A/N: Sorry for the delay on this one, guys. I clearly need to get back into the routine of updating once a week!

Chapter 14

June 17th, 2011

"Hey, Sweets," Brennan said cheerfully as she and Booth stepped through his office door and dropped into their usual seats on the couch.

He glanced up and then at his clock, his eyebrows rising towards his hairline. "You're… early."

"Figured we'd get it out of the way," Booth said with a shrug, looking over to grin at her. She returned the look before focusing her attention back on their psychologist. The case was going slow, and with all of their efforts focused on it, there hadn't been much to do at work recently besides wait. It gave them the chance to spend a lot more time together, without worrying so much about facing any sort of action or danger in the later hours. Shaw and Sweets were the ones close to the front lines this time around. They were here now more with the intent to check up on him than to have him analyze them. But Booth had specified that they should try to keep that to themselves.

"Well… alright then," Sweets said, shuffling through papers on his desk and closing the file he had been reading. He got to his feet, stumbling a little as he tried to hurry around his desk. Finally, he had himself settled into his usual chair, though, and he crossed his legs and laced his fingers together, observing them for a moment.

Brennan kept her focus on him, even as she felt her eyes fighting with her. Trying to look towards Booth and gauge his expression. They were doing well. Better than she had been expecting, really. It was amazing, and wonderful, and she desperately wanted it to never end.

Another reason they were here early was because they had an appointment to look at a house an hour from now. She found herself nervously anticipating it, and imagining what it would be like to settle into a real home with him. Maybe it would make it more real, more solid and tangible. She hoped so, but at the same time she hoped not. This, right now, was like living in a dream. It was, and she hated to even admit it to herself for the sheer unreality of it, magical.

"Tell me, has anything changed in your relationship since the last time we met?"

It was a weekly thing, of course. Sweets wouldn't have it any other way, and they had been forced to agree to this terms because there was simply no way out. Hacker was in on the details now, and was surprisingly supportive, offering his congratulations and only lightly mentioning the ramifications the changes might have on their working relationship. Sweets had smoothed out everything, though, and they really couldn't help but be grateful.

"Not too much," Booth said, speaking for the both of them. "We're looking at houses, but you already knew we were planning on that."

"Have you actually seen any places yet?" Sweets asked, leaning forward with a glint in his eyes. Like a switch flicking off, his shrink mode was replaced by his personal investment in their relationship.

"Not quite yet, but we've got a couple that we've made plans to visit."

He seemed to have realized himself, because he straightened up and nodded with a more professional dignity to his manner. "That's good; I'm glad to see you making progress. And how is… everything else?" He looked between them, his gaze straying down towards the small bump visible through her blouse. Pretty soon, it would be obvious to anyone that looked at her.

"According to the pregnancy calendar that Angela helped me set up, the baby has reached an approximate size of eight millimeters at this point."

"Today's info says that the bones have started forming," Booth tossed in, grinning and nudging her side. "Our little Bones' bones…"

She rolled her eyes, but there was laugher in her eyes. "Tomorrow," she corrected, "But that's not a guarantee. Just a rough estimate of a time line."

Sweets cleared his throat tentatively, drawing both of their attention's back to him. "Sorry. As much as I love to hear it, I just… we have other things to discuss."

"Oh, right," Booth said, nodding and turning himself on the couch so he could cross his arms and face the doctor more directly. He raised his hand towards him to show him he was free to continue with their session.

"Alright. So. I have a couple of questions that will assess how you each feel personally about the differences your current relationship has from the partnership you were previously solely invested in. Some of them are personal, while others are entirely about professionalism…" he was extracting two packets from a folder, and Booth met her eyes with an alarmed look, his eyebrows crinkled together.

"Is this like… the survey we took when we first started coming here?" she asked, scanning through the questions when he held out one of the packets for her to take. She wrinkled her nose in distaste. It was long.

"Similar, yes. You might even recognize some of the questions. And don't worry; all of your answers will remain confidential and will not be shared with anyone. Including each other."

Booth immediately let his slap down on the table in front of him. "We're not filling this out," he said firmly, his tone a level of serious that said he wasn't prepared to take no for an answer.

Sweets sort of smiled, a nervous twist to his lips as he assessed the situation, first focusing on Booth and then turning to her when it was clear that Booth's face was not about to change. She didn't give anything away, her face a blank mask and the papers sitting limply on her lap. She had stopped looking through them when Booth had dropped his. She had to agree that the idea was simply ludicrous. It was a waste of time, and it wasn't going to help any of them in any way. She wasn't about to be analyzed for another paper, if that's what this was.

