fear not, dear readers. I suppose I made it sound like the story was all over last chapter, but it's not. I meant what I said about springing endings. it ain't gonna happen on my watch. you can now ignore what I said about ignoring my chapter estimates. 29 chapters. three more after this one. that's how long we're gonna be.

there's a scene in this chapter for which everyone can thank mumrulz and fanofbones (who are seriously awesome reviewers!). don't think i forgot those chapter 19 review requests! ;)

once again, thanks to EVERYONE who keeps on reviewing. you're the reason i write and post here.

Brennan's doctor was none too pleased that she had put herself in a position of danger and had been injured again, but his concern was largely academic. She appeared to have taken no damage aside from a few torn stitches and suffered only a short delay in her eventual recovery. Her head was still improving steadily. She hadn't even been admitted, though her doctor had insisted that she go home to rest rather than staying at Booth's bedside all night as she wanted.

Booth's condition was another story. He'd miraculously escaped full-blown heat stroke, but the combination of his severe heat exhaustion and mild concussion made his doctors recommend a few days in the hospital to treat his dehydration and monitor the condition of his head.

Booth had not forgotten all of their recent time spent in the hospital, and for the next two days that he was forced to remain there, he was downright cranky. The doctors assured Brennan that it was a side effect of his head injury and that it would fade. She cocked an eyebrow, but said nothing.

Of course, the fact that Columbo was recovering in the same wing of the hospital didn't help Booth's mood.

"He's under heavy guard," Brennan supplied.

"I'm not worried about him evading incarceration, I don't like that he's here. He's offensive. I don't like that he was in my house," he replied in sleepy disdain.

Somehow, Brennan suspected he wasn't referring to his apartment. No, there were few things that Booth hated more than crooked cops, and Columbo had polluted Booth's favorite place: the House of Justice, the FBI.

To Booth's great chagrin, he had a steady stream of visitors during his time there. He had no doubt hoped that he could keep the whole ordeal quiet, but the stir Brennan had made in her efforts to find him and the literally explosive conclusion to their experience at the factory had made keeping things quiet virtually impossible.

The squints were among his first visitors, and for their part, they were respectful, but Booth was still cranky when he didn't get peace and quiet. In fact, there was only one person for whom Booth's face lightened, and the small, curly blonde head made frequent visits and was ruffled repeatedly. Brennan found herself on the receiving end of many hugs from Parker when he discovered that she had been the one to save his dad.

In the end, Booth's injuries turned out to be milder than they could have been and he was recovering quickly. He blamed it on his habit of drinking milk every day. Brennan's mind began leaping through arguments about how milk is a substance evolutionarily designed to help baby animals gain weight and how leafy greens are better sources of calcium, but when she saw his eyelids drooping, she decided to leave it be.

"You said that when you got horribly injured on the job that I could take care of you," Brennan stood beside Booth's hospital bed with her hands on her hips.

"When did I say that?" he countered.

"When I tried to help after the microscope incident and just before we were poisoned."

"Oh. Right." Booth tried to conjure a way out of his statement, but he was tired and in the end he acquiesced. It probably wouldn't be a truly horrible thing to have one of his two favorite people taking care of him. Though he did insist that they stay at his apartment. He repeated his theory of a person's own home being the most restful place.

"You seemed to recover at my place pretty well after our poisoning," Brennan argued.

"You were hurt then too. Now it's pretty much just me, so I want to be at my own place, dammit."

"Okay, okay," she said defensively. "Your place it is."

"So has Booth's mood improved at all?" Angela called down the hall. "I mean, I know his body's getting better, but what about his head?"

Brennan stood in her bathroom, packing a few things into her overnight case. "I suppose. He's still pretty grouchy."

"Well, he's always grouchy. You mean he's still overly so?"

"Yes." Brennan looked at her eyelash curler and dropped it back in the basket on the counter. "I suppose it's better than being artificially happy." She paused in her packing and remembered her discussion with Booth about how smiling clowns were the ones he 'disliked' the most because they seemed unnatural.

Angela chuckled, "Artificially happy isn't in Seeley Booth's repertoire."

"It's very true."

Angela poked her head into the bathroom, holding up some of Brennan's sexiest lacy lingerie in each hand. "Which do you think would cheer him up the most?"

