Booth was pleasantly surprised to fine Bones wide awake and reviewing the case files when he came down from putting Parker to bed. The kid had been so zonked he'd gotten into his pajamas, brushed his teeth, and gone straight to bed. Booth wasn't complaining, though, it had been a long day and he was ready to relax and enjoy some uninterrupted time with Bones.
"Hey," he greeted her, "You want anything to drink before I join you?"
"No thank you," she shook her head, "I'm not particularly thirsty right now."
"Okay," he sat down beside her, extending the footrest from underneath the couch so that they could stretch out together, "Find anything interesting?"
"Nothing more than what you found," she handed him his legal pad, "Your system is quite different from mine, but they seem to be equally effective."
"Thanks," he had learned to take her backhanded compliments without it bothering him.
"I'm being sincere, Seeley," she looked up from the paperwork to meet his eyes, "You are very good at your job and I doubt we would be such an efficient team without your intuitive insights."
"Yeah well, you can tell things from bones that I could never figure out no matter how intuitive I am," he assured her.
She nodded, "We complement each other very well."
"That's the one that means we were meant for each other, right?" he grinned teasingly at her.
"In the vernacular I suppose you could infer that meaning," she told him straight-faced.
"I was kidding, Bones."
"I wondered if you were but was not certain," she admitted, "My ability to read body language and intent is somewhat lacking."
"Hmm," Booth pulled her close to him, "Sounds like you need lessons from the Seeley Booth School of Love, Dr. Brennan."
"Will I get bonus points for sleeping with the professor?" she arched one eyebrow teasingly.
"Oh yes," Booth waggled both of his eyebrows, "Now, what am I trying to tell you with my body language?"
She looked down, of all places, at his midsection, "I believe part of you wishes to make love to me, though I suspect that- for the most part- you are flirting with me."
"Right on both counts, I'm afraid," Booth smiled sheepishly, "Now why don't you snuggle really close and tell me what you thought of my brilliant, intuitive case work, and then we can reward ourselves later?"
She moved so that their legs were touching from the thighs down and set the files on their collective lap. Together they pored over all of the pieces of the puzzle, adding to the list on his legal pad as new facts were brought to life. She easily decoded Hodgins' techno-babble, which told them that while most of the particulates collected were to be expected for a body buried in the sand for so many months, there were a few things that the entomologist thought may have come over with the victim from the original crime scene, including a shard of quartz rock that he claimed would not have been found in that environment.
Clark's report had ruled out the iron bar that had been recovered at the crime scene as the murder weapon. The intern noted that the weapon they were looking for needed to be less dense and have a broader base than the iron bar had. He also had not found any other marks that would tell them exactly what had been used. Booth wondered idly if Zack would have been able to pick up anything else, but shoved the thought aside.
When they were done collecting the facts, they set that aside and focused on the Lane kids' case. Brennan filled out her statement without looking at what Booth had written earlier, then they compared notes. They wrote down every possible indicator that the children had been abused and she offered to type it up for him the next day.
"You're not my secretary, Temperance," he argued.
"No," she agreed, "But I am your partner and your girlfriend, so I should be allowed to shoulder some of the responsibilities. Besides, aren't you the one who is always telling me that it's not a bad thing to accept help?"
"Fine," he gave in, "But only if your hand is up to it. No typing if your hand starts to hurt.
She looked down at it, as if she had just remembered that she burnt it earlier that morning, "I'll be fine, Seeley. I've worked through steam burns that were worse than this."
He took her hand into his and examined it thoroughly. The marks were still there, but not nearly as angry red as they had been. Some of them had already started to fade, though most were now smooth blisters and she winced when he brushed over the largest one.
"Don't push yourself," he said gently, kissing her palm and setting it back in her lap.
"I won't," she promised, picking up the legal pad to review it again, "What's this notation for?" she pointed to a scribble in the margins.
"Oh," he said, "That's to remind me to tell you that we're heading back down with the tech team on Monday to go over Candie's rental house and follow up on our other leads."
"A good thing you wrote that," she said drily.
"Yeah well, good thing you're here to keep me on my toes about these things," he laced his fingers with hers, grateful that her hand that wasn't injured was the one closest to his, "And you'll probably want to pack an actual suitcase this time. Who knows how long we'll be down there."
"I'll need to go home at some point tomorrow, then," she told him, "I was going to ask if we could stop by there anyway since I am running out of clean clothes."
"How about after we drop Parker off?" he suggested, "I have to have him at Rebecca's by two and your place is more or less on the way back from there."
"That seems logical," she nodded, then let out a loud yawn.
He plopped the stack of filed on the floor, pushed the handle to fold the footrest back inside the couch, and announced to Bones that it was time for bed. She argued less than Parker had and they walked hand in hand upstairs to the bedroom. When they got to the bathroom her released her hand with a kiss and told her he'd be right in.
When he rejoined her she was in her pajamas and scurrying about the room. A small sadness came over him as he realized she was packing her bag for the trip back to her apartment. Impulsively, he flung his closet door open and began shifting things over in it.
"Temperance," he called, not surprised when she didn't respond, "Hey, Bones!"
