But we're gonna start by drinking old cheap bottles of wine,

Sit talking up all night, saying things we haven't for a while, a while yeah.

We're smiling but we're close to tears, even after all these years.

We just now got the feeling that we're meeting for the first time.


They'd been stepping around on eggshells for a month. They were both afraid that one misspoken word would set the other one off. They hadn't been themselves. They hadn't laughed together in what seemed like forever. They hadn't shared a bottle of wine over dinner. They hadn't talked about their feelings. All they did was talk about Katie because Katie was safe. No one could get hurt talking about her.

And yet today was Valentine's Day, and Brennan was sure Booth was going to use the greeting card holiday to pull out some giant romantic gesture. She was terrified that he would. And as the hours of her day at work ticked by without a fresh body coming in, she found herself wishing that somebody would die today. They could still have all of their flesh, for all she cared. She just needed the excuse to stay at work late tonight.

But Cam popped her head into Brennan's office around five telling her to just go home. She had dinner plans with that gynecologist after all, and she didn't want to keep him waiting when there was no case to be worked upon. So Brennan gathered up her things with a heavy sigh and headed home.

She debated lying about working on some remains from limbo and just crashing at her old apartment tonight. But then she thought about Katie and how she was the only one who could get her to sleep at a decent hour. Booth said it was because she would sing to her, and she really did have a beautiful singing voice; almost as good as Cyndi Lauper. Of course, he hadn't said anything like that since December.

Brennan pushed through the doors of the Hodgins' mansion, half-expecting to see pink and red hearts everywhere. But thankfully, all she found was Booth playing on the floor with Katie. She hung her purse up on the hooks by the door and tossed her keys on the table directly under it. She then wandered into the living room and joined Booth and Katie on the floor.

"Slow day," he commented upon noticing her.

"Yes, it was. Very unproductive."

"So, it's Valentine's Day," Booth started. "Want to go to the shooting range later?"

Brennan laughed and it felt so good to laugh. She honestly couldn't remember the last time she had done so. And now Booth was laughing too; a sound she hadn't even realized how much she missed.

"I doubt they'd let us bring Katie in with us," Brennan told him.

"Oh right, this little one," Booth said, pushing her ball away from her.

"No," Katie replied, pushing herself off the ground and walking over to retrieve her toy.

"I'm so glad that 'no' has become her word of choice," Booth groaned.

"Remember that when she starts dating boys," Brennan smiled.

He groaned again as Katie plopped back down in front him, trying to bounce her ball on the floor.

"She sure does like this thing," he commented, as Katie pushed the ball towards him.

"Hodgins bought it for her when they went to the circus. Perhaps it reminds her of him."

"Maybe," Booth said, pushing it back. "Or maybe she just likes it."

Here they were, talking about Katie again. The conversation had started in dangerous territory, and ended up yet again on the child. Brennan knew it was her fault that things were this way. She knew that, essentially, this is what she had wanted. But all of that didn't make her like it any more. She wanted things to go back to normal; she just wasn't sure how to get them there.


Katie had finally settled down for the night and Booth wasn't sure what to do with himself. It was Valentine's Day after all and the only thing he wanted to do was talk to Brennan. And he wanted to really talk to her, about more than Katie and work related things. He opened the cabinets in the kitchen, looking for something to make himself a drink, when his eyes landed on a bottle of tequila.

She had tasted like tequila the first time he'd kissed her. And ever since, the sight of tequila always made him think of her. Booth pulled the bottle out of the cabinet, a small smile creeping its way across his lips. This would make her talk to him.

Booth headed to the living room where he found Brennan reading a book about the culture of the Yanomamo. She had explained to him once that Anthropology had four main sub-disciplines: Linguistics, Archeology, Cultural Anthropology, and Physical Anthropology. She was a physical anthropologist. So he couldn't figure out why she always reading about cultural anthropology in her spare time. Perhaps she was just fascinated by all of it. That certainly wouldn't surprise him.

He set the bottle of tequila and the two shot glasses down on the table in front of her.

"What's that?" Brennan asked, looking up from her book.

"What does it look like?"

"Like you're trying to get me drunk like you did to fire me."

Ah, so she associates tequila with that kiss too…

"Nah, it's nothing like that," Booth assured her. "I just found this in the kitchen and I thought I'd share."

"I don't know," Brennan said, eyeing the bottle. "The morning of New Year's Day was not nice to me."

