Author's note: It's been such a long time since I felt like writing. Since I felt like I had anything to say.
Then, The Change in the Game came along and I just could not get it out of my mind. I know I'm late with a finale fic. And that it has been done over and over. And that there is nothing new here, no great theory, no great explanation about all your burning questions. But you see, a bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.
And author's note 2: Thank you to MickeyBoggs for being such a wonderful beta.
Much love
Jane
"Ever since happiness has heard your name, it has been running through the streets trying to find you"
Hafit of Persia
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Her brain beat inside her like a heart.
"Having a baby, that's a good thing."
Her heart? Cowering away in abject fear of rejection.
Of course he didn't know, did he? Because if he did, he might have said something different. Or maybe not. He always did the right thing. And Brennan did not want to have the right thing done to her.
She wanted to be right for him.
"You really think that?"
"Yeah, it's a great thing. Why?"
Her fears, fierce dragons, guarded her deepest treasure.
"What?" It had not been unkind, only impatient. "Oh, come on, Bones. The baby is fine. The baby is healthy. It's a healthy baby, alright? They love each other. This is the happiest day of their lives, OK?"
She breathed carefully, as if a simple exhale could damage the conversation.
"What?"
Fear was molasses running down her windpipe.
Let life happen to you!
When she swallowed, it hurt, as if fear meant to choke her.
"I… I'm pregnant."
In her pocket, her hand flattened against her deepest treasure as if someone barely the size of an orange seed could give her the strength to get through his flat expression.
.
.
They had bought the bunny together. Once they were done pushing papers and Broadsky, they had walked side by side, not quite touching, not quite apart and bought a fluffy bunny. He had seen her worrying the little ears in her fingers.
Pregnant?
He wanted to look at the floor because maybe his heart and his internal organs were there.
His blood froze mid-thought.
Her fingers, light as a snowflake on the white fur. If only it had been his heart.
.
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She sat there feeling only average intelligence, unable to comprehend. The biology was simple enough. But being happy was something that she had to learn.
She studied the test in her hand, the pink lines running across the dial. Was it OK to cry because you were happy?
She didn't understand the mechanics of being happy.
She took the phone and pressed speed dial #1. And hung up because she couldn't quite figure out the combination of words or the order they should be said because she just wanted Booth to know how happy she was but the only thing happening were tears and she couldn't quite breathe past them and he would think something was wrong.
She put the phone down.
Maybe if she gave him the test to look at.
Hardly a present, something with your urine on it.
What if he didn't think of it as a gift but as a burden?
She wanted him to be happy. She wanted him to be happy with her.
.
.
Are you sleeping with my daughter?
He wanted to ask Max to ask him again, because he wanted to put it into words as if that, somehow, could make it more real for him.
And then she walked into the diner and for some reason it disappointed him that she did not lean over and kiss him. Assert possession. Stake a claim.
And then it made him happy because what was between them was theirs and theirs alone.
Welcome to Teenageville.
The conversation moved around him, through him, which was funny because he was participating and he was plotting an undercover op. But having her sitting there next to him with her dad was like having an instant family and was just too damned good not to enjoy.
"You can be my girlfriend," he heard himself say it and felt stupidly happy with it, though why should that be the case he wasn't quite certain of.
"OK."
They were already in undercover mode, in undercover reality. She looked happy as a kid in a candy store. He wanted to snap back into Brennan and Booth mode and say for real? but this was too new, too fragile.
The smile that reached his lips at her acceptance was immediate, impossible to hide.
He kept his need to himself and adjusted his belt. It was all too new, too fragile. Too awkward to verbalise.
.
.
I'm pregnant.
It took him less than the speed of thought to realise he wanted to be there no matter how she followed through on that.
But it hurt nonetheless.
.
.
It was like a bad novel.
Girl meets boy. Girl gets stupid and loses boy. Girl gets boy back. Girl gets pregnant. Before they can even have a first date.
It was so romantic she wanted to vomit.
"You're the father."
And what if he didn't want to be the father?
His face was frozen still and those short seconds between the two utterances were agonizingly long.
.
.
He could hear her move on the couch. He could hear her heart breaking through the closed door, the same way he could hear her tears plop on the pillow.