"Ange," Brennan chastised her, "this isn't a tropical holiday, he's supposed to be resting. I don't want to tempt him to over-exert himself too soon."

"Then it's incentive for him to recover quicker," she said with a sly smile and returned to Brennan's bedroom to throw them into her duffel.

Brennan rolled her eyes. "He was cheerful to see Parker," she said with the tiniest hint of dejection.

"You're going to fault the guy for being happy to see his kid?"

"No! Of course not," Brennan replied. "It's just... you'd think he'd be a little happy to see me too."

Angela chuckled. "Are you kidding? You always make that man happy. I suppose you don't get to see him when he's not with you, but he's nowhere near as goofy."

"He isn't now though."

"Sweetie, you don't get it. You two are so good for each other because you can be yourselves around each other without worrying about it affecting how the other will see you. There's no one who's so well able to deal with his inherent grumpiness than you, and he's good at dealing with some of your less-than-appealing traits too. That," she zipped up Brennan's bag, "is the best kind of relationship you can ask for."

"I guess so." Brennan finished in the bathroom and came back out to the bedroom, carrying the small toiletries bag. "How do you know so much about our relationship?" she asked. "We've only been dating for a week!"

"Oh, you've been together for much, much longer than that. You only just admitted the romantic feelings recently. You two were perfect as best friends and you have that amazing chemistry, it only makes sense you'd be perfect as lovers." She hauled the bag over her shoulder and led Brennan down the hall. "Assuming, of course, that all of the other activities that lovers take part in are satisfactory."

Brennan grinned. "More than satisfactory. You know that, Ange."

"Well I don't have any direct knowledge. It's not like I've witnessed anything." Her eyes widened at the exciting thought. "Only word of mouth."

"I'm a pretty reliable source."

"I should hope so."

"Well, okay, so if we're so good together and can be ourselves and all, then why doesn't he want to let me help him?"

"He probably doesn't want you to see him as weak. He's always protective and doesn't usually find himself in this situation."

Brennan sighed. "Who'd have thought I would fall for such a traditionalist?" They walked toward the front door and Brennan's eyes alighted on Booth's origami flower, propped up in the newspaper vase. On a lark, she picked it up and brought it along. It would be a bit more color for Booth's apartment while she was there, she rationalized. Perhaps it would help calm him.

"You are not to exert yourself. You are to rest and let your body recover. You are not going to lift weights." The late morning light illuminated the blinds of Booth's east-facing windows, casting a glow on the living room and his stubborn partner who was pacing before him.

"Pshh!" Booth settled further into his recliner and pulled his bathrobe around him.

"Pshh nothing." She stopped in front of him with her hands on her hips. "You have the best doctors and you're going to listen to them."

"They didn't seem all that special to me."

"Well they are. I called in favors. So you're damn well going to listen to them."

"You called in favors for me?" he asked, still churlish.

"Of course. You're my partner." She looked at him soberly. Her voice softened. "And I love you."

His scowl lifted the tiniest bit and then he smirked. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"I love you too, Bones."

"I know," she said in a quiet, matter-of-fact tone.

She bent over him and leaned down into a sweet kiss, from which his lips seemed loathe to release her. He threaded his hands through her hair. He cupped the back of her head, bringing her deeper into himself. There was the loving Booth she'd been missing. He'd been hiding behind his kiss.

When she was finally able to pull away, she let out a contented sigh and said, "Don't think this gets you out of taking all your medications."

"No ma'am." He stretched up into her kiss again and she let herself fade away for just a few minutes in his soft embrace.

Though half asleep in his recliner, Booth felt a gentle pulling at the robe around his middle, exposing a bit of his bare chest and jeans, then his hands being brought around toward the back of the chair.

He kept his eyes closed and mumbled, "What are you doing, Bones?"

"Do you trust me?"

He cocked an eyebrow without opening his eyes.

"Trust me," she whispered into his ear.

He shrugged and let her pull his arms around behind him.

"Okay, I trust you, but are you going to tell me what you're doing?" Booth finally opened his eyes in curiosity, but Brennan was well behind the chair fiddling with his wrists.

She came back around and explained, "You said that you lose control and are very hands on and that it wouldn't be good for my head injury."

