Thanks for all the reviews and your 'get wells'. I was actually excited to see that people wanted me to pass out again... don't worry, I was able to avoid it this time. And I think the chapter good, but that's me. It's a Fluff chapter, and angst, but i had to split the chapter in 2, i felt it was too long and plus there's the suspense!! (oooohhhh, ahhhhh) hopefully causing reviews...but one can only hope. P.S. I love all of you that are reading this...even if you aren't reviewing, it gives me something to look foreword to doing.

So I reposted this with a few grammtical changes and such...apparently I really shouldn't write things at 2 in the morning...

On with the show!!!

Chapter 12

Cohabitation

Part I

Booth slipped his key into the lock and opened the door. Brennan pushed her way by and dropped her purse onto the side table, trying carefully not to drop Parker, who was asleep in her arms. Looking around, everything looked normal to her. But Booth stopped in the doorway and stared, thinking about how her apartment had looked before after she had been attacked.

"Booth?" He snapped back to reality as she called to him. "You gave your mom my address right?"

"Huh?" He looked over at Brennan as she sat down on the couch, still holding Parker. "Oh, right. Quit worrying Bones. I gave her your address and she should be here….actually any minute now. We should probably wake Parker up before she gets here."

Temperance glanced down at the boy sleeping in her arms and then back up at Booth. She sighed, unhappy that she had to wake him from the happy solitude of his dreams.

"Parker…" Brennan lightly rubbed the back of her hand against his face. "Time to get up." His body lightly stirred and he opened his eyes for a second, only to close them and snuggle closer to Temperance.

"Hey bub, Bones and I need to talk to you." Booth walked over and sat next to Brennan. "Once we're done you can go right back to sleep."

Parker slowly opened his eyes and sat up in Brennan's lap. "I'm awake." He yawned out, barely convincing them.

"How would you like to spend some time with grandma?" Booth asked him trying to sound as up beat as humanly possible on only one hour of sleep.

"Yay! I haven't seen grandma in awhile." He turned from Booth excitedly to look at Brennan. "I can show you my room because I have my own room at grandma's house and I can show you all my big kid books. And we can go to the park. Her park is really big and the swings go really high!"

"Umm, Parker…your dad and I can't come with you." Brennan forced herself to say, trying to ignore the tears she saw begining to form in his eyes.

"I don't wanna go if your not going to be there." He threw his arms around her and held on for dear life as he kept talking. "What if I said I don't like grandma anymore, could I stay with you then?"

Brennan looked over at Booth, her eyes pleading for him to help her.

"It'll only be for a few days buddy and I know your grandma was really looking forward to seeing you." Although he did look up from his position on Brennan's lap, Parker still wouldn't loosen his grip.

Brennan looked down at him trying to comfort him as his quivering lip was now accompanied with full blown tears. "Hey, buddy. I promise that as soon you get back, we can go to the park together."

"Pwomise?" He managed to get out between tears.

She smiled and quickly nodded her head. "I promise, Parker. I'll always be here for you."

Just as he began to loosen his grip there was a knock at the door and his hands quickly tightened again. Booth jumped up, not realizing what had just happened and answered the door. Brennan stood from the couch and carried Parker over to the door, wondering whether he was going to be afraid whenever someone knocked on the door now.

An older woman entered the apartment and immediately took Booth up in a hug. "Hey mom. Thanks for this."

"Oh it's a pleasure Seeley. I barely ever get to see my favorite grandson here." Parker looked over at his grandma and said hello, but he still refused to let go of Brennan. She looked up at Booth hoping for some help.

"Okay, bub, you have to go with grandma now." Booth pealed Parker away from Brennan and let him down onto the ground. "Now you be good, okay?"

"Yes daddy." Parker hugged his dad and turned to Brennan holding out his arms. "Bye, Dr. Bones."

Brennan stooped down and hugged Parker, giving him a quick kiss on the top of his head. Booth looked on in awe and admiration at how well Bones had adjusted to his son…while he skillfully avoided his mother's questioning stare when Parker had called Brennan Dr. Bones.

