she could vulnerable with. With him, she could let down all her defenses and show him the emotions behind the scientist, the woman that was starting to come out of her shell.
And he wanted to be the one to do that. The one to draw out the feelings that she thought she didn't have anymore. To help her understand the things that she had never understood before. It was like an amazing adventure, where the world of the old became new again, all because of her. So in that diner, it was perfect. They were together, she was smiling and all was right in the world. And so he smiled back, he couldn't have done anything else, and if it was even possible her smile got even wider. She looked at him with those azure-tinted eyes that held all the emotion that she had inside of her and he felt that this was his own heaven on earth.
He thought of her often this morning, moreso than usual in fact. As he filed his paperwork after escorting Bones back to the Jeffersonian, he thought of her, so much so that he had to take quick breaks every so often so that he could focus his mind on the task at hand. He thought about her during his ride over to take her to lunch, and he felt that he would crash into something because of the innumerable times that he was distracted by the thoughts of her. He was beginning to think that it was absurd. Despite his own feelings for her, he didn't think about her this often, this much in one day. Sure, he did think about his partner a lot of times, but it wasn't regularly. It's like he would think of her maybe for a few minutes in a day and then not at all. She was in his mind, but not at the forefront. Now she was, and it was all thanks probably to that stupid rose.
"What are you thinking about?" Her voice cut through the thoughts that had consumed his attention. What should he say? He was unsure, especially since the object of his thoughts was her. But, it was her and that was enough for him to tell her the truth. "You," he curtly replied. "Me?" She said incredulously. "Why were you thinking about me?" This time, Booth knew he couldn't tell the truth, not yet. So he opted for the safe route, truthful, but vague, responses. "About how we've changed, like you said before this morning, it's like things are different between us." Her features were schooled into one of avid concentration and he amended his statement. "It's not like its bad, it's just different." At that she nodded while he continued, "As each day passes, Bones, we change and we grow. I feel that throughout the years that we've been partners, that same change and growth applies to us."
"Of course it has, Booth. Anthropologically speaking, change happens to all cultures and civilizations. The ability of a civilization to adapt to those changes determines whether or not they will stand the passage of time." Booth could only nod and acknowledge that fact, but he wasn't quite satisfied that she understood what he was trying to say. "Yeah, Bones, but I'm not talking about civilizations here. I'm talking about two people, you and me. How things have changed around us and what we feel about those changes."
At this, she looked a little nervous. Her hands fidgeted with the napkin twisting it a little bit. Booth thought this was strange, he had never seen Temperance Brennan nervous about anything and certainly she didn't become nervous around him. He had seen her scared, happy, sad and angry, but never did he see her being nervous, so he tried to put her at ease.
"Bones, it's alright for us to be a little scared of change. Heck, even I'm a little freaked out because of it. But that doesn't mean we have to run away from it. Change can be good and we shouldn't turn our backs on a good thing." He may have said more than he should have already, but he was pretty certain that Bones wouldn't pick up on it. Still, something compelled him to continue. It was a sense that he couldn't just leave his words there. "We've changed, Bones." He took her hand in his and squeezed it, as if to emphasize the change that has happened between them. He looked into her eyes trying to communicate the feelings that he wanted her to know and yet could not reveal.
But the moment passed and he let go of her hand and he went back to staring at his fries. He grabbed his burger and took a bite out of it. While he chewed on it, Bones put her hand on his arm and started to speak. "I know we've changed Booth. I've seen it, observed it," and with a squeeze of his arm, she looked at him with an intense gaze. "I've felt it." He stared at her. Booth swallowed and put down his burger. He wiped his hands on a napkin acquired from the nearby dispenser. He was still staring at her, as if seeing something entirely new about her.
And in a voice, no louder than a whisper, he asked, "What do you feel?" Brennan's eyes conveyed so much emotion to him at that moment. Joy and sadness, anticipation and fear and another emotion, hidden within the mosaic of feelings presented to him by her eyes. He was unable to discern it, but it felt familiar, like the name of an old friend you couldn't remember. Her eyes were still on his, transfixed by something that he did not know and, at that moment, he didn't even care. All he cared about was her eyes.
She took in a breath and it seemed to Booth that this prolonged torment was going to last just a bit longer and it was torture. He had to know, he needed to know if she felt what he felt. If something could be born from all the looks, the hugs, the lunches, the dinners, the take-outs, the talks, the kiss and blossom into something beautiful. So he waited and finally, after he felt like he could endure it no more, she parted her lips.
"I care for you, Booth. More than I have ever cared for anyone in my life except for my parents and Russ. I care for you… more than a partner should… more than a friend should." Her words were thick with emotion, spoken tenderly, from the heart. Her hand gripped his tightly. Somehow during the ensuing silence, she had extricated her hand from his arm and moved it to his right hand. Booth, at first, felt numb. Then his heart soared and his insides exploded with joy. Of course, she hadn't said the "L" word, but he hadn't expected her to. Heck, he didn't even expect this entire thing to happen. For her to admit that she cared about him, more than friends, more than partners was a large and significant step for her and he acknowledged and accepted that.
"Bones… Temperance… I don't know what we have right now. What I do know is that this something that we need to explore. There are no guarantees here. I can't guarantee that you won't be hurt, but I can assure you that if you get hurt, I'll be hurt worse." He spoke honestly, knowing that saying anything further from the truth would scare her. "But I will never hurt you or leave you when we're together. I know you don't need protection and I know you can shoot as well as the rest of us, but I still want to keep you safe." He took a breath, uncertain of the tumultuous feelings that were crashing within him. What were they trying to say? He had relied on his gut for a long time and yet this time, his gut was giving him nothing.
