A/N: Thank you for all the reviews. Here is the penultimate chapter. Enjoy.

Chapter 11

She managed to keep hold of the box and not drop it, the sound of the gun reverberating against the silent night sky. The officer next to her began to run toward where the shot had come from and Brennan found herself following, still holding the box. She ignored the stitch in her side that came too quickly and managed to power herself through the trees to where she could see a group of people beginning to walk in the direction of the house.

Her eyes went automatically to Booth, walking tall in her direction, his hands clasping a man in front of him and a broad smile across his face. "Tempe!" He called out as soon as he saw her.

For a second she felt flustered. She hadn't really thought that he would have been hit, but her heart still wouldn't quit pounding. His use of her first name in front of everyone had also flummoxed her and for a few seconds she wasn't sure what to say, she just stood still.

"I got the trophies!" She called as the group of officers with their two prisoners neared. She held the bag up in her hands. The older man in front of Booth spat on the floor. She figured him to be Dean Lammork.

Booth nodded to her, her smile growing as they got closer to one an other. One of his colleagues took Lammork from him and Brennan found herself stood face to face with Booth, the rest of them continuing the walk back to the house.

"You okay?" Booth asked her. She could see even in the dim light the flames that his eyes held.

She nodded. "Why shouldn't I be?"

"No reason, I just wanted to check," instead of being annoyed by this she felt oddly endeared. Usually Booth's over protectiveness made her feel irrational and that she had something to prove. For the first time, that reaction didn't occur. Instead she half understood that he didn't think she was incapable of looking after herself, just that it was in his instinct to protect people, and she was more than included in that.

She reached up her free hand, the one that wasn't holding the box, and took hold of the shirt that he had been wearing when they had been at his home, a time that now felt like weeks ago, rather than hours. He watched the action, amusement on his face, and his hands came up to her face, cupping it gently. He bent his head to her and kissed her, letting it deepen slightly. At first she half froze. They were outside, anyone who turned round now would see them. Then the fear of it passed and she relaxed into it, the heat of it warming her from the inside. It was brief, but it did enough to colour her cheeks and shorten her breaths.

"You need to go to the hotel, Tempe," he said once the kiss had finished. "It's past midnight and its going to end up being a six o clock start in the morning. The soco's have been told to go and come back tomorrow."

"I don't want to," she said stubbornly, shaking her head. "There too much to do, and if I need to go, then so do you."

"And I will be doing. After I've done a preliminary interview with Burke and Hare over there," he nodded in the direction of the two prisoners.

"Weren't Burke and Hare grave robbers?" She asked, confused at the comparison.

Booth nodded. "Couldn't think of any other pair of male murderers of the top of my head," he explained. "Go and get a room at that motel again, Tempe. I think that's where most of the team will be staying tonight, including Hodgins once he's done collecting his bugs." He handed her his car keys. "I'll get a lift back."

She looked at him, slightly aghast. Not just at him giving her the keys to his precious vehicle, but about what she was going to say next.

"You want me to book a separate room for you?" She asked, a little hesitantly.

"Yeah, if there's any left. Otherwise I'll come and get my keys from you and sleep in the car," he grinned.

"Why don't you share with me?" She looked at him, her eyes seemingly growing bigger. "There's not that many rooms, and if I ask for a twin… Or you could share with Hodgins?" She clarified her offer quickly.

Booth laughed. "I would rather sleep here that share with Hodgins. Especially with what he may bring back with him." She looked at him, wishing she had Angela there to tell her what to say. She didn't want to be without him tonight. Now she had realised that she was feeling something toward him she felt vulnerable and needy, feelings she had never wanted to share with anyone in her life before. She thought he might not like that in her; he was used to only seeing her fiercely independent streak and this side might be a shock.

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He watched her face, dimly light by the slight light of the moon and the false lighting from their crime scene. The capture of Charlesworth and Lammork had not been difficult; they had managed to take them by surprise. The shot that had probably sent Tempe running was one fired to halt Charlesworth's attempt at running. It had worked without even harming a hair on his head, more was the pity.

