Blooming FF_net, no-one seemed to be able to post stories for the best part of yesterday! Anyway, seems to be fixed now.

Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed, followed and favourited. I'm so pleased so many people enjoyed the concept and prologue I hope the next chapter does not disappoint!


Booth found himself in a familiar place – under his sink, his partner at his side. The fact that he didn't remember being there just seconds before was somewhat of a surprise, although bizarrely (and luckily for him) he knew the exact conversation they'd been having.

He was bought to his senses by Brennan's indignance.

"My watch, Booth?"

The plumbing exercise undertaken by Booth and Brennan had, unfortunately, been futile. During a protracted period of ineffectual floundering on Booth's part as he tried to switch off the water again and escape from under his kitchen sink, Brennan had managed to free herself and was sitting on Booth's kitchen floor now sporting a look out of a 1980s Robert Palmer video. Her hair was wet and slicked back in the pony-tail that had remained in place as the water spurted out uncontrollably. Her soaked blouse, only making her drenched upper half even more uncomfortable, clung to her body in a way that meant that Booth couldn't take his eyes off her. As he finally pulled out from under the sink, he tried to avert his gaze, he really did, but there she was, looking absolutely edible, her bra visible through the now translucent material only adding to his already heightened feelings after their intimate conversation whilst they'd attempted to fix the pipe. He froze for a few moments before coming to his senses as he noted her distinctly unimpressed expression. He put up a hand in apology.

Again, she asked.

"Booth? My watch, please?"

"Bones, it's a Rolex, I can't believe it's not water-resistant."

"Well, I don't want to take any chances. It is a Rolex."

"So you've already stated." Brennan glared harder at Booth. "OK, Ok. let me get you a towel."

"Please." Her response was more than a little snappy.

"Just a second." He scrambled up and headed to his laundry closet to get a spare towel for her, pulling his own wet t-shirt off as he did and throwing it in the adjacent basket. As he thumbed through the pile to find something he felt was appropriately fluffy enough for her, he paused to consider their words under the sink from a few minutes before. He remembered so clearly, they'd definitely had one of those moments again. He'd felt a surge of electricity between them in such close quarters, and the way she'd looked at him when they were still working on the pipe - Brennan's smile had gone all the way to her eyes and she could have quite easily had had him collapsed into a puddle of boneless goo in mere seconds. He was entirely hers. If only she knew it. If only he let her.

Despite their discussion, there had been one big secret that he kept from her. The one he'd entirely lied about just weeks before, and he'd lied about again just then through plain-old omission:

"I love you… in an 'attagirl' way."

Those words had haunted him ever since they'd come out of his mouth. Once again, he'd put a totally unnecessary barrier between them, another opportunity wasted to start the rest of his life with the woman of his dreams. Indeed, in this case, it hadn't been hyperbole, she really was. Aside from their shared story about the lab, he'd carried on dreaming about her every time he'd slept after she'd departed for her dig, mostly a continuation of the original dream through her pregnancy and the birth of their baby. It had been wonderful, and each time he'd woken up disappointed that it wasn't the lucid reality he'd experienced, but moreover, she had gone, once assured of his future wellbeing by the medical staff. They'd not spoken about the coma dream much, other than established that what Brennan had written and read for Booth was indeed what he'd experienced. He wondered if she'd run away once she'd realised just how powerful her words had been… but why would she write it all in the first place?

He smiled to himself as he realised the Inception-like state he was in with this dream within a dream - or whatever his brain thought this was; before realising the problem was that it had all been quite confusing since he'd woken up from his coma - what was real, what were figments of their collective imagination. Anger welled up inside him at his inability to delineate between the two, and in frustration, he slammed his free hand against the closet door he'd just closed.

Meantime, Brennan was still in the kitchen, unsuccessfully trying to salvage her blouse from needing a full drying cycle. As she wrung out the tea towel she'd been blotting, no, more like smothering over herself, for the third time, she gave up and instead unbuttoned and peeled off her shirt, leaving her just in her bra. Quite frankly she was happier to be a little less dressed but more comfortable, however much Booth's sensibilities were likely to be offended. She shivered a little as the cold air hit her newly uncovered skin, goose-bumps appearing where the wetted material had left it damp. She figured it was probably the physiological reaction, yet, she hadn't been immune to the look Booth had given her as he'd reappeared from under the sink, the five or six seconds frozen into what had felt like an epoch, where his eyes had darkened as they roamed her form up and down, unable to stop his instincts. He himself had also been drenched and she was also acutely aware at how his own t-shirt left little to the imagination in its current state. However, it being Booth, and knowing their past history, Brennan put it down to nothing more than a standard heterosexual male response to appropriate stimuli. She did her best to shake off the unnerving feelings that Booth's reaction had triggered in herself and steeled her features from nonplussed to suitably unimpressed.

