Ch. 14

Her sip of Merlot turns into a couple of sips as she swallows the dry liquid down. Her eyes are looking over her glass into his as she drinks. He is mirroring her as he too swallows the dry liquid down looking over his glass back into her eyes.

Hayley watch as the two adults drink while exchanging glances she could tell they were talking to each other with their eyes like people in love do. She had noticed her Auntie and Booth had their own language early.

She sighs reminding them of her presence as she wait on an answer. Her Auntie looks away first setting her glass down he soon sets his down as well. "Was Hannah your ex-girlfriend?" Hayley look at Booth waiting on yet another answer to what she felt was a simple question.

Booth had experience in children stating the awkward, yet obvious facts and asking simple questions with complex answers. The experience came with being a parent and come to think of it Bones partner too. He knew there was definitely going to be more why's and that the answer was usually in all actuality a quite simple one, simple yet very awkward for the person or people answering it. It was best just to get it over with at once and pretend it was no big deal.

"Yes, Hannah was my ex-girlfriend Hayley."

"She's not anymore because you love Auntie now?"

Whoa! So not expecting that one dang kids. Actually, girls, they were more perceptive why couldn't she have just asked why they had broken up like Parker would have? That way he could have provided her with a neatly wrapped lie that she would have believed ending the awkwardness. No, she skipped right past that asking if her conclusion as to why they had broken up was correct.

Brennan suddenly was intrigued, nervous, and excited with her niece's previously awkward question and where it was leading. For, while she wanted to know the answer to the question as well, at the same time she was petrified of it.

She watches Booth waiting on the scary answer to leave his lips and suddenly she finds him looking back at her, right into her eyes. She doesn't notice she has inhaled momentarily and is holding her breath waiting on his response until she hears her heart beat throbbing a tribal drumming in her head. She releases her breath swallowing as she feels Hayley's eyes suddenly on her observing, noticing her uncomfortable behavior.

Hayley waits for what seems like forever as the adults stare at each other and she wonders to herself why they are being so quiet when Auntie had already told her that she loved him. Plus, she saw them holding hands, always staring at each other and mouthing words to each other. She may be ten, but she was almost eleven and not stupid. "Well?"

Booth glances at Hayley nervously then back to Brennan then Hayley purposely avoiding eye contact with her as he spoke. "Yes." The three letter word had left his lips slowly and quietly. The's' dragging on a little longer and filled with a bit more confidence than the other two letters.

He glances back to her now his eyes settling on hers searching them franticly for the fear he knew so well in her cerulean blues. For, she had been hurt by the very thing he dared to prove to her existed, the very thing she had told him she wanted to believe in, but couldn't.

She became terrified of him because with him she found herself believing. Believing in something that had proven in the past to be irrational, something that could and had hurt her, something she promised herself wasn't worth the risk.

That is why she had felt an urge to protect him and to keep him distant, because she knew that she loved yes she loved him and love had only proven painful and never lasting. She didn't want to cause him any pain she had promised to let herself become too close to him for that reason.

Though, it had proven hard because he wasn't like the rest and that pissed her off that he had the ability over her. The ability to make her feel that way that he did, the ability to be able to show weakness in front of him. The way she knew that if he hadn't had been so, so him then she wouldn't have found herself in this predicament.

Hayley look at her Auntie as the almost minute of silence linger. "Auntie?" her eyes look different and distant to her.

The predicament causing the irrational change that she knew was taking over and causing a tight feeling in her sternum, worst yet a loss of control. She knew to lose control wasn't acceptable for it was a sign of weakness. Though with him he dared to challenge her beliefs to push her to believe it was worth it every minute of it was worth the risk.

He felt he had waited for her invitation long enough, and he was over waiting. Though, he also knew what could happen if he didn't let her take her time, take baby steps. He needed her and weather she realized it or not she needed him. He saw the emotion, the glossy look in her eyes and became worried. Though, someone else had seen it as well and that someone didn't know the innocent wisdom they held.

"Auntie why are you sad looking? Aren't you going to tell him back? It would be the nice thing to do. You said you believed you were ready to go all in now. That a cata-cata-lyst was a good thing even if you were jealous and…" Booth listen intently to the little girls ramblings as Brennan remain in her own world. "…you said that you believed you were ready to love him back now and that you loved -"

At the mention of that word Brennan was pulled out of the awkward moment of silence the tribal drumming silencing itself allowing Hayley's voice to be heard loud and clear. "I remember what I said Hayley." Her words had come out rushed almost all slurred together.

With Hayley's mantra of 'you saids' now silenced. It had now become Booth's turn to hear his own heart beat become a tribal drumming inside his head. He looks at his partner, now it was her turn to frantically grasp for words when it was hard to remember any language except for a single silent one that only one other person in the world knew.