Disclaimer: Fox owns Bones and all its characters.
A/N: Big thanks to all who reviewed. I have no room to ask anyone to review since I hardly ever review myself, but it really is a nice encouragement. So thanks! Hope you enjoy this one too.
The two partners sat face to face in the backseat of the SUV, their multiple bags in between them. From their personal bags, they had managed to scrounge up two cell phones without service, a half-eaten Milkyway bar, an old pack of airline peanuts, and a bottle of soda that had gone flat. They both frowned at the unappetizing provisions and zipped up their bags, throwing them back in the trunk.
"Alright," Booth said, rubbing his hands together. "I bet we'll find some good stuff in here."
With a flourish, he lifted up a large black duffel with the FBI logo on it. Brennan arched her eyebrow at him.
"You mean you don't know what's inside?" she asked him amusedly.
Booth shrugged as he unzipped.
"It's FBI protocol that every agent stores one in their car," he explained. "I have a pretty good idea of what's inside, but I can still hope for beer and tortilla chips, right?"
He flashed a smile at her and she rolled her eyes, plunging her hand into the bag and pulling something out. He did the same.
"What do you got Bones?" he asked as Brennan withdrew her hand.
"Can of beans..." she said, wrinkling her nose. "How about you?"
Booth pulled his hand of the bag and showed her a flashlight. He clicked it on and wiggled the light across her face.
"Flashlight," he replied, laughing as she snatched it out of his hand. "Throw the beans into our sad little food pile."
She did as he asked while he began digging around in the bag again.
"Look, Bones!" he exclaimed. "A camera."
He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. Brennan gave him a sour look and pulled something out of the bag herself.
"Look, Booth!" she replied mockingly. "A pocketknife!"
She dangled it in front of his face threateningly. He frowned in teasing disappointment.
"Geez, Bones... way to suck the fun out of everything," he moped, throwing the camera into the trunk with the rest of the other useless items.
Brennan chuckled and put the knife down next to the flashlight. Booth was sifting through the bag again.
"Hey Bones, check it out- rope!" he said, presenting a tightly compact coil of braided rope.
"Don't even say it Booth..." Brennan warned, her tone dark.
Booth put his hands up defensively.
"Whoa Bones!" he replied. "Now who's the one with the dirty mind?"
She ignored him, her hand now searching through the bottom of the bag. With a smile of triumph, she produced a folded blanket, a first-aid kit, and a package of flares. She placed them contently in the pile of useful items.
"You're only supposed to pull one thing out at a time..." Booth mumbled under his breath.
Brennan gave him a look and deposited the now empty bag in the trunk.
"I don't remember making rules," she bantered back.
They held the false pretense of annoyance for a few seconds before breaking into smiles. Their ability to make one another smile in the most dire situations never ceased to amaze them. The moment of levity, however, was short lived. The two began examining the little piles they made, carefully considering their limited resources.
"These flares burn for four hours each," Brennan stated, examining the label on the package.
Booth leaned closer to take a look at the flares.
"This is a pack of ten, so we should be able to keep a signal up for at least forty hours," he reasoned.
Brennan looked up from the package.
"You think it will take that long for someone to find us?" she pondered out loud, aware that Booth had no more idea than she did.
"I hope not," Booth replied lightly.
She nodded and used the pocketknife to open the package of flares. Conveniently, the package included a lighter. Booth grabbed the flare.
"We should set one out now," he suggested.
Booth and Brennan climbed over the seats and back into the front. They looked out their respective windows. Snow was packed tightly around most of the window but on both sides, the snow stopped about six inches before the top. Booth began rolling down his window and squatting on his seat in preparation to climb out. Brennan gaped at him.
"You don't think you're fitting through there do you?" she asked him, incredulous.
Booth shrugged.
"Sure, why not?"
Brennan grasped his shirt and yanked him down hard. She quickly snatched the flare and lighter out of his hands.
"That's ice coated on top of the snow Booth," she said matter-of-factly. "You'll cut yourself to shreds trying to squeeze through. I'm much smaller, I'll do it."
Before Booth could protest, Brennan had rolled her window down half a foot and had wiggled herself out the window up past her shoulder blades. Booth sighed and muttered under his breath about her hardheadedness. She placed her feet on the seat and used her legs to push herself out to the middle of her back. Then she was still for a minute, obviously setting up the flare.
"Uh, Booth..." her voice was loud but muffled.
Booth shifted closer, slightly uncomfortable that the only part of her body he could address was her backside. He looked at the seat instead.
"You alright Bones?" he questioned, yelling so she could hear him.
"I, um..." she began awkwardly. "I got the flare lit but..."
"But?" Booth asked, positive that this was going to end up embarrassing both of them.
"I'm stuck," she stated.
Booth groaned and looked over at Brennan's bottom half sticking out the window.
"Just hold tight Bones..." he sighed. "I'll pull you out."
He stared for a second, trying to decide the best approach. He finally determined that there was virtually no part of her body that he could touch at the moment that would be considered appropriate. With a 'what-can-you-do' expression on his face, Booth threw all caution to the wind and placed his hands on her lower hips, tugging gently.
