Sorry for such a delay! And with a terrible cliff hanger no less! I'm back after an insane week of twelve hour days with time to write. I hope this makes up for the wait! It's a bit short, but I almost consider it an epilogue. Or, if you are musically inclined, it's like a pick-up note; it doesn't belong to this measure, it belongs to the next phrase.
By the way, one question Brennan asked in this chapter sent me into a singing frenzy. Extra bonus points if you can pick it out.
Twitter - ObjectiveMiss
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Day -1
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Step by step, she walked up to his door.
She knocked twice.
"Bones, good to have you here," he stepped aside, waving an arm in a welcoming gesture.
"I need to get this off my chest…"
"Oh, okay," he leaned against the arm of his plush couch.
"Let me preface this statement by saying that this is rather difficult for me…"
"…Uh huh…"
"I-I should just say it shouldn't I? At this point I'm speaking unnecessarily with increasing tempo-"
"You can tell me anything Bones."
"I think…I have feelings for you."
Booth couldn't help the involuntary rise of his eyebrows that came from her last statement. So it wasn't the exact phrasing that he had always imagined, but it was unexpected. For quite a while no, he had imagined the moment in which she would admit that she had romantic inclinations towards him, but not even his fantasies had prepared him for the actual situation occurring right in from of his eyes.
"W-Why don't you come in?" he managed, his throat constricting with sudden nervousness.
Brennan stepped over the threshold, taking only a brief moment to swing the door shut after moving out of the radius. Her shoes made the transition from the short hallway carpet, to the unstained wood of his apartment floor with an audible step. "These feelings," she accented that word again. "If my tone of voice conveyed any disdain with that, I apologize profusely. That is not my intent-"
He leaded up against one of the walls, still reeling. "A-Are you sure?" He couldn't deal with some sort of false alarm; to open his heart then to have it bruised would be potentially heartbreaking, no pun intended.
Her response was a heated glance, "You might want to sit down."
"Why?" he slowly lowered himself on to his couch.
"Because during some down time in Maluku, I planned this conversation out on three by five index cards."
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"For the sake of saving time, let me just say that I used a copious number of the cards into what essentially became a monologue…though at the time of planning, it was a soliloquy as I was speaking only to myself."
Taking a deep breath, he sunk farther down into the couch cushions.
"I would greatly appreciate it if you would not stop be once I start…" she looked down. "I imagine that I might be unable to continue if I lose my forward momentum."
"Sure…w-would you like to sit down?" he patted the cushions next to him.
"I would prefer to stand."
Brennan swallowed hard, gathering herself. How many times had she run this fateful conversation through her head? The answer was of course, quite a few times. All she needed to be was forward and truthful; that was the most rational course of action, correct?
"W-While I was away, and while you were away, something changed." She paced back and forth, Booth was sure that if he paced back any faster, she would wear a hole straight through the floor to the apartment below. "I can point to no exact moment of epiphany or profound enlightenment, but something has…changed. Despite the fact that I was working in an excellent environment with a dream team of colleagues on a set of remains that was later named after me-"
"Wait, they named the bones after you?" he was genuinely surprised.
"Yes, Homo Temperani, but that's off topic and I asked that you not interrupt me."
Rather comically, he clapped his hand over his lips, before finishing with a two-fingered zipper motion across them.
"As I was saying…although I had no reason not be b completely content…I wasn't," she wiped away a tear that had sprung from the corner from her eye. "I-I missed you…but more than I should have," she looked into his eyes. "Something was wrong, something was missing. And that 'thing,' was you."
Booth felt like a fish out of water. His mouth was suddenly dry, like a dehydrated ground of a desert, cracked and barren. If he hadn't been so pleasantly surprised, his jaw would have dropped to the ground, fully dislocated.
Brennan could no longer contain "I lived for our infrequent phone calls, jus to I could hear your voice. I realized that I'm in love with you…and have been for some time now. That year that we spent apart, it did allow me to get away and gain perspective, but not in the manner of which I intended. I thought that a year away would allow the irrationality caused by romantic feelings to ebb; it did the opposite. But instead of denying and hiding these feelings, I decided to view them with objectivity…it was illogical for me to hide my feelings."
Desperately, he wanted to reach out to her; to comfort her. But it was plainly obvious that she wasn't through.
