I'm really sorry that once again, it took me so long to update – the current goings-on in canon have been a little distracting ;-)

Also, I realize that fics with B/B in an established relationship are generally less popular than stories about them getting together, so I'd like to say a special thank you, dear readers, for sticking with me during this part of the B/B journey, and for your feedback and encouragement!

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Booth puts the last of the dishes away and then follows Bones to the living room. With a sigh, he sits down next to her on the couch, wincing a little from the dull ache in his feet that has been his steady companion for most of the week, ever since the damned rain started.

As if reading his thoughts, she casts an irritated glance towards the window. It's only seven in the evening, but it's almost completely dark because of the heavy black clouds that are covering the sky. "I don't think you'll be able to take Parker to the zoo tomorrow."

"I guess not." He didn't mean to be so curt, but this week has been rough, and he's really been looking forward to his weekend with Parker. However, it looks more and more like he'll spend it with his bored son sulking about being cooped up inside and refusing do to anything but play video games, and Booth can't muster up much enthusiasm for that.

"We could take him to a museum, if you'd like? Or perhaps the aquarium?" She clearly tries to sound cheerful for his sake, and Booth feels a twinge of embarrassment that she should feel the need to placate him.

"Yeah, why not – I'm sure we'll think of something." Her face lights up at his smile, and he feels almost humbled by the realization that she doesn't even try to hide how important his happiness is to her. He pulls himself together – foul mood or not, he doesn't want Bones to feel like she's already saddled with a sulking pre-teen.

"Do you have to work tonight?" He knows she's got a book deadline looming, and she has already told him that she has several chapters to revise over the weekend.

"No, I can do that tomorrow evening, when you're staying at your place with Parker. Tonight, I'm all yours." The saucy wink she gives him is only slightly marred by the greenish-yellow shade under her eye that still hasn't completely faded, but Booth does his best to ignore it as he winks back.

"As appealing as that sounds, can you at least give me half an hour before you drag me off to the bedroom? I'm dead on my feet here."

"Oh, I didn't mean we should spend the whole evening having sex," she replies, unfazed as usual, but at least she didn't call it intercourse this time. "And you're not actually on your feet, considering that you're sitting next to me. Your feet seem to be troubling you, though."

Booth sighs. "There's no hiding things from you, is there?"

"Not when it comes to bone damage." She scoots away from him and pats her thigh invitingly. "Put your feet in my lap."

"Huh?" Booth is a little baffled by the request, but he still complies and stretches out on his back, with his head on the armrest of the sofa and his feet in Bones' lap. It's quite comfortable, but he still isn't sure what to think of this.

Her intentions become clear when she presses her thumbs into the balls of his feet hard enough to make him yelp.

"Ouch!"

"Sorry," she says with a little shrug, "you might experience some discomfort initially, but I know what I'm doing."

"I don't doubt it, Bones, it's just that…" Booth forgets what he was about to say when she starts working on his feet in earnest. It still hurts, but it feels like the pain is slowly melting away under her capable fingers, and he has to bite his lip to keep himself from groaning with relief.

"Better?" Given her self-satisfied smile, she can tell just by looking at him that she's working a miracle here, but Booth figures he should still make it clear that he appreciates what she's doing.

"Way better, thank you – you've got magic fingers, Bones." It's a good thing too, he can't help thinking – lately, his body has been hell-bent on reminding him that his 40th birthday is looming on the horizon. "I just never pictured you as the kind of woman who gives a guy foot massages."

She frowns, as if the remark surprised her. "I don't see why I wouldn't – I'm an expert on skeletal structure, after all."

"Sure you are – it's just that it seems like something out of a Fifties movie, you know what I'm saying?"

Bones shrugs again. "If you're alluding to stereotypical gender roles, let me you remind you that you massaged my shoulders when I had a headache last week."

"Yeah, and you gave me instructions throughout." Booth grins at the memory, but then yelps again when Bones pinches his toe in a way that doesn't seem related to the massage.