He finally understood and his eyes flew wide as he tugged at his hands where they were tied behind him with the soft belt of his robe.

"So I'm improvising."

She looked up at his face and watched his eyes go quickly from wide astonishment to aroused disbelief. Brennan glowed at his response and unbuttoned his jeans, sliding them down his powerful hips as he raised them for her. She eyed him appreciatively. Despite his injury, despite being supposedly 'very tired', he was already straining against his boxers.

And before even touching him, she found herself growing very wet.

It was a shame he had to take it easy right now, but they could at least both enjoy this much, she thought as she reached into his boxers and pulled him free.

He stood tall and proud. She gripped him with one hand and ran it lightly along his length while she kissed up and down his legs. Oh, she had been waiting far too long to give to him like this.

As when he'd been locked up in the factory, Booth willed his eyes to stay open. Unlike the factory, it was pure pleasure that urged his lids toward each other.

He blinked and she was kissing her way up his legs. He panted lightly.

Blinked again and her head was at the junction of his thighs. She let her eyes flutter shut and a smile spread across her face when her lips first touched him.

Heavenly lips. Heavenly tongue sliding up from his base all the way to the tip. He choked on his groan when she slid his head into her sweet mouth. It stretched and she let her tongue lavish in swirling circles.

Booth's breathing became shallow and erratic. She pulled his cock deep into her mouth and suckled. A grunt escaped him, then her name. Booth wanted to watch her lovely curls play through his fingers while she was running her hot lips up and down his shaft, but his hands could do nothing but tug helplessly at their binds.

Her hands, meanwhile, could hardly stay still. One had moved to cup his balls and was tugging at them gently. The other had danced its way up to his bare chest and was tracing the muscled lines there, occasionally diverging and rolling his nipples between her fingers.

He felt more than heard a low, guttural groan escape her throat. She was enjoying this just as much as he, Booth thought in astonishment when he saw her brows knit up. She began rotating her lips in a corkscrew motion while she dragged him again and again into her sweet depths.

Booth's hips were crying out in pleasure and he wasn't sure how much more he could take when she opened her eyes and looked up into his face. The icy blues locked quickly on his, but half closed in pleasure when she emitted another moan.

"Oh, God. Bones, I'm going to come," he stuttered. He meant for her to stop and mount him, to join him in the pleasure, but all she did was look up at him with twinkling eyes and began drawing him deeper, faster.

She meant to... oh, good God.

His eyes finally slammed shut as the release coursed through his veins and he came deeply in her mouth. For a few moments, all he could do was quiver.

She cradled him gently inside for a bit and then withdrew, careful of his sensitive head and placing sweet kisses along the shaft. She was so gorgeous, looking up at him like she was, her eyes shining with delight. Booth wasn't sure he'd ever experienced a woman drawing an orgasm from him with such passion and then looking at him so tenderly.

His breath still came fast. "I love you" issued from his lips.

She cocked an eyebrow. "I don't usually believe post-coital declarations of love. They tend to be more chemically-induced."

"I thought it was all chemical anyway," he teased.

"Well, let's not jump to any conclusions about that. But you said it earlier too," she said with a smile. "So I suppose you're relatively sincere." She stood and sat straddling his legs and resting her hands against his chest.

"You'd better believe it." He stretched his face towards her and met her lips in a deep kiss.

Brennan eventually pulled away from the lazy embrace and stood up. "You just go back to your nap. I'm going to take a bath."

"You gonna...?" He made a show of tugging on the belt.

But she didn't say anything. She simply smiled and walked down the hall to the bathroom.

"Bones!" he complained. That minx! He tried wriggling out of her binds, but she was very efficient and he could do nothing.

He heard water running in the bathtub and continued whining down the hall after her.

"Oh fine, you big baby!" she eventually called and opened the door. She hadn't gotten into the bath yet, but she was clearly close. She strolled back out toward him, completely naked.

Booth blinked repeatedly and stared. When she reached where he was sitting, he gathered his voice and spoke. "I could have gotten out of them myself, you know, but you tied one too many knots."

"Really," she said disbelievingly and knelt behind the chair, working at the belt briefly.

When she stood, his hands were still tied.

"There you go. I untied one knot. Have fun."

Well, you asked for that, didn't you Seel?