That got her attention. She looked up from the clothes she was folding.
"Why don't you leave your dirty stuff here and I'll wash it?" he pointed to the hamper in his closet, "I've gotta do laundry tomorrow anyway."
"If you're sure," she said warily, "I wouldn't want to be an imposition."
"You're not," he assured her.
She dumped the contents of the bag that she had just finished neatly packing and brought the armload of clothes over to his hamper. Meanwhile, he stripped down to his boxers and settled under the covers. She turned out the main light and joined him and he turned off the light that sat on his nightstand, plunging the room into darkness.
He lay on his side, facing her, and waited for her to come into his arms. He did not have a long wait.
"Booth," she said thoughtfully, "Are we moving in together?"
The question took him aback a little, though he supposed it shouldn't have considering he had just offered to do her laundry.
"I don't know," he answered honestly.
"Neither do I," she sighed, "It's all very confusing."
"What's confusing you, Bones?" he asked softly.
She turned in his arms to face him, though he could only make out the outline of her face.
"According to my research," she started, "At this stage in our courtship we should be getting to know each other: personalities, likes, dislikes, etcetera. We should be going out on outings and discovering what we do and do not enjoy doing together. Some sources also claimed that sex could be an indicator of a good or bad match, though that seemed rather shallow to me.
"If, after a period of six months or so, we decided that we were truly compatible, moving would be the next step in the relationship. This stage, lasting anywhere from six months to two years from what I could gather, would be followed by an engagement period in most traditional cases and a wedding about a year thereafter. In non-traditional relationships it seems the couples simply commit to a monogamous relationship until one or both partners decide to 'break things off' as it were. In rare instances the engagement period is skipped altogether and an elopement takes place.
"What confuses me is that I am not certain which stage we are in."
Booth tried to contain every shred of laughter that was threatening to burst out and failed when he felt his shoulders shake from the effort.
"Are you laughing at me?" the slight hurt in her tone instantly sobered him.
"No," he assured her, tracing his finger lovingly along the outline of her face, "I am laughing because that little speech was completely 'you' and the unique way you look at the world."
"Of course it was me," the hurt was replaced with confusion.
"What I mean is, most women don't do a research paper on the stages of a relationship, but you," here he smiled and put all of the tenderness he could into his next words, "You, my dear Temperance did just that, and I love you all the more for it."
"You do?"
"Yup," he nodded his head, "That speech told me a few things, the most important being that you've put a lot of time and thought into this relationship."
"I told you from the beginning," she said, "I value my relationship with you more highly than any other person I can think of- and yes, I have put considerable thought into our relationship. Angela informed me the other day that the word love is a verb. I had not considered that before and have since put a great deal of effort into determining exactly how that relates to us and what my role should be in the process."
"You want this to work," he stated, "So of course you would throw yourself into it full-force."
"Yes," she replied, "I do want this relationship to last. But I am utterly at a loss as to what the proper steps are as I have never truly sought a long-term relationship before."
His heart leaped at the words "long-term relationship" and he felt like a coward for leaving her ring at the office.
"Well," he said finally, "When it comes to us you can pretty much throw the rule book out entirely."
"Angela says that we have been dating for virtually four years already," she offered.
"She's not too far off," Booth agreed, "I mean, we couldn't stand each other to begin with but that didn't last long and we've been friends ever since."
"But we've dated other people in the interim," she countered, "So it's not as if it's been monogamous."
"Maybe not in a dating sense, no, but our work partnership has forced us to either stick it out through the rough patches or fail. All those trust exercises and shrinky dink sessions that we had to go to are way more than what the average couple gets in a lifetime and they really did help us work through some stuff."
"What are you saying, Booth?"
"I don't know, Bones- not all of the answers at least. What I do know is that I love the thought of us going through life like we have the last couple of days. I like driving home with you from work, cooking dinner together, cleaning up together, watching TV with you on one side and Parker on the other; the mundane stuff. I also really liked working on the case together with you tonight- I mean, I know we've worked on plenty of cases together but tonight it just felt like we were even more in synch than we normally are.
"I love just doing this- talking together in bed about the things that really matter and going to sleep with you next to me. I love you, Dr. Temperance Brennan: world-renowned forensic anthropologist, best-selling author, and most importantly, my Bones."
"So is that a proposal?" she moved closer to him and he could see her eyes shining in the darkness.
"It's a commitment," he told her, "To whatever stage you're ready to be at."
He could almost see the gears in her brain working genius-level fast to process everything he'd just unloaded on her.
"I accept," she replied finally, "And though traditionally this stage of a relationship is sealed with the giving of an engagement ring, for tonight I believe we can satisfy it with a kiss."
"So that means…" he trailed off, not about to misinterpret what she was telling him.
"That I consent to pursuing a long-term relationship with you and that I recognize you to be a man of deep convictions and morals who would never be truly satisfied outside of a traditional marriage commitment. This is my way of making you the direct object of my act of love."
He had no clue what that last part meant, but he realized that she was sacrificing a huge part of herself to be with him, "Helluva lotta heart, Bones," he told her.
"I had a good teacher," she told him, "Now make love to me, Seeley Booth."
And so he did.