"You OK, Booth? Brennan called from down the hall as she heard the thump as he punched the door.

"Sure," he responded, "Just a sec." He shook his wrist to reduce the pain as much as he could. Having taken what he felt would be the softest towel in the carefully folded pile, he diverted via his bedroom, grabbing a spare t-shirt for himself that he immediately pulled on, and another for her.

"Oh!" Booth was horrified to find her top half covered only by the simple white bra she still wore. "Um, here you go. I'm sorry." He handed her the towel and the t-shirt, trying not to look at her directly, lest he was thumped for ogling or objectifying or whatever other 'o' word was appropriate in that scenario. He angled away from her slightly as she took the clothing from him to examine it.

"Thanks. Hey! It's Foreigner!" She smiled at the large eponymous logo on the T-shirt. She became aware of his discomfort. "Booth, you know it's just underwear. It's not like you've not seen me in swimwear before. This is just the same." She grinned at him as she rubbed down her shoulders and sternum with the towel, amused that to him it clearly wasn't the same as the two of them splashing about with Parker at her communal pool. She had to admit that she wasn't usually this underdressed alone with him, and especially not in such an intimate situation. This was not helping his comfort levels at all and she noted how he physically squirmed, so she changed topic. "What are you going to do about the pipes?" His eyes darted around the kitchen to anything but his partner, eventually settling on a very interesting looking spot on the adjacent wall.

"I'll get the Super to take a look. It's just confusing you know?" As he spoke, Brennan pulled out her ponytail and began towel-drying her hair. "All this stuff that I thought I knew. Everything… everything I know has changed. Pardon the pun, but I can't get my head around it." He leaned back against the kitchen worktop and shook his head. This really was confusing ands suddenly the air felt laden with tension.

"You'll get it all back Booth. It just takes time." He felt her hand on his forearm. He looked down and then up to her face as they made eye contact at last. Booth was relieved that in the intervening period, she'd slipped on the t-shirt. It was wholly too big for her and he couldn't help but think she now looked cute as well as sexy as hell. He thought he'd be OK once she'd put a top on, but it made no difference. Just her innocent expression of support was a straight shot into his heart. He was long gone, and that glimpse of her at that moment was just another bullet to add to the pile already lodged in his chest. Booth sighed and took a moment to pause. The usual rounded comfortable silence between them became sharp and edgy as she waited for him to decide what to say next. And to hell with it, he was going to say something.

"After you left for Guatemala, I kept dreaming. Every time I rested. Even after I left the hospital. You were… we… we were married, Bones. We were having a baby together. I'm still trying to get my head around the fact that that's not real." Booth didn't know where he was going with this himself, but he found himself just letting out these revelations. It may have been a cliché, but he could easily equate the burst pipe to his own feelings. There was a part of him, mostly forgotten in the few minutes since he'd arrived here that knew this would all turn out OK in the end, but in the meantime, the force of the feelings coming back to him from this time period were overwhelming to the exclusion of any rational thought.

"Did you want it to be real, Booth?" He was shocked at her question.

"What do you think, Bones?" Good God, this woman was frustrating at times. Of course, he wanted it to be true. He'd wanted nothing less for years. He gave her a look that said as much, and even Brennan could interpret his expression easily enough. She hid the growing truth between them behind her usual panic and deflection.

"I think you had some trauma from your operation."

"But you wrote that story. I just lived that life you created for us."

"I…" her eyes fell away, embarrassed that her emotions had now been exposed. He gently crooked his finger under her chin in the same way he'd done some years before and nudged her head up to meet his eyes again, gazing at her with a pleasing smile.

"Why did you write that story, Temperance?"

"I don't know!" This conversation had suddenly become horribly intense. Her eyes were filling with tears as reality caught up with her as much as it had with him.

"Hey. Don't cry" he said, softly. "It's OK. You can tell me, Temperance." Her eyes were now red as she attempted to hold in the inevitable. She might as well have been King Alfred trying to hold back the tide. Brennan gulped in some air before she spoke again.

"Do you remember what I wrote just as you were waking up?" He shook his head.

"I don't think so."

"I…" she took another breath of air. "I said: The thought of losing so much control over personal happiness is unbearable. That's the burden. Like wings, they have weight, we feel that weight on our backs, but they are a burden that lifts us-" Brennan paused for breath, but before she could continue, he interrupted her with a slightly quizzical tone:

"Burdens that allow us to fly?" They both looked surprised at his recollection, but Booth's expression changed to one of elation, met by his partner's as they realised they were on the same page. She leant in and brushed her lips against his. He moved his hands into her damp hair and deepened the kiss as her arms slipped around his waist, the softness and intensity of her touch sending him into a delicious spiral of happiness.

And that's when it all went dark…