"I just thought…"

Both of them shook their heads, and he slumped back in his seat.

"Fine. Fine, just go, then. I'll see you next week, if that's what you want. Or, you know, not at all… it's not like you don't have Hacker wrapped around your fingers or anything…"

Booth looked like he was almost going to do as the shrink had suggested, but he, like Brennan, stayed seated. Irritation was replaced with concern.

"Everything okay, there, Sweets?" Booth questioned.

The psychologist lifted his hand up from where it had landed over his eyes, and peered through his fingers at them. "Oh yeah. It's great."

Booth cut his eyes at her, and they shared a concerned look. "Are you feeling an extra level of stress recently?" she managed to ask after a moment.

That earned a slight smile. "You could say that."

She put down her survey as Booth continued with the questions. "Well, do you want to… talk about it?" They were the only people, she thought to herself, that this could happen with. The counseled becoming the counselors in mid-session.

Sweets hesitated for a long moment, seeming to think through his options. They waited patiently.

"I've been spending a lot of time with… Agent Shaw, recently."

"Oh," Booth said, falling back into his seat heavily. She frowned, not following.

"What?"

Booth started speaking again, before her question could be answered.

"How's that going for you?"

"Well… I thought it was working out. But… I don't really know what I'm doing."

"What—?"

"Have you told her how you feel, then?"

"No," Sweets said heavily. "I think she'd laugh…"

"Are you interested in a sexual relationship with Agent Shaw?" Brennan asked, frowning as she tried to work through her confusion.

Sweets dropped his head into his hands and Booth barked out a sharp laugh, muttering a quick "yes, he is" to her and trying to hide his grin as Sweets groaned something inaudibly into his hands.

"Tell you what, Sweets," Booth said, reaching forward to pick up both copies of the survey and handing hers back to her. "We'll fill out these things and get them back to you. Have a good week." He stood up, and she followed suit, letting him guide her towards the door with a hand rested gently on the small of her back.

"I think I might have embarrassed him," Brennan murmured as they rounded the corner and headed for Booth's office. They still had some time before it was reasonable to leave for their appointment with the realtor.

"Yeah, I think so," Booth agreed, smirking.

He sat on the edge of his desk and she hovered behind his guest chair, resting the tips of her fingers on it lightly. "We should be getting the blood work results back shortly," she said quietly, after a moment.

They weren't worried in the way Angela and Hodgins had been; they had run through the possibilities for the most common issues, and had found that the odds were very slim that their child would have any major problems. The odds were in their favor. Yet, she was apprehensive. As with everything that had to do with the pregnancy, she felt like she was wandering through an unfamiliar place in the dark. No matter how much research, how much preparation, she and Booth went through… she always felt like she should be doing more. Like there was something they weren't taking account of.

And she was always afraid that something was going to go wrong. Because she couldn't possibly be this happy. Something had to go wrong, because something always did. With her, at least.

He nodded in response. "Yeah, that will be good. One less thing, right?"

"Right."

"You think we should be… you know, looking more seriously at names?"

"I… I don't know. Maybe. But we've got time. We've got a lot of time."

He nodded. "Yeah. We'll just focus on getting a place. Our place. And then we can go through some more baby books. When it's closer. And… after we find out if it's a boy or a girl."

She smiled, now, almost laughing. "Our baby is going to be a girl, Booth."

He stood and came over to pull her into him, his eyes smoldering as they focused intently on her before he gently caressed her lips with his own. "So you've said," he murmured lovingly, running his fingers through her hair before he unwillingly pulled himself away. "We should probably get moving."

She breathed out a sigh, feeling a shiver run down her spine as their skin lost contact. "Yes, probably…"

The house was nice. It was something they both had to agree on. It was two stories, with a front porch and a spacious yard. The place was open and attractive, with tall ceilings and glimmering lights and shiny hardwood flooring. The windows were large and the rooms well-lit. She liked the kitchen, and he liked the family room. They both liked the bedroom.

For some reason that neither of them could define, though, they both promised to 'think about it,' when Theresa, their real estate agent, clapped her hands together and looked at them expectantly at the end of the tour.

"What did you think?" Booth asked her over a cup of coffee as they sat across from each other in their customary booth at the Royal Diner.

She shrugged, stealing a forkful of his apple pie. "I don't know. It was nice."