He had wanted to go to her. He had wanted to console her.
He had stayed put because it was not the time for it. It was not the time for them. That was not the plan.
He had not asked her here to jump her, and god, did his body want to go to her. He could feel her through the closed door, through the blankets, his and hers, through his clothes, through his sweatshirt on her.
But that was not the plan.
This was not the time. First the grief, then... whatever else.
He had turned on his bed and resolved, fell asleep.
It hadn't been so much her footsteps or the door opening that had awakened him. It had been the impulse to shoot Broadsky because it could have been Bones holding the phone and he would not be here, not really, not at all, if she had been holding that phone. He wanted to go back to that port and kill Broadsky just because it could have been Bones he had handed the phone to.
The gun was in his hand when the murmur of her heartbeat came too close, an echo of his nightmare.
And he just couldn't put it down and there was fear in her eyes but she just stayed there, solid.
So brave.
.
.
She had not walked into the room to get into bed with him. She just wanted to make sure he was OK and breathing because it could so easily have been him holding that phone when the bullet was shot. She needed to make sure because since the blood had stopped pumping out the hole in Vincent's chest she couldn't help but being back at the Checkerbox and she was done rationalising her way out of holding Booth and feeling for his steady heartbeat, for his warm flesh and wielding skin and strong bones.
Everything inside hurt because she could have easily lost him.
But the gun was in his hand and he wasn't putting it down. All she wanted was to move to him but the gun stayed there, between them.
She was scared of what that meant. She was scared she didn't know what that meant.
Except that she had nowhere to go but to him.
Because Vincent was dead. Her boy had died and she was happy that Booth had not been holding that phone. And for once, she could not raise her barriers. She was inundated by grief and pain. She did not know how to deal with that. Booth was her go-to guy. He made things make sense for her.
She needed him to tell her how to do this.
She needed his comfort.
And Brennan surrendered to that need when Booth pulled her to his arms and let her lay down with her ear directly above his steady beating heart.
She could have fallen asleep reassured by his beating heart. His strong, steady, undamaged heart.
Poor Vincent.
Booth was OK.
Was it OK to cry because one was alive because the other was dead?
She could have fallen asleep like that. She could have fallen asleep lulled by his heart. Were it not for his scent, she could have.
.
.
He shouldn't have been so happy that she had sought him out, that she had bared her sorrow to him.
He shouldn't have been so relieved that she had come to him but he was because he could just stand guard over her.
He would have stood guard over her for as long as it took. He could have. Were it not for her scent, that sweet smell of her body, skin and hair and soap and his clothes. The scent that makes your body tighten and your heart fill. It was the scent of being in love.
So he kept his hands on her shoulders, as loose as he could muster.
This was not why he had brought her here.
.
.
Her body tightened and her heart rushed. She could have fallen asleep where it not for the scent of his skin under his t-shirt, the feel of the skin and muscles and bones under her hand. She could have stayed like that. She should have stayed like that because she had just lost Vincent and there was some decorum appropriate for these situations, she was sure of that. She would have succeeded were it not for his scent of fresh clothes and skin and sleep and safe that rose from him, undiluted by distance. She should have fallen asleep.
But she turned her lips to his.
.
.
He should have watched over her sleep. Were not for her scent. His lips turned to her and they quite simply met, his chin tilted down, hers tilted up. So effortless.
Such a small touch, so light. So simple.
.
.
It should have been a blaze, a fiery trail. She had considered it often enough. She had not been above fantasising about that heat. She had confessed to it. She had always assumed it would be burning hot, all consuming. But this wasn't. It wasn't fire. It was warm. A warmth to keep you safe on a cold night. A warmth to bring your fields back to fruit after a long winter.
It was a warmth that drove desire through your body, cell by cell. So insidious that warmth that it drove all other thoughts from you mind.
His hand moved from her back to her nape. It did not grab or hold. It was just there, present, solid. Alive.
There was only her mouth for that moment, just her lips moving under his, just moving slowly, just so.
.
.
A long time ago he had thought about this. A long time ago he had fantasised about a night starting out like this. A long time ago he had been in love with her. In lust with her. Infatuated.
