(Season 7)
A/N: mphs95 requested a sequel to chapter 130.
I don't own Bones.
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Two years. It had been almost two years since Brennan had requested that Booth donate semen to her so that she could have a baby. A lot had happened in that time.
Booth had changed his mind about the donation and she had accepted it. He'd had a brain tumor at the time and that overrode any thoughts of having a baby. His health was more important to her than having a progeny.
During his recovery she had realized that things were different between them. It was possible that his dream he'd had while in a coma had affected him in ways she didn't understand. She felt that it was possible that he might think he loved her, but she was certain that if that was the case then he had come to that conclusion because of the dream not because it was due to a natural progression. How could she trust an emotion that might be artificial in nature? How could he trust such an emotion? Love wasn't real or least it didn't seem real to her at the time. It was a temporary affliction that usually faded once the norepinephrine and the dopamine diminished in the brain. She was certain that over time his affection would diminish and he would accept that they were just friends.
In the meantime, she had felt like she was walking on eggshells around her partner. She was afraid he would confess his love to her and it would leave her with no other option but to deny his affections. She worried what the ramifications would be and if her partnership would fail. She didn't want to lose his friendship . . . and then what she had feared happened. He'd asked her to take a chance on a relationship with him and she had refused. She did it to protect him, but she knew he didn't see it that way. She had tried to explain that she didn't have his heart, that she was a scientist and couldn't take the risk She knew that her explanation fell far short when she saw the tears in his eyes. Shedding her own tears, she had asked if they were still partners and to her relief, they were. Her friendship was intact, but she didn't know for how long.
Her doubts about her decision grew as time went on. He was going to move on and she had to accept that. She knew that he was going to look for someone that could love him, but what he didn't understand was that there was already someone that loved him. She had told herself over and over that love didn't exist and that she didn't love him and for a while she believed it.
For reasons she would never understand, she started to worry that her partnership might endanger Booth. Brennan had terrible dreams during this period. She dreamt that Booth had died because she wasn't fast enough to save him. Brennan was feeling fragile and torn. She was afraid that Booth would die and she would lose him and she would be alone. Confused, she decided she needed a break and took a job in Maluku for a year. She had a lot of thinking to do about her future and part of it was whether or not her partnership would continue. She had to do it even if Booth and her friends didn't understand.
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Fast forwarding to a happier time and place, Brennan smiled as her partner as he brought her a glass of sparkling water and a plate filled with peanut butter cookies. "Booth I said to bring me one cookie not six."
After he handed her the glass and the plate, Booth sat down and took one of the cookies from the plate. "We're sharing. You can eat as many as you want and I'll eat the rest." A broad smile on his face, he popped the cookie into his mouth and chewed it while he watched her primly take a bite out her cookie. Once he'd swallowed his mouthful of cookie, he ran his tongue along his teeth to try to loosen the cookie sticking to his back teeth. He didn't want to use his finger, but in the end, he had no choice. "Damn I like these cookies, but I'm going to have to brush my teeth when we're done."
Amused, Brennan leaned over and kissed him. "You taste delicious."
His eye brows arched up and with a leer on his face, Booth returned her kiss making sure it was a long and lingering one. "I may wait to brush my teeth." He loved the fact that they were both comfortable enough to kiss each without feeling awkward. That phase of their relationship was past them and they were learning what it was like to be free to show their love for each other.
Grabbing another cookie, Booth winked at his girlfriend and popped it into his mouth. He had never been happier and sometimes he wondered how he had got to where he was.
"Booth, do you remember when I wanted your semen to have a baby?" Brennan placed the plate of cookies on the coffee table and shifted so she was facing her boyfriend. "I wanted to have a baby and I thought you would be a good candidate."
"Yeah, I remember." Booth wasn't sure where this conversation as going, but he wasn't going to stop it. He found Brennan's thought processes to be fascinating.
