I'm sorry that this update was so long in coming. As usual, I overextended myself and now I have four different fics that I'm working on all at once. Hopefully I can get all of them updated in the next few days. This one was the oldest, so it gets to go first.

And as always, I don't own Bones. And I'm hating the holiday hiatus. This bites.

Vacation

Generally, a vacation was supposed to be a decadent way to get away from it all. From all the trials and stresses and day-to-day irritations that plagued everyone. But when those stresses included attending the funeral of an innocent 15 year old girl who shouldn't have even been sick, a break from the everyday was no longer decadent, it was almost a necessity. It hadn't been that long since Booth had been to Jamaica, but he had gone there all alone and he was determined that the next time he went he would take someone he cared about with him. Luckily Brennan had been just as determined to get away and was more than willing to come with him.

Standing on the balcony of the bungalow they had rented on the private beach, Booth watched as Brennan walked along the surf wearing a tiny dark blue bikini and nothing else. God, but she was beautiful. Her auburn hair waved in the breeze and her hips swayed with her aimless steps along the pristine sands. She held her sandals in her hand, swinging them to and fro as she gazed off into the coming sunset.

Booth was sure that, with the exception of the day his son was born, he had never been happier than he was at that exact moment.

As if hearing his thoughts, Brennan suddenly looked up and smiled at him. He waved in return and watched her with hungry eyes as she sashayed back up to the deck attached to the house. "Booth, are you getting hungry? I'm suddenly starving."

"Well, considering the amount of physical activity we've been indulging in for the last three days, you should be starving." Booth gave her his sexiest charm smile and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

With a laugh, Brennan slid open the doors from the deck and entered the house, choosing not to acknowledge his comment. As much as she loved the sexy banter he enjoyed engaging in, her thoughts were as far from sex as they could be. And she was certain that if Booth knew just where her thoughts were, he would probably pass out from shock.

As she was walking on the beach alone, Brennan thought about the path her life had taken from the time her parents and brother left until this moment. Her mind went over all the men she had met and bedded, some out of affection, some out of the need for nothing more than sexual release, some out of a sense of loneliness. None, however, measured up to the man who stood on the balcony of their beach house watching her right that minute. At first, Booth had annoyed her. He was cocky, overly self-assured and resistant to her copious expertise. They struggled to work together, and now that they had found not only common ground in their work but love as well, her thoughts of Booth had become decidedly more generous. She knew how loving, kind and good he really was. How his tough exterior was merely a cover for the sensitive and a little damaged man buried deeper than anyone could imagine. But there was something else about him that attracted her more than his good looks, gorgeous body and kind heart. It was his loyalty. Loyalty to her, his son, even the Squints. Whenever Seeley Booth put his cards on the table, he was all-in. And she absolutely loved that about him. She had always been a woman who tried to do things all the way, and to find her match in Booth she counted herself incredibly lucky.

So she decided that she should be excused for letting her thoughts wander to what it might be like to be married to him. When the thought first occurred to her, completely unbidden, she actually felt herself blush. She didn't know if it was from embarrassment or from shock, but that the thought popped into her head at all was stunning. Married. Someone's wife. Legally bound to another human being, ostensibly for life. The idea used to make her stomach sick and offended her independent sensibilities. But with Booth…knowing that he would only respect her, love her and treat her as nothing less than his equal and not his property, the whole idea sounded a lot less like prison and more like heaven.

Sighing and shaking her head, Brennan stepped into the large kitchen in the beach house, meeting Booth who had come from the upstairs balcony to join her in finding something to make for dinner.

"Something on your mind, Bones? You look almost pensive." Booth already knew that she was thinking hard about something, he just didn't have a guess as to what.

"Yes, I was thinking about marriage. And how I am not as adverse to the institution as I once was."

Booth had heard the phrase, 'You could have knocked me over with a feather' before, but this was the first time he had ever actually experienced it. "Really."

"Yes. Before, I had only thought of marriage as an archaic institution devised to enslave women and make them subservient to men. However, being in this relationship with you, a man who values who I am as a woman and as a professional, who respects me and my beliefs even when they are diametrically opposite to your own, I now can see the appeal. That's all." Brennan spared Booth a quick glance as she went to root around in the fridge for something to make for dinner. The look of shock on his face was tempered with something else, but she didn't stare long enough to analyze it.

"Hmmm." That was all Booth could think to say. "Good to know. So, what's for dinner, Bones?"