"Yeah it was. Nice. Like my pie…" he pulled his dish away, curling an arm protectively around it and raising an eyebrow at her.

"It's good," she commented, eyeing it again while still chewing thoughtfully on the first bite.

"Says the woman who hates her fruit cooked…"

She shrugged again, as though that were a meaningless fact. "It smelled good."

"This pregnancy is going to kill me…" he muttered. "What else, though? About the house?"

She considered his question. "I don't think I want to buy it."

"Me either," he said, smiling in relief. "I think it was just… too perfect."

"Yes," she agreed heavily, glad to finally have a definition for her distaste. "And it didn't feel right. I thought that… when we found someplace for ourselves, I would belong there. But I don't know if that was silly, or—"

"No, no, that makes perfect sense," he assured her. He chuckled. "I felt the same way, to be honest. And that place wasn't meant to be ours."

"No, it wasn't. So what do we do now?"

"There are a few others that we're going to look at, remember? Maybe we'll have better luck with them. And besides, things like this take time. I wasn't expecting it to work out on the first shot. This could take months, if necessary."

She nodded. "If that's what it takes, then that's what we'll do. I don't want to spend our daughter's childhood moving around too much because we aren't happy with what we have."

"Good. We're going to find something, Bones. Don't worry. Before you know it… we'll be living in the place of our dreams. And it will be ours."

They sat in silence for a moment, and then she suddenly said, lifting her head and setting her fork down, "I want a garden, I think."

He raised his gaze to meet hers, smiling in gentle amusement, his eyes soft and filled with a sort of fascination. "Really?"

"Yeah. I want a garden… maybe not out front, but out back. Something for… for me to work on. I can grow daffodils, like my mother used to… and lavender… my father loved lavender…"

He reached a hand across the table to land on hers, and she fell silent. "That sounds like a great idea, Bones. A really great idea. Although…" he took his hand back, taking another large bite of his pie and chewing through it as she waited patiently for the rest, "I'm not sure how well that would go with the dog."

"Oh, the dog?" she asked, raising an eyebrow, a smirk already forming on her lips. "I don't remember this part of the plan, Booth." But I like it.

"Well, you know, I can be spontaneous, too. You'll have your garden, I'll have a nice golden retriever, or maybe a Labrador…"

"Or a mutt," she suggested. "It's a documented fact that they're more easily trained and tend to be gentler."

His grin widened, and she knew he had realized that was her way of agreeing. He leaned forward now, more intent on their conversation as his eyes danced with excitement and good humor. She reached forward and cut off another piece of his pie, and he only laughed, going on about how maybe they could get a German Shepherd, and how they could have a pool for when the kids got older. Oh, kids? Plural? she said, and he laughed and said What do you think? and she just smiled, wondering why in the world this was happening, and how she had managed to survive to this point and deserve the future that was spreading out so rapidly in front of them.

~BxBxBxBxBxB~

Sweets tossed his keys on the counter, shedding his jacket. "Hey," he called.

"In the living room!" came the response, and he picked his bag of takeout up from where he had placed it down next to him.

"I brought Chinese," he said, grinning ruefully as he stepped into the room. Shaw glanced up from her spot on the couch. She was in sweats, her hair up in a messy ponytail and a game controller in her hands.

"Awesome." She nodded towards the spot next to her. "You can join me on the next raid."

He grinned, shuffling forward and dropping down onto the cushion. He quickly pulled the cartons of food out of the bag and arranged them on the table, offering her a pair of chop sticks which she accepted eagerly. She was better with them than he was, and he found himself somewhat jealous whenever they indulged in this particularly unhealthy habit. Although, she insisted it was better than that greasy pizza from that store on the corner that he loved so much. He had to agree. He hadn't even heard of this Chinese place until she had introduced him to it.

"How was work?" he asked, picking out a few strands of Lo Mein and popping them into his mouth.

"The usual," she said with a shrug, picking through the container of fried rice for a piece of rib.

They never talked much about her undercover work. They discussed the technical aspects of the job, about the suspects and the things that she overheard. But they never discussed the non-case related aspects. She said nothing about the drunk men who tried to touch her or the way she saw the other servers slipping out back with the richer of their clientele. He knew, but they still never brought it up.

It was "How was work?" and then "The usual," and it was a routine of sorts. One that neither of them attempted to alter.

The first week had been odd. He came by to keep her updated on the FBI side of things, and to join the video-conferences on her end. He brought her mail from her actual apartment, and hovered a bit before awkwardly bidding his farewell. She didn't seem to want anything to do with him, in that time. She pointedly showed him the door, and she was always digging through files, papers laid out across multiple surfaces and the television screen an extension of her laptop as she sorted through details and built up profiles on these people who she encountered on a daily basis.