Since he didn't seem averse to talking about it, Brennan continued. "You had the qualities that I was looking for and I had hopes that any baby that you sired would have the same qualities . . . When you changed your mind, I decided not to have a baby sired by anyone else . . . I wanted your baby, Booth. If I couldn't have your baby then I didn't want to have a baby . . . At the time, I was unsure of how I felt about you. I liked you, you were my friend and my partner and it seemed like I could talk to you about anything . . . then you were diagnosed with a cerebellar pilocytic astrocytoma and things changed between us."
He wasn't sure if he should interrupt her not. She was talking about a scary time in his life, but if she needed to talk to him about it then he'd just have to hear it. Nodding his head, he patted her knee. "It focused me . . . I forgot some stuff and I had to deal with that, but it forced me to focus on stuff I'd been keeping in for a long time."
She wasn't sure what he was saying, but for now, she nodded her head to acknowledge what he had said. "You were confused and thought we were married when you woke it. That in turn confused me. I left for a dig because Sweets assured me that you were going to be alright and leaving you at the time would help you accept the reality of our relationship . . . that we were partners and friends, nothing more. I believed him, but when I came back you acted so strangely towards me and I feared that you still thought you loved me."
"I did love you." Booth sighed. "I know you think that the dream I had in my coma made me love you, but it's not true. I loved you before I got that tumor, but I never told you because you didn't believe in love. That tumor didn't change how I felt. It just focused how I felt about you . . . That day in Sweets' office when we told him his book was crap . . . he wasn't wrong when he said we were in love and one of us had to have the courage to break the stalemate. I asked you to take a chance, but I did it all wrong. I rushed you and I didn't tell you that I love you . . . that may not have made a difference, but we'll never know . . . I've loved you for a long time, Bones. I was just waiting for you to catch up to the idea that love was real and love me back, but after a while I didn't want to wait anymore and Sweets just made me realize that. I had a tumor and that tumor scared the shit out of me. It showed me just how short my life could be and if I didn't try, I might die never knowing if you loved me back . . . I shouldn't have asked you the way I did, but I did and then we both just fell apart . . . I'm not saying that was your fault, far from it. It was my fault for not finding a better way to tell you how I felt and . . ."
"Booth, when you asked me to take a chance, I couldn't. I didn't know if you loved me or if your love was just a memory from a left-over dream . . . I couldn't risk losing your friendship if that was the case, it was all very confusing to me."
He could see her point of view and he knew that that time was just as painful to her as it was for him. "Sometimes, I think if I had just said go ahead and have my baby, things might have turned out better. You'd have had the baby and it would have been part of me. I'd have insisted that I be the father and I think you might have got used to thinking of me as part of your family. You would have seen that you could trust me and . . ."
"But we're having a baby now and you are part of my family." Somehow, they had reformed their partnership and friendship after they had come back from their long-distance separation and they had both kept that friendship through Booth's relationship with another woman and then his breakup. Brennan had seen what life would be like with Booth loving someone else and that had made her see that that future would be a sad one for her. She had finally had the courage to admit that she loved him at least to herself and she had prepared to be just his friend for the rest of their lives, but his breakup with Hannah had changed everything and now they were in a physical relationship. "I love you, Booth. I loved you even when I couldn't admit that to you or anyone else. I didn't understand love . . . I was afraid that I was right and it's just temporary and it fades with time, but now . . . now I think love is real and that it can be long lasting."
He swallowed, his heart filled with love for his partner and friend. "I love you too, Bones. You know I do, I've said it often enough and I won't let it fade away. You and me and our baby are a family now. You wanted a baby and I know that you had given up hope that you were going to have one, but I did tell you that some day the right guy might come along and you might decide to have a baby with him . . . I guess I was right even if I was talking about myself and I didn't know it." He chuckled. He leaned over and kissed her. "I love you and the baby so much, Bones. What we went through to get to this point . . . it's a miracle that we made it, but we did make it and I just want you to know that I'll try not to screw this thing up. I don't want to lose you . . . ever."
"I don't want to lose you either, Booth." She shook her head in wonderment. "It's been two years since I asked you to sire a child for me . . . I think the saying is, better late than never."
"Yeah, you got that one right."
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