Author's Note: Before you read any further, I want you to know that names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent. Also, it wasn't me! Had he asked me, I would have advised scissors. :P

~Q~

~ The Match Under the Mistletoe ~

~Q~

Booth

22 December 2006

"No. Come on, Bones, everyone has a good Christmas story, even you."

"I don't." And she didn't look like she wanted to talk about it. Brennan was edging backwards, sidling ever closer to an exit and Seeley Booth took that as a sign that he needed to step up his game.

Cheering up his partner in times of woe was the sort of challenge Booth relished, a hand-rubbing undertaking calling for stealth, steeled nerves and perhaps even a bit of stupidity. Today, in particular, she was prickly and distant and prone to snapping out terse replies to all queries regarding her now twice-foiled holiday plans. It was a sore subject, understandably so. Therefore, the fact that he was even trying to smooth out the wrinkle between her brows and soften the harsh set of her jaw bespoke of a subtle, self-destructive streak existing within him, one that had pushed Booth into many a reckless endeavor.

Like ... bringing up happier Christmases past in hopes to trigger a little joy in her (as opposed to an explosion).

In order to cheer her, he had to get her to play and in order to do that, he had to get her to stay. The trick was all in the impudence, the double-dog dare that would make her turn and stand her ground. She never walked away from a provocation so all he had to do was call one out.

"Not even when you were a kid? You know, before you went all Science Maiden and stopped having fun?"

(It also helped to get the wording just right. Irreverent.)

"Science maiden…?" Her distaste came complete with the wrinkled nose, a pair of rolling eyes and finished with a shake of the head.

"Come on, you gotta have something. Uh, best gift you ever got."

Bones answered that one faster than he expected, blurting it out so thoughtlessly than even she looked surprised. "A tool set."

But as soon as she said it, the almost amused affect that he'd managed to tease out of her slipped away and she was back on the verge of leaving. Scrambling within his own mind, Booth pulled out one of his more insane stories to keep her entertained, her mind off her own past before it could pull even more humor out of her. Before it could make her vanish just like her family had. "All right I got a great one, listen to this. You ready?"

Nodding, arms crossed, she looked ready to growl. He'd take it.

"So, I was twelve, Jared was eight. I had model airplanes, did I ever tell you that?" He didn't, he could tell — even before her negative affirmation. It was important to get the details established, in order for her to appreciate the story, so he took a quick detour into description. (Just to set the stage.) "Balsa wood planes, they're really lightweight. They were these wood and tissue-paper model airplanes that Pops and I built and painted together, then we pinned them up to my bedroom ceiling using nails and fishing line. That last part is very important."

"The fishing line," she probed, clearly doubtful that such a detail could be important.

"Well, all of it but I was getting at both the fishing line and nails being important." He chuckled, a fondness for the whole incident emerging. "I got a new plane that Christmas morning. Pops and I spent the afternoon putting it together."

Brennan was getting restless again at the mention of family and Christmas, shifting her weight, glancing around, so he sped up the narrative.

"Long story short, I wanted to hang it but all the nails were taken. There was this really big red plane hanging over my bed — huge, like two feet across — and it wasn't my favorite. Besides that, it was the only one I could reach so I was being practical. Right?"

Bones always liked practical. She nodded, catching onto an edge of humor just from the incipient sparkle of mischief entering this story. "I figured I would untie the huge plane and replace it with my new one, only I couldn't. The fishing line was tied up too tight around the nail and I couldn't break it, either."

"So what did you do?"

He grinned. "Well, I got a lighter."

"A lighter plane…?"

"No, a cigarette lighter."

"That … does not sound like a good idea."

"Oh, it wasn't," he laughed. "I got up on the bed and got the lighter working. That was hard — I'd never done it before."

"And…?"

"I figured I'd burn through the fishing line since it was too tangled to untie and too tough to break."

"Why didn't you just cut it?"

"Kids aren't supposed to play with knives, Bones."

"And yet you had a lighter."

"I knew what I was doing."

"How is that possible, when you just stated you'd never used a lighter previous to this incident?"

"Well I'd seen my dad use it. I was just gonna burn through the fishing line. How hard can it be?"

"Considering the fact that you're telling me 'a great Christmas story,' I'll conclude your plan did not work as intended."

"Ah, you are smart for a genius … girl."

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

"If you were a guy, you'd know disasters always start with lighters."

"This is why juvenile males enjoy such a high mortality rate."

"I wouldn't use the word 'enjoy.'"

