(The Feet on the Beach)

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Holding his breath, Booth raised his foot over the chain blocking the main entrance and stepped into the body farm owned by the University of Hogansburg in New York. Never in this lifetime would he have dreamed that something like this actually existed. A place where students studied how human bodies decomposed and they actually wrote papers on their discoveries. Brennan was as excited as he had ever seen her and if hadn't been for the stomach turning stench and the horror factor, he would have probably found the whole thing adorable in a bizarre sort of way.

Bubbling with happiness Brennan pointed out was happening in each section they walked past. The rotting bodies were obviously past being identified by sight and one had the temerity to explode as they walked by. Using his umbrella as a shield, he had raced a few paces to get away from the rain of human bits and was thankful that none of the body fluids or the body's guts had landed on him or his clothes. His partner had been so excited to be there to see the eruption that Booth would have sworn that she was actually giddy.

This was what it was like to be the partner of the leading forensic anthropologist in the country. She loved her work and anything that added knowledge to what she already knew excited her. He supposed she had never been to a body farm before and this was like Disney Land to her, except there were no castles and talking mice running around. There were just bodies that were bloated with gases and were in late stages of decomposition. All in all, he wished he'd never come, but he had a job to do and he'd do it.

"Isn't this amazing?" Excited, Brennan pointed towards the body that had just exploded. She couldn't believe she had been lucky enough to witness the eruption of gastrointestinal tract. "You rarely get to see a body erupt from distention."

"No . . . no, it's not amazing." Feeling sick, Booth held his hand over his nose. He'd been in war, he'd seen death. He'd witnessed his brothers in arms wounded or killed, but he hadn't actually seen a rotten body blow up and throw it's guts in the air. The stench was awful and it reminded of him of why he hated dealing with advanced decomposed bodies. A freshly killed body was bad enough, but putrefaction just added to the grossness of the situation. Not surprisingly the man who managed the site, Dr. Norman Hayes was just as giddy as his partner was.

Following them to Hayes office, Booth listened to the excited conversation Hayes and his partner had about the farm and he knew he was in love with a science nerd who would always love science. As long as she doesn't bring dead bodies home, that's all I ask.

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Their case was over and Booth and Brennan were sitting in the Founding Fathers having a glass of wine to celebrate. Brennan had told Booth about her conversation with Dr. Filmore and how the man could now use his arm. Booth had appreciated that Brennan had apologized for paralyzing the guy even if she said she didn't really apologize. As far as he was concerned, Brennan had a big heart and she hid it too well from the world. He knew that a lot of people thought she was cold, but they didn't really know her like he did. "So, you had fun visiting that body farm?"

Pausing to think about it, Brennan finally nodded her head. "I don't know if I would use the word fun, but I . . . well, yes, I did have fun. I've never actually been to a body farm before and to see controlled experiments being done by students using bodies that have been donated to science . . . it makes me proud to see value given to the people who died and wanted to help make advances in science. It's something I've considered doing . . . I don't really have much family. I'll certainly outlive my father and probably my brother, so I don't think there will be anyone to mourn my passing or miss me."

"Bones." Booth moved his hand and covered her hand while it rested on the table. "Don't say stuff like that. I'd miss you if you passed away and even if you outlived me, I know that other people would miss you . . . Angela, Hodgins, Zach in the looney bin . . . Parker, you know Parker loves you and he'd miss you . . . Things are changing. You know they are. We're . . . we're going to get our act together someday and we're going to be more than partners . . . hell, we're more than partners right now . . . Don't plan for a future where you think it's okay to give your body to science because no one will care because I care . . . I care right now. You know that, right?"

"Yes, I know." Brennan felt a little emotional and took the time to compose herself before she responded. "I just never thought about a future when I wasn't alone. I've been alone for a long time . . . You've been my friend for the last five years and Angela . . . but I guess I never really considered that anyone thought of me closer than a friend . . . I know things are changing between us, it was inevitable I suppose, but this a recent change in my life and I haven't considered the implications yet."

With a faint smile, Booth gently squeezed Brennan's hand. "The implication is you're not alone anymore. As far as I'm concerned, you're never going to be alone ever again. We've had our ups and downs . . . that's normal, although the way we do things really can't be considered normal." He had hoped she would smile and she did which made him feel better about this conversation. "I'm not really mad anymore and I don't think you're impervious anymore, so I think once we're ready to commit to this thing we're going to have, it's going to change everything. I just have some issues I need to work on . . . about me, Bones, not about you, you know that right?" He saw her nod her head. "Anyway, you won't have to donate your body to science. You can have a nice resting place somewhere, maybe under a big shady tree . . . You and me, side by side we could be together forever. I did say, I'd never leave you and I will keep my promise."

"You know I don't believe in an afterlife, Booth." She knew that her partner was a romantic and it figured that he would even be romantic about death and what came afterward. "It sounds nice . . . Thank you." She didn't plan to be buried anywhere since it seemed a waste of land, but there was a possibility that she might change her mind in the future. After all, the future was unknown and there were variables that she couldn't count on in her plans. "I know you were uncomfortable about Hogansburg."

Shrugging his shoulders, Booth removed his hand from Brennan's hand, picked up his wine glass and sipped some of the red liquid. "A little . . . I've seen a lot of dead bodies in my time, you know I have, but to see bodies rotting as an experiment is a whole new experience for me . . . It's not really my thing."

"But you did your job and you went there anyway." Brennan had known her partner had hated being at Hogansburg, but he had been professional and she appreciated that fact. "I'm proud of you, Booth. It was an unusual circumstance and you only complained a little bit."

"That's because I had to keep my hand over my nose and mouth which made it hard to talk a lot." Booth chuckled. "It was fine, Bones. We go where we have to go and if that means body farms then that is where we go."

"Yes, that is what we do."

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