Author's Note: We have arrived at the (mostly AU but not quite, as I will demonstrate) romance portion of this story. A couple of lines later on may justify what I'm writing here, even though we have departed from official canon as far as we currently understand it. I'll let you know when we get to those.

~Q~

~The Line That Vanished~

~Q~

Lucetta: Then thus: of many good I think him best.

Julia: Your reason?

Lucetta: I have no other, but a woman's reason; I think him so because I think him so.

Julia: And wouldst thou have me cast my love on him?

Lucetta: Ay, if you thought your love not cast away.

Julia: Why he, of all the rest, hath never moved me.

Lucetta: Yet he, of all the rest, I think, best loves ye.

Julia: His little speaking shows his love but small.

Lucetta: Fire that's closest kept burns most of all.

Julia: They do not love that do not show their love.

Lucetta: O, they love least that let men know their love.

Julia: I would I knew his mind.

Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act I, Scene 2

~Q~

Brennan felt Booth's hand slide into hers under the table, squeezing her palm lightly and she asked bravely, "What if I want it every day?"

A decidedly cocky leer sailed her way. "I aim to please. If you want … coffee … every day, I'm there for you."

"Coffee can be habit-forming," she mused. He laughed and squeezed her hand again before gently depositing it in her lap. Booth's large and comforting presence so close beside her dominated her thoughts as well as her senses, leaving her in a state of near constant distraction.

Vera bustled up to their table and greeted them with an assessing grin. "Musical chairs?"

It was because Booth was too close, that was why her brain couldn't keep up with even basic cultural references. Completely baffled, Brennan glanced around the Diner and cautiously informed their waitress, "There isn't any music playing."

Vera chuckled. "I'm talking about the new seating arrangements." She nodded significantly at Booth, sitting beside his partner for the first time ever as far as Royal Diner recorded history was concerned.

Leaning back casually, Booth shrugged it off as mere preparation. "We're meeting someone."

She wasn't convinced but poured their coffees with an encouraging grin and a promise to place their usual orders right away. After Vera's departure, a very curious Brennan leaned closer and whispered, "Who are we meeting?"

"No one."

That earned him another baffled pinching of brows so he shifted slightly further away and explained quietly. "You are temporarily suspended from working with the FBI. Since we don't know how the trial is going to work out, let's just be circumspect in public. Okay? We've left a chair open because we're meeting someone…."

"What if my father is convicted," she finally asked. He likely would be, as the evidence against him was very compelling. An impending sense of dread started to tighten her chest, both for her father's fate and for the impact it would have on her. Really, she couldn't bear to think of it and Booth was so close she couldn't think of anything else so Brennan allowed the worry to slip away for a while longer. She knew she was on 'borrowed time,' a saying Angela had used, and eventually she would have to face reality but for now ... reality had her partner sitting so close their arms brushed and her pulse and respiration had increased substantially.

"That is a possibility," Booth agreed.

"Would the FBI continue to insist we can't work together?"

He sighed, having spent plenty of time worrying over that likelihood since Caroline Julian had divided them at the crime scene the previous night. "It's a possibility, Bones."

"Why?" she exclaimed. "Obviously I don't hold his arrest against you. If I did, we wouldn't be having coffee right now."

"I know," he soothed, stroking her arm to quiet her.

"You were just doing your job," she continued. "And Dad, he let you arrest him. That's what you said." He'd told her that at Angela and Hodgins's aborted wedding. Her father had assured her of his choice as well. How could she be angry when the two of them were in agreement that arrest was the honorable course?

As if he understood that he needed to remind her of Max's reasoning, Booth replied, "Yeah, Bones. He let me arrest him so he could have a chance to mend things with you."

She nodded, tears stinging her eyes. "We did mend things. We're fine. So, that was a good thing, right?"

Another tender touch on her arm and Booth sighed with a father's sad and knowing eyes. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure Max will say it was worth it."

