Chapter 14: 'That's a start.'
A/N: This is a long one Enjoy.
Booth jumped a little, the sound of the alarm on the bedside table jolting him out of his dreams. It took him a second to realise why he couldn't move his right arm. He could feel the warmth of a body pressed up against him and he smiled, remembering last night. Her body still pinned his arm to the bed so he raised his free arm to lift the phone and turn the alarm off quickly, and waited whilst Brennan stirred. "We need to get up," Booth announced. Brennan was out of bed immediately, she seemingly didn't suffer from exhaustion early in the morning.
"I'm gonna have a quick shower." Brennan nodded and once he had disappeared, took a key and went next door to change. She wore the same clothes as yesterday but opted for a deep blue shirt, only now realising that blue was the only colour she seemed to have packed. She was back by the time he emerged, water still dripping off his hair and down his face. She smiled at him, and he smiled back, unsure of what was happening. It was almost as if nothing had happened, in fact, if it wasn't for his half naked form, no one would be any the wiser. Neither mentioned it, and for the first time in what seemed like forever, an awkward silence fell between them; both concluding they could talk about it later. Brennan watched his back as he got dressed. She gave herself the familiar excuse of being an anthropologist as she allowed herself to watch the movement of his muscles, rippling underneath his – despite the bad weather and lack of sunshine – lightly tanned skin. He turned around.
"Ready?" She asked, the first to say anything in two minutes.
"Yep." He led them both out of the room, slowing his pace as they reached the door.
"Actually, no." He'd realised he didn't want to talk later, he needed to know where he stood. He turned and without hesitation, wrapped the arm that held his jacket around her waist. The other moved up to her face, his thumb rubbed lightly along her cheek bone and jaw. She responded immediately. The kiss was still slow, but a little more passionate than the last. As they moved apart, a smiled graced both of their faces.
He nodded, raising his chin and looking down at her - more than satisfied with the answer he'd been given - and removed his arms from around her. He held onto one of her hands and grinned before turning his back to her and opening the door. "Ready."
As they walked down the hall, Brennan looked around a little nervously. "Booth," she tried to pull her hand from his but he held on tight, "What if someone sees us?"
He looked down at her, "Bones," he sounded relaxed, "It's five-thirty in the morning. Who's gonna see us?" His tone challenged her and she opened her mouth before closing it and giving his hand a squeeze.
"Thank you." He thanked her for putting her independent tendencies to one side and letting him hold onto her.
The snow outside was bad and Brennan silently thanked whatever had convinced her to wear her only pair of boots on the trip. She smiled as she noticed that Booth hadn't bothered with the formal wear today; instead dressed in jeans, a tee, the FBI gear and a pair of boots. There was about three inches of snow covering the ground, though it had stopped falling, leaving it silent outside. It was still dark out, but the streetlamps illuminating the road showed that people had been prepared for this. There was a mess of orange road salt all over the tarmac, keeping the road from freezing over.
They each struggled with their doors for a moment before prising them open. Booth turned the engine on immediately, turning the heater up and pulling his iPod out of his pocket. He ejected the Foreigner album and pressed shuffle. The first track that came out was a Beatles song, he looked over to Brennan and smiled, even she knew the Beatles.
BONES-BONES-BONES-BONES-BONES
After ten minutes on the road, Booth's phone rang. "Booth." Brennan watched the passing roads as he talked, hanging up five minutes later.
"That was Hodgins."
"They didn't stay up all night?" She sounded shocked though she had no reason to.
He nodded with a smile, funny that she would object when she did the same thing almost every night. "Don't worry, I told them all to go home. Anyway, Hodgins, Zack and Cam took a look at the body and sheet, Ange did a reconstruction. It's definitely our man. Cam has a bullet, she said she'd match it but I told her not to bother. It won't help us. Hodgins said that the material from the sheet is a match for the stuff in the car. And both dirts from the two burial sites were also found, on the sheet and the body. And he took a sample of the material lining the trunk of the girlfriend's car, it matches some of the fibres on the sheet. We've got him." They both grinned. The trip was almost unnecessary now but neither protested. Firstly, Booth wanted to watch Seddon squirm. Secondly, it was a sure way to spend the day alone.
They spent an hour in silence. It wasn't awkward, but Booth had his eyes fixed on the icy roads, and Brennan was worrying. She thought about their new relationship together – though she still wasn't entirely sure that that was what it was - and then about the things she'd heard. It was uncommon for relationships in the workplace to work. She started timidly, "Booth?"
"Yeah?" He hadn't noticed the worry in her voice so his eyes stayed fixed on the road ahead, until he realised she'd hesitated.
He looked across at her. "I was thinking…about…us. And well, what if this…what if it doesn't work out?" She paused and he waited, sensing she wasn't finished. "Booth, I don't want to lose you as a friend."