A lifetime ago, this could have been his dream come true.
And then life had happened. And his fantasies had changed. For a long time, he had refused himself the need to fantasise. He had punished himself every time his body and his head and his heart went back here.
He had wanted to cut free of this.
For some time he had succeeded. Because Bones wanted him to.
And then he went and he fell in love with her all over again.
He didn't quite know how to reconcile that lifetime ago with the last few months. Except then he needn't because it was just all there, whether he wanted to or not.
He exhaled the rest of his anger and breathed in the soothing balm of her presence on that particular night and let his hand touch her. He had missed touching her. He had been so severe with himself, always keeping his hands to himself, his arms removed from her and his heart locked away.
He had felt orphan of her touch.
He could not have helped it if he wanted. She was an echo of himself in his deepest sorrow.
And then there was nothing but their heartbeats in tandem just in that touch of lips.
There is a time for everything that lives.
Vincent was dead and he was hers now more than ever. Vincent was dead. She was alive.
He pulled her to him and closed his eyes.
That was sufficient for one day that had enough without borrowing from the past and the future.
.
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She held the stick with the pink parallel lines in her hand and looked down at herself. Her mirror returned her reflection, single in her darkened bathroom. She felt an acute need for that detached, separate status of body and mind to change. In her heart of hearts, in her body and soul, she wanted never to be alone again. She had tired of being a disconnected object, a loose, moon-like being. She wanted to be part of the web.
Terrifying though it was.
She felt like she did now. She belonged to the little seed inside her.
She had a heart now.
.
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It wasn't exactly waking up. She hadn't been exactly asleep. But she came into awareness as she felt the press of his body against her back. She felt his arms around her and his steady breathing in her ear. She felt his arousal against her legs and was powerless to do anything but shift to accommodate him, to welcome him into her space. So many years together, so many times they had shared closed spaces, a few choice of times she had woken up in his arms after a night of fear or grief or just celebration and there had never been this impossible need to just... be a woman about it.
Men did that. She tried not to think much of it. Men woke up aroused. But for once, she wanted to think that arousal belonged to her.
Today, she wanted to believe it was more than a biological imperative, more a thing of the heart.
She sighed and moved her leg over his and let the volume of him nestle against her.
She could not close her eyes again for fear she would sleep and let it slide away. For fear of missing a single second of it.
.
.
He couldn't, for all that was holy, find a reason why he should pull away from her. She slept, peaceful, enticing. Her body responded to the pressure of his, her leg lacing over his, her back burrowing into his midsection. Free, his body easily uncovered what he still hadn't found, nestled there, throbbing, hopeful, happy.
He could have pretended it was nothing, just the morning, just his body being alive.
Instead, he burrowed his face into her neck and breathed her in, joyously. His arms clamped around her, pulled her to him as if he could keep her so close she would be under his skin.
He breathed in her ear, the air whispering to her of his need.
.
.
Her heart beat fast, fast, so fast she wasn't sure she could keep up. The hair on her body stood up with the need in is breath, her body tightened, ripened to his touch. Her fingers traced the thick ropes of muscles in his arms, her leg moved a little further up his, the contact increased between their bodies, lock and key.
There was no feigning sleep.
"Bones."
"Yes." It was not a question. It was an acceptance. One she could not quite utter if he had been looking at her. "Make love to me, Booth"
.
.
He did. Slowly, his sunshine kisses percolated down her hair, her neck, her collarbone.
Slowly, his callused fingers ran the length of his sweatshirt on her.
He didn't ask if she was sure. He knew it in his heart.
A fluid motion had him above her, her back flat on the warm sheets.
His hand grabbed the hem of the sweatshirt.
"Make love with me, Bones."
"With you."
The sweatshirt hiked and rode up her thigh. His finger traced the grey fibres shoulder to wrist. Shoulder, breast, hip. Her breath caught.
"I like my clothes on you."
That made her blush.
"So do I."
.
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Her hand touched the hem of his sleeve, shy. More and more confident, it touched the collar and printed design and flattened itself against his chest, feeling his heart beating wildly. It touched his face, mesmerized by the roughness of the morning beard. Her palm flattened there because his life force was just so strong it could push away at death and loss.