They fell silent for a few moments while she looked out the window and brought her emotions back in line and Booth gave her the time as well as a soothing hand on her shoulder. Vera returned with a whole grain bagel and a bowl of fresh fruit for Brennan, a three-egg omelet with bacon and hashbrowns for Booth. "Anything else?"

"More coffee," Booth requested.

"Booth?"

"Yes, Bones?"

She waited until her silence brought his gaze around to hers because this question might be the most important one of all. "What does coffee mean?"

"For us?" he clarified.

"Coffee doesn't have any intrinsic meaning; it is merely a beverage. Although, it has existed for over a thousand years and supplanted tea as the beverage of choice in the future United States as a result of the Tea Act and subsequent embargoes during the—"

"Bones, you're babbling," he chuckled.

Vera was back pouring fresh coffee into their cups, not even bothering to pretend she wasn't eavesdropping.

"Like a brook," she sighed, astonishing them both with her agreement. Brennan realized with a churning inside that she didn't even know what she hoped he would say so she'd started speaking rapidly to fill in the silence and avoid any disappointment or worse, life-altering proclamations he might make. But that was foolish, irrational. Rationally, she reminded herself, it made more sense to spell things out. To know where things stood.

"Why?" Searching his memory, he didn't think he could ever recall her speaking without purpose. It was an amusing new side of her, this nervousness.

"What does it mean?" She asked again, quite serious this time.

The steady gazes those two could pull were the talk of the Royal Diner staff and Vera knew she'd be adding another tally mark to the chart the staff had placed right next to their time cards. They were at it again now, gazing at each other, blissfully unaware of Vera's amused presence as Special Agent Booth assured Dr. Brennan, "Coffee means no matter what's going on with our jobs, nothing is going to come between us. Nothing can separate us unless we let it."

And Dr. Brennan smiled, seemed to relax a little. Still holding their gaze, she mused, "Drinking coffee was considered patriotic. It reminds me of you."

He grinned and took a sip, finally dropping out of their ocular embrace. "Drinking coffee reminds me of you, too."

"How?"

Vera hung around just long enough to hear, "It makes me think faster and if I'm not careful I get burned."

"I do not burn you."

"Yes you do."

"I have never caused heat damage to your epidermis."

"There's more than one way to get burned, Bones."

When she got back to the kitchen, Vera was grinning broadly. "I give it a month, Steve. How high is the pool now?"

"Two hundred bucks," the cook grunted.

Vera pulled a wad of singles out of her pocket. "I'm adding to it right now..."

"Why?" Oh, this must be good, Steve realized. Vera was smirking like the cat that ate a whole cage full of canaries.

"They're sitting next to each other."

Steve stuck his head out the service window to see for himself. It was pretty obvious even to an old dunderhead like him that something had changed...

~Q~

Leaving the jail after her visit with Angela, Brennan paused in the parking lot and tilted her head back to take in the orange glow of sunset. For the first time, she permitted herself to wonder if her father felt his own approaching sunset. All during the last months of his imprisonment, during the time of separation, the days of trial preparation, these days of the trial itself, all that time the question of conviction was one she avoided considering. The evidence, although circumstantial, was rather damning. He would probably be convicted; she'd known it.

But she hadn't felt it. She wouldn't let herself think of it.

Dr. Sweets had even pushed her about it, suggesting she was cold on the outside because she was mostly in pain within. Little did he know how wrong he was. How angrily I taught my brow to frown, when inward joy enforced my heart to smile! Yet more proof that psychology was a waste of time and of Sweets's intellect because Brennan knew her outward calm was a direct result of her trying to hide how happy she was with everything else in her life. If not for her father's impending conviction, she could quite accurately be described as existing in a sort of bliss.

Only when Angela steadfastly refused to participate in the trial did Brennan finally consider the possibility of her father's execution. Twin terrors finally rippled through her, the fears she'd been able to push aside because the change in her friendship with Booth had sustained her so well over the last month. If her father was convicted, he would die, and her partnership with Booth might end permanently.

~Q~

Russ was the one who made her see what she had to do. "He stayed because of me," she'd said, defending Max against Russ's angry accusation that Max should have fled and stayed away rather than letting Booth arrest him.

