Chapter 13

Booth arrived back at the Hoover in a mood that sent the surrounding agents scurrying out of his path. He shut his office door forcefully and sat down, leaning his elbows against his desk. Just a couple of hours ago he felt like nothing could bring him down and he was amazed by how quickly one woman could change all that. Of course he'd known from the moment he met Brennan that things would never be easy with her.

He'd lain awake that morning watching her sleep, awed by the depth of his feelings. The fact that he loved her wasn't what surprised him. Of course he'd known that he loved her – she was his friend and his partner and he'd long ago accepted that she was important to him in a way that not many women ever had been. He worried about her – if she was happy or sad, if she remembered to eat, if she was working too hard. It had become second nature to him to protect her from being hurt, not just physically but emotionally as well. The rest of the world might believe that she was more scientist than woman but he knew deep down that wasn't really true.

The surprise had come with the realization that he might never feel the same way about another woman in his life and that his own happiness had become so dependent upon hers. Booth thought about her behavior at the lab. If he believed Angela then Brennan was jealous of the fact that she'd seen him with Tessa. However uncharacteristic, he conceded that Angela could be right about that. He tried to look at it from Brennan's perspective. Everything had happened very quickly the night before and he knew that he himself was still reeling from the changes between them. Angela was right about something else as well. If he was being honest with himself, he knew that he did feel a little insecure about the status of their new relationship. He wanted more from her, but he was also worried that in pushing for what he really wanted he might drive her away. He knew that emotional intimacy scared her more than bullets and if he needed to slow his own pace to make allowances for her then he was willing.

What bothered him now was not the fact that she might be jealous. Booth admitted that if he'd seen her with someone – say, Sully – today after spending the night with her he wouldn't have liked it much. The difference is that he would have trusted her in the situation and what made him angry was the idea that she thought he could share something so intimate with her and then move on to another woman without even talking about it. He had stood in her kitchen that very morning and told her that he wanted to be with her every night. She knew how he felt about sex, relationships and monogamy. He'd never made a secret of the fact that he was a one woman kind of guy. That was the key here – trust. If nothing else he felt that he had earned her trust and the idea that she might not trust him completely hurt much worse than anything else she could say or do.

Booth tried to put everything out of his mind for the next couple of hours as he caught up on old case notes. He was on edge though as he waited to see if Brennan would call him with information on their case. A couple of hours later he got a hit on Angela's sketch. "Bingo," he said as a missing person's report came up for 17-year-old Claire Reynolds, reported missing a year ago along with her twin sister Casey from the Arlington area. If he was still a betting man, he'd bet his paycheck that the remains would prove to be these two girls. He stood up and walked over to the door, calling for Charlie. He gave him the case numbers and asked him to pull both files and set up an interview with the police detective who had been leading the investigation locally.

He was just sitting back down at his desk when his door opened and Caroline walked in. She marched over to his desk and dropped a pastry box in front of him. "Have some beignets and croissants. I picked them up from my favorite bakery this morning."

Booth eyed the box as if it were a snake coiling to strike at him before shooting her a suspicious look. "What do you want, Caroline?"

"What?" She looked innocent as she sat down across from him. "Can't I just bring some damn good pastry to my friend, or does there have to be a reason for it?"

Booth snorted as he sat back in his chair. "With you there's always a reason, so out with it."

"Consider it a thank you, then," she replied.

"What are you thanking me for and how much blood will I have to sacrifice to earn it?"

"I'm thanking you for the tidy little sum I earned today from betting on you and the good doctor. If you two had to pick a month to finally throw your blind stupidity out the window, I'm happy it was this one. I had a good feeling about it." She looked very pleased with herself as she spoke.

Booth could not believe this. Did everyone in the greater D.C. area know what had happened between them? "Just how in the hell did everyone find out so fast anyway? Up until last night we were strictly partners."

Now it was Caroline's turn to snort. "You two have never been strictly partners. You spend more time together than I did with my ex-husband when we were married and had a child. In my mind it was never a question of if so much as when. Maybe now I can stand to be in the same room with you two without needing a cold shower afterward." She reached across his desk to help herself to one of the beignets in the pastry box. "And as far as the speed of the gossip, Dr. Brennan announced to a full crime scene that you two were knockin' boots. You can trust me when I say that everybody knows about it now, from the janitorial staff up to Judge Eversleigh's office."

Booth sighed as he processed this. "Yeah well you better collect fast." He reached for the pastry box only to find his hands slapped back. "Ow!" he muttered. "What was that for?"

"Seeley Booth, don't tell me you've already managed to screw this up," she threatened.

"Me? Why is it my fault?"

"Because that partner of yours is only a genius when it comes to those bones she loves so much. Normal people things fly right over her head and you know it."

"Look, I appreciate the pep talk and the pastries, but this is between me and Bones and I don't like the idea of everybody talking about it," he said firmly.

Caroline stood up and walked towards the door. "Fine but you better fix it because if I lose out on my winnings I will make sure you two have to see Dr. Sweets for partners therapy every day for the rest of my life. And just so you know, I plan to live forever." She walked out, taking her box of pastries with her.