"I'm not saying you need to get drunk," Booth told her, filling the two shot glasses. "Just take a shot…or two."

He downed his own and then handed the second one out to Brennan. She sighed, placing her bookmark in her book and taking the tiny glass from him. She took the shot and then placed the glass on the table next to his. Booth refilled them again.

"So," he started before taking his second shot, "get any date offers this year?"

Brennan shook her head, before taking her second shot as well. "No. I guess they all witnessed that lovely little show on New Year's Eve. I don't blame them. I definitely came off as a crazy person."

"Well if you did, I did."

"Yes, but you missed the drunken opening act."

"I'm sure it wasn't that bad."

"I was fighting Cam for a glass of whiskey. I don't even like whiskey."

"Well at least you didn't photocopy your ass anywhere," Booth joked about her Christmas memory of Angela.

"Very true," Brennan laughed, fidgeting with the shot glass in her hands. "I'll take another one."

Booth filled their glasses again, glad to be talking about something new, even if it was skirting around the subject of their fight.

"We should play a game with this," Booth suggested, running his finger around the edge of the shot glass.

"A drinking game? Like in college?"

"You played drinking games in college?"

"Doesn't everybody?"

Brennan took her next shot and Booth followed suit.

"Well I don't know, I guess. I just figured that you were too busy studying to party," Booth confessed.

"There's a lot you don't know about me."

"So then enlighten me."

"Okay well, I didn't really 'party' in college. You were right about that. But that didn't stop my friend Amelia from dragging me to frat parties every now and then."

"Who's this Amelia person?"

"Basically my Angela of college. She was an archeology major, so we had a lot of our core anthropology classes together. She lives in Europe now; moves around a lot with her dig sites. She sends me postcards from time to time, but we're not that close anymore."

"Too bad. I bet you could use a replacement Angela right about now."

"Oh nobody can replace that girl…not even Amelia."

"All right, all right tell me something else."

"Not so fast, mister. If I'm sharing, you're sharing. Go."

"What do you want me to share?" Booth asked with a smirk.

"What do you want to share?" Brennan returned his smirk.

"Okay…let's see…umm there was this party I went to in high school. It was one of those things where the word gets out about the parents being out of town all weekend so everybody shows up to this poor kid's house. I felt bad, man that place got trashed. And you know, some kid got his hands on some alcohol, and being the dumbass that I was, I wanted to try it. I wanted to prove to myself that I could drink, and not get abusive like my father did."

"How'd that work out for you?"

"I was one beer in when the cops showed up and busted the party. I was so scared that I was going to get an MIP that I hid the bathroom until everyone was gone."

"Classy."

"It wasn't my finest moment."

Brennan smiled at him. "I remember being like 10 and it was Christmas and my parents were drinking champagne. Well I decided that I wanted to try some. Russ kept trying to tell me that even he was too young for it, but I insisted. I walked right up to my dad and asked 'may I have a sip?' I remember him spitting out the swallow that had been in his mouth all over my mom's new shoes. He just started laughing. And my mom started complaining about how she had just bought these and now they were ruined. And Russ was trying to yell over them, 'I told her you'd say no.' So everybody was talking at once and I just went up and grabbed my dad's glass and took this huge sip from it…I too spit it back out all over my mom's shoes. So now my mom's yelling at me, and Russ is yelling 'I told you so.' But my dad leans down to me and whispers, 'Next time, Tempe, take a smaller sip.' We used to be such a great family, the four of us."

"God that's great. The best part is, I can totally see Max encouraging you to drink as a ten-year-old. Oh God," Booth chuckled. "You were a lot closer to your family then I realized."

"That's part of the reason why it was so hard for me to forgive them. After everything they just abandoned me, left me to a life of abuse and loneliness."

"You know I've thought about what would have happened to Jared and I if Pops hadn't have been in the picture. I'd honestly probably be dead right now. If my dad didn't kill me I just may have done it myself."

"I don't peg you as the type to commit suicide."

"You don't know the kind of hell I was living."

"Just like you don't know about mine."

They took a few more shots then, trying to clear away the evil cobwebs from their past. Booth admitted several years ago to Sweets and Brennan that if it weren't for Pops he probably would have killed himself. He still believed that to be true, especially when he thought about those years right after his mother left. But Brennan had been much worse off, he knew. And now he was itching to know more about it.

"Tell me something else you've never told me before," Booth instructed, lazily.

