(After 'The Change in the Game')
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I don't own Bones.
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Her relationship was too new and too different from anything she had ever attempted before. She had lived with Peter for a while before she had started working with Booth, but that had been a disaster and not something she liked to dwell on. They had had too little in common and they had argued most of the time when they were together. The most galling thing of all was the fact that Peter had blamed their break up on her and was unwilling to take any of the blame or responsibility.
The last time she had seen him, he had broken into her apartment to retrieve his television. When confronted, he had tried to use psychobabble on her and he had told her that she was emotionally distant and cold. He had made sure to bring up her being orphaned so young and had asked her if she wanted to spend the rest of her life alone. While at the time she had been furious that her ex was trying to lay all the blame upon her for their failed relationship, it had also given her a lot to think about at the time.
She'd hated psychology then and she hated it now, but in a way Peter had touched upon her personal demons. What if she really was too emotionally stunted to have a successful relationship with Booth? She loved him and she knew he loved her, but she also knew that it might not be possible to give him what he needed emotionally. Deep down she was afraid that Peter was right and she would eventually find herself separated from Booth and this time the pain would be so much worse than her breakup with Peter or even Sully.
Alone in her apartment for the first time in weeks because Booth was away, Brennan found the quiet to be a little disturbing. Her partner had been called in to handle the kidnapping case of the teenage daughter of a metro police captain. He was determined to save the child and Brennan had faith he would. In the meantime she felt she should use her free time more wisely, but it turned out she wasn't in the mood to listen to her inner voice give her advice.
It had only been a month since she had started sleeping with Booth, but she already found it hard to sleep alone. His presence in her life was changing many things in her life and those changes were unexpected. They didn't seem to be bad changes, but none the less she was changing and that filled her with a sense of foreboding. Was she changing herself or was Booth changing her. Not deliberately of course, but just having him in her life on a more intimate level seemed to be the cause. Could she live with those changes? She wasn't sure.
The thought of giving up on their relationship wasn't something she was willing to consider. She loved her partner and she was going to have to accept some of the changes in her life to adjust to her new life. After all, wasn't that part of being a monogamous couple?
Peter's distant pronouncement still seemed to echo in her mind and most of the time his words came back to haunt her when it appeared she was at her most vulnerable, alone with time to think.
Determined to drive out the doubt, Brennan moved over to her sound system and selected a CD to fill the room with noise, with music. She didn't put any thought into her selection, but suddenly she felt a strange chill run down her back when she heard 'Kiss from a Rose' begin to play. She had forgot she had that CD and as the music played she was brought back to that time when she had danced with Booth at her high school reunion.
The memory was both a pleasant memory and an awkward one. As the music continued she found her body swaying with the music. A slight smile on her lips, she moved slowly across the living room floor, her feet moving in time to the melody. Her hips swayed and her arms slowly came up as if she held Booth in her arms as she danced. The thought of his hands on her hips as she moved caused her to feel a warmth that she had rarely felt when she danced with others. His embrace while they had danced had caused her to feel emotions that she had had a hard time understanding at the time.
As she moved around the room, she now knew what those feelings were and it surprised her that she had fought her attraction to Booth for so long. "So much time wasted and yet . . . and yet I wasn't ready then." The music ended and Brennan stopped moving. Filled with a feeling of comfort she moved back to the sound system and exchanged the CD for some soft jazz. Peter's words had been washed away with the memory of dancing with Booth and the fact that she could dance with Booth once more and this time, she could hold him and lean against him without fear of a misunderstanding. He was her lover and though that was new the emotions that came with that change of status felt as comfortable as a warm blanket on a cold day. He made her feel safe and loved and that was the difference between Booth and Peter. Booth loved her for who she was and didn't mean to change her. He loved her just as she was.
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He wasn't sure what it was that set her off, but she was angry and he was trying to deal with it. Booth wasn't very neat and some of his personal habits drove Brennan to distraction. He tried to keep his clothes put away, his sports equipment out of the way, but still there were things he did without thinking. He had been a bachelor most of his life. True, he had lived with women off and on through the years, but it rarely lasted beyond a few months or so. This relationship was important to him and he was not going to let it fail.
