Great Good Gods, this has grown a great deal from my original intent. Well, no harm, so long as you're all still with me. Like I said last chapter, much of this grew out of blc's suggestions, and they were most gratefully received.

All standard disclaimers involving ownership, research, etc., still apply. Especially the Russian…!

And I can't believe some of you really thought Booth just showing up would fix everything! (evil grin) Silly people!

What else could he do? Just what she ordered, of course.

He waited a short time before following her back, taking the opportunity to dust off his pants and seemingly reset his jaw. Damn, he had forgotten how hard she could punch!

Once back in camp, he joined the group heading for what had to be the kitchen, judging by the odors and time.

"So you work with Dr. Brennan in the States, I understand?" a man with a heavy Russian accent said to him as he hesitated in the door to the eating area. "Grigori Balakirev, Doctor of Archeology."

"Seeley Booth. Prijatno poznakomit'sa." They shook hands.

"Ah! You speak Russian!"

"Only a little," Booth admitted with a grin. "And not much of it for polite company, I'm sure. Learned it from some soldiers," he added by way of explanation.

"Come, let us get some food. You were in the Army, then?"

Booth nodded and scanned the small crowd. The woman who had greeted him when he arrived came up to him. "If you're looking for Dr. Brennan, she isn't here. She said something about a headache and took some soup to her tent." Reassured that he was still following her orders, he followed Balakirev to get some food and find a place to sit. At least she was remembering to eat!

The others at the table introduced themselves; he missed a few of the names, but caught the ones closest to him. Drs. Dineson and Linberg from Copenhagen; Clare Martin from Oxford…

"I was there last year," he told her. "Nice place."

"As was Dr. Brennan, I'm told. I'm sorry I missed her lecture series."

The others were politely curious about his work, and answered his own questions about the dig and local conditions with equal courtesy. After a while, their talk turned to the dig itself, discussing the artifacts they had found, the iron knife, a whetstone, a comb. The discussion rapidly turned into a debate on whether people had suddenly fled or simply died in their homes since things needed daily were still here.

Booth found it interesting, but was glad he wasn't asked to participate. Common sense didn't always seem to be a factor in these kinds of debates, he knew from experience, and that was all he had to offer.

**************************************

Brennan lay on her cot, staring at the tent's ceiling. She had thought she had everything worked out. But she hadn't factored in Booth figuring it out and charging after her.

Now she didn't know what to do.

She checked her watch. Too late to call Ange on a Friday night. First thing tomorrow, though she didn't know if it would be to ask for help or to scold. She still wasn't happy that Angela had told Booth exactly where to find her, but…Angela was also the best person to talk to in situations like this.

Sighing, she closed her eyes, sorting through the events of the day, considering everything he had said.

"And I finally realized why you got so mad when I said some those things to you after your last date. There I was, happily babbling about someones and somedays when the person you thought was your someone was right in front of you…I was blind. I was waiting for my own someday, my own someone, and didn't look across the table, where she was patiently waiting for me to catch up."

Presumptuous bastard. Even if he had finally caught up with reality, as Ange would say.

"I love you, Bones, I do; I know that. I can feel it here--" he slapped his stomach, "--and here." He touched his heart. "And I know it here." He tapped the side of his head.

She hadn't missed the significance of his gestures--his much vaunted gut, his heart, and his head all agreed. When he made that jump, he gave it his all; she knew that, always had known that, if he did, it would be something outside of her personal experience. Something in him made it easier to commit all the way--when he found something or someone worth it--but she had a harder time, even when it was something she wanted. She wanted to hold back, just a little, just in case. Once burned, forever shy.

Head and heart; it would be their motto if they had one. He was the heart; she was the head; the body did not exist without them--the center in truth. It was always that way, even as they learned from each other. Had he not seen how she learned from him? Could she explain? Should she try?

It was…scary to put your feelings out there like that. How could it not be? First steps were always the most worrisome and uncertain. Which was probably the real reason she hadn't said anything sooner--if he made the first step, the first overture, then she could have followed, caught up with him, and together they could have blazed the rest of the trail.

