Hey everyone, thanks so much for the awesome reviews so far! Here's a nice long chapter to thank you for it! I hope you enjoy it, and please keep those reviews coming! :D

Dis: I don't own House or Bones.

Chapter Nine- Sweet Dreams are Made of These

Booth stepped back into the coolness of Princeton Plainsboro with relief. Man, it was hot. Sweets tapped him on the shoulder. "Give me some time to organize my notes and then I can give you a profile—"

"Yeah, Sweets, that's great." Booth waved him off and started down the hallway towards where he knew his partner was holed up, working on her bones. He dodged a nurse, slid open the door to the examination room, and leaned on the frame, watching his Bones work. Brennan stood, bent over her table, her index finger just barely tracing the contours of a vertebrae bone. Her brow creased slightly and her lips moved soundlessly as she stared at the source of her irritation.

Booth felt a smile tug at his lips. "Bones."

Brennan jumped slightly. "Booth, you scared me!" She glared accusingly at him. "I'm afraid I don't have anything just yet…"

Booth grinned. "Sorry, there, Bones." He held up his notepad. "Doesn't matter. We've got a suspect."

Brennan snapped off her latex gloves instantly. "Why didn't you say so? Let's go!"

House dodged a nurse and turned the corner. The white walls flashed past his vision without his really seeing them. And then… There it was. His destination. That conversation with Brennan had shaken him more than he wanted people to know, and he needed to talk to somebody. Or at least, get some semblance of normalcy back into his life. He blew past the secretary's desk (odd. She was gone) and paused, his hand on the doorknob to Cuddy's office.

Why?

House frowned. Voices in his head were not exactly uncommon, but he hated them all the same. Particularly when they sounded like Wilson, which they did more frequently then he cared to admit. Damn.

See? You're rattled. And where do you flee when you're rattled? Cuddy. I told you.

"Shut up." House growled.

Just saying.

"I said shut up." House pushed open the door and stumped into the room. Cuddy looked up, surprised, the pen she'd been using to sign a paper dangling from her fingers.

"House! What do you wa… Are you ok? You look a little…" She half rose from her chair.

House shot a glare at her and Cuddy's words trailed off.

"I'm fine." He snapped.

Cuddy stood up from behind her desk and crossed to where he was standing. "House." She said softly. She reached up and brushed a stray strand of hair off of his forehead, which was suddenly sticky with nervous sweat. "Talk to me. I'm your friend." Cuddy stepped forward, encroaching heavily into his personal space, wrapping her arms around his neck.

"H-Hey." House said, taking a step backwards, attempting to disentangle her iron grip. Something was wrong. This wasn't Cuddy.

Cuddy smiled playfully, her dark hair falling out of its meticulous up-do into her face. She brushed it away with a simple, yet sexy gesture. "Shh." She put a finger to House's tingling lips. She leaned forward into him, so he could feel her hot breath on his ear. "House…" She whispered. "Isn't this what you want? I thought you liked me…" House let his cane thump to the floor, his back as straight and stiff as a board.

"I… I don't…" He mumbled, trying to keep his focus off the warm body that was suddenly pressed onto his. Suddenly the warmth withdrew and Cuddy's face swam back into view. Pain lanced her features and House suddenly received a flash of understanding. He was hurting her.

"You have to decide, House." Cuddy said, turning away from him. Her hair fell in rivers of chocolate down her back. "Stop playing with me." She suddenly spun back and glared at him, the normal pissed-off Cuddy returning in full force.

"Damn it, decide, House!"

House swallowed at her sudden change. "Decide what?" He snapped at her, feeling his own temper rise.

Cuddy strode forward and grabbed him by the upper arm. "You have to decide. You can't live your life like this." She motioned around her to the office and the hospital in general.

House wrenched away from her. "Who the hell says you can tell me how to live my life? Maybe I'm perfectly happy like this!"

Cuddy laughed, but it was a hollow, abrasive sound, completely joyless. "House, if there's one thing I understand completely about you, it's that you're not happy." She turned him around and pointed him towards her door. "Decide." She murmured into his ear. "Will you take a chance and be happy? Or will you play it safe and be miserable the rest of your life?" She pulled away slightly. "Decide… and while you do, get the hell outta my office! I've got work to do!" She shoved him, hard, and House tumbled through the door and into the blackness beyond.

He awoke with a start to find himself lying flat on his back on the operating table in surgery. An extremely annoyed voice was calling his name over the intercom from observation.

"House! Damn it, wake up and get off my table!" House's tired eyes found the source of the voice—his Australian former employee-turned-surgeon was glaring at him the glass-walled booth.

House swung his legs off the table, wincing slightly as the movement jarred his disabled leg. "I wasn't sleeping." He informed Chase, matter-of-fact, slipping easily back into his cynical role. "I was waiting for you."

Chase sighed. "Why didn't you just have me paged?"

"Because I was too lazy, and I knew you'd be here eventually." That's right. I was waiting for Chase and I fell asleep… So, that was a dream? Damn.

Chase motioned him up into the observation room and House, for once, complied, stumping up into the glass-walled booth. "Well, I'm here now." He said, sitting down in one of the swivel chairs. "What do you want?"

House stared down into surgery at the table that had until recently been his bed. "How did you meet Temperance Brennan?"

Chase started. Whatever he had been expecting, it clearly wasn't that. "Why do you want to know that?"

"I'm writing a memoir on my life."

Chase sighed. "Tempe and I met at a dig in Australia. She was there checking out some bones that were found in the Outback, and I was called in to do some medical work on one of the diggers. We hit it off."

