Brand new fanfiction alert!
Okay, so this doesn't mean I'm stopping with Ripples yet- I just had an idea and decided to post it. Another chapter for Ripples should be up later today.
For once, I actually have some ideas on how this story is going to go and I can say now, there will be a little less angst than Ripples. Hopefully, it's going to be a bit more cheerful, and I hope I'll get just as much great feedback on this one, too! :)
The usual- sorry for any mistakes etc, and sorry it's quite short- review for more!
Enjoy.

He lies awake at night, alone in his bedroom, and wonders when it all changed.
He used to have a reputation. The kind that made men jealously impressed, the kind that made woman intrigued ; that was, the women who hadn't been unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of his womanizing ways. He still had a reputation. He could tell that nobody really believed that Seeley Booth, FBI agent, the biggest womanizer around had suddenly toned down and become tamed - "whipped" as the guys in the office had joked every single day for 2 months. 2 months, a week, and a day. That was 6 months ago now. 6 months and still, here he was, lying awake, listening to the chorus of late night traffic rushing past his apartment building. 6 months of this same routine - going to bed when he got back from work, or the diner, or whichever bar he had been in that night, and lying awake until the early hours of the morning. Weekends were filled with long overdue sleep from the week before ; without this, he would have been too tired to function.
It wasn't to be said that he had spent the last six months lost in angst, with days filled with tears and regrets. Regrets, yes. Most of the time he lay awake, and thought.
Rebecca, Cam, Hannah...hundreds of nameless conquests spread over as long as he could remember. And then there was the most memorable of the lot.
She was gone. It was his fault, anyway. It had been nothing, just sex...fulfilling natural desires, relieving biological urges, she called it. Screwing, he called it. Fast, and hard and intense at the start. When had it become just that little bit slower, more gentle, yet even more intense? When did hot turn into beautiful? When had the game plan - use, move on- become something more? Why does he miss her this much?
Why was it that this time, the woman had left, not him? Because she wasn't just "the women", no matter what she thought, no matter what people told her. And then, he lies awake and wonders what she's doing. He wonders when he'll see her again. If he'll see her again.

10 months ago

"Absolutely not!"
Camille Saroyan sighed wearily. Almost three years of working with the woman marching away from her, and she was still idiotic enough to be surprised at how stubborn she was. That said, Temperance Brennan was an excellent anthropologist, and the Jeffersonian was extremely lucky to have such an asset. She was more than just an asset, though; she was a woman with a bigger heart than people gave her credit for, and after a rocky start, she and Cam had begun to respect and like one another - even when they did find themselves disagreeing.
Like now.
"Doctor Brennan, please, just think about it."
Walking into her office and sitting down at her desk, Temperance Brennan glared up at her boss reproachfully. "With all due respect, Cam, this is a ridiculous idea."
"You are the best we have to offer, Doctor Brennan. Working with the FBI on cases gives us credibility, it gives us publicity, it gives us- "
"Donations?" Brennan suggested. Cam pulled an innocent face.
"I have no idea what you mean." After a moment, she relented. "Fine. I know you hate being loaned out, but you didn't object to Dr Goodman, when you were working with Agent Sullivan and that worked out fine. Success in high-profile cases means great publicity, which means interest and funding from investors."
"First of all, yes, I do hate being "loaned out", and I did object to Goodman, repeatedly, as I will do now. Secondly, working with Sully may have been a year ago now, but it did not work out at all. And finally, success does mean great publicity. Didn't we all learn well enough last year that failure leads to terrible publicity?"
"Agent Booth is fantastic. He's good at his job, he's hardworking, stubborn..." Cam arched an eyebrow. "A lot like you actually. I've actually known Agent Booth for many years now personally and-"
"And now you want me to work with him because you owe an old lover a favour." Brennan finished bluntly. Cam rolled her eyes. "I know all about Agent Booth. All I can see the Jeffersonian gaining is a bad reputation for associating with such a promiscuous-"
"I know what you've heard." Cam interrupted. She frowned and admitted, "I can't say that I approve of what Booth is like. But he's a good guy, and he's a good cop. He's under a lot of pressure to solve practically impossible cases, impossible deaths-"
"No deaths are impossible to solve."
"Not for us. Which is why he needs our help." Cam sighed. She leaned closer over the desk. "I know this will be hard for you...letting new staff in, after Sully left last year, and Zack went to Iraq-"
"Cam-"
"We can help Booth. Hodgins and Angela like the idea. I like the idea. Maybe Booth can help us. Maybe he's exactly what we need."
Brennan sighed loudly , staring at her computer screen. She could feel Cam watching her. Eventually she moved forward and pushed a card onto the desk towards her.
Brennan looked up as her boss left. She reluctantly reached over and took the card.
Special Agent Seeley Booth. And then a number.
She thought about what Cam had said. She thought about Zack, and Sully, hundreds of miles away. She looked down at the neatly typed name and thought about all of the stories she had heard (mostly from Angela, who got them from the rest of the women in the building) about him.
Slowly, reluctantly, she reached for her phone, and began to dial the number.

