Brennan awoke with a startle, something heavy landed on her arm, she opened her eyes to find an open book that looked like it fell of Booth's hand as he fell asleep on top of the covers right next to her in bed. She held the book in her in the palm of her hands and inhaled the aroma of the old page. Booth must have thought a book with a title The history of Romance languages is about Romantic encounters, she chuckled then placed her palm holding her breath as to not awake the sleeping man next to her. She tried to wiggle out of the bed and into her good foot without disturbing him. As soon as she locked the bathroom door, Booth opened his eyes and jumped out of the bed fixing his shirt and jeans.
"Hey Booth, you are awake" she smiled
"yeah Bones, did you sleep well?"
"it was satisfactory to gain me the energy needed" she turned looking at the Dafodils placed on the table and returned her gaze to him
"Booth what are those?"
"Flowers Bones, you are hurt, and it was partly my fault, so just accept them"
"How is that partly your fault, as far as I can remember, it was your entire fault" She teased him before sitting back on the bed and holding her hand out asking him silently to bring the flowers to her.
The petals tickled her nose as she inhaled fresh sweet scent of the flowers before placing them next to her on the nightstand.
"Bones, we would have watched a movie if there had been a TV in the room, and I can see we cannot actually go out because of well your foot, so the next best thing is we sit here and play a game"
"No Booth, I have to sit and edit my chapter, you can go out, see the place, you don't have to babysit me, I am fine"
"Well there is fault in your statement there, for one I don't want to go out alone, secondly you can do your editing tomorrow morning, I have to run some errands then so you could use that time to finish all the writing you need to do because comes lunch you are all mine" He regretted saying that as soon as it left his mouth, he prepared himself for the anthropological lecture of Alpha males claiming females as their own, when the lesson never came he sighed and moved to one of the bags he brought with him, and fetched the two deck of cards and held it in his hand as he came closer to the bed.
"So Bones, What is it going to be, fun evening playing cards with me, or me sitting bored and complaining the whole night" He gave her his best charm
As the evening progressed, it was suggested that Booth moves to the bed so they can continue their game of card, since Booth kept complaining that he was losing because he was sitting uncomfortably on a foot stool.
He was laying on his stomach now, his elbows resting on the bed and his head in his palm. They played, laughed, joked, ate the snacks and soon it was nighttime. With the last card played by Bones it was clear that Booth had lost this round as well he throw his cards behind him and placed his head on her lap.
As soon as his head hit her lap, she moved her hands away afraid to touch him, she hesitated before clearing her throat and calling softly to him
"Booth, what are you doing"
He turned his face without moving away from her and just closed his eyes momentarily before speaking with all honesty to her.
"Bones, I am so tired"
"Booth, if you are tired, you can go to your room and rest, I will see you tomorrow"
"Too literal Bones, I am tired Bones, I am tired" She could see tears forming in his eyes now, long gone the jokes and laughs they shared throughout the evening, she knew what was coming now is a serious discussion that they cannot run away from anymore.
"Tell me Booth" she asked him sincerely
He shook his head, but when she placed her hand on the top of his head, he let out his breath and with it she felt the tear that he was adamantly holding slipping down seeping through her trousers to her warm leg.
She remembered during their second case together booth told her you have to give a piece of yourself when you want to get information from people unlike skeletal remain, and since he was not a pile of Bones, the only way to get him to talk was to start herself.
"Booth, Tye always books this penthouse at the four season in NY whenever I come to meet my publisher, although he knows I feel uncomfortable there, he buys me blue roses because they remind him of my eyes, he gave me this as Angela calls it This Big Rock when he proposed"
She was not flaunting all the expensive stuff that Tye was able to afford to pamper her with, she knew Booth would read the meaning in her display and he did because the next thing she knew he was up sitting on the bed facing her and holding both her hands in his and telling her that he was sorry. Sorry that Tye did not know that she feels lonely when staying in a huge place all by herself, sorry that Tye did not know how much she valued her work and would have preferred a ring with an embedded diamond, something that she wouldn't require to take off to wear her latex gloves, and very sorry that Tye although meant well by getting her the unique blue roses, he was selfish because she always preferred Daisies and Daffodils. He was sorry that he did not know her, that although Tye wanted to give her the world, her favorite planet was Jupiter.