Then, only a few days ago—although it felt like longer—she had asked him what he thought of something that the manager had said to her. He had brought by Chinese food for her, planning on just dropping it off and being on his way as per the norm, but instead discovered that they had eaten the entire thing and were still engaged in deep theory over the case, sitting next to each other on the couch.

She was a gamer, as he had learned from his previous drop-ins, and she liked to unwind after a long day by sitting up and playing away her stresses. Now that she had a routine, she had discovered that it worked better if she slept through the mornings so she was more prepared for the long nights at the club. When he had said, setting down the last of the takeout containers, that he liked a certain game she had mentioned, a light had gone on in her eyes. She had challenged him to a match, and there was absolutely no way he was going to refuse.

After that, she had stopped showing him the door and started preparing for his arrivals. Some nights she wanted to work, others she wanted to kill zombies. He was flexible, and just glad to feel accepted. And every time he left, he always found himself planning ahead of time where he would go to pick up their next dinner… and how he might be able to get away with gradually making it a bit more romantic.

He would give it more time, and see what happened. Maybe he'd pick up some ideas along the way. He wondered, too, if this was how Booth had felt, after he first started working with Brennan. And then he decided that he was getting way ahead of himself. Shaw wasn't Daisy; he wasn't diving into this unprepared. He really liked her. She was funny and driven and very attractive. They had a lot in common, and they got along really well. He didn't want to screw this up.

Time. He just needed to give it time.

If he could remember that, maybe this thing had a chance of success.

"You're going down," she said, as the game loaded.

He grinned. "That's what you think."

~BxBxBxBxBxB~

July 2nd, 2011

"Are you going to be okay if you're wrong?" Booth asked, his hand on her leg. She laughed shortly, raising an eyebrow at him.

"See, but I'm not wrong. And if for some reason I am… then yes, I will be perfectly fine."

Booth shook his head, grinning. For someone who believed in pure science, she had gotten awfully convinced lately that her intuition was above all else. They were having a girl, she said, and he didn't doubt her for a second. He just worried that if she was wrong, he might never hear the end of it. She might not have said anything, but he could tell she was already planning everything out. She wanted a garden, and she wanted to plant daffodils and daisies with help from their daughter. She wanted to go dress shopping with Angela—another thing he hadn't seen coming; Bones' feminine side going on a rampage.

The hormones, she said. Hidden aspects of her personality, he thought to himself.

"Dr. Brennan?" the doctor called, and he stood up, helping her to her feet despite the warning look she shot at him. She wasn't showing too much just yet, but her clothing was starting to not fit just right, and he saw the grimaces that flashed across her face when she pushed herself back upright after sitting for a while.

Dr. Lee was smiling warmly when they came into the room and settled themselves down into their customary places. This place was starting to become familiar, now.

They weren't here, today, to find out their baby's gender. Bones had assured him plenty of times that the date when that would be discernible was still some time ahead of them. Today… they were going to hear their child's heartbeat.

"How are we doing since the last time I saw you?" Dr. Lee asked, focusing mainly on Brennan but also looking at him.

"Very well," Brennan answered, her hand rested on the slight bulge of her abdomen.

"Now, I know you're already aware of this, as you called my offices, but all of your blood work came back with very good results. You have nothing to worry about." She handed off the charts to Brennan, anticipating the request and smiling now more out of humor than anything else. Brennan wasn't the most normal of patients, and he watched with equal amusement as she flipped through the report like a pro, scanning through and nodding to herself every now and again before she finally offered it back to the doctor.

They went through a few questions, and Booth sat in the chair, trying not to move to much after it squeaked loudly when he first settled into it. It felt like the thing was built to hold a child. Not a full-grown adult.

"Alright, now there are no guarantees that you will be able to hear anything," Dr. Lee said, motioning for Brennan to lay down and lift up her shirt. He immediately moved out of the chair and came to stand by her side. The doctor pressed the wand to her stomach and began to search. There was nothing, though, that sounded like a heartbeat. Booth could hear his, though, pounding in his chest.

"It… it's normal not to hear it yet?" he asked, squeezing Bones' hand.

"Completely," the doctor said with a firm nod. She searched for another minute before giving up. "It would be fairly early, if we had found it today. But I can run an ultrasound if you are concerned about anything. The heartbeat should be visible on screen, even if we can't locate it using Doppler. And in a few weeks we can expect it to be much easier to hear."