Max gripped her hand reassuringly. "I would have stayed here forever. It was worth every second we had together."

It was exactly what Booth had said, one father understanding another, and she felt a surge of pain quite unlike any she'd ever experienced before. This might be guilt, a sense of responsibility for the injustice of a man dying because she hadn't been able to forgive him. At some point, Max Keenan/Matthew Brennan had realized the only route to redemption was to stay and mend his daughter's broken heart, yet doing so ensured his own demise. It was a sacrifice, but now more than ever she understood she could not let him suffer it. Turning to the despondent defense attorney, Brennan asked how long he would need if she could produce a viable alternative suspect.

He said, only a few minutes if the story was compelling enough.

She already knew what she had to do, but first there was evidence to review and a particular question to settle. Jumping up, she flew out of the conference chamber and dashed through security until she reached the exit. Bursting outside with her purse in hand, Brennan dug for her cell phone because she needed to understand the ethics of the situation. The last time she'd acted on an impulse of questionable ethics Booth had not reacted well. He'd drawn a line. This time, she would be more cautious.

He answered her immediately, his voice steady and compassionate. "Hey, Bones. How's your Dad doing?"

"He's fine, for now." He would be fine forever if she could make this sudden plan happen. She would need to review the trace evidence, but Brennan was confident she had the solution. Her only real concern was ensuring her plan did not violate any laws or established ethical concerns. "Booth, can we have coffee tomorrow morning?"

There was a slight hesitation which she read as caution under their current circumstances. "You know we have to be more careful during the trial."

"It's just coffee, Booth."

"Ah, I see what's going on," he teased. "You're missing me."

~Q~

But if he thought she was missing him, their breakfast together didn't run as he'd expected. Brennan was preoccupied with questions of morality, comments about justice in the Arriba tribe (or something like that), preponderance of evidence, and on and on. Every time he tried to redirect her to subjects more entertaining, she determinedly switched them back.

"If the truth can't be proven, is it still the truth?"

Exasperated, Booth finally threw up his hands in defeat. "You invited me to breakfast to talk philosophy?"

"A theory isn't even really a theory until it's challenged. It's just simply a hypothesis. I don't believe a man should die based upon a hypothesis. Do you?"

Confusion shook his head, because he finally realized she had not simply missed him. There was something on her mind. "If you have a question, just ask it."

They were sitting together at the lunch counter in the Diner, and when she turned to him, those eyes were burning with an intensity he couldn't resist. Leaning toward him, she explained softly, "I have a way to lodge reasonable doubt into the jury."

Of course, he should have realized sooner. And he knew he was damned to give in to a woman so beautiful, her eyes sparkling with hope and incipient genius that he could not look away. Gritting his teeth, Booth eyed her meaningfully. "We can't talk about this!"

But he already knew he was going to, just from the way she looked at him.

"Please," she murmured. "You're the person I talk to about things like this."

He held her pleading gaze a full ten seconds, weighing risks, and finally realized what she was really asking him for with all the rambling questions and anthropological lectures he'd endured that morning: the moral guidelines. "No perjury involved. Just an interpretation of existing facts."

This was what she needed to know, if it was acceptable to use existing evidence to posit an alternate theory of the crime. Cam had done it once, and she had strenuously objected because it would cast suspicion on a man she knew was innocent. This time, Brennan would direct suspicion away from a man she knew was guilty. Objectively, it would be wrong. Subjectively, her emotional attachment to her father was telling her to do it.

"An alternate story," she agreed softly. Hopefully.

"You know, you don't know that he did it," Booth pointed out. "Your old man."

"No, we both know he did it," she whispered low, leaning closer still.

Holding her gaze again, he clarified, "Well, not the way that you define 'know,' with proof and all that."

"It's going to be enough for the jury."

"Juries are the human factor in a trial. You never know what they'll do."

Hesitantly, she asked again for the guidance. "You think it's all right for me to take advantage of that?"

And then Booth reminded her to use her brain and her heart; that's how she knew he would support her as long as he didn't have to perjure himself.