She snorted. "Clearly you are enjoying the reminiscence, which suggests that you look upon the original adventure with fondness."

"No, actually." Growing thoughtful for just a moment, he added, "It's what came after that I love thinking about."

With that cryptic hint dispensed, Booth returned to his daring narrative. "Okay, so there I am perched on my bed. My arm is reaching for the highest point I could reach and I've got that lighter burning. I managed to grab the line and apply the flame. It started to burn; I think I had a second before I realized."

"Realized what."

"That I had one hand on the fishing line, one hand on the lighter…"

Booth didn't have to go any further before she guessed. "…And no hand on the plane?"

"The plane was going to fall and break. They're delicate."

"So what did you do?"

"I caught the plane."

"But your hands were otherwise engaged."

"Do you see where this is going…?"

"No." But she was smiling, amused, enjoying his tale of woe.

"I was still holding the lighter."

"…"

"Balsa wood. Paper. Flammable varnish & paint. Open flame."

Her eyes widened. "It caught fire?"

"Went up like a blow torch."

Though she tried valiantly not to, Bones snickered. Then she snorted. "I guess you should have just dropped it."

"Oh believe me, I did. The only problem was, I dropped the lighter, too. I was standing on my bed, remember? Yeah. The bedspread caught. So I was trying to put that out and knocked the burning plane onto the floor, and then my carpet caught fire."

"Booth," she gasped, horrified. "You set your room on fire?"

"Yeah. I started jumping up and down, trying to stomp it out. And that's when I heard Pops yelling 'What's going on up there?'"

Another giggle tumbled loose even as she struggled to keep a straight face. "What did you say?"

"What every kid says in a situation like that. 'Nothing.'"

Now giggling openly, she could barely get the question out. "You actually said 'nothing?' And he believed you?"

"Of course he didn't believe me, Bones. When a kid says 'nothing,' that means the house is burning down."

An actual peal of laughter burst forth, possibly the loudest she'd ever laughed in the lab (if not anywhere in her life) and he didn't mind making a fool of himself if it would get her looking like this. Happy. Beautiful. But mostly … happy.

And laughing at last.

She was so breathless with giggling that Bones couldn't get the question out, but Booth knew she would wonder what happened next. And he was coming to the part he loved best so he kept talking (injecting humor even where there was a lingering patch of hurt). "Pops came upstairs. It put the fear of God into me, let me tell you. I already had the fire out but my bed was still smoking, the carpet was charred black and the plane, pretty much ashes. I could only hope he'd give me Last Rites before he killed me."

That's what he remembers so fondly, the fear that infused him when his Pops opened the door. (Not just fear — actual, life-end-imminent terror as an adult figure came up to catch him at unspeakable mischief.) Had it been Dad, young Seeley knew he would be bleeding and bruised within seconds and there would be no Last Anything other than a last breath. His whole body trembled with frozen terror as he waited.

Breath baited.

Because Pops was the man who had raised his violent, anger-driven Dad. And he'd only been living there for two months so he had no idea what to expect.

(How could this possibly be a favorite moment, any sensible person might ask.)

Pops stood in the doorway, sharp old eyes taking it all in: the guilty, frightened boy; the blackened bed; the shambles of boyish miscalculation laying at Seeley Booth's too-big feet. Within an instant Hank Booth knew exactly what had happened and he threw back his head like a lion getting ready to roar.

And he laughed.

He roared a full-out belly laugh that confounded the poor kid quailing in front of him.

"Why are you laughing," young Seeley had asked, now worried that his grandfather had concealed a sadistic side that took pleasure in another person's trembling fear.

"Because if I don't laugh, I'll cry."

Booth repeated those wise words to Bones, a lump rising in his throat as he recalled the moment, the relief, and the slow warmth that had filled him that night when his Pops just laughed. No anger, no hitting, no yelling. Just laughter, and then a resigned acceptance. "When there's a mess this big, Seeley, we do the best we can to set things right…."

He wanted her to see that love often reveals itself in unexpected, gentle gestures (like making her laugh when she had every reason to roar) and yet the story didn't have quite the impact he'd been aiming for. As hoped, her expression shifted but not to anything resembling comprehension nor even relief. All the animation smoothed away until she became a blank mask at the same moment he felt a feminine hand curling over his arm.

"Seeley, I need to tell you something."

Speaking of big messes...