Her smile bloomed. This was exactly where she wanted, where she needed to be. And the novelty was that she did not feel the need to push it away.
.
.
When she smiled, her eyes bent the light around her face, around the room, scattered it in bold new patterns.
He hiked the fabric up and up, inch by inch, revealing skin and muscles, the geography of her so new, which was odd because he knew her so well, it felt like he should have know this of her too. He unveiled, revealed her and his breath caught.
Naked before him, plains and vales, hills and secrets, she was so alive.
He kissed randomly, because he wanted to touch all of her at the same time, but each detail demanded undivided attention.
Her body bloomed recklessly to his touch.
.
.
It was strange, mostly because she was no stranger to sex, but she realised that making love was something she did not quite know how to do.
So she placed her trust in Booth.
.
.
He moved her body, pliant matter in his fingers. He found that making love to her was something he had no preparation for.
So he trusted Bones, he trusted her body and every single shiver and every goosebump, every sigh, every moan.
Soon she was nothing but a miracle of vowels.
He tasted her skin, her mouth.
Explored, mapped, reviewed her geography with his hands and his torso and his legs and eyes. And when he felt he couldn't hold it any more, when he felt there would be enough of her for a whole lifetime, he slid between her thighs, waiting, savouring the anticipation.
He danced, naked, above her, in between her. Inside her.
Her hands clamped around his neck the instant he hit home, a tactile gasp.
"Are you OK?"
.
.
She couldn't quite figure that out.
It hurt, slightly. She just wasn't sure what hurt, if the long wait, if the years of denial, if the feeling of righteousness of the here or the loss of all that could have been. Maybe it was just her body giving way to his. So long. It had been so long.
But she welcomed it. It felt right. Because he was just breaking through the last of her barriers, the last of her imperviousness.
Yes, it hurt and that was the right thing to happen.
"Now I am."
.
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She was brave. So brave. He moved slowly, learning the way inside her. He kissed her as he felt her shedding the rest of her imperviousness, her last barriers. He kissed her eyelashes and her eyebrows, her mouth, her high cheekbones, her hair. He was home finally.
.
.
She became permeable. Her skin was holding her together, but her fundamental nature had changed as a frontier that has been newly agreed on. She was no longer Temperance Brennan. She was Brenn, Bones, and something so new she did not have a word for.
He was there, inside her, moving, moving, filling her and withdrawing, marking and sculpting her.
He was there, there, almost there, not quite reaching yet.
But nearly there, unstoppable.
Almost there.
So close.
Moulding and reshaping. Nearly there.
So close.
And then he was right there.
So right.
So absolutely perfect that her hands convulsed around his neck and her breath hitched and her body just let go.
Her back arched off the bed and melded with his chest and there was one thing only in the world: her mewling, her sobbing release.
.
.
Booth held her tight through the convulsions in her body, her muscles, inner and outer, humming, her sounds like songs. He held her through it, kissed her, absorbed every single of her vibrations.
And then gave her more.
More friction, more heat, more love.
He gave all that he had carefully saved and hoarded since the day he had met her.
And then rose to meet her at the peak he had brought her to.
Caught in her eyes, he surrendered what little there was of his control and spilled himself inside her, the mere thought that his seed was now inside her bringing him close to what he imagined was solely female thing, a multiple orgasm.
.
.
Hindsight is blessed with perfection.
As she sat there with the test in her hand, she knew that that moment, when she felt his final spurt inside her, when she felt the heat and force coming from him into her that they had changed their reality forever. She knew, because such is the nature of hindsight, that that was the moment they had created a new life. They had played God and created a new soul. Though none of those expressions were strictly true.
.
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She had made it a habit to be where he was. Everywhere he went, she followed.
Waiting in the safety of the lab as he hunted down Broadsky was the most difficult thing she had ever done. She let go of him, having just learned to hold on.
.
.
Wanda took Buck's arm to act like a couple, her secret wanting to be proclaimed, the ring in her finger wanting to scream out hey, look at her, she's happy. The fear in her shushing her.
They were so new. So vulnerable.