Her last words before she had fled his apartment had been something about the bathroom. After the door slammed shut, he shook his head and ran his hand through his hair. "I hope this is just the pregnancy." He knew that her emotions were a little volatile at the moment and he was trying not to set her off, but he had and he was afraid that sooner or later she was going to leave and she wasn't going to come back.
Entering the bathroom, he inspected the room and he knew he had let it get too messy. He had come home exhausted early that morning after rescuing the teenager from her ex-boyfriend. She was unharmed and so was the boy, but the whole thing had been a tough cat and mouse game and he had only craved a quick bath and sleep when he got home. Moving through the room, he first picked up his dirty clothes lying next to the clothes hamper and dropped them in the hamper.
Determined to make it ship shape, he cleaned the tub, mopped the floor, cleaned the toilet and sink, made sure the mirror was spotless and the rug was lying neatly next to the tub. He emptied the hamper and carried the clothes to his washing machine, placed them on the table next to the machine and carefully sorted the clothes. One he had a load of white clothes in the machine, he went in to the kitchen and cleaned that up too. Once the room was spotless, he entered the living room and placed some music on.
The soothing sounds of jazz filling his apartment, Booth moved over to the window and looked out on the street below. The day was a gray day and the sky drizzled rain in a haphazard manner on the street and pedestrians below. "Why not? Why should the weather help the situation?"
Feeling a little sorry for himself, he moved away from the window and over to his entertainment center. The picture of Brennan and himself drew his attention. Max had taken that picture at his favorite restaurant and he had made sure the couple each got a copy. It was a nice picture and Booth thought Brennan looked gorgeous. She always did look good in black and her hair swept up exposed her long neck and her cute ears.
Slowly swaying to the music, Booth remembered Brennan telling him that music was a great way to move from one phase in a relationship to another. "Or something like that." He had moved into a new relationship with his partner and he had to adjust to living with her.
Hannah had barely lived with him after she had moved in. She'd been gone more than she was home, so besides the whole gut wrenching rejection of marriage thing nothing much had changed once she was gone. She hadn't owned a lot of things and she didn't seem to care what the place looked like. After she was gone, he had just been a little more alone than he had been before. An odd feeling, but it was the honest truth.
Brennan was fastidious and he knew that. He needed to be neater in his personal habits and he knew he could do it most of the time. It was just when he was tired that he slipped back into old habits of socks on the floor or jackets hanging from the collar on door knobs. Still it was minor stuff and he really believed her hormones were driving her emotions a little harder and faster than normal. He hoped she would be more tolerant once the baby arrived.
Moving a little faster, he danced around the living room, his eyes hooded and seeing just enough of his surroundings not to hit anything. His mind filled with thoughts of a future with Brennan he didn't hear the front door open and close.
"You're dancing."
Startled, Booth stopped moving and faced his girlfriend. "Yeah. I'm moving into my new phase in life and I was dancing for you and me."
Surprised, Brennan removed her raincoat and laid it over the recliner. "May I join you?"
A pleased smile on his face, Booth held out his hand and took her outstretched hand in his hand, pulling her closer to his body. Once they were in each other's embrace, Booth moved them into a slow dance, barely moving in front of the window. "You came back."
"Of course I did." Brennan leaned her head on his shoulder and felt the warmth of his body against her body. She had let her emotions get the better of her earlier and all because of a pair of pants and a shirt lying on the floor. "I will always come back."
Her words were a balm to him and made him feel more confident in their future. "We just need to get used to each other that's all. I'm not very neat and you're a little too neat. There has to be a happy middle ground somewhere."
"I agree." She knew she shouldn't have become so angry with Booth. He hadn't come home until after four that morning and the last thing he had been thinking about before he fell into bed was his dirty clothes. "You can try to be neater and I'll try to be more forgiving."
Amused, Booth chuckled. "Sounds like a plan."
Comfortable dancing with her lover, Brennan nodded her head. "Dancing with you is very nice. We should do it more often."
"We really should." Jazz continued to play in the background and they swayed to the music. "It's all about the dance."
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