AN: Here's a nice, loooong chapter for the good folks out there in fanfic land. All wonderful reviews who I reward with hypothetical cookies. This chapter is set a few months after they returned to D.C., Booth's cast is off and he's returned to work.
Chapter 35 A Missed Date
Temperance sat in her office focused on the case file before her. Enlargements of marking on the victim's bones and Hodgins's reports bewildered the scientist, the bones indicated blunt force trauma, but the particulate analysis came back blank. Zack had determined the object was most likely a tire iron based on the damage pattern. How could a metal object leave marks but not matter on the bones? Hearing a light knock she glanced up, fully expecting Angela to shoo her out of the lab. But it was Booth, leaning on the doorframe and giving her a lazy, sexy grin.
"Oh, Booth…" Her mind raced and she realized today's date; it was the night of their date. Glancing at her watch, she realized with a grimace that she was over an hour late meeting him.
"I'm so sorry… this case… it's so confusing… and… well, it's your fault!"
"How do you figure that, Bones?"
"You… you brought me this case, knowing I wouldn't stop until it was solved." She was reaching, desperate to assuage her guilt.
"That was four days ago, Bones, you identified the victims, recreated the murder scene, and pinpointed the murderer. We've got an APB out on the doer and he'll turn up eventually."
"But this mark isn't consistent…" Temperance sighed, watching him watch her with amusement dancing in his eyes. "Fine, let's go to dinner." She stood, turning off her computer monitor and reaching for her jacket.
"No."
"No? Booth, two seconds ago you were annoyed that I missed our date, now 'no'?"
"That's right." He shed his suit jacket, tossing it ceremoniously on the couch and grabbing a chair in front of her desk. "Let's close this case, all the way, then we'll have our date." Booth picked up a folder and began reading, trying to understand the squint speak that Hodgins was so fond of using.
Temperance viewed her boyfriend warily. Could it really be that simple? He'd rather finish the case than take me to what I assume is a romantic dinner?
"Why?"
"What?" Booth looked up, thankful for the distraction from reading about hydrochloride-something.
"Yes, why. You come here to meet me for our date, which I was rudely late for, and then cancel it after a minute-long conversation? Why?" She sank back in her chair, hands on her desk, studying him like a specimen. He smiled slowly, loving these moments when she turned her entire focus on him, knowing she viewed him as a puzzle. And he was so thankful she wanted to sort him, and their relationship, out. He shrugged and answered.
"This is important to you, Temperance. I know how much these cases mean to you and you won't be satisfied until everything is analyzed, explained, and finished. So, since you are so important to me, what's important to you is, by default, important to me." He reached forward across the desk, covering her pale hands with his own. They stared at each other for a heartbeat, each searching for confirmation. Slowly, she nodded and he held up the report from Hodgins.
"So, what the hell is Jack saying here? I can't read a word of this." Temperance laughed and covered the essential findings from the entomologist. She viewed him scientifically, noting the moment when a flick of understand lit his eyes and how he shifted in his chair, itching to move, to pace her office and work out the theories 'from the gut.'
"I need to re-examine the bones." She announced, leading the way to the platform. As she compared Zack's findings to the remains she noticed Booth had begun to circle the table, glancing at her frequently as he ran the scenarios over in his mind.
"Booth? Can you stop that; you're making me dizzy." She chastised lightly, looking up to find him blushing slightly.
"Sorry. You should really get a treadmill in here if you don't want me pacing." Temperance laughed, knowing from experience how exercise had a way of emptying the mind and allowing for clearer thinking.
"Yeah, I'll run that by Cam first thing tomorrow." Booth leaned against the railing, watching her work. The gentle way she sets the bones in place, how her brow wrinkles when she doesn't understand what happened. Temperance was, in fact, having a hard time understanding what was happening. She was holding the victim's bone comparing stress fractures from the fall and defensive wounds to the ulna but all she could think about was the agent in her lab, watching her work with those piercing brown eyes.
"What's wrong?" he asked, his voice full of concern, noting she had set down the bones, looked away from the table and was absently picking at a thread on her lab coat. She looked up, her eyes shining and her voice quiet.
"Take me home." She requested simply, staring like a lost child. He waited for a moment, unsure of what prompted this sudden change in focus, and then nodded, crossing the platform and guiding her to her office, his hand at the small of her back, not trusting himself to touch her anywhere else. She quickly shed her lab coat and gathered her bags, handing him the heaviest one before he could take it from her. They moved together quietly, comfortably and were soon in the SUV, speeding to Booth's apartment.
The way she asked left no question in Booth's mind that she wanted to go back to his place, the place she called home. This realization left the agent uncomfortable, wondering what it all meant. In the months since they'd returned from South Carolina, most of their evenings were spent together, not all, but most. Ninety percent of the time she spent the night at his place, leaving only reluctantly in the morning to get clean clothes from her own place. But when, he asked himself, did she start thinking of my apartment as home? As the place she wants to go at the end of a long day?
When they reached said apartment, Booth circled the car and opened her door, surprised she had not beat him to the task. She sat, staring ahead, almost catatonic.
"Bones?" he asked, reaching across her lap to unbuckle her seat belt. She turned and smiled slightly, grabbing his hand and hopping out quickly. They retrieved her workbags and a duffle full of her clothes she'd grabbed from her own car and went inside. Temperance loaded up the kitchen table with her bags of clothes, files, and laptop. The space was always cleared for her and she'd come to love curling up in the small alcove, a breakfast nook Booth called it, and working on her book or reviewing their cases.
Booth found some leftovers in the fridge and quickly heated them, handing Temperance a plate while he returned for a bottle of wine and some glasses. They sat in the living room, on separate ends of the couch picking at their food in the silence of the space. The television remote was on the coffee table but neither moved to reach it. Temperance was starting to wonder if this was a good idea tonight. Her mind was, surprisingly, not on the case she'd left behind but on Booth, and here he was, eating dinner silently without even looking her way.
"Seeley, what's wrong?" she asked, setting aside her food and scooting slightly towards him. He glanced up quickly and read the worry and despair in her voice immediately. The use of his first name on her lips was not missed either. It was one of the few times she'd called him Seeley, apart from the throws of passion.
"I'm just thinking, Bones." She flinched, hearing her nickname. In their short time as a couple she'd learned a few things about him, one of which was how he addressed her. He called her Dr. Brennan when introducing her on cases, he called her Bones when they were working professionally, he called her Tempe when he teased her or when they were just at home together or with Parker. But she loved it most when he called her Temperance, it was his way of claiming her as his own, either physically or just mentally, and when he called her Temperance she felt like they belonged together.
"Seeley," she emphasized his name again. "Please tell me what you're thinking." He searched her eyes and found nothing but love shining there. With a heavy heart he began to explain.
"You know that you're welcome here any time, any day, no matter what. But tonight, when you asked me to take you home," he looked up to see her blush slightly, "I don't know if it is a great thing or not." She frowned, searching her thoughts to remember what she'd thought that moment, what she thought now about his home.
Sensing her struggle, Booth stood and took their plates to the kitchen, quickly rinsing them and placing them in the dishwasher. He added the soap and started the machine, listening for a moment to its quiet rumble and hearing Bones pace in his living room.
END Chapter
AN: Sorry, folks. I wanted this to be one chapter but it was over 2,000 words! I am not going to make you wait long for the next one though, it should be up later today.