Two hours later, Brennan paced across her office floor. It was late, and being a Friday, the lab was almost empty. Special Agent Seeley Booth was due any minute. They had spoken on the phone ; his voice hadn't given a lot away, but what it had she didn't like. Sarcastic. Overly confident, bordering on cocky. Smug. For somebody who didn't let others make assumptions, preferring to stick to the facts, she was making a lot of guesses into the kind of person he would be. Maybe the stories had influenced her. This man was an idiot. An ass of epic proportions, Angela had said somebody had described him as. A jerk. A heart-breaker.
"Damn!" Lost in thought, Brennan had walked right into a stack of files balanced on the arm of the couch, knocking them right onto the floor. Cursing her clumsiness, she crouched down and began to collect the scattered papers.
"Here. Let me help you."
Brennan looked up, surprised, as somebody crouched down beside her and began helping her collect the papers. She looked up and saw the face of a stranger. But she knew who this was. This was Seeley Booth.
Immediately, she automatically felt herself stiffening and becoming hostile. "I'm fine." She told him coolly.
"I don't mind-" His voice was soft in the quiet room. He met her eyes again, looking genuinely surprised for reasons she couldn't fathom. He gathered the rest of the papers and they both awkwardly got to their feet. Booth shuffled the papers and handed them over to her. She murmured her thanks and took her time placing them on her desk.
"You're Doctor Brennan?"
She nodded. "Yes, I am. " She said warily. "Why?"
"You're just...not what I expected."
Brennan felt a surge of annoyance at his obvious attempts to charm her.
"What were you expecting?"
"I don't know... Cam always made anthropologists sound like old guys...so..." He smiled slowly. "You're an improvement already."
There was a moments silence, and Brennan felt scorn rise inside of her. Was this the part where she was supposed to melt into his arms and tell him that he was better than she could have imagined too? He must have had a lot of practice; he had the acting perfect. She could almost believe that he was as nice as he wanted her to believe.
"Well. I made it clear over the phone what the terms would have to be?"
He nodded. "Full involvement in the cases, and field work too. It's all cleared. We can start on Monday."
"Fine." Brennan said simply, sitting down at her desk and switching her laptop on. She sensed the man stood by her couch shift uneasily. She looked back up at him. "Was there something else?"
He had the nerve to look taken aback. Good, Brennan found herself thinking. This was a serious job; she had no time to be working with somebody whose only interest was succeeding with women.
"Okay." He took a step closer. "I'm sorry, but I'm confused. Have I done something wrong?"
Brennan stiffened. "Agent Booth, this is work. I should be able to give you a fair chance, and yet instead, I find myself being influenced by the large amounts of female attention you happen to attract."
She watched as he stiffened, as she had minutes earlier. He looked disbelieving.
"With all due respect, Doctor Brennan, I don't see what my personal life has to do with how you treat me. They won't be linked, at all-"
"With all due respect, Agent Booth, I hope not. The last thing I need is another disappointment as a partner, and so far, that's what you're promising."
There was an awkward silence. Booth scoffed bitterly, pinching the top of his nose as if he had a headache. When he pulled his hand away, his surprise and his frown were gone, replaced by an expression that immediately made her wary. There was a glint in his eye, and a cocky look on his face.
"Fine. If that's how you want it that's fine with me. " He moved closer and leaned over the desk so that their faces were inches apart. Really? He thought this was going to work? Brennan thought scornfully. Still, her breath hitched ( from annoyance, she told herself) as he sent her a slow half smile. His eyes were unlike any she had ever seen before, and they were such a deep shade of chocolate brown, that for a second, she found herself understanding why women were so attracted to him. She had to admit that he was attractive on the outside, even if he wasn't on the inside.
"Something tells me I'm going to enjoy working with you, Doctor Brennan." His breath was warm on her face. Brennan paused.
"I think it's time you went, Agent Booth." Brennan told him quietly. With one last cocky grin, he left silently.
Five minutes into their working together, and she already couldn't stand him.
This was going to be great.