A/N Sorry for the delay, I had to get all my ducks in a row to teach my first class for the summer. I am also cross-posting this story at my LiveJournal site I finally set up. Just search LJ for user newscaper. The entry for the first chapter has a graphic I created which includes photos of the real HRT patch and the H&K PSG1 sniper rifle.

This is the longest chapter so far at 2900 words.

Saturday 12:45PM

When they finished shooting and were all packed up, Bones kept her promise to confront Tommy about the poorly maintained restrooms. They went over into the main building, and she waited patiently until the owner had waited on all his customers. She read him the riot act about not taking business from women for granted, and she was having none of Tommy's best 'aw, shucks' routine as he tried to brush her off. It was rough enough that the he looked to Booth for some help, which he refused to provide as he was enjoying the show too much. Not too mention the fact that he knew which side his bread was buttered on. Bones' trump card was threatening not to come back herself which, whether or not she was aware of it, worked because it would put Tommy squarely on the shit list of Booth, who was delighted with the implication she wanted to come out with him again. Tommy's shoulders sagged in defeat, and he contritely and sincerely promised to renovate the restrooms – after all, he knew which side his friend's bread was buttered on too.

Booth drove on the way back to his place. Once there Bones helped him bring in the gear. He would have loved to have seen the expression on his elderly neighbors' faces – and hers for that matter -- if they had seen her coming in with the big shotgun slung across her back as she carried the MP5 sub-machinegun, but he had no such luck. To his delight she seemed in no hurry to leave despite her protestations the night before about all the things she should be doing instead. Since Parker wasn't due until 4PM he hoped he might get to spend much of the afternoon with her as well.

He was eager to see how it went because this thing between them seemed to be changing, growing, deepening by the hour, ever since he'd returned. He was now certain it wasn't all just on his part. Yet he was still convinced that if things got physical too quickly it would be too easy for her to dismiss him as a merely a fling, if not an outright mistake, even if she didn't shoot him down up front. He cared for her too much now and couldn't handle either outcome. He was playing for keeps.

As they came inside he led her to the kitchen. "Just set them on the table." He put down the case containing the Remington rifle and a bag containing the now empty magazines for the MP5 and some boxes of the 10mm cartridges it used – he needed to reload the mags. She set down the MP5 then grimaced as she took the shotgun off her right shoulder. After she laid it down she worked her right arm.

He chuckled softly, "I told you the shotgun's recoil would get you."

When she saw that he had noticed her rubbing her shoulder, she quit and stuck out her chin stubbornly, "It was worth it."

He smiled, "Sure, but at a price. Let me see your shoulder." He walked around the table and came up on her right side. He only intended to carefully poke and prod through the fabric, but she surprised him by pulling the loose collar of her top aside and down a few inches with her right hand to expose her shoulder, having taken him literally. With her other hand she pulled her hair out of the way, which she'd already removed from the ponytail she wore earlier for shooting. Again he struggled to play it cool as he touched her warm skin, lightly probing then massaging the muscles. He'd usually gone for women who were more tanned, but her fair skin was never pasty and seemed fresher, cleaner than any tanning bed queen's. Not to mention more enticingly… naked.

He'd better at least pretend not to be drooling over her. "It's just a little red, at least the skin isn't actually bruised. Anything particularly tender?"

He barely heard her answer as he took in the sight of the pale pink of the bra strap against her creamy skin, the barest beginning of the swell of her breast, and the graceful line of her neck. A softly defined, delicate collarbone like hers got to him every time.

"No, it's just a bit sore generally," she answered.

After a moment she put her hair and collar back into place, and he took the hint, immediately withdrawing his hands.

She turned her head and smiled at him. "That felt wonderful, thanks."

"You're more than welcome," he grinned in reply. No shit.

Again he didn't think she was being deliberately provocative. Regardless, she was making him feel like he was a hormone besotted teenager half his age. Even though she had showed no more skin than many of her casual outfits ordinarily revealed anyway, something about the act of uncovering that which had been hidden gave him a jolt of pleasure, completely apart from the touch itself. God, he was getting pathetic, he thought. Don't fuck it up!

He tried to stick to the business at hand,"A couple Tylenol before you go to bed should help with any stiffness. I don't think you need to fool with an icepack."

She turned to face him fully then she surprised him again, his good old no-nonsense Bones. "Since I actually did more shooting than you it's only fair that I help clean your guns."