"A neolocal residence is when two people marry and take up residence in a place of their own. Although I feel like what we are doing would also be classified as a neolocal residence," Brennan rambled.

He couldn't help but laugh. "No, no Bones. I meant something you've never told me about yourself."

"Well then, you should have been more specific."

"Bones…"

Brennan sighed. "Well, what do you want to know?"

He leaned in closer to her, the smell of the tequila wafted from his mouth as he spoke. "Something deeply personal."

"I'm pretty sure you know all of the deeply personal details of my life."

"I highly doubt that. Hey, why don't you tell me how you lost your virginity? That's a story I've never heard. You were like 20 something, right?"

Brennan's smirk faded and she fell completely silent, her eyes darting to the floor.

"Hey, you don't have to be embarrassed, with your high school situation –"

"Booth, I don't think you understand what my late teen years were really like for me."

"Bones, I went to your high school reunion, remember? Mortcia and all that crap…"

"That was just the high school I graduated from. You don't know about anything before that; anything about the families I was with before that."

"Well I know there was that one really terrible family who locked you in the trunk of car for two days. But –"

"They weren't so bad," Brennan shrugged.

Booth's breath hitched in his throat. "How can you say that?"

"Like I said, you don't know what I've been through."

"Enlighten me." When Brennan remained silent, Booth prompted, "How did you lose your virginity, Bones?"

Her gaze stayed trained on the floor and she still wouldn't answer him.

"Look, if you tell me this deeply personal thing about you, I'll tell you something equally deep and personal that I can guarantee I've never told anyone about."

She finally dragged her gaze up to meet his. She nodded a couple of times, tears already forming in her eyes. "I was 15. I had just been placed with my first foster family, the Conways. Things were fine at first, or as fine as they could be considering. But I uh, I wanted to buy this fancy college guidebook. It had all sorts of information about the most prestigious colleges in the nation, and well, you know me. But I didn't have any money. So I brought it up to Rick, the father. And he gave me the money, no problem, simply telling me that I could work it off later. I assumed he meant with chores…"

Booth felt his chest constrict, knowing where this was headed.

"About a week later, he showed up in my room during the middle of the night. He –"
Brennan sighed choking on her own words. "He raped me. And as the weeks went by he just became more violent. It got so bad that I had to wear pants and sweatshirts even when winter turned to spring just so I could hide the injuries."

"Why didn't you report him to your social worker?" Booth asked his voice barely above a whisper.

"I tried. Rick was just always in the room during her visits and I was afraid to talk with him right there. I mean eventually she found out, but it was only after he pulled me out of school so he could punish me."

"Punish you for what?"

"I snuck out. It wasn't like I was meeting a boy or anything, I just…I needed to get out of that house. I only went to the library, but he was waiting for me in my room when I got home…" She looked down at her lap and began clasping and unclasping her hands. "I have never felt so much pain in my entire life. I actually wanted him to kill me, just so it would all be over. The next thing I remembered was waking up in the hospital. My social worker was there, telling me I'd have to testify against him and that I would be moved to another family very soon."

Brennan stilled her hands in her lap, but her gaze remained on the floor. "I remember thinking that if I took too many of the pain meds, I wouldn't have to testify or suffer through another foster family. I could just end it, right then and there. But I didn't, because that's not the kind of person that I am. And so I had to relive everything after they put me on the stand at his trial. I don't know where he is today; if he's still in prison or…If I believed in God, which I don't, I'd say that I pray to God everyday that he will never find me again. Because I just…and I can't…"

She began choking on her sobs, as though she was hyperventilating. Booth pulled her into his arms and started rubbing her back, trying to get her to breathe.

"It's okay, Bones. You're safe now. I've got you," he mumbled into her hair. "I've got you, baby."

Brennan continued to cry in his arms. He just couldn't believe that this had happened to her. He always knew foster care had been rough on her, always knew that she had been abused, but not like this. Booth never would have thought that she'd been raped and tortured on a daily basis.

"God, Bones. I'm so sorry this happened to you. So, so sorry."

"It's not your fault. This was years before you ever met me. Listen, no one knows about this, Booth," Brennan whispered through her tears. "You can't tell anyone. Angela can't –"

She trailed off realizing her mistake, staring back down at the floor. Booth drew her head up to his, so they were looking into each others eyes.

"I won't tell anyone. And if I ever run into this son-of-bitch bastard, he's dead."

