Disclaimer: I do not own Bones. Fox does. I'm fairly certain that the show would have turned into a soap if I did own Bones, though...LOL

AN: I know this is chapter should have been posted a few days ago but my muse went away for a few days, but finally she's back. I hope you like what she gave me.

The day after their fight, his resolve firmly in place, Booth strode in the Medico-Legal lab, ready to face their problems head on, with a fight if necessary.

Around him people ran around, geared up for whatever squinty reason they had to rush. He paused, looking up, to watch the Squint Squad walking around on the platform. In a short two and a half years they had changed his perceptions of scientists meddling with murder cases, while sneaking their way into his good graces. Hell, who was he kidding? These people were his friends, no matter what they had started as.

Swiping his card, he ascended the steps and noticed that Bones wasn't anywhere around at the moment. Taking advantage of her absence, he decided that he would decipher where everyone's loyalties lay on the matter. He really needed allies and as it was the more he got on his side, the better.

"Hey, G-man! Case?" came Hodgins' voice as soon as Booth was within his line of sight.

"Nah, just checking on you guys."

"Checking implies there is something to look at, watch, and here there's nothing," Zack said with a sigh, passing by quietly. Since the young doctor had come back from Iraq, Booth had felt the change inside him. Zack had seen more that he should have, and that terrible kinship Booth felt every time he looked at him made him wish that he had advised Zack not to go back at the wedding. Maybe it had been something he had to go through, mused Booth, but even so the innocence that Zack gave off before was now absent.

"That bad, doc?" Booth asked Zack, using the latest nickname for the young man. It just didn't feel right to ignore him anymore.

"And it gets even worse. Archaeology is sending us an Aztec, people." Cam called out walking up to the platform. Hodgins and Zack groaned simultaneously.

"Oh, for the love of God, please tell me it's at least a ritual victim," Angela called out from her office, having heard the news.

"We all wish!" muttered Cam, smiling at Booth.

"How's it going, Seeley?"

"Fine, fine." He looked around waiting for Bones to make her appearance any moment, but her office door was firmly closed. "Is she in there?" he asked Hodgins, nodding towards the door.

"Yeah. Probably since you walked in through our shiny, sliding doors." Booth's scowl caused the shorter man to lose his teasing smile and clear his throat. "I heard from Angela, man. I'm sorry."

A wave of irritation washed over Booth at those words. "It's not over yet, bug-boy. The outcome of the battle is yet to be decided."

"What battle?" asked Cam, looking between the two men and Brennan's door. "Do I even want to know?"

Taking a deep breath Booth looked over at Cam and decided it was time to see whether in case he won Bones over, he'd have trouble from her boss. "Bones and I had a fight last night."

"And that's news, why?"

"No, Cam. Bones and I had a fight about us."

Cam's expression grew more perplexed. "What? Me and you? Doesn't she know we broke up?" A slight hint of regret passed over her features, but otherwise the pathologist's face was open and friendly, which made Booth's next words come out easier.

"We fought about our relationship, Cam. Not mine and yours. Hers and mine. Ours," he emphasized each party by pointing towards himself and Cam and in Brennan's case her door.

The pathologist looked around the lab at each person separately and then lastly at Booth who was looking like a lost puppy, staring at the closed door of Brennan's office. "What the…?" she trailed off when Booth looked up at her again. To Booth's great irritation she started smiling a full-blown if somewhat smug smile. "How the mighty have fallen."

"Ha ha. Very funny."

In reply Cam just slipped on a pair of latex gloves and sucked in a breath shaking her head at him sympathetically. "You got it bad, Seeley. Should have seen it coming."

"I kinda did," he muttered under his breath, yet he knew the squints had heard him.

A few low snorts confirmed that, and Hodgins raised his head from a microscope to smile at Angela. "When you see the eighteen-wheeler coming all you can do is brace yourself, baby."

"And then pick up the pieces?" Booth offered, wondering how on earth it came down to this conversation between him and the squints. Bones. Right. Sighing he turned around and walked down to Bones' office. He knew everyone was staring at him as he paused in front of the closed door to take a deep breath. Looking back he raised his eyebrows and smirked ruefully at Hodgins' thumbs up.

Turning back around towards the glass door, his hand on the handle, he found himself face to face with Bones, his eyes meeting her angry stare. "Do we have a case?" He heard her muffled voice through the glass and shook his head in reply, all the previously gone determination, rushing back to the forefront of his mind. He would make her see this as she once did. He would get her back, even if it killed them to get to that point.