"No, you don't need to. You're my guest. Anyway, I already cleaned the handguns last night." Actually he'd been so keyed up that he'd gone ahead and cleaned them just to have something to do while he couldn't sleep.

She was persistent, "Well since there are just these three," she pointed to the table, "it shouldn't be that big a deal for me to help then, should it?"

He grinned as he gave in, finding it harder and harder to refuse her anything. "Ok, have a seat."

Booth retrieved his cleaning kit from the closet together with a couple of old towels which he used to cover the kitchen table in front of her. He then laid out the cleaning rods, patches and big swabs for the shotgun as well as the cleaning solvent and gun oil. After he got her started on the rifle he opened the window over the sink for some fresh air to ventilate the solvent fumes.

He asked, "How about a pizza for lunch? There's a good New York style delivery place just up the road."

"Sounds great," she replied. "I am getting a little hungry." She'd been enjoying herself so much she didn't realize it until he mentioned food.

After he phoned in the order he quickly took care of the shotgun, and when she was done he then showed her how to disassemble the MP5 submachine gun. It was more complex than the other two weapons, and as he'd expected, she was very interested in it. He helped her clean the parts then explained how the delayed blowback loaded the next round, and how the shape of the sear controlled single shot or fully automatic firing. As he demonstrated the interoperation of the various components she thanked him.

"I didn't know I was coming for a lecture." He had to look at her grin to be sure she was just teasing. "Seriously, I just knew how to shoot and perform basic maintenance on the guns I've used before, but I never understood much about the actual mechanisms. I just saw them as protection or empowerment but never paid much attention to them in their own right. Thank you," she smiled.

"You just needed a good teacher," he joked.

"Apparently you're right," she agreed warmly.

He replied, "It shouldn't be that a big deal anyway. They're just a different type of machine than what you're used to."

She looked puzzled at that.

He clarified, "You analyze body movements like it's a machine… I forget … what do you call it?"

"Kinesthesiology."

"Well I've seen the things you can do with that. You're amazing. That is much harder than understanding this. You just have slides, rollers and springs instead of joints and muscles." He got a wonderful smile for his compliment.

"Well I definitely have a greater appreciation for the science and engineering of shooting now," she said.

"Well firearm and cartridge design are definitely scientific," he affirmed, "but the shooting part is as much or more an art, and not just a question of trained reflexes either."

"But you explained what's involved in the internal workings and ballistics. That's science," she insisted.

He countered, "Sure, but in practice you never have all the hard numbers to plug into some formula with a calculator, and even if you did, there'd be no time. That's where the intuition comes in, the art of shooting."

She smiled in grudging acceptance of his point, "Ok, I'll grant you that much."

He grinned back at her, "Actually it gets worse. There's some of that fuzzy 'psychology' you dislike so much."

She pondered that, "I suppose the shooter has to be mentally prepared to pull the trigger…"

"Yes and no." He answered the eyebrow she raised at his apparently nonsensical reply. "That's true, but I'm talking about the shootee." He stopped smiling. "It's easier to aim and lead if you can anticipate which way the targets are likely to run when the shooting starts."

She accepted that with a silent nod, then after a moment returned to fiddling with the partially assembled submachine gun. Booth just sat back and enjoyed watching her.

He thought she looked incredibly cute with her hair in a ponytail again and a couple dark smudges of oily powder residue she'd unknowingly put on her face as she intently broke down and reassembled the MP5 again like an addictive puzzle. He couldn't decide how he preferred her hair. Screw it, he thought, she was gorgeous to him either way. Then he noticed the time.

"The pizza should be here any minute. Let's get cleaned up."

He'd already put everything else away so he went on over to the kitchen sink to wash up. She finished putting the MP5 back together and joined him at the sink where he was drying his hands. He moved to make room for her as she started washing, and he looked at the smudges on her left cheek. He decided to give into an impulse and push the envelope a little. He wet the end of another clean hand towel and put a dab of soap on it.

"Here, let me get that off your face."

She turned while drying her hands, "What?"

He lightly tapped her cheek, "You wiped a little gunk on yourself."

She smiled, "I can get it myself."

"Don't be silly, there's not a mirror in here." He didn't give her a chance to argue anymore or head to the bathroom where there was one. He went ahead and stepped closer and started softly wiping at her cheek with the cloth. His presumption paid off as she made him happy by giving in after rolling her eyes with a smirk. She looked over his shoulder, chin up, and closed her eyes. The smirk left and her expression became peaceful as he softly rubbed.