~Q~

They didn't speak again that day, but she'd watched Booth's face turn pale and grave as he recognized her plan to save her father, and his part in it. His eyes blazed into hers from across the room as he choked out, "That's a lot of heart, Bones."

He refused to look at her any more for the rest of the day, leaving the court the moment the judge had excused him and letting her worried calls go to voice mail. Arriving home, uncertain what it meant, Brennan found that waiting was an agony of suspense and when the knock finally sounded on her door she was unspeakably relieved. Brennan opened it to find him standing on the other side with a reproachful frown that captured her immediately.

"Booth?"

"I just realized something," he said slowly, deliberately. Before she could ask what it was, he'd moved into her space and shut the door behind him. He took her arm and pulled her closer, his eyes drilling deeply into hers.

Brennan felt a tremor, her body going into high alert at the intensity of his gaze and the way he seemed poised to devour her. "What," she asked with scarcely enough air to manage the question.

"You made me cross a line today."

Her eyes went wide and she backed up a step. "I'm sorry," she whispered, and meant it. She hadn't really thought that part through, what she would have to ask of him. Watching him struggle over her, hearing the agony when he insisted he knew her and she could not have done this … by the time she'd understood what it was doing to him it was too late to stop.

"How could you ask me to sacrifice you for your father? How could you do that to me?"

"I didn't think about it that way."

Pain sharpened his tone. "You could be charged with murder. It's a death penalty case, for God's sake!"

She went a bit pale, but kept her eyes steady on his. He felt like he was drowning in her, in what she would ask him to do and what he was willing to do for her. Lines crossed to and fro, danced over so many times there was nothing but dusty footprints where a line used to be.

Partners weren't supposed to be this close, this devoted to one another. They weren't supposed to fall in love. For the last two years, he'd tried to convince himself that he wasn't in love with Temperance Brennan but it was a fool's errand. He'd never felt this way about another woman, so tied up in knots with her that they moved and breathed together. The fact that he was willing to do anything for her was matched only by his fear of what it meant that she'd asked him to do this. Did it mean the same thing to her? Did she understand what she'd asked him to do?

The problem was, he could never read her mind (which he had to admit had been one of the things that most attracted him at first). Though he knew Brennan better than anyone else—in some ways better than even Angela knew her—he'd not seen this coming. She'd asked for his advice at the Diner that morning but really, what she'd asked him for was his consent. She'd wanted his complicity in a tacit lie, and no matter how much he'd tried to mitigate it, he'd been forced to let a jury believe she could kill a man, gut him, and burn him. Without words, she'd begged Booth not to defend her, and he choked on his vow to help.

He'd stipulated that he would not commit perjury and damn her, she'd found the loophole that implicated her while forcing him to honestly render her up to Caesar. Because there was nothing he wouldn't do for her, but he'd never counted on having to help her crucify herself.

"Was it worth it?" he asked softly, bitterly. "Was it worth it to cast me as Judas?"

Biting her lip, blinking away rainy teardrops, her head trembled an unsteady nod. Angela had made her understand, Angela and Booth, and then Russ. Max had stayed, allowed himself to be captured and subjected to a trial that would result in conviction and execution, all for a chance at her forgiveness. "He sacrificed himself for me. He stayed for me, Booth."

It always pained him when she cried but this … God, it was so much worse. "That's why?"

"I couldn't let him … not for me." Holding back a sob, she shook her head. She already knew what it felt like to have her father be dead, and she didn't want to have to feel that again knowing this time it was her fault.

"Bones, no." He tugged her closer, burying her in a tender embrace that wasn't a 'guy hug.' This was over the line, their hearts bonded so closely that their bodies would inevitably follow. He knew it was destined for them to blur the final boundaries. "You're worth it," he murmured into her ear and felt his own fury loosen.

"No, I'm not worth dying over."