Logic, she told herself firmly. Not metaphors.

Fact: Booth had come to Greenland, not an easy trip, because he thought it was important that he talk with her. To bare his heart, so to speak.

Fact: He rarely, if ever, joked about the importance of said heart.

Fact: She valued his friendship and their partnership.

Fact: She was still in love with him.

Fact: She knew as surely as she knew the bones in the body that it would hurt if they didn't work out, but never trying it would be infinitely more painful. Knew it well enough to count it as a fact, anyway.

She groaned softly. This was why she hated sorting through emotions. They were so nebulous and contradictory, vague, unable to be measured.

At least he was doing what he was told. Not even a flicker of a shadow or the echo of his voice, though she was sure he had charmed the location of her tent out of someone. She didn't need the confusion of his presence as she re-categorized her thoughts.

I've never missed anyone the way I missed you.

She shifted restlessly.

Was this the moment? All or nothing? She did still want it, didn't she?

Heart into overdrive--his advice popped into her head. Maybe she should try it again, even if it meant a repeat of today. She rubbed her knuckles absently.

In the meantime, however, she would work. It would help her collect her thoughts better than staring at a square of canvas. She slid off the cot and went to the tent she and Dr. Dineson had been working in earlier, dropping her soup mug off in the kitchen along the way.

She had been there about an hour when that familiar feeling crept over her. "I know you're there, Booth," she said quietly, not taking her eyes off the bone she was examining.

There was only silence behind her and she ducked her head to hide her amused expression. "You can come in," she assured him.

"How'd you know, Bones?" he asked in an equally quiet voice.

"I've worked with you for four years and you're always coming up behind me. And you're always watching me. Why would it be any different here?"

"Good point." He found a stool and set it on the other side of the table from her. "Whatcha got there? Are you able to tell me?"

"This is one of our most recent finds. Female, early twenties. We think she died in childbirth."

"Why?"

"Mostly because of this." She turned to expose another skeleton on an adjacent table. "A infant was buried with her, plus I was able to detect indications of recent birth; well, recent relative to time of death. DNA will confirm, of course, if this is indeed mother and child."

Booth looked at the small skeleton with that pained look he reserved for juvenile victims. "Any way of knowing what happened?"

"Probably starvation or malnutrition at the least," she sighed, covering the bones again. "All of the skeletons we've examined dating from the late fourteenth century show such signs. But they were buried with care." She slid the box of gloves at him. "Put on a pair."

He did, with a scowl that faded when she opened another box. "We also found these with her."

He picked out the exact item she would have predicted--a badly stained ivory cross. "Christian?"

"Yes; a large number of the settlers here were. It's a common fallacy that all Norsemen were pagans; Christian missionaries reached Scandinavia in the 900s, I believe. It's a matter of historical record that a church was built in the original settlement, no matter how many followers of the older gods there would have been at the same time."

**************************************

Booth hadn't been able to sleep, so he had decided to just take a short walk. The glow inside one of what had been pointed out to him as a "working tent" drew him, so he stuck his head in, curious. He shouldn't have been surprised to see Bones, working away, late at night, when everyone else was sleeping. So typical of her. He watched, admiring the grace and care in her fingers, the careful attention she gave the bones in front of her. He had missed that.

Mindful of her order, he stayed in the doorway, quiet as only a well-trained sniper could be. And was still startled out of his skin when she spoke to him. She had been doing that for a while, hadn't she? The woman who no doubt would never believe in sixth senses apparently had one.

Wary of her quiet and calm tone, he came around at her invitation. But he couldn't help but ask about the body, just as though they were still at the Jeffersonian, and she told him, showed him the little, barely-there skeleton of a child who had lived just long enough to die. He couldn't help but think that perhaps it was good that the child died with the mother--neither would be alone in Heaven.