The greasy residue tended to shift around on her skin, resisting his efforts to wipe it off, but to be honest he wasn't trying too hard as he was enjoying the rare opportunity to once again take care of her. Then he noticed her incredible blue-green eyes were open again, examining his face from just inches away, and he tried to stay focused on her cheek. They were too close. Easy boy… don't… but he was drawn in anyway. Their eyes met for an intense moment, and his apparently betrayed too much. She shied away from the unexpected intimacy and looked away, breaking the connection. She grabbed the cloth from his hands and backed up a step.

Fuck! He'd spooked her in spite of himself.

"I can wash my own face. I'm not a child." She said it with a small grin, her tone lightly mocking, but he could tell she was a bit flustered as she finished washing her own face with the cloth. But she surprised him while he was still mentally kicking himself. She seemed to collect herself as she laid down the cloth, and turned back to him.

"How do I look now?" she asked, playfully presenting herself as if for his inspection.

He was so thrilled that her retreat was temporary, that he almost screwed up again. He was too honest with the answer that just popped out.

"Beautiful."

She smiled shyly at the compliment, but was clearly taken off guard by his choice of words. Dammit! He quickly changed the subject, making a show of peering out the window.

"Where's that pizza guy? He should have been here by now." He turned back to her, "What would you like to drink? Beer, wine, soda?"

"Wine, thank you." When he produced the bottle he managed to surprise her just as he had hoped. "That's my favorite red. I didn't think you were much into wine." He got another nice smile out of her.

"Well, you never know who might show up." He'd picked up the Chilean cabernet on the way home last night just in case, a small gamble which fortunately paid off. He gave her one of his 'charm' smiles as he poured two glasses, even though he personally considered wine a bit highbrow for pizza. Just then the doorbell rang announcing the arrival of their lunch.

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They were each sipping another glass of wine over the remains of the pizza. She had just concluded an interesting story of how the squints had determined the cause of death by foul play of a socialite in an unsolved case dating to Prohibition when Booth decided the time was right for a little fishing expedition. He needed some intel on just what competition, if any, he might be up against. Interrogation without alerting the suspect was always the trickiest.

He observed, as casually as possible, "I'm kinda surprised David doesn't mind you blowing most of your weekend with me." Better to get his worst case concern out of the way off the bat. If David was still around after all this time it might be serious, and things would be messy if not futile.

"Oh him? That ended quite a while back. It never really went anywhere." She raised her glass to him and acknowledged with a smile, "Perhaps you were right about online matchmaking."

Yes! Booth could genuinely smile at that. He felt like pumping his fist, but he successfully resisted the urge to kick Dick431 while he was down. Be gracious in victory and all that. But he still did not want to know if the investment banker had achieved "on occasion" status.

"I can't help it. I'm just an old-fashioned guy who prefers face time and really getting to know someone first."

It also constituted good circumstantial evidence she wasn't seeing anyone else as it would have been a reasonable opportunity for her to say that, no, she was seeing 'Fred' now. It looked like the coast was clear.

But she wasn't through…

"How about you?" she asked, changing gears.

"What?" It was his turn to be caught off guard.

"Don't you have some blonde hidden away?" she teased.

He laughed at that. "No, nobody. It's been a long time. Anyway, even if I had one, I'd doubt she'd have stuck around after being neglected these last few months."

But she still wasn't finished surprising him.

"Well there's your problem," she chuckled at him. He raised both eyebrows at her.

"You just need to find a woman smart enough to realize you're worth waiting for," she clarified. She seemed to be watching him closely.

"I think…" I've found her, was what he thought, but he had the presence of mind to reply out loud, "… I'd better look into that." He gave her a huge grin, and to his delight she seemed satisfied with his answer. Maybe he was reading too much into it, but he felt like a million bucks. But his joy was short-lived…

The doorbell chimed, startling them both, and he rose to answer the door.

As was his habit when he wasn't expecting anyone, he was careful to check the peephole first – after all he'd helped put quite a few perps behind bars.

He got a good look. Dammit! Aloud he muttered "Goddammit." Bones must have heard him.

"What's wrong?" She looked at him with concern on her face.

He sighed. "It's Rebecca." He looked at the clock on the microwave. Two fucking hours early…

A/N Sorry to be so mean… NOT!

Some Brennan POV is coming up.

Please review – I'd particularly love to hear from anyone who is still reading from whom I haven't heard in a while – let me know you're still out there. Thanks.