She was stuck. As he tugged, she barely budged. Muttering under his breath, Booth fully wrapped his arms around her lower half, which left him with his face pressed against her backside. Doing his best to ignore the situation, Booth yanked, and with a grunt of effort, Brennan was pulled through the window, and ended up sitting directly on Booth's chest.
Booth's breath came out in a strangled gasp as Brennan's weight knocked the air out of him. She got up quickly.
"S-sorry," she apologized through chattering teeth.
"Ouch..." Booth groaned. "Ugh, it's okay Bones."
He hauled himself into a sitting position, rubbing his sternum. He looked over to Brennan who was sitting in the passenger seat with her knees drawn to her chest, shaking visibly. Her hair had ice frozen in it and her shirt was wet from melted snow. There was a graze on her cheek from where it had scraped against the ice when Booth pulled her out.
"Geez Bones," Booth sighed.
Booth reached into the back to retrieve her bag. He ignored Brennan's feeble protest as he unzipped it and began digging through her things. He pulled out a tiny tank top and dangled it in front of Brennan.
"Planning on going to the beach Bones?" he asked pointedly. "Didn't you bring any clothes you can actually wear here?"
Brennan gave him a glare.
"G-give me my b-bag..." she chattered, unwrapping one arm from around herself to grab at the bag.
"Nope," Booth said lightly, placing the bag out of her reach.
Whatever Brennan was going to say was interrupted by a shiver that swept through her entire body. She stopped reaching for the bag and hugged herself tightly.
"If you insist g-going through m-my things..." she told Booth, shivering uncontrollably. "C-could you at l-least hurry up?"
Booth had a snappy comeback but withheld it when he saw that Brennan's lips were taking on a blue tinge. He quickly found her a simple, dry long sleeved shirt and tossed it over to her. He sifted through the bag some more to see if there was a sweat shirt or something to wear over it.
"Don't you have something warm to wear in here?" he asked exasperatedly "Hey- what's this?"
His tone conveyed amusement. Brennan looked up apprehensively. Oh God... she thought, feeling a twinge of panic. What has he found? But, when he pulled out the bottle of wine Angela had asked her to bring back, she merely rolled her eyes.
"You've been holding out on me Bones..." he scolded, wiggling the bottle in front of her face.
Brennan looked at him sternly.
"Th-thats n-not for us B-booth," she said, in her best no-nonsense voice.
Her chattering teeth were enough to steer Booth's thoughts from alcohol. He placed the bottle aside.
"We'll talk about it later," he told her. "You need to get out of those wet clothes."
Brennan nodded and began pulling off her shirt, exposing a length of pale stomach. Every inch of her skin was covered in goosebumps. Before pulling her shirt over her head, she paused.
"B-booth!" she exclaimed.
Booth's eyes snapped to her face from where they had been trailing up her bare skin.
"What?" he asked automatically.
Even trembling and half-dressed, Brennan's glare was no less poignant and scathing. Booth finally reconnected with his brain and realized he had been staring.
"Oh, right..." he said.
Cheeks burning, he looked away and began busying himself with the bags in the backseat. More amused than she was annoyed, Brennan finished changing.
"D-done," she told Booth.
He popped back into his seat, still not looking at Brennan even though she was now fully dressed. He handed over a large hooded sweatshirt.
"Put this on," he told her authoritatively.
It was proof of how cold Brennan was that she didn't protest. She pulled it over her head quickly. The sweatshirt was much too large, but it was warm and smelled faintly of Booth. The sleeves reached far past her hands, but her hands were so cold, she didn't bother to roll the sleeves up.
Booth finally got over his embarrassment enough to make eye contact again, and now he was looking at her critically. He reached over and yanked the hood up over her slightly damp hair. Still not satisfied, he grabbed the blanked from the backseat and wrapped it tightly around her shoulders. Now that her arms were effectively restrained, he took the time to examine the scrape on her cheek. Brennan jerked her face out of reach.
"Stop fussing Booth," she said crossly.
Her trembling had decreased significantly and her lips were back to their normal color, but Booth hushed her nonetheless. He gently held her chin between his two fingers and thumb and tilted her head to get a better look.
"Seems clean enough Bones," he told her, unsure exactly why he was whispering.
He traced the scrape lightly with his fingertips and almost unconsciously, Brennan leaned into the caress. For a minute, they both locked eyes, unable to look away. Booth's fingers trailed slowly down to her jawline. He leaned forward slightly- then hesitated.
As always, that brief hesitation was enough to break the trance. Clearing his throat, Booth removed his hand. Brennan looked away quickly. It wasn't as if they were unused to this type of thing. They had become so accustomed to it, that it was easy for them to return to safe ground quickly with limited awkwardness.
This was normally the point that Booth mentally reminded himself all the reasons why he could never initiate a romantic relationship with his partner but as he watched Brennan fiddle with the corner of the blanket, her cheeks tinged pink, he couldn't remember a single one of them.