Not even a first date and she was pregnant. Wasn't that what people called white trash?
.
.
Buck took Wanda's arm in his. Booth worked the case. Wanda handed him the bowling ball and Coke and she called him endearing things. Brennan was happy, like a kid in a candy store. She liked her undercover ops.
He kept his smiles under his skin, unable to press her.
She was skittish outside the Wanda skin.
They both were.
They had made love once. Ever since, they'd been dancing around that night. Or morning.
They had eaten together and held each other's arm. They had been bashful, unable to follow that night through with anything else. Busy balancing the partnership and this.
They needed a first date.
.
.
You're pregnant?
.
.
He watched her watching the door to the birthing suite.
First dates came in many guises. They'd had too many first dates. All of them weird and unconventional. Some, outright gross. But a first date, an honest to goodness first date? With flowers and a dance? And goodnight kiss? And reaching first base?
Yeah, they needed one of those.
He couldn't quite help it, the smile, as he looked at her, fluffy bunny – they had bought it together- in her hands. He was gonna get himself one of those dates. And then he was gonna get himself some of her.
That much he knew. He was done with the heartache.
.
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The blood congealed in his veins. I... I'm pregnant. It just wouldn't run, the damned thing, because for the longest moment he thought that he might have missed his moment. Again.
Seven years of solitude passed through him, like the life of a dying person.
But he was going to be there, like he always was. No matter how she followed through on that. Anyway she wanted him to be. With her it would always be any way she wanted it.
You're the father.
It was as if he'd been sitting on his foot for too long. First you don't feel anything at all, then there is intense sensation as the blood rushes through your limb again.
Blood rushed through him, releasing him of the numbness.
And he was painfully happy.
Yeah? The words did not really come out.
He could only smile. He was the father.
.
.
She fidgeted.
And then she smiled. And his heart tripped and fell into his gut.
"We need a first date."
She looked at him, like birds do when they are trying to assess your level of threat.
"We do?"
He took a step into her personal space, placed his hand over her ears and tipped her head back and kissed her and tried to put his heart into hers for safe keeping in case he lost it again.
.
.
Sometime during that kiss, her body had fused to his because she felt his heart beating in her veins.
Laughter bubbled up inside her throat. Here she was, on the other side of having missed her chance. On the flip side of losing people, of losing family and childhood.
Here, standing in the middle of the road, in the middle of the night. Happy.
The laughter pushed through her into Booth.
They laughed. And laughed and laughed and nothing could ever be sad, no one could be lost or dead. Right there and then, they were alive and happy and nothing could mar their perfection or steal the joy of that perfect moment.
.
.
Her hand fit in his has if they had been made together. They walked down that street as they had walked so many times before, only they were not each alone now.
"Tell me about the baby."
Something passed through her face, what he was used to thinking as her secret smile.
"It's the size of an orange seed. About 5 millimetres."
"Yeah?"
What is happiness anyway? Happiness is not a state like Vermont or Texas. But if he had to define it, this kneeling down at her feet to press his ear against her belly came pretty damned accurate.
"And it has a heart." Her fingers ran through his hair and held him against her.
"And a brain?"
"And a brain. Half of the body size is brain now."
"Brain and heart?"
"Yeah."
"That's a very good thing."
"Yeah it is."
"Let's go home, Bones."
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.
.
You may have known someone for seven years and still you will learn something new when you share a home. Booth learned that long hair clogs up the drain in the shower. He learned that underwear drawers are a private sanctum that men do not stand a snowball's chance in hell of understanding. And that ice cream is a staple in any pregnant woman's freezer.
Brennan discovered that dirty socks will pop up randomly anywhere but the laundry basket and that razors come with inbuilt alarms that will tell on you when you try to sneak a use. That fixing a pipe is not a question of ability but of pride.
And that newspapers' sports sections always find a home next to the toilet seat.
They both discovered that headphones are the best thing after the wheel and sliced bread.
Mostly, they discovered that being happy is not a state. It's not Vermont or Texas. It's a negotiation of wills.
And that it doesn't mean that everything is perfect; just that you are willing to look beyond the glitches and imperfections.
Booth and Brennan? They are happy most of the days.