"Did you do it?"

Chase looked scandalized. "House!"

House grinned wickedly. "Huh, way to go, there, Dingo Dave. I didn't think you had it in you."

"We didn't do anyth—"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Listen, I need to do an exploratory surgery on our tub of lard."

Chase looked surprised at the sudden shift in conversation. "House, Thirteen and Kutner already talked to me. I can't do that. His heart's too weak."

House gave him a piercing stare. Chase sighed inwardly. He hated that look. That look usually meant House had a good argument prepared.

"He was coughing up blood earlier, Chase. That is in no way connected to the heart and we don't know what's wrong with him. If you don't poke around a little, he could die." House looked triumphant.

Chase sighed. It was no use arguing with a stubborn House. If there was one thing he'd learned while working for him, it was that. "Fine." He said, defeated. "But I won't be happy about it."

Booth's car crunched up the gravel to the small, beat-up mobile home beyond. Brennan felt her nose wrinkle slightly as she peered at the trailer. "This is where Charlie Fluggs lives?"

Booth glanced over at his partner. "You know, Bones, not everyone has made millions of dollars writing bestselling novels. Normal people can't afford nice tv-less flats."

Brennan unclipped her seatbelt and gave Booth a pointed look. "Not only that, but my job as a forensic anthropologist also pays very well, considering I'm the best in my field."

Booth shook his head. "Bones…"

But Brennan had already gotten out of the car. Booth sighed and slammed the door shut and followed Brennan up the walk towards the trailer. The mobile home was a little worse off than most mobile homes that the partners had seen over the years. The wheels on it were long gone, and the trailer sat on four cinderblocks above the ground. A pair of man's briefs hung, lonely, on the clothesline, waving in the wind. Beer cans and Taco Bell takeout bags littered the ground around the lot. The screen door flew open in the wind and banged loudly against the metal side of the trailer.

Brennan glanced back at Booth. "How did Charlie Fluggs know the victim?"

Booth fingered the gun at his waistband. "Boyfriend of four months. Got a statement from Amanda Garth saying that he was quote 'bad news'."

Brennan raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"Apparently…" Booth kicked aside an empty beer can. "He drinks."

"I'd say a lot." Brennan murmured, looking around her.

Booth suddenly held up his arm. "Bones." He whispered. "I want you to stay behind me, do you understand? This isn't one of those times where I tell you to stay behind me and you just charge right on in anyway. The door is unlatched and open. This is a potential hostage situation so stay. Behind. Me."

Brennan didn't speak a word, simply nodded, perhaps recognizing the urgency in Booth's words. The two crept up the rickety wooden stairs to the open screen door and Booth leaned against the frame.

"FBI!" He called out. There was silence. Nothing moved. All was still.

Suddenly, there was a sharp banging noise. Booth instinctively ducked and his strong arm forced Brennan's head down. He waited for the briefest of seconds before jumping into the trailer, his gun outstretched. Brennan watched her partner dart through the door, a familiar, but irrational feeling of fear jolting though her. It wasn't as though she had anything to be afraid of. Booth could take care of himself; he'd proven that to her time and time again. Still, Brennan couldn't help the thrill of emotion that ran through her from time to time.

Suddenly, Brennan spotted movement out of the corner of her eye. Her head whipped around to see a dark figure tearing down the path.

"Booth!" She cried. Brennan leaped down the steps and tore after the figure, not waiting for her partner's response. Booth ran to the door of the trailer after hearing his partner's cry and spotted the figure. He swore and followed her. Why is it that whenever I tell her to stay, she never listens?

Brennan never took her eyes off the figure she was chasing. Her blood pumped in her ears and her breath came in swift pants. She leaped over a small child's bicycle and continued running through the trailer park.

Just when she feared she would never catch up with the man (for it had to be a man; the body structure couldn't possibly be a woman), he made the mistake of looking behind him. In the brief moment that it took for her prey to glance over his shoulder, he missed the intricate detail of the car backing out into the road and crashed headlong into the side of a grey '03 Ford Taurus. The man fell backwards, his angry shout ripping the air. Brennan caught up to him in no time, grabbing him by the back of the neck and slamming him onto the hood of the stopped car, severely frightening the woman at the wheel.

Booth arrived only seconds later. He grabbed the man from Brennan and dug his elbow into his back. "Charlie Fluggs?" He asked, anger lacing his tones.

The man glared up into Booth's face. His nose was bleeding from the impact with the Taurus. He was watery, beady blue eyes and a five o'clock shadow. His hair was dirty yellow and he smelled of stale alcohol. "Yeah." He snapped in response to Booth's question.

Booth slapped a pair of handcuffs on him. "You're under arrest for running from a federal agent."

The woman had gotten out of her car and was looking at Charlie, horrified. "I didn't hit him, did I?" She asked, fearfully.

Booth shook his head, reassuring her. He glanced to his right at Brennan. "Are you alright, Bones?"

Brennan nodded. "Yeah."

Booth sighed in relief, turning his attention back to his captive.

"Um… Booth?"

Booth glanced up at his partner. "Yeah?"

"You say you're going to arrest him… but where are we going to hold him? We're not working with any local police so far."

Booth looked from Brennan, to Charlie, then back to Brennan.

"Damn it!" He swore.

Well? I hope you liked it! I'm not sure how I feel about House's dream, but so Huddy fluff was just aching to be written. Please leave a review!!!

xoxo

Allie