He looked across again briefly and took her hand in his free one. "Bones…" He tried to think about how to put it, but truth be told, he was absolutely convinced that things would work out between them. He'd never felt so strongly about anybody in his life, but he wasn't sure the explanation was rational enough for her. "Bones, even if things don't work out," Moot point, he thought, "I'm not gonna leave you. I care too much about you to walk away." She didn't look all that convinced so he decided to try a different route. "Okay, listen to me. I know you won't believe me, and I know you won't understand this, but things will work out between us." He looked into her eyes for a second, hoping to convey the sincerity with which he said the words.
She did see the truth in his eyes, but all that meant was that Booth believed the words he spoke were accurate. His beliefs were unlikely to have any bearing on the outcome of their situation.
"How do you know that?"
He tried to think of the best way to explain, with a rationale and logic that would appeal to her. "I jus- Okay, how long have we been working together?"
She had a quizzical look in her eyes. "Five and a half years."
He nodded and looked across at her again, feeling that this conversation would not ideally be taking place whilst he was trying to drive. "Okay. Five and a half years. Well Angela once told me that Cam had said something to her about how it was like we're in a relationship, and the only thing missing is the sex." He looked across, surprised to see that she didn't refute the claim. "That was when Cam first arrived, so…" He squinted his eyes, remembering when the doctor had joined them.
"Four years ago."
He smiled, "Right." He looked at her again, she didn't get it. "What I'm trying to say, Bones, is that we were already in a relationship. We may not have been having sex," We still aren't, "but sex usually isn't the problem, it's the stress of spending time together that puts a strain on relationships." He felt like Sweets. "And we don't have that. For the last five years we've spent the majority of our time together, and look at us." She was thinking it through so he gave her a minute of quiet, desperately hoping she wasn't going to throw it all away. Even he had been surprised at the ease with which he had even mentioned sex in her company. Something had definitely changed between them.
She looked into his eyes, "Booth, I dun-" He cut her off, trying to convince her for the third time.
"Okay, listen to me." He hesitated, "What about…if we get a second opinion?" Booth was never comfortable talking about his private life with anyone, but he'd do just about anything to make this work.
"What are you talking about?"
"Well, why don't we get the worst part over now, and tell Hacker. We'll ask him whether he's concerned."
"Booth are you crazy? We can't tell Hacker. It happened ten hours ago."
Booth was really struggling now, he wanted to be able to look into her eyes and tell her everything was going to be okay, he wanted her to be able to feel what he felt. "Bones, we'll have to tell him eventually anyway. Please, do this for me."
Brennan looked at their hands, resting on the central console, and Booth gave her another moment to herself. The emotional part of Brennan wanted so badly to believe him, to believe that things between them could work out well. Though the rational part of her was still sceptical, Booth's words had helped. She could understand what he was saying, but she still wasn't entirely sure whether the logic could be applied to their situation. She needed to talk to someone. Her obvious confidant was Angela, and Brennan could trust her to keep the secret, she hoped. "Okay. But I want to call Angela first." Angela was like Booth, good at reading people – just not quite as good – so Brennan suspected it would take her less than a minute to find out anyway. Once they were back in D.C there would be no hiding it from her and she was good with emotions, she was sure that she could give her good advice. Angela should be the first port of call in emergency situations such as this.
Booth's eyes widened, "You wanna talk to Angela? Okay."
He was hopeful at the choice. He was pretty damn sure that Angela would convince Brennan that it was a good idea, hell, she'd been banging on about it for the past five years. Frankly, Booth would let Brennan talk to Cam if that was what she needed to be confident that this relationship could work. "Okay. Call Angela."
"I will."
BONES- BONES- BONES- BONES- BONES
The last two hours of the journey passed in relative quiet. It wasn't uncomfortable, and there were several points at which one of the couple broke it to start a conversation. Brennan was feeling nervous. Despite Angela's constant gushing about Booth, Brennan couldn't be sure that her opinion would be the same now that it was happening. "Booth. Do you need me for the interview with Seddon?"
"Umm, no I guess not. Why?" He looked over just as they were pulling into the near-empty parking lot.
"Do you mind if I call Angela now?"
He turned off the engine. "Course not. I probably won't be long anyway." He resisted the urge to kiss her, knowing that it could end badly, but If he'd had it his way he would have gone all out.
Giving an optimistic smile, he hopped out the car, leaving Brennan alone.
Brennan sat in silence for a few minutes. Angela had been pestering her about Booth for so long that she almost felt nervous telling her. She had the feeling that there had always been expectation of this conversation on Angela's part, at least. She hit the speed-dial and waited. The line rang four times before she picked up. "Bren! Hi, how are you honey? Got anything for us?"