"Yes you are, damn-it! I crossed the line for you today." Because he couldn't lose her. And so he'd lied. God help him, he'd lied on the witness stand, told the court Temperance Brennan could not kill someone in such a calculated manner when he damn well knew she could. She'd tried it once before, when he'd barely stopped her from killing Epps for him. No one had asked him, but Sweets had testified that she was capable of rationalizing murder and Booth had not been able to implicate her without trying to undo that damaging assessment first.

So he'd lied under oath, volunteered perjury to protect her even as he gave her up to the mercy of the court.

"The minute I realized I would do anything for you … what the hell am I holding back from now? Why bother?"

Brennan pulled away, clearly confused by what he was saying, and the frustration that sharpened his tone. "I … don't understand." Fear streaked through her eyes a moment later and her pulse exploded in something like terror. "You don't want to be partners?"

"We're not 'partners,' Bones. Don't you get it?"

"Booth," she gasped, "please."

"Partners don't feel this way. Partners don't do these things."

Pulling herself further away, she held still as if preparing for a blow. "What things?"

He stalked towards her, pushing her backwards until her back hit a wall and she was forced to a halt. Brennan tilted her head back, at a rare height disadvantage because she was at home and barefoot. Bringing a hand up to plant it firmly beside her head, he flashed back to another time he'd held her trapped like this. The frustration he'd felt for her that afternoon at the shooting range had nothing on what was boiling in him now.

"You made me betray you," he accused, a low growl that rumbled in her bones.

Memory flared brightly and she lowered her eyes, avoiding his now. "You did it before. The end justifies the means."

"You told me we weren't partners that night, Bones. You told me never to do that again, to betray you. Remember?"

Of course she did. Brennan nodded hesitantly, sensing something behind this reminiscence, something he was about to change.

"Today you made me break that promise. So that means, we're not partners."

Was he ending them? His large body was so close, hemming her in, his scent of pepper and perspiration and fully aroused male swirling around her like a sweet, smoky haze. Though she trusted him, this Booth was driving her pulse too high, her body on alert and her comprehension too scattered. He didn't seem angry (more like frantic and frustrated) but she felt very much under threat, as if he was poised to bring everything she'd ever known crashing down around her. "What are you saying?"

"There's no partnership, there's no line. There's only you, and me."

"I don't know what that means." Her eyes finally lifted and begged him to explain.

She was uneasy and he hadn't been clear. He could see that she needed to know his intention. "It means I'm going to kiss you."

Startled at his blunt statement, she could only offer a breathy sound to indicate she'd heard him. "Oh…"

"Is that okay with you?" Yet he didn't wait because he knew she was more than capable of making any objections known. He drew her fully against him, his left hand plunging into her hair and palming her head backwards while his right arm snaked across the small of her back and bound her against him. And his mouth came down.

Their lips brushed so softly she felt his breath more than the man but before she could do more than moan a complaint at the too-brief contact he was back again. His hot mouth closed over hers, his lips sweeping hers open while his hand maneuvered her into position. The kiss grew slowly, mouths fusing and parting, returning again, and when his tongue curled in past her soft little panting breaths, she fought back with an answering heat.

Their arms twined in a desperate tangle, their bodies coiling together in a helix.

This was nothing like their mistletoe kiss at Christmas. No witnesses, no reservation, just passion too long denied. It went out of control very quickly, as they'd both known it would. In moments he had her pressed back against the wall while he ground himself into her. His free hand traced a path from sloping shoulders, tapering waist so slender his fingers curled around it, and down over flaring hips that he pulled sharply against his.

Brennan's arms definitely weren't slack; they had already wrapped around his torso while her dexterous hands had his T-shirt untucked. Sliding under the cloth, her palms warmed over his spine, fingers tracing delicately over the spinous processes beginning with the large fourth lumbar vertebrae. The firm nubs of bone rippled under her moving fingers that smoothed upwards to trace his thoracic vertebrae and then fan out over his firm ribs, the ones that had flanged outwards over someone he'd protected from a bomb.

That memory triggered others, a time when he'd been hurt protecting her. Broken clavicle on an x-ray, Cam in the hospital, Epps standing in her bedroom with a crow bar. There had been a day on a park bench when he'd explained. "What happened to Cam happened because we had a personal relationship."