And then she had completely and utterly stunned him by letting him handle the artifacts. He hated wearing gloves, but holding that painstakingly carved cross in his hand, a feeling of awe and amazement ran through him, making the irritation disappear.

"Rosary or necklace?" he asked once she finished talking about missionaries and churches.

"Necklace, probably. We haven't found any other beads." She leaned closer, tipping his hand and studying the hole drilled into the cross. "The cord has long since rotted away."

"Oh." She was too close and he swallowed hard. Kissing her again would do no good, he shouldn't have done it in the first place, but he desperately wanted to. To distract himself, he put the cross back in the box and looked at what else was in there. Fasteners for clothes, mostly, and a glint of metal. He fished it out with all due caution and stared at it.

"Earring," she said matter-of-factly. "We haven't found the other one yet." She looked at it, lying in his palm, then turned back to the skeleton.

He put it back and yanked off the gloves, content to sit and watch her. He studied the smooth line of her jaw, the auburn glints in her hair, her total absorption in the task at hand. When he thought about it, he knew that he had been watching her for a very long time and once again mentally smacked himself for being so observant yet unobservant at the same time.

**************************************

"I suppose you'd like to talk," she said to him as she covered the skeleton. He had been remarkably patient, just sitting there, and somehow, no matter how upset she was, it felt nice, for lack of a better or more descriptive word. No--right might be a better one; she had gotten used to examining bodies with Booth looking over her shoulder.

"If you want," he said. "You said to wait until you're ready."

"So I did." She closed up the box of artifacts and put it away. "And if I'm not?"

"Then I'll go back to my tent. I was only out here because I couldn't sleep."

"Same here." They exchanged little smiles, remembering the nights of take out and late phone calls.

"Since you're talking to me, Bones, and if you're not tired, we could go for a walk?"

She pondered that for a few minutes. It was dark, and that might actually help: hide her face while she said all those potentially embarrassing things.

"Why not." She extinguished the lights and followed him out.

**************************************

They walked alongside each other, somehow on the path back to the meadow, barely needing the flashlight in her coat pocket due to the full moon. She let her mind wander--maybe she could turn some of this into some Kathy & Andy angst. Give it a little twist--I want her, but she's too good for me…there's no way he could want me. Maybe not the next book, but the one after?

But once they reached the meadow, she drew a deep breath and let it out with a huge sigh. "Booth," she started, still uncertain, but with a sense that it truly was now or never. And that she would have to start. "What--who--" She took a deep breath, trying to bring her thoughts back under control. "Did you talk to anyone about this?" A nice oblique approach, she thought.

"Not really. I had to meet with Sweets while you were gone, and he poked and prodded at me, but he never came out and said anything specific, just made me think about why you ran when our partnership seemed so good."

"Oh?" she asked, sitting on her favorite boulder.

"Yeah." Booth ran a hand through his hair again. "He pointed out that if we were as good as we looked, then you wouldn't have felt the need to leave. Or that you likely would have been more willing to talk about what was wrong, rather than walling off."

"I'm surprised you met with him at all," she said, dodging the question for a moment.

"Cullen made me." An echo of his resentment showed. "I still hate therapy sessions, just for the record, Bones, but I think talking to Sweets made me more open to the revelation when it came, if that makes any sense. Once I figured it out, though, I talked to Angela."

"And what did she say?"

**************************************

He knew he would have to step lightly here--Angela was her friend first and foremost. "She slapped me upside the back of the head and told me I was a first class idiot for driving you crazy. Told me it was about damn time I came to my senses and someone really should inform the FBI that I wasn't that great an investigator since I couldn't see the facts when they were right in front of me." He felt his face get hot. "She said a lot of other things, too--just not as complimentary."

There--she smiled. Just a little one, but it was real and the best thing he had seen in six months.

"Cam told me to my face from the start that whatever I did, I was an idiot. Even Parker had a few things to say when I told him I was coming here. Rebecca dope-slapped me, too." He rubbed the back of his head.