It had been kind of nice to see Tempe come to him. He would have expected it anyway; it would have been unlike her to have managed to have kept her nose out of a case that she had serious claims over, but he liked to think that she had ran there because of him. And now she was standing there, looking vulnerable, like he had never seen her before. He supposed that given her, it was to be expected. He knew that the epiphany that they had both probably had in less than the past twenty-four hours would leave them a little raw. They had kissed, changing how they would relate forever, and he felt slightly vulnerable. So much now relied on how she wanted to go about things. He was already surprised that she had told Angela they had spent the evening together. He had the extreme urge to just go back with her to the motel, take her back to one of the rooms and just enjoy holding her. Given her icy, hard exterior, even holding her was more of a challenge as seducing your average woman. Of course he wanted to take her to bed, what man wouldn't, especially after months of chemistry between them. He knew that when it happened, and he could actually say when and not if, it would be amazing; but for now he didn't want to rush things. The anticipation would only add to the flavour, and he was a patient man when the end result would be good.

And now she was talking about rooms. Given that she wasn't pushing for one on her own and telling him she'd see him in the morning, plus this exposed look on her face, he could read between the lines and say that she wanted him with her tonight, for all the same reasons he didn't want to spend the night alone either.

"Tempe, book a twin room. If they've only got doubles, get one of them and I'll sleep on the floor. But go, now. Do what you need with that evidence, and go and get some rest," he said in his softest, most irresistible voice.

"There are more bodies to be uncovered," she protested.

"And they'll be officers here all night making sure that they are still here in the morning when they'll be more light and better conditions for retrieving evidence," he pacified. He had worked out how to handle her by now, and this softer Bones was definitely easier to reason with.

She nodded. "It makes sense. I'll leave a message at reception giving you the room number." He nodded. As she was about to walk away, he grabbed her hand and pulled her back to him, kissed her swiftly on the lips and giving her his best grin, let her go, his heart singing that in a couple of hour time he would be back with her, in a room with her instead of next door.

He watched her go as he went to find Agent McCaffrey who would be interviewing with him, knowing that the sooner he could beat what he wanted to know out of the two men he would be back with her, and as dedicated as he was to his job he couldn't help but look forward to seeing her again.

McCaffrey was waiting patiently for him at the front of the house next to large van that Booth assumed contained one of the men they had arrested. He felt the familiar sense of the impending battle smother him, and managed to force thoughts of Tempe out of his mind. He was determined to get the bottom of these murders.

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The only rooms left were all doubles, the twins having already been taken by most of the FBI officers present. Brennan briefly passed Hodgins in the corridor; already chatting to a pretty agent she had seen earlier. He waved almost dismissively, but several seconds later came running up behind her.

"Dr Brennan!" She stooped walking to her room and turned round to face him.

"What is it?" She looked at him impatiently. She had brought the box of bones back with her and was hoping to analyse its contents before Seeley came back.

"Those insects…" his eyes widened at the thought.

"Really?" Brennan looked at him. "What can you actually tell me about the victim from them?"

Hodgins came back to earth. "They were some of the finest specimens I've seen," he said enthusiastically.

"Jack," Brennan began. "Unless you have anything interesting to tell me about the actual case, I will see you in the morning." She felt his steely blue eyes fixed on her as she walked away, and as she turned round he was shrugging his shoulder and muttering to himself. Brennan smiled a little and found her room. Their room.

She entered, noting that it was much larger than either of the rooms they had had the night before last, with a small two-seater sofa crammed in at one end. She put the box down on the vanity table and began to open it, taking care to have spread a white sheet out first that would stop any contamination of the evidence. Thankfully the soco's had been fairly well resourced.

She switched the lamp on, giving herself extra lighting and began to study the small bones, sorting them out into separate rows and writing on post-it's the case number for each of the skeletons they had so far uncovered. She could remember exactly which cases missed which bone, and before an hour was over she had managed to find the missing bones for twelve of the fifteen skeletons they had recovered from Moreton Street. That left thirteen small bones unaccounted for, and three of the Moreton Street skeletons incomplete. She suspected that tomorrow they would be several more lots of bones found at Davey's house.