"Like I said, I'm the expert on skeletal structure. And now take your feet off my lap, I'm finished."

"Aw, come on, Bones, I was just getting comfortable here." The withering glance she shoots him is downright reassuring in its normalcy, and Booth quickly sits up and rests his feet on the coffee table. "So what's the plan for tonight?"

"I thought we could watch a movie."

"Sounds good to me." Booth does his best to keep his tone light; they've watched a lot of movies during the last two months, and he still isn't entirely sure how he feels about the whole thing. He knows he has only himself to blame – during one of the first evenings they spent together at her place, he jokingly told Bones that he was finally going to introduce her to the concept of sound films, and although she rolled her eyes at him, they still ended up watching "Jurassic Park" on her crappy little TV that she usually hid in the kitchen. She kept complaining about the impossible science and the gaping plot holes, but the little squeak she made when the Raptor jumped out at the two kids more than made up for it.

It was a fun evening, but he didn't think much of it until the next time he came to her apartment and found that Bones now owned a huge-ass plasma screen that took up an entire wall of her living room. She looked so pleased with herself that he couldn't bring himself to admit he wasn't crazy about being reminded whenever he switched on the TV that he had to work six months for the amount of money she could blow on a spontaneous shopping spree.

He still feels like an ungrateful bastard, but he can't help the sting of humiliation whenever he looks at the huge screen on the wall. He's aware that it's something he'll have to come to terms with – he has always known that he's piss-poor compared to her, after all, and he's determined not to let her notice that it bothers him when she buys things for his sake that he couldn't afford on his own. She'd probably just laugh or remind him in that factual tone of hers that it's still her TV and therefore none of his concern, but she still might think that he doesn't appreciate the gesture, and he doesn't want to risk that.

In a way, the TV reminds him a little of their current relationship – it's new and shiny, and definitely something he has wanted for a long time, but it comes weighed down with enough emotional baggage to keep Sweets busy for a year (if he knew about it, of course, and Booth has every intention to prevent that from happening for as long as possible). Besides, as fun as it is to work on Bones' pop culture education, Booth isn't sure whether it's a good thing that they spend so much time in front of the TV when they're at her apartment. Even if he doesn't like to think about it, he knows that there are lots of discussions they still need to have, but these evenings on the couch with her are always so comfortable that he doesn't want to ruin them by bringing up loaded topics – topics that might force him to admit that he still doesn't feel secure in this relationship (and considering how hard she's trying to get everything right, neither does she). It's ironic in a completely non-funny way, because he's pretty sure that most couples who watch lots of TV together do it because they have nothing to say to each other any more, not because they have too much stuff to talk about and can't bring themselves to address any of it.

Fully aware that he's taking the coward's way out again, he watches her insert a DVD into the player. "What movie did you get?"

"Alexander, by Oliver Stone."

"I don't think I know that one."

Bones returns to the couch and draws her knees up to her chest in a way that makes his joints ache just from looking at her. "I borrowed the DVD from a colleague in the Ancient History department. He says the movie wasn't very successful in the US, but he highly recommends it."

"Another history flick?" With a groan, Booth slumps against the backrest of the couch. "Isn't it enough that you ruined Braveheart for me?"

Something flickers across her face that looks like hurt, but it's gone so fast that he probably imagined it; instead, her expression turns indignant. "It's hardy possible for me to 'ruin' such a ridiculous mix of factual errors, anachronisms, deliberate misrepresentation of historical events, clichéd characters and bad acting!"

"Whoa, go easy on poor Mel, Bones!" Booth holds up his hands in mock surrender. "You win, okay? It's just that I kinda liked that movie, but now I can never watch it again without your voice in my head nagging that guys didn't wear kilts in Scotland back then!"

She throws him an icy look, although he's relieved to see the amused twinkle in her eyes. "And you'd rather listen to a horribly fake Scottish accent instead of hearing my voice in your head?"