He looked down at her, at the look on her face, and nodded to the doctor. "Yes, let's do the ultrasound."

There was one thing she had said to him so far in this pregnancy that had stuck with him more than any of the rest of it. That night when he had gotten the nightmare, she had said "I can't lose this child." He had told her he would die if he ever lost her, and in her voice, in those words, had been that same depth. That same darker meaning. She truly felt she would die if she lost this child. Right now, he needed the reassurance that it was all okay. That their little baby, that their daughter, was doing okay, and was still on schedule to join them in the world.

Dr. Lee nodded her understanding, and started prepping.

Brennan squeezed his hand, glancing towards him with a desperate look in her eyes.

"It's okay," he assured her softly, tracing his thumb across the smooth skin on the back of her hand. "You'll see, it's all okay."

"Listen to your… listen to Seeley," Dr. Lee said, glancing between them again and then shaking her head as she turned her attention back to the machines. She had no idea what to call them, and no clue what they called each other. They were probably the strangest patients she was dealing with at the moment.

She started up the ultrasound, touching the wand gently to her abdomen and sliding it around on the slick surface. "Here we go," Dr. Lee murmured, raising a hand to outline the distinct shape on the screen. "And that, right there, is the heartbeat."

This time, he could see it distinctly. He gave Bones' hand another quick squeeze, beaming.

"See?" he whispered, and she nodded, reaching up to brush quickly at her eyes.

"Yes, I see," she said, her voice wavering but a smile playing on her lips. "She's beautiful…"

"I'll get you print-outs of these latest images," the doctor said warmly. "And then you can schedule your next appointment at the front desk."

"Thank you," Brennan said, relieved.

"Told you," Booth murmured to her as he reached a hand up to stroke down her cheek, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

She just smiled up at him.

~BxBxBxBxBxB~

July 30th, 2011

"Are you sure we haven't forgotten anything?"

He chuckled. "Yeah, Bones. I'm sure. The dishes are in that corner, the linens are in those boxes, and everything that we haven't packed is in your bedroom. I promise, we won't forget a single thing."

She nodded. "Good. Also, don't forget; we need to decide which Lamaze class we're going to attend." He grimaced, but nodded his agreement. "Where are the baby books?"

"That box," he reminded her. "You just packed it, Bones."

She scowled, moving over to double check the contents. There were all of Angela's baby books, as well as a small collection of new ones which she had picked up in the past few weeks.

"We need to start getting more serious about names…"

"Hey, hey, we've still got time. We've got the house, now, and yeah, it needs some work… but you aren't due until February."

She sighed. "Sorry. I'm just… feeling a little stressed. All of this moving…"

"I know," he assured, stepping forward to place a hand on her shoulder and giving it a quick squeeze. "Once we're settled in, though, you'll see. It will all be better."

"There's so much to do; we've got to paint, and the porch needs new railings, the piping has issues, the yard is… practically a disaster, we'll need all new appliances since the ones in there are so outdated, and then on top of that there's the basement to think about. We'll need to finish it if we're going to have that play room we were talking about."

"We already covered all of this," Booth murmured. "We made a list, and we're going to check everything off of it, together, Bones."

"Right… you're right. I'm sorry."

He couldn't help but laugh a little. "No worries, Bones. Just focus on keeping track of our little one. That's your primary concern. Leave everything else up to me. I'll make sure it all works out."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "You are not managing our interior decoration."

"Alright, you got me there. But I'll make sure Angela does a good job. How does that sound?"

"Like a decent plan. I'm still going to be there, though, don't forget that. And I'm not going to sit around all day. I'm still going to the lab, and I'm still working around the house. I am not disabled merely because I am pregnant. And I can give you plenty of evidence of women who, for centuries, have been handling far greater tasks while—"

"I'm sure you can. Just… don't overdo it, okay? I don't want to have to worry about you any more than necessary."

She rolled her eyes. "Fine. If it makes you feel better, I will promise not to 'overdo' it."

"Good. Now, you let me take the heavier boxes, and let's get these into the truck."

"I think I'll start boxing the rest of the stuff, actually."

"Don't trust me not to miss something, Bones?" he asked with a lopsided grin.

"It's not that—" He raised an eyebrow. "Alright," she conceded. "Maybe it is."

He laughed again, shaking his head and scooping up a stack of boxes before he headed for the door. She waited a moment, surveying the emptiness that was her old apartment, and then sighed softly to herself and headed into the bedroom.