She turned around, showing her back to him in clear dismissal, but he wasn't done with this. Jerking the door open he walked inside her office, watching as she put distance between them again, and sat behind her desk. "I told you, I don't run and I won't let your run from this either."

"There is nothing to run from." Her voice was calm again, infuriatingly so, and he felt his anger bubbling up to the surface.

"There isn't? So we're not friends or partners, huh?" He kept his voice low, and the silent warning in it, made her eyes leave the screen they'd been glued on for the past minutes and focus on him instead.

"Of course we are. In case you didn't hear me last night I was not running from it but trying to save it." The wariness he saw in her face when she spoke of the fight they had the previous evening boosted his confidence enough to go on.

"Friends, yeah. So there's nothing else in this is there?" He pointed in the space between them and casually walked towards her, until she stood, clearly not wanting him to have an advantage over her.

"I'm tired of repeating myself, Booth. If you have nothing else to tell me, I have an appointment with…Dr. Harris!" She looked over his shoulder at the doorway, and Booth turned his head to watch as a man in his mid-thirties walked in the office.

"Am I interrupting, Dr. Brennan? I'm sure I must be a little early. I must admit I couldn't wait for our meeting to begin." The blonde-haired doctor smiled suavely at Bones and Booth gritted his teeth both at the interruption and at the man. Angrily he observed that the scientist was good-looking…and the smile he saw on Bones' face as he turned towards her didn't help his anger at all.

"No, Dr. Harris. I'll be with you in a minute. Let me walk my partner outside. This is Special Agent Seeley Booth with the FBI, Booth this is Dr. Harris by the way."

Booth ignored the man's proffered hand and just nodded curtly in his direction as he followed Bones just outside the glass doors. His mind still on the subject they were discussing, he stepped in front of her when she turned to face him. "Who is that?"

"That's the Head of Archaeology, Booth. Now if you'll excuse me, Dr. Harris and I have much more important matters to discuss."

Placing a hand on her waist he prevented her escape and lowered his head to whisper in her ear, anger and jealousy burning a hole in his stomach. "There's nothing more important than this and you know it. I know you do."

"Don't touch me." The threat she whispered furiously back, instead of making him release her, only ended up making him place his other hand to her waist as well. She stood rigidly in his arms, but not in anger. He could feel her breath coming out in shallow puffs on his shoulder.

Lowering his voice, he let his lips touch the skin of her cheek fleetingly as he spoke. "See what this is, Bones? It's not just friendship. It's me and you. Since you like running, I'll chase you, but know this. I will catch you."

When he raised his head to look at her, her eyes were closed. Not being able to resist the temptation he lowered his mouth to hers and nibbled slowly on her bottom lip until he felt her respond to him. The moment her lips parted, he stroked them with his tongue, getting lost in feeling her kiss for the first time. Struggling to tame his senses, he brought one of his hands to the side of her face and held on to her, deepening the kiss. He couldn't let go of her. Not now or ever again. Not after this.

When her tongue slipped between his lips to meet his, he fought for his control but knew he'd be lost if they continued this. Getting ready to end the kiss, a thought slipped in his mind, and he turned her with her back facing her office, still kissing her. He tightened his arms around her and opened his eyes to glare at the gaping man through the glass doors. His point made he closed his eyes again and savored the kiss once again for a few moments before breaking away from her and resting his forehead on hers.

They were both panting as he took a few moments to stare at her flushed face, her lips swollen from his kiss, her eyes still closed. Running his thumb over her mouth, he watched as her lids flipped open in realization of what just happened. Tightening the hand on her waist he looked straight at her, whispering his challenge. "Why don't you run some more then?"

He let her go tight as she stepped back from him and turned to stomped angrily back to her office. Booth could see she was flustered when she tried to explain to Dr. Harris, but he smiled fully in what felt like days when the man just glanced uncomfortably towards him and then sat in a chair, his posture and expression fully professional. Turning around he walked towards the exit, finally knowing that he hadn't lost her. She was still within reach, and he would make sure that no matter how much she ran he would end up catching her.

"That's it! Stake your claim, G-man!" "Hodgins called out from the platform and Booth turned to see the Squint Squad smiling at him.

Knowing that they had witnessed the whole thing, he smiled back happily shaking his head at them. "Lay off the Discovery Channel for a while, why don't ya?" he teased good-naturedly, laughing on his way out.

Everything would be fine…he just knew it.

AN2: Hopefully this didn't disappoint any of you. I should also warn this is NOT the end of the angst in this story. Let's call it a small time-out, because I'm fairly certain that Bones does not give up so easily on her decisions and of course she can't let go of what she has been through waiting for him. He was a clueless twit, you know? lol