"So here I am, taking a risk. Because you are worth it. I know there is no way to guarantee the longevity of any relationship, but I don't care. I now know that what we have is special, and it would be utterly foolish to allow it to slide through my fingers like particles of sand." With a sigh, she dropped to the couch next to him. "You know when you were in that coma, I wrote something, and I'd like you to hear it as I'm unsure if your brain processed it at the initial reading."
"You love someone, you open yourself up to suffering – that's the sad truth. Maybe they'll break your heart, or maybe you'll break their heart and never be able to look at yourself in the same way. Those are the risks. You see two people and you think, 'they belong together,' but nothing happens. 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; a burden that allows us to fly."
"I-I've heard that before," Booth turned to look into her deep blue eyes.
"It's true…" she broke down after that, tears freely falling.
"Shhhh," he comforted her, drawing her smaller form to his larger one. A hand smoothed over her back, rubbing reassuring circles through her shirt.
"Where do we go from here?" she said into his shoulder, her tears wetting the material.
That was a good question. He ran his other hand through his hair in thought. Where would they go from here? She had laid it all on the line; it was what he had always dreamed of. And yes, he had conjured up a wide variety of ways that their romantic relationship could start. But yet, all those mental simulations had left him curiously unprepared for this hinge moment.
Slowly the sobs that had wracked her body subsided and she pulled her face from his now damp shoulder. "Would it be appropriate if we were to kiss now?"
Only Bones would ask a question like that. He smiled, "I think it would be very appropriate."
Just as he had with their relationship, he waited for her to make the first move. Surely she did, as she leaned in for a kiss. Even as their lips drew nearer, it felt like tiny electric charges were jumping back and forth between them, sizzling in great anticipation. Finally, their lips touched, passion flowed between them. It was like a lock being opened, the obstructive doors giving way to the sheer force and power of the water. It simply felt as if the natural order of things had been restored; a man-made obstacle removed.
While the kiss only lasted for a few seconds, time seemed to augment, turning the seconds, to minutes. Despite the short duration, they couple drew back from one another, gasping for breath.
"Where do we go from here?" Booth tucked a stray tendril of hair behind her ear, leaving her beautiful face unobscured.
"I have an idea," she said, drawing one of her hands long the edge of a couch cushion. She was simply trying to hide her rather obvious nervousness from him.
"Shoot Bones."
"I don't have a gun…" she said apologetically.
He chuckled, "Don't really shoot me Bones; just say your idea."
"Oh," she gathered herself. "Well when one considers how much progress we have made in just a year-"
"You mean from just partners to accepting our mutual feelings?" he quirked an eyebrow.
"That sounds like something I would say."
"What can I say," he pulled her closer, "you're rubbing off on me."
"Well, as I said, we have made leaps and bounds in the last year-"
"Please don't suggest that we take another year so we can come back with a child and already be married."
"That's preposterous and-" she stopped, a smile creeping its way up her face. "You were being facetious."
"Whatever that means," he winked.
"Anyway, I propose that we take a year to evaluate and test a romantic relationship between the two of us," Brennan sat up off the back of the couch. "This way, we have a clear evaluation period so that after the year is finished, it will be easy to look back and objectively analyze how the year progressed."
"Bones, if you ever want to break up with me, you don't have to wait an entire year to do it."
"I'm confident that I won't feel that way."
She had been right; they had both changed. A year ago, Bones would have never admitted the possibility "of staying in a monogamous relationship for an extended period of time." But now, well, she was willing to take the risk. Not just for herself, but for him.
"So, we take a year as girlfriend a boyfriend, then what? We sit down and compare notes?"
"Something along the lines of that. I-I just want to do this right."
"How about we start tonight? It's officially day one of our relationship."
"I can't help but be a little worried," she admitted.
"Bones, it will be fine. After all, it's just a year!"
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For those of you who have guessed, yes, the sequel will be titled "Just a Year," and will (hopefully) be out very soon. If you have me on author alert you will be pinged when it comes out! It will follow our partner through the year following this.
I'd like to thank everyone who has been following this story, reviewing or not. This has been my first Bones multi-chap, and I am very proud of it!
"Just a Year" will hopefully be out shortly, and I have a one-shot or two I might write in the meantime. I also have another multi-chap in the works (very different from what I've written so far), but I won't bring that one out until it is completely finished.
I hope you enjoyed, and reviews will mean a great deal to me, and expedite the sequel. ;) Even if you haven't reviewed before, feedback will be greatly appriciated for my upcoming works! Thank you again!
Twitter - ObjectiveMiss