"Tell me Booth"
"I want to feel Bones, I am so tired that I am numb, and I want No I need to feel something, anything other than numbness, Please Bones" he was pleading now and not making any sense to her, she thought about telling him that, but then she could not bring herself to do anything but hold his head in both her hands and closing the distance between them and placing a tender kiss on his forehead.
The affectionate warm kisses moved from his forehead to his temple to his jaw until he took control of the situation and moved his head away a little regretting being so vulnerable in front of her.
"I am sorry Bones, I am so sorry"
She did not relent and brought his face back close to her and nodded to him, she wiped the tears off his cheeks gently and placed warm kisses on his eye then the other before moving down touching her lips to his.
This kiss was not like the first kiss they shared the night before, it was not about biological urges, it was about seeking the connection, healing of pain and drawing courage and strength from their long friendship. It was full of care and warmth and did not feel like cheating, it was full of honesty.
When she drew back, they did not apologize; they simply nodded a thank you to each other.
They stayed like this for several minutes until Booth's stomach grumbled and the spell was broken, she asked him to order dinner for both. He said he will go to his room and get the DVD he has in his backpack, it was a movie he brought for Parker, he thought they could play it on her laptop while they had dinner. He also needed the excuse to use the bathroom and to check on his phone, he had left his phone in his room charging.
As he suspected, he had several missed calls, one from Rebecca, two text messages from Parker and Hannah.
He avoided calling Rebecca; he knew the call was regarding the wedding, since he had asked Rebecca to check on the last of the arrangements while he was away, and since Parker message did not raise any flags he did not suspect the call from his ex had anything to do with his son. However he did not avoid calling Hannah.
Her text message was brief, telling him that she had to take another short trip and that the travel agency called while she was in a conference call and could not return the call to them and asked him if he could handle it.
"Hannah" he called to her as soon as she picked up the phone
"Hey Seeley, how is New York, did you get my message?"
"Yeah Hannah, I did, I will call them tomorrow"
"Thanks babe, I owe you"
And here it was that word again, how he started to resent it.
"Hannah, when are you back?"
This is how they conversation happened to be for the past few months, a lot of I love you, many more of I owe you's and several questions about when will you be back
"Seeley, you sound annoyed, it is not like you are home yourself"
"No Hannah I am not, and we both know why I am not home"
"Seeley, we had this conversation before, you know I need to finish these stories before we get married, plus if I do good job with this, I may be asked to tour with the presidential campaign.
"Hannah, what are you talking about, the presidential campaign starts in September that is right after our honeymoon"
"No actually it starts a day before we return from the honeymoon, that is why the travel agent were calling, I had to change my flight plans, I am returning one day in advance" she said nonchalantly
"Hannah, did you hear yourself, you want me to come back from our honeymoon on my own, you are touring with the campaign for how long a week, a month" he started to lose control now.
"Seeley, don't be silly, the campaign is for six month, they offer is to tour for 3 weeks and take a week off, you can join me on weekends, and we can meet every 25th of each month for a week, I will be all yours for a week, that is more than we get now"
"Hannah, I cannot do this over the phone, we need to discuss this in person, I will be home tomorrow morning"
"Seeley, I can't I will be home on the weekend, we will talk then but please call the travel agency in the morning, you need to reconfirm the reservations otherwise we lose the booking altogether since we haven't paid the full payment yet"
"Well good thing since I don't think we should go on this honeymoon anymore" he said defeated
"What are you saying?"
"I don't know what I am saying Hannah, but I think we need to talk, get our priorities right"
"Are you breaking up with me Seeley?" she asked
"No Hannah I am not, I am merely saying that we need to talk, I will see you this weekend please do not make plans to go out of town" he ended the conversation before she could add anything else.