She smirked at him and travelled back down the hall slowly, letting her tantalizing hips sway wide.

He was frozen solid with his eyes locked on her ass until she disappeared into the bathroom. Then he began struggling at the belt of his bathrobe with renewed vigor.

"You're supposed to be resting," she said when he entered, wearing only his navy bathrobe. The belt was once again tied around his waist. His firm chest peeked out at her and she had to repeat what she'd just spoken to herself once again, lest she jump him.

"Well, I can rest in here," he claimed, pulling a stool alongside the bathtub and sitting facing her. He let his left hand travel to her hair, which she'd pulled into a knot at the back of her head. He released it and let his fingers roam. Brennan's eyes slid shut.

His right hand began at her neck and travelled down her body, sending little ripples along the surface of the water before it settled. She occasionally shuddered and disrupted the smooth liquid herself. His fingers were just circling the place where she'd wanted him most, the place where she'd been wet long before entering the water, when he removed his hand.

She protested. He pressed a kiss to her lips to calm her.

Above her head she could hear him removing the showerhead and turning on the water. Ah, so that was his game. She smiled, eyes still shut.

"You ever do this before?" he asked as he tested the water.

"It's one of my favorites." He let the hot water pummel her chest and she gasped in anticipation. "And I must say, you have a very nice showerhead."

Booth chuckled. "I bet you say that to all the guys."

She inhaled deeply as he moved down her body again. "Just you, baby."

Booth's heart swelled and he finally let the water fall between her legs as a reward. And his reward, he decided, was getting to see the subtle gradations of pleasure she displayed for him. He studied how the slightest movement of his wrist made certain nerves twitch. He noted and saved for later how this pattern caused her cheeks to flush; that one goosebumped her chest; another made her legs squirm beneath the water. Her full breasts began to rise and fall rhythmically, causing the surface tension to break across her fair skin.

And then he reached for the switch on the back of the showerhead.

Brennan's body was thrumming. She was a tightened wire on some glorious instrument that Seeley Booth had mastered with water. It was astonishing that she didn't feel more impatient than she did, but she wasn't rushing for the precipice. Her body's vibrations were pleasure enough for the moment and she had no doubts that he would bring her to the fall eventually.

Suddenly, the strong stream that had been gently massaging her swollen lips and hood became a hard pulse. It commanded her heart to beat faster, but her entire body obeyed. Her lungs moved swiftly, drawing in cool air to contrast the water down below. The blood sprinted through her veins, and her skin rushed to create beads of sweat all along her face and neck.

Then the spray changed again to a steady stream, this one harder than the first and she felt herself buoy in the heat of the air and the water. The lips below tightened and a long, thready moan issued from her throat.

One final time Booth clicked the switch on the showerhead and she was being pummeled by harder and faster bursts of hot water. It was almost too much and she tried to recoil, but Booth held fast. She cried his name out. She filled the steamy bathroom and fogged the mirrors and windows with her voice and yet he held. He maintained the barrage until she grasped for his head and thrust her tongue into his mouth, and then he reached down to slide a single finger inside of her. It curled and she disintegrated under his fingers.

She buried her face in his neck while she shook. Her teeth sought his skin and she pulled it between them as she sought to express a bit of the sweet, sharp pleasure of her release. He exhaled hotly into her ear and she quivered in ecstasy a moment longer.

Booth turned off the water and removed his hand. He met her lips briefly, but pulled away sooner than she wanted in her relaxed state. Her mouth followed his cartoonishly when they smacked apart.

What? No! Come back!

He smirked at her as he stood and moved to the door. "I'll just let you finish up."

Oh, that evil man. She let her head fall back against the wall. What a fool I am to love him so much. She smiled.

the smiling clown reference is from the "couples counseling" mini video following mummy in the maze. if you haven't seen them, they're short scenes that aired on the fox site of booth and brennan chatting in the psychiatrist's waiting room after many of the cases in season 3. go check them out on youtube.

now don't you DARE talk to me ever again about 'needing to take a cold shower' after reading my stuffs. hot shower, removable showerhead? yes, please tell me all about that. but no more of this repression bullshit! :)

next chapter booth catches a break! and most of your columbo questions will be answered.

reviewers will be mailed their choice of either booth or brennan wrapped in a pretty red bow.