Disclaimer - I don't own Bones.

Big Yellow Taxi

His ex once told her there were moments. Moments when a couple caught fire and had a chance to make something beautiful or flamed out. She had said their relationship was the latter.

Temperance Brennan sits at the bar with a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon in her hand. As she sips the rich, full-bodied wine, she thinks about the moments that have passed her by. Moments of missed chances.

She looks at a couple on the dance floor. The woman's elegant frame leans in close to the man as she strokes the stubbly shadow on his cheek. They're her friends. She's happy for them.

She's not sure she believes in regrets any more than she believes in fate. If she did believe in regrets, she'd have more than one. Starting with waiting years between shared kisses.

It wasn't like she hadn't had plenty of chances:

When he saved her from the gravedigger. They'd held each other for a while. Shared a knowing look and a smile. But that was it. There wasn't anything more to it. Partners. Friends.

Their kiss between the mistletoe. It was far too brief, even though it was a whole flotilla - whatever that means - of steamboats. He'd helped make it the best Christmas she'd had in years. But she didn't go to him. She didn't seek more.

Finding him, naked, in that awful beer hat. She'd have liked to have done more than just kiss him then - even though she was angry. She could almost taste the skin of his abdomen just looking at him. She longed to trace the lines of his muscle definition with the tip of her tongue.

Rescuing him from certain death when he was kidnapped. Sometimes she still wonders why she didn't take his lips on the chopper. Kissing him like tomorrow would never come for either of them. She knows she would be lost without him.

When he came out of the coma. It was confusing, the way he interpreted her reading to him as their relationship. Maybe she should have kissed him until he was stirred back into reality. Maybe in his confusion, she could have convinced him that damn line of his didn't exist.

Then there was the airport. She sighs when she thinks about that one. Touching his hand. Promising to meet at the coffee cart. No longer partners. Only just barely friends. She left. She left for nothing...except that in leaving she may have found the love of a lifetime. One that would last 30 or 40 or 50 years.

But her biggest regret? Not having the guts to be with him a lot sooner. Not that it mattered anymore...

She looks around but doesn't see him. She sets her now empty glass on the edge of the bar and drops a few bills beside it. Taking out her phone, she texts to say she's going to catch a cab home.

"Bones!" he shouts as he comes out of the bar.

She turns, one foot in the cab and the other in the parking lot.

"I was on the phone with Parker longer than I meant to be." He hurries to her and slips a hand into her hair. Pressing a kiss to her lips, he looks at her adoringly. "Were you seriously going to let me watch you ride off in a cab without me again, baby?" he asks.

She leans up and kisses him soundly, her tongue slipping over his lower lip in a lazy caress. Looking at him, she raises an eyebrow. "I still might if you insist on calling me 'baby,'" she smirks.