A/N: I was going to torture you all one more day and post this tomorrow so I could proof it a few more times, but my beloved Detroit Tigers won their playoff game tonight and I'm so excited I can barely see straight (that's what happens when something so bad finally becomes good!). So to celebrate, I thought I'd share the weath and answer a long-awaited question. Ready?

Go!

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Her eyes met his, searching his face for some hint that this wasn't real. "You don't want to be my partner?"

"We can't do this colleagues-only thing anymore," he told her, the distress creeping into his voice. "And I can't take another night like last night where I have to let you go in the morning and pretend nothing ever happened. There can't be any in between with us…it's got to be all or nothing, and the option that will cause the least amount of pain is to have nothing—no socializing, no friendship, and no more working together."

She stood, the emotion flashing in her blue eyes. "I agree with your conclusion," she told him, "but not at all with your implementation of it. We can be together. We can make this work, Seeley, I know we can."

"How do you know?" he asked very seriously, his voice rising. "What reasons do you have? Where are your facts? Because I know you, Temperance, and I know you've thought this through from every angle and rationalized the hell out of it."

Her face fell. "I did think it through," she said quietly. "And I came up with a multitude of facts and rationalizations and reasons why we would form a well structured, interdependent pair bond. But the only thing that matters," she stepped closer to him, wanting again to touch him, but unsure if she should, "is that I love you…that I need you. And that I know you feel the same way about me."

"I do," he almost whispered. "But if I did something to hurt you in any way, I'd never forgive myself."

"Like in your nightmare last night. You don't trust yourself."

He shook his head almost imperceptibly. "No. I don't."

She took another step toward him and took his hands in hers. "Then trust me. You know how…how wonderful it was to be friends…especially as close as we were."

"After Parker, your friendship was the best thing that ever happened to me," he admitted softly.

She released one of his hands and brought hers to his face, skimming his jaw lovingly with just the tips of her fingers. "Then think of how much more wonderful it would be if we added a romantic relationship to that."

His free hand found her hip and grasped it gently, while his heart increased in tempo from a simple cha-cha to a rousing swing dance. "No," he repeated with much less conviction than he had intended.

"Yes," she countered, sliding her fingers through his hair. "It might not be easy, but you know what it's like to fight for something that's right. You've spent your entire adult life doing it." She drew him closer, feeling his arms slipping around her waist as hers came to rest on his shoulders. "Fight with me now…for us…for what we can be together."

Booth's heart moved from the swing dancing beat to break-dancing mode with Brennan in such close proximity. She seems so certain, he thought, his resolve beginning to melt. And I trust her more than I trust anyone else. That's why I called her last night. He ran a hand over her back, a tiny smile pulling at his lips. "You know, on all the TV shows, and in all the movies, and in all the songs, they always talk about love making you weak. But with you…" his smile grew despite his efforts to keep a neutral expression. "With you I feel stronger. And when you say you think that we can make a relationship work…I almost believe you."

She studied his face carefully. "But you're still not sure."

"I'm just so afraid of hurting you…"

She cut him off, losing patience with him. "I am an intelligent adult woman, Booth, and as such am perfectly capable of making informed, rational decisions about my own life! If I want to be in a relationship with you, it's because I've already weighed all of the possible consequences and the probabilities for each…"

"Okay, okay!" he replied, his smile blossoming into laughter. "I know how good your reasoning skills are." The laughter faded quickly and he exhaled a small sigh. "You're really sure about this?"

"Yes," she said firmly.

He studied her face closely, looking for any sign of hesitation. "And you're not afraid?"

Her fingers combed through his hair again. "The only thing I'm afraid of, Seeley, is that you're going to turn in that request for reassignment and walk right out of my life, and we'll never know how happy we could be together because we didn't even try."

The soft smile reappeared on his lips. "My name sounds so good when you say it," he whispered. A faint pink crept up into her cheeks and he caressed one tenderly. "And you're right—if we walk away now, we'll never know what could have been."

"But neither of us has walked away yet," she responded hopefully, grasping his tie with one hand and twirling it slowly around.

"Not yet."

"Are you going to?" she asked, this time with trepidation in her voice.

He leaned his forehead against hers and squeezed his eyes shut, fighting with himself over what to do. His brain insisted that the best course of action was still to leave her before he did something he couldn't take back. But his heart wouldn't give in. He flashed back to his last moments of consciousness the previous night and the first of the morning, feeling all over again what it was like to fall asleep in Brennan's arms and wake up with her in his. His break-dancing heart beat even faster, nearly stopping from the jolt of sheer happiness. Can I really walk away from that?

Booth knew the answer to his question, had really known it all along. He drew her closer still and leaned down, his lips brushing against her ear as he echoed the words she had spoken to him before he fell asleep. "I'll stay right here with you for as long as you need me."

Joy greater than she ever expected washed over her and she found it impossible to keep from grinning, even as his mouth found hers in warm, sweet kiss. She could feel him, too, straining to keep the smile off his face and finally broke away laughing.

"You can't kiss me very well if you're going to keep smiling like that," she teased, finding his lips again.

He drew back, feigning indignation. "You'd rather I was frowning?"

She swatted his arm and reached for him, almost unable to believe this was really happening. "I'd rather you leaned over and kissed me properly," she shot back, the twinkle in her eyes matching that of any star in the sky.

"We've been together for less than a minute and already you're bossing me around," he laughed, dropping down on the couch and pulling her onto his lap. His hands threaded through her hair and skimmed down her back before slipping around her again in a secure embrace. "But since it was such a good idea, I'll let it slide this time."

Seconds before his lips met hers once more the smoke alarm began wailing from the kitchen. "The lasagna!" Booth suddenly remembered. He dumped her from his lap rather unceremoniously and ran into the kitchen.

Brennan, sprawled out on the couch, chuckling mirthfully as she imaged—and smelled—her partner pulling the charred remains of dinner from the oven. "How bad is it?" she called.

She heard him sigh despondently. "I'm glad my mother isn't here to see this."

The emotional rollercoaster of the last few weeks, the conclusion of one saga and the exhilaration at the beginning of another, and the mental image of Booth mourning a smoking casserole dish proved to be too much for her to handle.

The pragmatic scientist threw back her head and dissolved into a bout of uncontrolled, very un-Brennan-like giggles.