He'd been hiding a fling with Cam for months and Bones only copped on a couple of weeks ago. The awkward when Cam came to claim him was magnified by his near success in cheering up his partner and by Cam's propulsion that was actually pushing him even as he thought he was hesitating. He'd already ended up a few feet away, mission aborted, when he looked back.

Bones stood still, calm, quiet; lost, it seemed, in thought. Telling himself this was a way to give her a moment so at least the little bit of fatherly wisdom could sink in (enjoy this party: laugh or else you'll cry), Booth followed Cam to the mistletoe. He let her kiss him, wondered what it meant and why now and why this ripping sensation was filling his chest when her lips pressed firmly against his.

"What are you doing," he asked, pulling back. Because they didn't do this, they didn't do public displays. Not in front of Bones.

And the moment that thought crossed his mind, the same sense of revelation settled over him that he'd felt that night when Pops laughed. Love comes in unexpected gestures. It must have shown on his face, if Cam's answer was any indication. For half a second, he thought he saw sadness swim through her dark eyes but it washed away with the dimpled smile she used to prove she was on her best behavior. "I'm kissing a friend under the mistletoe."

A friend.

She added, "That's what we are, right?"

He could almost see her pride at work, the forced, breathless laugh that concealed an ending they both needed. And she'd come right then, when Bones was laughing, to draw him over here and give him what he didn't even know he'd wanted. As wonderful as the hockey tickets were Booth thought Cam's real gift might be this kiss under the mistletoe. No anger, no hitting, no yelling. Just laughter, and then a resigned acceptance.

Friends.

"It was fun while it lasted." With a wink she stepped back and it was the same relief, too: the feeling that he could breathe again and everything was going to be all right.

Yet when he looked back less than a minute later (the messy mistake of a half-hidden fling cleaned up so kindly already), his partner was leaving. And Jack Hodgins was watching her go, a painful sympathy written in his eyes.

"What's wrong with Bones?"

It was Angela who answered him, coming up behind her boyfriend and favoring Booth with a thoroughly disgusted roll of the eyes. "Maybe you being blind to what's right in front of you."

She stomped away, leaving Booth with Hodgins and the two men avoided eye contact for a full minute. What's right in front of me, was all he could wonder. He replayed the last five minutes, recalling the brilliant sparkle in his partner's eyes when he succeeded in making her laugh, in the joy he'd felt just sharing that moment with her and the interruption that followed. When Cam had pulled him away, he'd gone reluctantly and that might be what he should have seen within himself. He'd wanted to stay with Bones. She was already slipping out the door, disappearing, and this, coming as it did after he'd succeeded in making her laugh, tasted like a failed campaign.

He told himself the urge to chase after her was rooted in his own distaste for failure.

Hearing his companion clear his throat, Booth braced himself for, well, he didn't know what but it couldn't be good. He wanted to go mend things with Bones and he really did not want this conversation whatever it was going to be, so Booth fidgeted himself another step away.

"You know, maybe it's none of my business," the Bug-man began.

"No, it's not." The fact that Hodgins had already suggested he should mind his own business was all Booth needed to confirm certain things should not be discussed between guys. Ever.

"When we were in that car, she…" and here he swallowed, his throat working noisily to clear whatever feeling had reared within to choke him. "She never stopped believing you would come. I had no hope at all but she just … she believed in you, man."

The impulse to go, to follow her, proved stronger than curiosity. His feet moved forward a step and then another and yet with more bravery than Booth would have expected, Hodgins stepped between Booth and his partner's vanishing form, holding him back. "Because it's Doctor B, I don't think she fully understands what that means. I'm hoping you do."

What Hodgins was implying caused Booth's heart to stumble, and a gulp as one kiss plus one departure (and all those wounded little glances over the last few weeks) finally equaled obvious and he saw what had been right in front of him. Turning at the sound of lisping whispers just a few feet away, he saw Angela finish a fierce, mini-lecture aimed at Cam and Cam herself just nodding as if in agreement. Feeling Booth's regard, then, Cam swiveled her head and slowly nodded again — not in Booth's direction, but beyond him.

"Go, Seeley."

Go where….

Almost as if he'd asked aloud she nudged again. "Go after her."

He wasn't sure if her command was permission or dismissal, nor how he should react to either. His hesitation, mostly based on guilt as he recognized this was why she'd released him, caused Cam to lift a finger toward the mistletoe where her very recent and very public kiss 'between friends' had put more than one charade to the test. "All this mistletoe wasn't meant for us. It's her gift, not ours."

"Gift?" Who gives a ceiling paved in mistletoe as a gift…?

Squints. That's who.