"What I'm trying to say is that I want you to give us a chance, just like I want to give us a chance. We're good partners, good friends, but we could be so much more. We've already seen it, we just didn't recognize it." The kiss that they shared underneath the mistletoe went to the forefront of his mind. It became a vivid memory for him, seared into his mind's eye, an experience that he would never forget.
Bones nodded, "I'm willing to give it a try. It would just be like an experiment… to see if we're compatible with each other." Despite her clinical analysis of what the future might have in store for them he smiled at her. "Only you could make a relationship sound like a science project, Bones." She smiled back at him, with that smile of hers and it warmed his heart. Despite all these warm and fuzzy feelings, there was still something nagging in the very back of Booth's mind that was voiced only now.
"When did you cross the line Bones?" He knew that she knew what he was talking about. It was unspoken for a long time until the incident with Cam, back during the time when she and he were still involved. It was strange also that she would be willing to cross that line when she was so detached and clinical. She would have seen it as irrational for two people working together, partners in fact, to have a romantic relationship with each other. It would impair their judgment, compromise their working relationship. Even the possibility of that happening would have sent her running for the hills, and yet she was here with him.
"Just this morning, actually, I enlisted Angela's help. I talked to her before I came to my decision." She turned her to look outside the window gazing at the passers-by that littered the sidewalk. "This was a hard decision for me, Booth. In fact, if you were any other man, I would have just bottled up my feelings, walked away and forget about you. But you aren't just any other man, Booth. You're my friend, my partner. You became more to me than just another man, you became part of my life and I accept that." Booth's heart warmed at her confession. He felt the same way about her. It was amusing to think that he couldn't see where their partnership would go, no matter what or who got in the way, maybe it wasn't because he couldn't see, but more like he refused to see it.
"How about you, Booth? When did you cross the line?" Bones looked at him expectantly. But even he was unsure of his answer. When did he cross that line? During the time Sully was about to snatch her away from him? During the time that she was caught by the gravedigger? During the kiss that they shared in Christmas? He tried to recall all the times that they had together for the past few years. And he could only come up with one, definitive answer.
"Bones, I crossed the line the first moment I laid eyes on you." Brennan looked skeptical at his statement. "You expect me to believe that when you first saw me that we would be in this situation, without any prior knowledge of each other, our likes and dislikes, our interests or whether we were compatible with each other? I'm sorry Booth, but you know I don't believe in love at first sight." Booth could only smile, "I didn't mean love at first sight, Bones. And I saw certainly didn't think that we would end up in this situation. But somehow, someway, in the back of my mind, when I first met you, I knew that you would change my life, that you were something special. And I was right"
Bones wasn't satisfied with his answer and pressed on. "How did you know? Are you portraying yourself to be some kind of psychic now?" This time Booth didn't just smile, he laughed, a full-blown laugh. Bones could always make him laugh no matter what the circumstance. "No, Bones, it's complicated. Even I don't know exactly how, it's just a feeling you get. Like how I listen to my gut. It's just like what I said about making love, it's about two people trying to get as close to each other as possible, trying to feel a connection. It's irrational, it's illogical, but it's there. You don't know how or why. It just is, it's like the law of physics. You don't sense the laws of physics; you just know they're there."
"But there are mathematical proofs for the law of physics. These so-called feelings of yours don't have proofs." Booth nodded his head agreeing, "No, not objective proofs anyway. But when you feel it, that's when you know. It's more of a subjective truth. It's different from person to person, but the bottom line is the same. You just feel it, it doesn't need to be explained or quantified. It's just there." Brennan, to Booth's surprise, seemed to understand what he was saying.
"Alright, I can accept that." This time it was Booth's turn to look incredulous. "Really? Wow, this is two for two, Bones." Though Bones looked gave him a look of hurt, the humor in her eyes belied her true feelings. "It's just that… I've felt what you've said, Booth. That's why I agree. Like you said, it is a subjective experience and since I have experienced it, I can accept your words to be true." Booth was intrigued by her statement, what was this experience she was talking about? "What was it?" Bones gave him an evasive answer, "What is what, Booth?" He gave her a look, "What was the subjective experience you were talking about?" Brennan sighed resignedly.
"Us, Booth. I'm talking about us. This feeling that I have from you is different than anything else I've ever felt and I've felt it since the day we met as well. Although I don't share your view that you would change my life or that you were anything special. It just felt different. These things I cannot explain using logic and reason or science, but as you said it is a truth that you merely know, without proof, without evidence." He grinned from ear to ear and enveloped her hand with his own. She intertwined her fingers with his as a sign of acceptance of their new-found relationship.
"So, what now?" Brennan inquired. "Well, now I guess we go on with our lives. Do the things that we do. You can go back to examining the bones and I will go back to the FBI to fill out some reports and maybe talk to those that need to be apprised by our new relationship." Brennan furrowed her brows, obvious to Booth that there was something baffling her. "What's wrong, Bones?" Brennan tugged her hand away from Booth and went back to eating her fries as quick as she can, seeing that lunch was almost over. It was a good thing that she had already finished her burger.
"That's it Booth? How can this be any different from any other day when we talk? Shouldn't there be some changes that need to be addressed, some arrangements to be made? I'm sure that there are a lot of factors to consider and we haven't even begun to…" She was cut of by Booth's lips meeting hers. He was standing next to her now, having already finished his meal, while she remained seated, stunned at the suddenness of the kiss. But her bewilderment did not last long as she cupped his face and kissed him back. After a few more seconds, he released her lips and took a step back. "That's what's different, Bones." And she nodded dumbly, unable to speak or even think. He had done what most people and most situations couldn't do, render her speechless. And once again, he walked out the door. This time though, he was a little happier than when he had left her office this morning.