Brennan opened her laptop and began to input the new data, bagging up each bone as she went and double checking the case number. It was a laborious process as everything needed to be photographed at least twice but she didn't feel the time slip by.

She heard a soft knock at the door and a thrill went through her. Seeley Booth. She stood quickly, surprising herself with her eagerness. She had never been this keen to see a man before.

She opened the door and saw him stood there, two bags in his hands, one she recognised as being hers and the other she took to be his. He smiled at her and her attention automatically deferred to him rather than what he was carrying.

"You going to let me in?" He asked. She moved out of the doorway and he walked through, putting the bags down on the bed. For a few seconds an atmosphere of awkwardness hung in the air and she wondered how to break it. Then he looked almost shyly at her and she found herself stood close to him. Tentatively, she put one hand into his, and found that he gripped onto it tightly, pulling her down to sit on the bed next to him.

"I see you've not been to sleep?" He said, a little accusatory.

She shook her head. "I wanted to at least get a start on tomorrow's work. I've gone through the trophy bones and found that I can put twelve of the bones with bodies we recovered for Moreton Street, which leaves thirteen trophy bones remaining and three of the Moreton Street skeletons incomplete. There's going to be more remains in Davey's place. The soco's found three more bodies this evening, plus the one I came across in the greenhouse trough," she explained, feeling comfortable now she could talk about work.

"We briefly interviewed both Matthew and Dean – it is definitely Dean, by the way, we pulled off photographs from when he was last arrested and compared them with a photo we took tonight and he's certainly not dead – and Matthew, after swearing blind that he'd have nothing to do with it, then broke down and confessed immediately to nine acts of homicide, along with the names. He told us about the box and that he thought there was another one somewhere on the property. He says that Dean and Davey would make him kill girls and then give their bodies over to them, when they would bite part of the skin from the arm off with there teeth - some ritual I don't understand nor wish to -and then get the body to decompose quickly. The girl you found in the trough is Emilia Hunt, from a town called Vindosee about seventy miles south from here. Her mother filed an MP report six month ago and in the meantime I suspect she was working the streets. From the rather burbled response I got from him, they only went for women who would not be missed. Lone travellers, prostitutes, down-and-outers, anyone that wouldn't be reported gone straight away," he concluded with a sad smile.

"Their plan worked, didn't it? No one was missed, and if they were it was never traced back to them. They were clever," Brennan said, with her usual calmness. "At least now we can work on giving these women back their identities."

He smiled at her, his hand moving up to brush hair away from her face with a touch so gentle and soothing she closed her eyes to accentuate the sense. The atmosphere had turned from feeling awkward to being almost violently electrical. A shiver ran up through her spine, causing her to smile. She opened her eyes as she heard him laugh and saw that he was gazing at her, a look in his eyes that she had never really understood before, until now when a few things clicked into place, like the trophy bones making a complete skeleton.

"What's funny?" She asked, unsure of wht he was laughing.

"You," he said, his fingers still playing with her hair. It was a sensation she adored and she could feel her eyelids becoming heavier the more she relaxed.

"Why am I funny, Seeley?" She said, finding it strange that it was so easy to say his first name.

"The way you're so detached, and all it needs is just someone to play with your hair," he murmured. "Then you start to smile and become all soft."

"I am not soft," the statement would have said with more force, but for the fact that she was so content.

"There's nothing wrong with being soft sometimes," he said in that quite, gentle tone that could at this minute persuade her to do anything.

"When are you soft then?" She asked, both eager to know and keen to continue their debate of sorts.

"I am now," she turned her head to look at him, half lay back on the bed, his face untwisted with preoccupation. She lay back to join him, both their legs hanging off the side of bed and their heads almost resting on their bags.