Brennan couldn't help the small smile that escaped at the sound of her familiar bubbly tone. "Hey Ange. No, I'm just waiting for Booth to finish interviewing Seddon."
"Oh okay. So, why did you call?" She shrugged to the empty car.
"I just wanted to see how you were all doing." She was lying.
"Oh, right. Well, we're okay. Hodgins is walking around like a balloon headed idiot, convinced he solved the case single-handedly, but hey, what's new, right."
They both laughed. "Right." The next fifteen minutes were filled with trivial conversation, Brennan dragging it out as long as possible.
Angela wasn't fooled. She couldn't remember a time that she had ever spent this long on the phone with Brennan, much less without either of them having any problems.
"Bren, why did you call?"
"I told yo-"
"No, I mean why did you really call?"
There was a long silence. "I need to talk to you, about Booth."
Angela stifled a gasp, desperately praying that it was what she was hoping for, but knowing better than to expect it. "Sure." She worked to sound nonchalant.
"Well. We slept together. Not sexually." She added the last statement quickly, she knew the conclusions Angela's brain would jump to, and how quickly it would get there.
Angela broke into a smile, at last, that's a start, she thought. "So…"
"We kissed. There was a power cut." Angela, smiled as she thought and forced away a scream, This is what movies are made of. "And then, I fell asleep in his bed."
"Honey, you should have called earlier! This is big." She knew Brennan better than to believe that she'd called purely to inform her of the development. "So…?" Angela looked behind her to check the door to her office was closed; it was.
"I don't know what to do Ange. I don't know if I can do this. What if I mess it up, what if he ends up hating me and then he leaves just like everyone else?"
Angela looked at the photo of her friend on her desk for a moment, she knew this persuasion wasn't going to be easy, "He won't." She knew that, but Brennan didn't. She spoke again, "Sweetie, Booth is a big, strong, hot guy who wants to save your life. I mean, you actually have a knight in shining FBI standard-issue body armour, and he loves you."
"Wha- Angela, how can you know that?"
"Believe me Bren, everyone can see it. And you love him too, you just don't know it yet." This argument just wasn't going to cut it. "Look, honey. You'd be dating your best friend." – the word 'dating' didn't seem strong enough for Booth and Brennan, they could never just date, but it was the best she had – "He's always been there for you, and he knows you. What could possibly go wrong?"
"But you're my best friend." Angela sighed, of all the things she could pick up on and argue with, that was her choice.
"No. No I'm not. Booth is the one that knows you better, Booth is the one you spend more time with. Booth is the one you sit in the bar with at the end of every case. And you're not my best friend either. Not anymore, I have Hodgins." Brennan thought about that and Angela allowed her ten seconds of quiet.
The arguments Angela gave were valid, but she wasn't sure they were enough. "Booth wants to talk to Hacker about it."
"That probably wouldn't be such a bad idea. You know, have you ever had a conversation with that man? He's not so different to you, very…rational." There was no other way to put it. She'd talked to the man one day, he'd taken an interest in the Angelator. He'd seemed nice.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, he was-"
"No. I mean about Booth."
"Ohh, positive." She really was.
There was another twenty seconds of silence, just the sound of the breeze outside keeping Brennan company. "Okay. Thanks Angela. You've been very insightful. I'll see you soon." She may have been insightful, but Brennan wasn't yet sure whether she had been helpful.
"Sure honey." The line went dead.
Brennan pulled the lever and pushed; she needed some fresh air. She caught herself on the door as she slipped on the ice, and leant against the car, staring into space.
It was only another minute before Booth returned, navigating and hopping over the patches of ice with the ease and agility of an athlete. He came over to where Brennan was, keeping his distance until he knew where he stood.
"We won't get anything else out of Seddon. He's staying quiet. He was nervous though, but still arrogant. I think he may be up to something." Brennan nodded and waited for the inevitable.
"So, did you talk to Angela?" She folded her arms but her eyes gave nothing away.
"Yes." She paused.
"And?" Booth's eyes widened.
"She said talking to Hacker would be a good idea. Apparently he's like me." Booth didn't even bother to ask what that meant. He couldn't be sure what his boss would say, but they'd beaten the first hurdle. He smiled and lifted his arms to plant them either side of her on the car – wary of her reaction - enclosing her between the vehicle and his body. He leaned in, hesitating slightly allowing her time to back out. She didn't, so he pressed his lips to hers again, moving so that their bodies were touching. He pulled away from the kiss light-headed, giving his body a moment to adjust before finally opening his eyes.
"Let's go." She couldn't help the smile that crossed her face. As much as experience told her otherwise – it would suggest that loving him would inevitably lead to him leaving – Brennan couldn't help but hope for Hacker's approval. And if what Angela had said about him was right, then it would certainly provide some comfort.
A/N: How many of you still reading? Please review…