"Booth," she breathed against his mouth. "Booth, you said…"

"No talking, Bones. You're not going to argue your way out of this." He took the kiss deeper, silencing her for several minutes while his teasing lips swept heatedly over hers and his tongue speared into her, darting in and out like lightening.

He'd made speaking impossible, but her thoughts screamed over nearly four years of history. She had questions. Worries. She needed answers. "I'd ask you out if I could … FBI regulations … People who work in high risk situations, they can't be involved romantically, or else things like this happen. … Every single day, it's with us, and there's this line that we can't cross."

"Wait," she finally gasped, pushing his mouth away from hers and fighting for sanity while he began sketching a burning path along her throat. "You said the FBI won't let partners…"

"We're not partners," he growled darkly. "I thought I made that clear."

Another burst of fear animated her. She pushed him back, using a self-defense move to get his attention. Tears had returned to her eyes when she looked at his dark and dangerous face. "Are you angry? Is this a punishment?"

Realizing suddenly that she was misunderstanding him, he stepped back far enough to give her space but not so far that they lost contact. "No. This is me, accepting reality." He waited for her to ask and she didn't disappoint.

"What reality?"

Capturing her eyes, Booth finally spoke the truth. "That I'm in love with you."

Brennan suffered a rare moment of speechlessness while he closed in on her again.

"Today I saw that I'm in too deep." He barked a short, furious laugh. "There's never been a line between us; it's insanity to keep pretending we didn't cross it years ago. I love you, Bones. I think I proved that today. And the FBI already split us up so there's no damn reason to hold back."

"But the trial's almost over," she said softly. The arguments had closed and the jury was currently sequestered, still deliberating at that very moment.

"I don't care. I want you, I want this."

Torn over how to express herself, confused over feelings, Brennan bit her lip. "I love working with you."

"But do you love me? Or just the job?"

"I … I don't know." Drawing a shaking breath, she placed her palm against his chest. Whether the touch was intended to hold him back or to establish contact, even she wasn't certain. She didn't understand what she felt, what it was, only that it was strong and it had never wavered. Honesty was the only gift she had. "I've always wanted to be next to you."

"You are next to me. I'm right here." He was pulling her closer again, pulling her into him. Her arm bent as he ended their separation, proving the hand she'd placed upon him was for contact.

The pain in her finally reached him when she explained what she'd heard. "You don't want to work with me anymore."

Literal to a fault. For all her intelligence, Brennan sometimes needed things spelled out to her. He chuckled softly, recognizing her own unique innocence and his impatience could create all sorts of confusion if he wasn't vigilant. "I'm not saying I don't want to work with you, Bones. What I'm saying is, I've been thinking that not getting physical with you would stop us from getting too close and clouding our judgment. What I've come to realize is, we're already too close. What did Sweets call it? 'A deep, emotional attachment.'"

She nodded agreement that indeed, Dr. Sweets had described them thus, the excuse he gave to keep prying into their partnership.

"Love." The whispered word wrapped around them.

He touched her cheek tenderly. "I would do anything for you, and I've been feeling that way for years. What I feel is what pushed me over the line. So why shouldn't I go ahead and kiss you?"

Brennan still looked uncertain, yet a flare of longing had ignited in her soft steel eyes.

"We'll take it slow," he promised. "Okay? Just kissing and holding hands for now, until we're both ready for more."

When she acquiesced with a silent nod, hesitant yet hopeful, he bent and brushed another slow kiss over her willing lips. It ripened slowly, mouths moving in concert, his tongue curling into her, their breaths mingling.

"God," he panted, pulling back to nuzzle her ear. "Baby, kissing you is incredible."

"I know," she murmured, eagerly seeking more.

And he laughed, because for once it wasn't her conceit speaking. Her actions told him exactly what she meant.

~Q~

Author's Note: Did you see this coming? Booth lied under oath. Strap yourselves in, readers, all hell is about to break loose and very soon I'll be showing you the clues that suggest this may not be as AU as it seems...