"I didn't say that, did I?" he shoots back with a grin and pulls her towards him for a quick kiss. He feels her smile against his lips and decides that tonight, he's satisfied to live in the moment; all the stuff they still have to sort out isn't going anywhere, so it can wait a while longer.

Bones hits 'play' and then snuggles up to him when he wraps his arm around her shoulders, and Booth sinks deeper into the cushions, determined to enjoy the moment while it lasts, and turns his attention to the screen.

.

"That was surprisingly entertaining."

Booth realizes belatedly that Bones is waiting for some kind of reaction from him; he's been struggling to stay awake for the last twenty minutes or so, and he doesn't quite feel up to a coherent response.

"Uh – I guess…"

She gives him a calculating look. "Is that your way of telling me that you didn't like it?"

"Nah, I just – I must have dozed off for a while when you went all quiet instead of nitpicking the hell out of it…"

"I was quiet because I was paying attention, Booth, and there wasn't much for me to nitpick – for a mainstream movie, there were surprisingly few factual errors, and I found the depiction of Alexander's character very convincing."

"I wouldn't know anything about that, Bones," he reminds her. "The battle scenes were cool, though – you know, the way they showed his strategy during the big battle of…"

"Gaugamela," she helps him out when he tries in vain to remember the name.

"Yes, that one – sometimes movie makers seem to think battles are just guys hacking away at each other, but that one seemed pretty real."

"And the actress who plays Alexander's mother is very sexually alluring."

Booth rolls his eyes. As sweet as her attempt to find some pros for him may be, sometimes he just can't believe that a genius like her could be this oblivious. "That's because she's Angelina Jolie. Jeez, Bones, I've really got my work cut out with you."

She shrugs. "So you didn't enjoy it overall. It's okay, Booth, I'd just like to know what you didn't like about it so I'll know what to avoid next time I choose a movie for us."

Booth suppresses a sigh. It's ten o'clock in the evening after a long, stressful week, and he really doesn't feel up to giving an insightful movie critique when he'd much rather fall asleep against her shoulder. Still, he's determined to at least make an effort if it means so much to her.

"It's just that it was all rather depressing in the end, you know? I mean, I don't know the first thing about Alexander the Great, but I always thought the guy was like, the greatest hero of ancient history or something like that – but that guy in the movie was more of a power-crazed nutcase who basically failed in the end and left nothing but a huge mess behind."

He knows he's in for an anthropological lecture the moment she opens her mouth. "Those two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive – Alexander was considered the ultimate hero for centuries, even though you could say that he failed to achieve his most important goals. Heroism has been a fluctuating concept throughout history – and not only does it differ from one society to the next, even within a society several different, or even contradictory, concepts of what constitutes a hero can co-exist. In Ancient Greece –"

She pauses for a moment, obviously noticing that his eyes are beginning to glaze over. When she continues, she no longer sounds like she's lecturing; instead, she suddenly seems to be choosing her words very carefully. "What I'm trying to say, Booth, is that not only does every society have its own definition of heroism, but that individuals often develop their own concept which doesn't always adhere to the generally accepted norm. I know that you believe in an inherent connection between failure and weakness, but I assume that the real reason why you don't consider Alexander a hero based on what you just saw is that his goals and ambitions were essentially selfish, and it's actually something that concurs with my own interpretation of the concept."

Booth can't help the nagging feeling that she's trying to tell him something important and that he's too stupid to get it. "I'm sorry, but could you translate that into English for me?"

"I'll try." The way she keeps her gaze fixed on him makes it clear that he'd better pay attention. "I'm saying that while I can appreciate Alexander's accomplishments on an intellectual level, he doesn't fall within the parameters of my subjective concept of heroism either. If you'd like an example of what I consider heroic, my answer would be that your way of risking your life for the safety of others without personal gain and with little acknowledgement of your achievements fits the concept much better than a king who conquers half the world in a personal quest for power."

"Bones, wait a moment." Booth unconsciously sits up straighter. "Are you seriously telling me that you think I'm more of a hero than Alexander the Great?"