She stood back up and mussed up Parker hair, gaining a smile from both father and son, before nudging him forward out the door with his grandma. They all called their last goodbyes and Booth went to close the door, but Parker ran back and looked worriedly up at Temperance.

"You haven't forgotten your promise have you?"

"I could never forget it." She looked down fondly at Parker.

"Okay, good. I just wanted to make sure." As he turned to leave, he quickly yelled over his shoulder. "Take care of Dr. Bones daddy!" And then they were gone down the hallway.

Brennan retreated to the couch as Booth closed the door. "Don't worry, I will."

Brennan turned to the couch and tried to ignore Booth's comment as he shut the door. Generally, she pretended not to hear the comments he murmured, but lately it had been getting increasingly harder. She more often than not felt a flutter in her stomach. She quickly shook her head and paid intricate attention to the rug beneath her feet, which suddenly seemed extremely interesting.

Booth moved to sit next to her, but as soon as he sat down she jumped up and made her way towards the hallway.

"I'm going to take a shower now." She barely waited for a response before taking off down the hallway for the bathroom.

"Umm…okay." He replied startled. But she was already gone. What was that about?

Brennan shed her clothes and stepped into the steaming hot water that was pouring down. She tried to relax as the water massaged her back, but her thoughts kept wandering back towards the other room with Booth. She immediately tensed back up and sighed. She couldn't even go 5 minutes without thinking about him. And lately it had been getting in the way.

'Okay let's try to not think about Booth.' She thought to herself as she washed her hair.

'I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I really am going to miss Parker. He's such a great kid; he's so much like his dad – Crap! Well that didn't work.'

'Alright, fine let's think about Boyd. Well, he is a really good kisser, but I bet that Boo– Stop, what you are thinking!' She took a deep breath and went back to thinking about Boyd.

'Let's see…well, his initials are SB: Seeley B – Damn! I mean Sam Boyd.' Temperance let out a frustrated groan. He had been a total and complete ass to her boyfriend; her boyfriend who was so kind, cute and caring. And yet she couldn't stop thinking about Booth.

As the water began to chill, Brennan stepped out of the shower and put on her fuzzy pink robe. She left the bathroom and walked down the hall, toweling off her wet hair as she went.

In the kitchen she looked through the refrigerator, but was unsuccessful at finding anything. Walking towards the door, she called out to Booth.

"What do you want for dinner?" She leaned against the doorframe continuing to towel her hair. When she didn't receive a response she looked up to find Booth staring at her wide eyed, but he quickly recovered.

"Listen, I'll call you later. Okay?" What? Why would he leave? Did I say something? But she suddenly realized that Booth was on his cell phone and her worried turned from him leaving to the prospect that whoever he was talking to might have heard her. "Alright bye."

He closed the phone and looked back at her. "Sorry about that. So…pink? I never figured you for a pink, warm and fuzzy type of person."

She automatically stopped drying her hair and threw the wet towel at him.

"Hey!" He laughed as he peeled the wet rag off of his face.

"You asked for it!"

"I did not!"

"Did too!"

"Did not!"

"Did – uhh, never mind." He grinned in victory and she just rolled her eyes. "So dinner?"

"How about pasta?"

"I don't have the right ingredients to make it."

"Well, let's see what you do have." He moved to the kitchen, lightly brushing her arm as he passed, causing to wave of goose bumps to settle over her body.

She quickly snapped back to reality and turned around, following him into the kitchen. "Not much."

"Geez Bones! Do you ever go grocery shopping?" He asked as he looked into the refrigerator that she had abandoned only moments before.

"Not really. I spend most of the time at work and if I'm at home I generally get takeout."

"I was jok - never mind. I think I can whip us up one of my most popular meals with some of the stuff you actually have." Booth gave her a charm smile and quickly winked at her. Brennan hurriedly tried to hide the blush that spread across her cheeks.