"Parker scolded you?" She sounded disbelieving. "And Rebecca…"

"No, he just let me know that it was the greatest thing ever that I was coming here and was I bringing you home? But I guess he told Rebecca a few things, and she's not a dummy either, Bones. Not as brilliant as you, but I haven't dated a complete airhead since I graduated high school." He hesitated. "Did everyone know?"

"I don't know everyone, so I really couldn't say," she said primly.

"And there's the smart-mouthed Bones I know and love." But he let himself grin as he said it.

"But according to Ange, yes, everyone did--except you."

"I won't argue. Even Cullen looked knowing when I asked for the time off."

She looked pensive, smile fading. He had to ask, his own grin sliding away in turn.

"Just tell me, Bones--how long?"

"Sometime after we were in New Orleans," she said, sounding a little choked. "But I knew for certain before Epps--"

"You knew by the time I drew the line?" He was incredulous.

"Yes. And I respected that line of yours, though it almost killed me. I was sure you meant it, especially after you practically pushed me at Sully when I worked with him, damn near threw me on his boat. Despite all those odd little interruptions. I--there are--I was so confused, Booth. You drew lines and yet you constantly interfered with my social life. You fed me all those sweet words, yet never once either offered to fulfill them or let me go to find the answers myself!" Her breathing quickened.

"You're the great investigator, the people person! Yet you're the one who tied me up in knots over all those damn promises, those soulful looks, those gentle touches. And you never saw it!" She stalked up to him, eyes flaring, poking him in the chest. "You're the heart aspect of our partnership, I trusted you to see these things, help me with them! You never saw it--do you have any idea of how that felt? I started to think I was doing something wrong--that I was incapable of properly feeling, seeing, showing--even having--emotions!

"And your line! I tried so hard to honor that damn line of yours. And you had no idea how I struggled with it. More than two full years and you were so blind!" She whirled away again. "I tried," she repeated softly. "Every man I dated, the ones you knew about and the ones you didn't, they were all substitutes for you. I think that's why I was so interested in Jared--he was the closest I could get to Seeley, and yet he was nothing. Worse than nothing, in the end."

Her words shook him to the core. He'd had no idea how long she had felt that way about him, how deeply he had wounded her. And the stuff about her doubting the validity of her own emotions, her capability to feel at all…he thought he had known how it felt to have his heart ripped out, but now he knew for certain. And Jared…he gulped, finally understanding.

"God, Bones," he whispered, sinking onto another boulder. "I'm so sorry. If I had known, if I had opened my eyes sooner--I never wanted to cause you pain."

"Well, you did," she replied in a muffled voice. "And I don't know if I will be able to forgive you anytime soon."

They stayed like that for a long time. Finally, he rose and walked around to face her. Gently, he laid hands on her shoulders, not daring much else.

"Look at me, Bones, please?"

She looked at him, eyes glimmering with emotion.

"I am sorry. I'll say as often as you need to hear it. I'll tell you I love you whenever you want to hear it, whenever you're ready to hear it again. Neither is a lie. Neither will be a lie, ever--I can't lie to you, or myself, anymore. Will you give me a chance? Give us a chance?"

**************************************

The moonlight showed her just enough of his face that she could see his sincerity--he really was one of the few she could actually read. She touched his face lightly, dislodging one of his hands; it came to rest on the curve of her waist. The other one slid down to match a moment later.

"I want to say yes," she said, letting her fingers slide down his neck, rest in the hollow at its base. His pulse beat furiously under her touch. "But I can't, not yet. There's too much here--I have to stay here for a while yet, I'm committed now. And it wouldn't be fair to either the old project or the new…venture for me to split my focus.

"Ask me again in DC," she told him softly before wrapping her arms about his waist and resting her head against his heart. His own arms came back up after a minute and slid around her, holding her in place.

Prijatno poznakomit'sa--pleased to meet you

Dang. I knew I should have tried harder to finish this chapter before they aired EitB. Completely threw me off my game. Hence the delay. And probably the struggle. Tell me this isn't too pat, please…!

And there is an epilogue!