"If I adhere to my own understanding of the term, then yes, that's exactly what I'm telling you."

She sounds calm and composed, as if she were merely stating an obvious fact, and Booth hopes she won't notice how wildly uncomfortable he suddenly feels. He knows that if he closes his eyes now, he'll be back in Afghanistan, wondering what the fuck he's doing in the middle of this mess when he had a life back home, a life in which blood-spattered children and dead teenagers in Army fatigues were nothing but nightmares and memories. He has never felt like a war hero, not even during his early days in the service, but back then he could still believe that he was doing the right thing, no matter how ugly things got and how much the blood on his hands kept haunting him later. Now, though, the idea that Bones considers him a hero for what may have been the most cowardly thing he's ever done makes him sick to his stomach, and the worst of it is that he can never admit it to her. She has never said so, but he knows she's blaming herself for his re-enlistment, which adds an extra layer of humiliation to what he already considers the most shameful decision of his life. Seven months in hell seem like a well-deserved punishment for that, but he had hoped that she of all people would understand that it was the opposite of heroism that got him there in the first place.

"Bones, I just did my duty, I never –"

She cuts him off before he can finish the sentence. "I'm not talking about your military career, Booth, I'm talking about you, the man I've known for seven years. It pains me when I see you constantly questioning your own worth, but it doesn't influence my perception of you, and I stand by my assessment."

He has no idea what to say to that; at long last, all he gets out is a hoarse, "Thanks, Bones." He isn't sure if she truly understands how much her unwavering faith in him means to him, even though he can't help the nagging fear that he will never be able to fully live up to it. Still, seeing her look at him with such utter trust in her eyes makes him determined to be the man she sees in him, just to make sure she won't ever have to stop believing in him.

She nods and leans back into his embrace, and Booth tucks her head under his chin and pulls her close. They sit in silence for a while, but for once there's nothing uncomfortable to it; the rain is still pelting against the windows, but somehow the storm outside seems very far away.

"You know what surprised me about the movie?" Bones asks after a while; her tone is light and conversational, and Booth deduces with profound relief that they're done with the big topics for tonight. "I didn't expect the depiction of the relationship between Alexander and Hephaistion to be so overtly homoerotic. It's factually correct, of course, but given how much of a taboo homosexuality still is in most aspects of today's culture, I wouldn't have thought that a Hollywood movie would approach the topic with so little reservation."

Booth suppresses a chuckle. "Uh, Bones, does Brokeback Mountain mean anything to you?"

She raises her head to give him a puzzled look. "The short story by Annie Proulx? I don't see the connection."

"Never mind." Booth quickly changes the topic before she puts that movie on the list next – he has no problem with the topic in general, but the few guys he knows who were dragged into the movie theater by their girlfriends or spouses all described it as "the chick flick to end all chick flicks", and he really doesn't need Bones to go anthropological on his ass over that. "Don't tell me you thought I was going to freak out over those scenes?"

"It has crossed my mind," she admits with the slightest hint of a grin. "I know you're not homophobic, but –"

Booth gives her a stern look. "Bones, what exactly do I have to do to finally convince you that I'm not a prude?"

Her grin widens, and Booth finds he suddenly isn't all that tired any more. "How graphic would you like my answer to be?"

"Please don't hold back on my behalf." Booth leans in a little and lowers his voice – two can play that game, after all. "I'd have thought that bending you over the hood of my car on a public road in broad daylight would be enough, but if you need further proof, I'll be more than happy to provide it."

"I'll get back to you about that." She winks at him, but then she turns serious again. "I admit that I was a little surprised at first, though – considering your usual reaction whenever I brought up the topic of sex during a conversation…"

Booth holds up a hand to cut her off. "Stop right there, Bones. I'm private, not prudish – there's a huge difference, you know, and just because you squints have no concept of personal boundaries or common decency…"

"…which only explains why you reacted adversely to questions about your personal life, Booth, but you can't deny that even a general discussion of sexual topics often made you uncomfortable, even when it was just the two of us and not 'us squints', like you put it."