"Booth –"

"I'm serious. I will not let him hurt you ever again," he told her, rubbing her cheek with his thumb. "Now let me tell you something about me."

Booth pulled his shirt off over his head and turned his back to her. "Do you see it?"

He felt Brennan's hand brush over his lower back.

"Cigarette burns," she whispered.

"I've always been able to pass them off as birthmarks, but with you…"

"Did your father do this to you?"

Booth turned around to face her, nodding in response.

"Booth, I…I'm sorry he did that to you."

"I'm sorry your foster father did what he did to you."

Brennan noticed that tears were starting to form in his eyes, and she instinctively reached up to wipe them away. "Stop crying. I've already told you that it doesn't fit into my definition of normal."

He let out a small laugh. "Sorry."

"It's fine," Brennan said softly, bringing her hands down to cup his face. "It's f –"

She was cut off as Booth closed the distance between them and kissed her. Her eyes fluttered close as she let the sensation of his lips against hers take over. Brennan dragged her tongue over his lower lip and he opened his mouth to her. Their kiss grew feverish as they began nipping at each others lips. Booth's hands wove through her hair as he pulled her closer to him, craving the familiar taste of her mouth. Brennan moaned into his mouth as one of his hands dropped to her lower back. Her skin felt like it was on fire where his hand was splayed underneath her shirt. Without thinking, she moved to straddle his hips and immediately felt his erection pressing into her thigh. As he began to trail kisses down her neck, she shifted her position so she was rubbing against him, grinding herself on to him.

"Jesus, Bones," Booth breathed.

"Fuck me," she told him, stilling her movement.

"What?" He wasn't sure he had heard her right. Surely those words hadn't come out of Temperance Brennan's mouth; she just didn't talk like that.

"You heard me," Brennan said, tracing the outline of his abs with her index finger.

"Bones, a month ago you were telling me how you didn't want this anymore. And just minutes ago you were telling me about how you were raped. And…and…you're drunk," Booth reminded her, stilling her hand on his stomach.

"So are you," she stated before drawing his mouth back to hers.

He could feel himself growing harder with every touch. He needed to be buried inside of her. Screw the fact that this wasn't the best time to being do this. He needed her and he needed her now. Booth pulled off her shirt and tossed it next to his on the floor. His hands snaked around her back and unclasped her silky bra, tossing it on the floor as well. It was in that instant he realized that although Brennan had seen him naked before, he had never seen her completely exposed. He took in her soft alabaster skin with his eyes, before taking it in with his mouth.

Brennan moaned as Booth placed wet, hot, open-mouthed kisses on her clavicle. His left hand cupped her breast as his right was busy trying to undo the button on her pants. She could feel her need for him as the throbbing between her legs intensified. Not being able to wait for him any longer, she proceeded to strip the rest of their clothes from their bodies.

"Someone's anxious," Booth laughed as he watched his boxers fall to the floor.

Brennan responded by nipping at his ear and peppering his jaw line with kisses. Booth dropped his hand down between them and lightly dragged a finger across her entrance. She immediately stiffened at the contact, and he couldn't help but notice how wet she was already. He brushed his finger across her a couple of times watching as she basically crumbled under his touch before he plunged it all the way into her. She hissed as he did this.

"Been a while, huh?" Booth smirked, adding another finger inside of her.

"You have no idea," Brennan groaned, rotating her hips around him.

"Tell me, Bones, how long has it been?" he asked, sliding his thumb over her once more.

"I haven't dated anyone in three years, Booth. You do the math."

She had answered him with her eyes closed, trying to push his fingers deeper. Oh, I can have some fun with this, Booth thought to himself, slowing removing his fingers from her core. Brennan's eyes flew open and she stared at him in disbelief.

"Do you trust me?" Booth asked, sliding out from underneath her and moving to stand in front of her.

"Yes?" she answered tentatively, fear and desire fused in her eyes.

At that, he crouched down and she let his lips and teeth drag up her thighs until they nipped at the inside of her legs. Brennan relaxed, intoxicated by his low, incoherent mumbling against her skin. She let him open her intimately to his mouth. Her fingers had curved involuntarily against Booth's head as he kissed her there, licking against her gently, coaxing her, lulling her with the tender, slow way he did it until his tongue flicked against her in just the right way and she cried out, ending that endeavor because they both knew that anymore and she wouldn't be able to keep quiet and Katie would be woken up.