"Really Booth, grilled cheese? That's your specialty?" Brennan looked over at Booth as he handed her a pan to dry.

"One of many. And don't say that you didn't like it."

"Oh yea, it was good, if you could get over the burnt edges and deficiency of cheese…" He mocked shock and hurt.

"Hey! Firstly, it was well-done and I put just enough cheese on so that it wasn't squeezing out the sides. Secondly, no normal person uses the words cheese and deficiency in the same sentence."

"Fine. Whatever you say Booth." She rolled her eyes and put away the last dish.

"That's not fair!"

"What now!?"

"You're saying I basically won the argument--"

"And you're complaining!" She was completely confused now.

"--But your tone was that one where you try to make me feel bad for doing something wrong, almost mocking me."

She just rolled her eyes in response. "I'm going to get changed."

"But we weren't finished arguing yet!" Booth seemed shocked that she was giving up so easily. She must have been really tired to do that.

"No, you weren't finished arguing yet." She turned to leave the kitchen.

"Alright, I'll drop the argument. For now."

He could practically feel her smile in response, but her back was turned to him so he couldn't tell. Really, he didn't mind looking at her from behind. Cool it Booth, she's your partner!

"Is it alright if I take a shower now?"

"Yea, it's the door next to my dresser." She walked to the hall closet and pulled out a few towels. Booth followed after her.

"As in it's in your bedroom?" Bones' bedroom…God, this isn't helping. Calm down...

"Yup. You can head in and I'll wait till you're in the shower to get changed."

She pushed him towards the door of her bedroom, clearly wanting to hurry him up so that she could change out of her robe. Brennan hadn't gotten changed before dinner because she had been too caught up in some conversation / argument she was having with Booth. And now she was starting to regret not changing; it was cold and the robe just wasn't cutting it anymore.

Booth walked into the bathroom, trying to avoid staring at her room's contents and soaking everything in. It was so hard being with her all the time, let alone being in her bedroom; the bedroom that he had dreamt about before… He rapidly stripped out of his clothes and turned the water on cold.

Temperance waited a good five minutes after she had heard the water start to slip into her room and change. She had wanted to avoid the possibility of him forgetting something and coming out while she was changing. She blushed even at the thought of it.

Why does he do this to me? I never blush! And yet when he's around it's like I dunked my head into a can of red paint.

Brennan readjusted herself on the couch and stared emptily at the book in her hands, half wanting to take it and beat her head soundly with it. The image of it made her laugh out loud. Just the thunking noise it would make when it came in contact with her head. Thunk! Thunk!

She lifted her head when she realized that the banging noise wasn't coming from her imagination, but from someone knocking at the door. She hesitantly got up from her seat and walked over to the door. After a few seconds of contemplation, Brennan opened the door and a fist nearly came in contact with her face as it went to knock again.

"Oh, Tempe, sorry!"

"Hey Sam."

"God, I've been worried about you and then you didn't answer your phone and the people at the hospital had said you were released after much persuading of doctors, since apparently they wanted you to stay a little longer. But then again, you were the patient and we all know that isn't always good…"

"I'm fine." She said it automatically now, just out of habit. Brennan thought back to her hospital stay, when Booth had told her that the doctors said she was fine to go home…I'll ask him later.

She was instantly brought up into a hug. After a few minutes they pulled apart and Boyd brought his lips down on top of hers. She was hesitant at first, but quickly sought more as she moved her tongue over his bottom lip asking permission. It had been too long since someone had actually cared enough for her…not true…and she needed the comfort.

"Hey Bones, where did you put my overnight bag?" Booth walked down the hall and called out but stopped halfway through the word bag when he saw the two of them kissing passionately at the front door, and the color drained from his face.

Boyd stared at Booth, who had just walked out of Brennan's bedroom in nothing but a towel asking where his clothes were. He turned his gaze to Brennan who looked like a deer caught in headlights...

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