The closet was a tumbling mass of her belongings. For all the cleanliness of her home, it was one of the few places, out of sight, that had not gotten the regular treatment. And since Booth had moved some of his things in, her belongings had been pushed and prodded and were no longer in place. It was going to take some sorting to get it arranged into the right boxes before they moved them.

She recognized most of it, although there were some unlabeled boxes which she knew she would have to open in order to understand the contents.

The first couple were no surprise, really. One contained her scarves and hats and gloves. Another held a collection of papers from her college years. In a third box she found a collection of items from her old house. Her first house. They were her parents' things, some of them just odds and ends that they had kept on the end tables, but others were photographs or favorite books of theirs. It was behind this box that she found one which she had not set eyes on in many years. Not since the day she had moved in, in fact.

She swallowed harshly, lifting the lid off of the box with shaking fingers.

"You're going to be happy here, sweetheart."

A heart-shaped frame, with a picture of a dog in it. A big brown-eyed German Shepherd.

"I'm so sorry, Temperance, dear."

A collection of jagged-edged newspaper clippings with bold letters spelling out her name accompanied with the dark, simplistic words: 'abuse,' 'trial,' and 'assault.'

"You're in the system, Temp. Come on; live a little."

A little journal with flowers pressed between the pages and the name Teresa written on it in uneven scrawl. It smelled distinctly of marijuana.

"This time will be better. Promise."

A pair of yellow, chunky converse sneakers. Dirty and worn with brown edges and sharpie doodles and outlines. They were tied together by the laces, and on the bottom of one sole was a list of names. The second to last was written in shaky lettering, smudged around the edges.

Carver.

"Bones?" Her head shot up in surprise, hearing his footsteps coming around the corner. Quickly, she gathered up the articles and everything else from the box, shoving them and the shoes back into it and quickly grabbing another random box from the closet and flipping it open just as he stepped through the door. "There you are. Are you… okay?"

"Fine," she said mildly. "There's just… a lot more in here than I thought."

He nodded slowly, still looking at her with a slight frown. He could tell there was something else, but thankfully he dropped it when she said nothing more.

"Well, you just… keep going through all of this. And I'll take out the stuff you've already gone through. We're taking all of these?" he asked, gesturing to the closed boxes around her.

"Oh… yeah." She reached down and started to pile up the boxes, but there he was, helping her. He picked up her box from foster care, and she opened her mouth in instinctual alarm. He just placed it on top of the others, though, and stood up with all of them.

"I'll be back in a second. Don't get too caught up in looking through your stuff. Don't turn into Parker; it takes him hours to sort just one drawer of his desk." He said it teasingly, but she took it seriously, forcing an amused smile and then sighing heavily once he was gone.

It wasn't time to tell him about her past. Not quite yet. Someday, she was going to tell him everything. She was going to let him know anything he wanted to know, and answer all of his questions. That day just wasn't today. They were happy right now. She was happier than she had ever been before. Her past wasn't hanging over her anymore. It was there, but more because it was a part of her than because it was still hurting her.

She would be sharing it with him because she trusted him. Because she loved him, and he deserved to know everything about her. And there was the chance that it might someday come out. That something might bring it all back to the forefront. She wanted Booth to know. She wanted him to understand. And she didn't want to feel like they had any secrets between them.

The door closed again, and she heard him approaching. A moment later, he stood leaning in the doorframe, smiling down at her.

"You got nothing done since I walked out, did you?" he asked knowingly.

She had to laugh as she shook her head. "You got me."

"Yeah, I knew I did…" he stepped forward and offered her his hand, pulling her up to her feet and meeting her gaze for just a second before he pressed his lips to hers. It was only for the briefest of moments, and yet she felt a warm glow surge through her body, and it remained tingling under her skin as they started to gather up the other boxes.

She looked through the closet quickly, pulling out more of her things, but she saw nothing that might startle him or give away anything that she had not yet shared.

"Let's go, my lazy Bones. Grab a few of those, will you?"

She scooped up a few of the smaller boxes that were still cluttered haphazardly around them, and followed him back out the door, unable to keep the smile off of her face.

He was right; they still had a lot of time. For preparations, for getting the house just the way they wanted it, for picking out a name… but they also had a lot of time to come. A lot of time in which to be together, as a family, and be more than they were right now as the years went by.

All the time in the world.

Drop me a line and let me know what you thought? Happy New Year everybody :)