"You really want me to spell it out for you, Bones, don't you?" Booth gives her a look that's half exasperation, half resignation because he knows fully well he'll never hear the end of this after what he's about to admit. "It was much worse when it was just the two of us – I mean, do you have any idea what it did to me to hear you prattle on about things most people only think in the dark? In a tone that made you sound like the strict schoolteacher from a porn movie?"

"You watched porn movies about schoolteachers?" Her eyes widen as the implications of what he just said begin to sink in. "You mean you didn't like it when I discussed sex in a scientific manner because you found it arousing?"

"Still do," he confesses with a sheepish grin. "Even hearing you say intercourse sends my mind straight to the gutter, and that's probably the most horrible word that was ever invented for sex."

The slow grin that's spreading over her face now is full of wicked promise. "In that case, I look forward to expanding your vocabulary when we go to bed." Before he can take her up on the offer, though, she jumps up from the couch and makes a dash for her study, leaving Booth startled and more than a little frustrated.

She's back within seconds with her laptop. "Speaking of beds, there's something I wanted to discuss with you." She opens the browser and pulls up a bookmarked website. Booth watches with growing bewilderment while she sifts through what looks like pictures of furniture until she finds what she was looking for. "What do you think of this one?"

The picture shows a king-sized bed that's made of some kind of dark wood. Booth shrugs, deciding to go with whatever has gotten into her. "I think it's a bed, Bones. What about it?"

She gives him one of those stern looks she's so good at. "I've been thinking about buying a new bed. My current bed is queen-sized, and I think that it's a little too small for the two of us in the long run. Besides, the mattress is a few years old, and considering your chronic back problems –"

"Whoa!" he interrupts her before she can launch into another diatribe about his health issues. "Listen, I'm sure that a new bed is a great idea, but please don't make it sound like the next thing I'll need is a wheelchair, okay?"

"Okay," she relents, "so what do you think of this one? I really like the design, and it would go well with the rest of my bedroom furniture."

Booth shrugs. "Sure, it looks nice, but Bones, this is your bed, so it's up to you to decide."

That seems to put a dampener on her enthusiasm, and Booth immediately feels like an insensitive asshole – he knows fully well what she's trying to do here, after all, but the plasma screen debacle has made him a little wary.

"Booth, I wouldn't need a bigger bed if it was just for me, but since I intend this to be our bed, you should have a say in the decision too."

Our bed. Booth can't help loving the sound of it, even though he knows it carries implications that are way too much to expect from their current relationship, and he has learned the hard way how dangerous it can be to ask for too much too fast.

"Look, Bones, I'd really like that, but you do realize that you'll have to let me pay for half of it if you want it to be our bed, don't you?"

He braces himself for an argument that will undoubtedly deliver a few blows to his ego, but she merely nods. "That seems reasonable. So, what do you think of it?"

Within minutes, they're both engrossed in comparing designs and materials; Booth makes sure not to mention prices, because even if she picks out the most expensive bed she can find, he will pay for half of it this time, and he's honestly relieved that she doesn't seem to go for the cheap stuff for his sake. He keeps reminding himself that he shouldn't read too much into this, but he can't help feeling strangely giddy at the thought that they're about to buy something that will be theirs, and he can only hope that she won't start panicking halfway through.

It's almost midnight when they've finally narrowed down the list to a few favorites, and they agree to go to the store the following weekend to check out the real thing before they make a decision.

Booth starts nuzzling her neck while she powers down her laptop. He's wide awake now, and not at all averse to the idea of getting some more use out of her old bed while she still has it. Bones giggles a little, but judging from the way she keeps chewing her lower lip, there's something on her mind.

"Booth?"

She sounds so nervous that he's immediately alarmed. "Yeah?" He does his best to sound reassuring while he fervently hopes that she isn't about to balk.

"Move in with me."