So Booth stood up and gently pushed on her shoulders, coaxing her to lie back on the couch. He crawled on top of her, brushing her sweaty hair off of her face. Brennan reached up to stroke him, a motion which drew a long moan from his lips.

"You're asking for it," Booth warned, as she sped up her hand speed.

"Go ahead," Brennan taunted. "Give me everything you have."

And so, he did. Booth thrust his way into her, adjusting her hips with his hands until they eagerly tipped up to meet him. He reached down, curved one of his hands around her thigh and drew it up to his waist, holding her there as he drove impossibly deeper into her body. He ground against her, groaning in pleasure. His voice, low and full of hunger because of her, had nearly sent her into immediate white-hot spasms around him.

Booth would withdraw himself at a painfully slow pace, only to come crashing back into her so fast, that she was sure she was going to pass out in pleasure. She had asked him to fuck her and that was exactly what he was doing. With each thrust, he'd found even deeper millimeters that knocked her breath away as he sank past them and farther into her, riding her in a rocking rhythm so ruthlessly controlled that it had left his arms trembling with the restraint.

She finally came around him, pulling him over the edge with her. The only thing she could see was white-hot light as her body convulsed beneath him. Eventually her breathing evened out and she looked up to find Booth smiling at her.

"What?" she asked, breathless.

"Nothing…just thinking we should do that again."

Brennan smirked, looping her arms around his neck. "Perhaps we should go upstairs. A bed will have more room than this couch does."

Booth's smile morphed into a devilish grin as he scooped her up into his arms and headed toward the stairs.

"Baby, I have not even begun to make you scream yet," he teased.

"Bring it on, baby. Just try not to wake Katie, okay?"

"You're the one who screams."

"That's what you think," Brennan scoffed, playfully.

"Oh, it is so on."

"Like I said, bring it."

Booth put her down on his bed and once again crawled on top of her. "You're in for a long night my friend."

"I can handle it. Can you?"

Booth laughed, cupping both of her breasts in his hands. "You know it, Bones. You know it."

He slipped inside of her again, her inner walls tightening around him as they adjusted to being stretched. She bucked against him as he thrust up into her at the same moment that he brought her hips up to meet his. She cried out, unable to stop the sound from escaping from her throat.

"You okay?" Booth asked her.

Brennan could do nothing, but nod as he kissed his way around her jaw line. So, with one deep, searing stroke he pushed impossibly deeper and she screamed, her back arching off the bed. He didn't stop this time however, instead finding a rhythm within her. He pushed again and again, using his hold on her hips to draw her upward every time he invaded her body.

With his next thrust, Brennan felt another scream bubbling in her throat. God, what was he doing to her? Booth's mouth collided with hers just before she could vocalize her pleasure.

He pulled away from the kiss whispering, "I told you, you were a screamer. Now stop before you wake the baby."

In the next instant, Brennan came for him, digging her nails into his back. She arched, her body going rigid as Booth slid his hand between her thighs, teasing her as he slammed into her. Then he slowed down, driving into her with punctuated thrusts which made her wrench her face away from him so she could bury her face into the pillow at her side, determined not to cry from the way her release had left her shattered and weak with relief.

She'd said his name and her heart had come apart, just as surely as her body had. He had come seconds after her, his hand cupping her jaw and bringing her mouth back to his as he made love to her slowly, his tongue tracing her lower lip and drawing it into his mouth until he lost control, biting her accidentally as his body tightened, the muscles on his back jerking violently as he came again.

Booth rolled off to her side, breathing heavily, and Brennan lay mesmerized by the rise and fall of his chest. He turned his head towards her, watching her watch him.

"I love you," he whispered, gently stroking her hair.

"I know," she told him, still not being able to find the words to say it back. She did love him, she knew she did. But at that moment, all of her insecurities were keeping her from returning the sentiment.

AN: I'm rather proud of this chapter. I want to a take a moment and thank all of you for sticking with me. I know it's been a long struggle to get them to this point (and the struggle's not over yet. I mean…) but this is who Brennan is to me. It just feels so out of character to me that she wouldn't fight him about what happened in season 6. And it feels out of character to me the way she just jumped into this relationship with him. I know we missed the early stages of it due to Em's pregnancy, but still. So continue to stay with me; I promise the journey is worth the ride. Also a big thank you to the wonderful reviews from last chapter. Keep 'em coming! ;)