He pulled her close and she felt his lips on hers again, the newly familiar feeling becoming even more enjoyable now that she had analysed it. His hand went to her waist and she found that hers were up at his shoulders, having grazed over his pectorals on their way to getting there. He manoeuvred her so she was on top of him, propping her up with his strong arms. She felt herself pass a certain point where her kissed became more desperate and her hands pressed harder against his skin, and his arms relaxed and she lay flat onto his chest. He responded in turn, but she felt that he was holding back, his hands stayed clamped onto her waist and did not explore like her were doing. She broke the kiss and looked at him, her hair dropping down into his face.

"What's the matter?" She asked, worriedly, moving from on top of him. His hand remained touching her and she found she didn't want to move it.

"I don't want to make love with you tonight," he said. It would have been blunt but for the tone of his voice.

She half understood what he meant. It would be too much in a short space of time.

"I'm going to put myself through agony by not doing, Tempe, but I want to at least have one date with you first," he continued to play with a lose tendril of hair as the room fell so silent she could hear the faint beating of his heart, she was sure. She curled up to him, feeling as frustrated as he was, but slightly relieved also. His arms crept around her and held her tightly, and she felt the warmth of his body seep through to her.

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He had half fallen asleep, the exhaustion of the long day with so many ups and downs finally catching up with him. It had only been a few hours ago that he had been talking with Angela about Tempe and this thing between them. Now she was lying in his arms, her eyes closed in sleep and her features relaxed. He brushed the side of her face with his lips, and slowly disentangled himself from her. It was late, or rather early, and it wouldn't be long before they had to get up.

He had called for one of the younger officers who had still been at the Jeffersonian to bring Brennan's bag that he knew she kept in her office for nights when she sometimes stayed at work. His own bag had come from the car, although as he'd had no keys and hadn't wanted to disturb Tempe for them in case she was asleep, he'd forced open the boot in a way he knew would damage it. Sometimes he scared himself.

He hoped that the water would be warm and headed for the shower, taking off the filthy clothes and praising the stars that he had a clean suit for the interviews he would be doing tomorrow and a change of clothes on top of that. The water was warm against his skin although it lacked power. Still, it did the job and he came our feeling cleaner than he had done before. He dried himself off quickly, hearing Tempe moving about outside. He imagined she was wanting to do the same, wash away the work of the day. A picture of Tempe in the shower entered his mind and he grinned wickedly. Maybe one day soon.

He pulled on shorts and an old t-shirt and opened the door into the bedroom. Tempe was sat on the bed, shower stuff in her arms.

"Do you have a spare t-shirt I could sleep in?" She asked tiredly.

"Isn't there one in your bag?" He asked, curious as to what she kept in it.

She shook her head. "If I stay over at the Jeffersonian I usually just fall asleep in what I'm wearing," she confessed.

He grinned and stripped himself of his shirt, noticing how her eyes checked him out. He enjoyed the sensation of having the anthropologist pay him some attention, and caught her eye, causing her to blush. "Have this!" He said and threw her the shirt. She smiled and stood up.

"I'm going to have a quick shower before I get into bed," she told him, looking half asleep.

"You want me to sleep on the couch?" He asked before she closed the bathroom door.

She popped her head out. "It's up to you, Seeley. You can sleep with me, if you want." Her lack of a direct answer surprised him, but then, many things had surprised him about her today.

He slipped between the sheets and stretched out, enjoying the cool crispness of the bed. He felt his eyes begin to close and sleep throw her soft blanket over him, only to be awakened when Tempe moved in next to him, body still damp from the shower, smelling of a faint musky scent that made him sigh.

He felt her curl up to him, taking one arm and moving it across her. He opened his eyes a little and looked at her, finding her to be returning his gaze. She said nothing, merely shutting her eyes and falling asleep almost immediately, ashe could tell by the way the rhythm of her breathing altered, slowed down, and his own began to mirror it. Tomorrow, he thought, he would ask her on a date.

Please review!

Last chapter will be up tomorrow (if I get enough reviews...evil laugh!) It's already written and full of fluff.

As well as Seeley Booth, I will also accept Danny Messer from CSI:NY in any way, shape or form!