"We're trying to give her what she really wants, and you, too." Angela checked with Cam — a quick, questioning glance — and upon receiving yet another acquiescence, she gave her gift: the great mistletoe conspiracy. "We're all making it happen but only you can give it to her."

"We all know you're in love with her," added Cam, once again proffering her 'get out of a relationship free!' card. "So go. Tell her."

Baffled at the unified circle of certainty surrounding him Booth sputtered out one last, confused denial. "But she never said anything."

Zack spoke up next, his implacable logic managing to untangle the mystery at last. "Doctor Brennan is under the impression that you are in love with Doctor Saroyan. It's evident in the pattern of how she assigned the Secret Santas: you and Doctor Saroyan have each other; Hodgins and Angela have each other; she assigned me to Naomi and Naomi to me. Then there's Doctor—"

"Yeah, okay. I got it." Booth brought a hand up, cutting off the rest as realization hit home. Love reveals itself in little gestures.

"The thing is," Angela explained. "She's never going to get in the way of what she thinks you want."

"So if I make it obvious that I want her…."

Hodgins smiled. "It might be an offer she can't refuse."

~Q~

So that's how they came to be standing here under mistletoe, facing off while alarms squalled and she was still spitting out arguments and he, determinedly, pushed her into position. Fully satisfied at last Booth took it as a sign from God when both the platform alarm and his partner fell silent. Now, it boomed from within his heart.

Do it now.

Her eyes widened in the last instant, just as he slid his palm behind her head and his intention became clear. It went silent in the lab like a Sprint commercial waiting for the pin to drop. Or like a battlefield when the pin has already been pulled from the grenade and dropped, leaving a soldier holding that grenade tight, clutching it close to the chest and everyone around him is holding their breath as they wait for the explosion.

He'd unpinned her.

Their eyes held, his daring her to pick up the pin and push it back in and hers daring him let go. Neither one of them backed down and that was all the proof he needed that the squints were right. He pulled her close to the chest and let go of his restraint.

Though a part of him wanted to savor every second of this kiss, so he could replay it later with specific words and recall the order of events precisely (each incremental increase of pressure, the delicious slide of her lips moving into position under his), none of that was possible. The taste of Temperance obliterated everything else for a moment.

Where he was, who was watching, none of it mattered — only the surrender he'd demanded and the battle they'd begun because she was not giving in without making her own demands. For every press harder she fought back, her tongue expelling his when he tried to slip past her defenses, her palms pressing rigidly outwards when he tried to pull her closer. Heat blistered within, and actual pain as every single cell in his body wrenched itself into a state of preparation. He'd never been turned on so fast, so far, so fiercely in his thirty five years of life and far more in the sense of feeling infused with energy than simply wanting to subdue an opponent.

She made him feel alive, always had, and he thought it was combat but in truth … it was love.

The need to tell her was what finally separated them, Booth drawing away and drawing in a breath powerful enough to pull wisps of her hair his way. Needing to breathe and speak could not entirely override the need to keep the connection, however, so Booth breathed his words and caresses every place his lips could reach.

"Anthropologically…" her favorite word, usually coming from her mouth so he passed it back to her mouth to mouth, "a man kissing a woman … in public." Now his kisses shifted to everywhere, all over, each one an act of devotion if not an outright public declaration. I love your nose; I love your eyes; I love this little mole that you cover with make-up and I love it when you don't. What was she thinking, what would she say if he let her catch her own breath and answer back? For the moment, her only reply was a faint little moan which he took as an invitation to try her metaphorical door again. This time when he kissed her and tried to slide past her silky warm lips, she let him.

Even as his body was roaring into a greater state of alert, he drew away before he lost all control. "Under the mistletoe," Booth panted. "What does it mean, Bones?"

She looked every inch as affected as he felt: mouth fallen half open, lips glistening berry red, and eyes blinking open in half-dazed wonder. Bones admitting that she didn't know something brought out a fond smile that was rather quickly vanquished by further determination. She damn well would know within the next sixty seconds if he had anything to say about it.

Thinking of his weak kiss with Cam and the way Bones had fled her status as witness, he probed, "Does it mean nothing?"

(Because if she thought so, she wouldn't have run.)

A shake of his partner's head, her confusion still evident, spurred round two. "One kiss is a beginning." (Or an ending.) "Two kisses…"

Two kisses meant more, she'd said so. Thus when he kissed her again with all the passion and tenderness of the first there could be no doubt he was making an offer she couldn't refuse. Yet when he pulled back a second time she looked more explosive than ever.

"You said there was a gift for me."

Perhaps she'd gone literal, expecting a box with wrapping paper. Booth was all about the metaphor (and making her live her own words). His triumph gleamed out in the craftiest of ways as he sprang the trap. "You said couples who kiss more than once under the mistletoe will be getting married."

Before her words emerged there was a strange little pitch of astonishment that stopped her, briefly. Then, all the shocked little gasps from their rapt audience had the effect of a chill wind blowing over her. Her eyes frosting over, Brennan clipped out a rather obvious statement that refuted his reminder of her previous assertion. "We aren't in England."

"Fine. But I reserve the right to ask you to marry me in the future and you, naturally, reserve the right to turn me down."

"What are you doing? This isn't funny," she hissed.

"I'm not trying to be funny," he countered, now more than a little confused by her reaction. That only made her stiffen up even more and her eyes … Booth could see turmoil roiling in them, warning signs that he'd better play this very carefully. "I'm trying to give you your gift."

As she started to truly sense their ring of enraptured onlookers, he could see his partner building up an icy wall to go with that frigid mask she often wore when under stress. "Public humiliation?"

"No!" Where did that come from…? "God, Bones, will you just— Wait!"

She was leaving the platform, striding off with the contradictory gait of someone who couldn't wait to get away but didn't want anyone to realize she was running for cover. So he had to catch her by the arm and swing her back around, pull her back against him and the only thing he could think was to wrap his arms around her and go for broke.

"I'm trying to tell you that I love you."

She froze.

There was another collective round of gasps.

"I'm giving you me, okay? If you want me. That's … In front of all these witnesses, I'm giving myself to you."

It was the most inarticulate declaration he'd ever made, off the cuff and desperate, but it stalled her just enough that he risked loosening his hold on her so he could gauge her reaction. Surely even she would recognize that's basically what marriage is: a public giving of oneself to another. (But only if it was mutual.)

And was it…?

Could it ever be mutual?

So many emotions tumbling behind those eyes, signs of a genius mind at work. Would she see obstacles between them, or recognize (as he hoped) that with this declaration he was sweeping them all away. She had a tendency to see things he couldn't, to complicate things in ways he couldn't even imagine, so it might not work out the way he wanted but he was absolutely willing to try if she was.

"I didn't know you loved me, too. If I'd have known I'd have come after you a long time ago."

As waves of relief and confusion washed through her he could see her working out meanings and wondering how he could know as fact something that had her so uncertain. "It's love?"

As if this were an oral examination requiring her to identify key terms and use them in a sentence.

"You like spending time with me, you love my unscientific ways even though you don't understand me half the time." Her brows rippled with consternation. Undaunted, he pressed on. "When you see me, it feels like the sun is rising inside you. Sometimes you think of me and that's all it takes to make you smile. You want me to be happy, you want to see me smile so you do and say things that you hope will amuse me. You worry. You're scared. The thought of losing me makes you feel almost sick inside and you don't quite know what it means but that fear drives you to look out for me. To make sure nothing bad happens to me. Every day. You do little things to make things easier for me and don't care if I don't notice. … Does that sound about right?"

Astonished by his accuracy, she nodded.

"Then yes. It's love."

"I love you." Testing it out, she nodded slowly again as the explanation satisfied her. "I do."

The rest of their audience broke into sighs and clustered groups of discussion now that the battle had ended. They were alone now, relatively.

Considering the nature of what she'd just admitted and unable to resist, he drew her close once more and brushed a teasing kiss against her ear. "So…. When are we getting married?"

"Never."

Booth laughed. It was precisely what he'd expected. After all, one battle does not win a war.

~Q~

She turned away from the spectacle, wiping a tear and yet beaming. "Thank you. I love my gift."

"I was a little worried it wouldn't work out," Hodgins admitted.

"Oh, it did. I don't know how you did it but you just made two deserving people very happy."

"Three," he corrected tenderly. "You're happy, too."

"I am," Angela sighed.

~Q~

The End

~Q~

Author's Note: So what do you get the artist whose boyfriend is a billionaire...? The one thing she wants that money can't buy. Naturally. ;)

Dear Spitfire,
After making you cry through chapter two the least I could do was make sure you laughed all the more in chapter four.
May the rest of your 2015 be filled with love and laughter. :)

Your Secret Santa,
Chem

To all you lovely readers, thank you for the follows, favorites, and for the reviews! You are wonderful. :D