Here we have Chapter 2! Starting with the morning after and ending with…well, you'll see.

Disclaimer: No, I still don't own them. Bernie the Beagle (who is mentioned briefly in the first section below), however, is a real life dog. He belongs to my baby sister but he lives with me while she is in a dorm that doesn't allow pets and I love him very much even though I'm forced to pick up his excrement and he tries to sit in my lap while I write fanfiction (very bad for the brand new Macbook…VERRRY BAD. Not to mention that he weighs more than I do).

Oops, I've gone way off-topic again.

Enjoy!

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It's a miracle what six hours of pure, uninterrupted sleep can do to a man suffering from three weeks' worth of insomnia.

You woke up feeling good. Better than good, actually. You felt great. Your partner's sweet-smelling scarf still covered your nose and mouth, and while it was nowhere near as satisfying as having her soft little body curled right up next to yours when you awoke, her scent overloading your olfactory senses first thing in the morning was as close as a second could be. You inhaled deeply a couple of times, surprised that her perfume hadn't faded away yet, and smiled. You felt refreshed, rejuvenated; more like a focused twenty-one-year-old than a man who was fastly approaching middle age.

You hopped right out of bed—or rather, the sofa—without the usual ten-minute internal struggle, already alert and eager to get to work and kick some murderer ass. It was a beautiful day—the sun was shining, the sky was a perfect cobalt blue, and a fresh few inches of pristine white snow from yesterday's mini-storm coated the ground. Glancing out the window, you smiled when you realized that it was the perfect type of snow for snowball making. Maybe you were eager to do a few things other than kick murderer ass; a snowball fight with Parker and/or Bones sounded like a pretty good idea right now—especially with Bones. Of course, you loved spending time with Parker, but a snowball fight with Bones would be out of this world. She would get all sexy karate girl on your ass, and you would love every moment of it.

But, unfortunately, it was a Thursday, and murderers weren't going to kick their own asses.

You jumped in the shower and quickly donned a suit with snowman socks to match your mood. You had a tie thrown loosely around your neck and were just starting to run gel through your hair when someone knocked on your door.

"Who's that?" you called, coming out of your bedroom and making your way towards the front door. You weren't expecting anyone, but it was possible that Wendy, the little old lady who lived in the apartment across the hall, had picked up your paper for you on her way in from walking Bernie, her beagle.

You swung the front door open without really hearing the answer and immediately realized that the woman who stood before you was surely no Wendy Peterson. She was a few decades younger and stunningly beautiful in a way that Wendy Peterson could never have been, even so early in the morning. She was dressed in a flattering brown business blazer and skirt with curly auburn hair dusting her shoulders, her blue eyes so bright and so pretty that for a moment all you wanted to do was just stare. But of course, you couldn't do that.

"Hey Booth," she greeted with a soft smile.

"Bones!" you exclaimed, surprised. You checked your watch. "It's…six-thirty in the morning. To what do I owe the pleasure of seeing your pretty face so bright and early?"

Her smile slipped a little at your mention of her 'pretty face' and you mentally slapped yourself for letting the adjective pass through your lips. The woman took serious offense to being objectified and you knew that. However, the slip was only temporary and she was apparently in a forgiving mood because, as she gave you a once-over, she suddenly beamed.

"You look like you're feeling a lot better," she remarked, not answering your question at all as she brushed past you and into your apartment. You closed the door behind her as she headed for the kitchen. It was only then that you noticed that she carried a tray with two coffees and a paper bag.

"What do you mean 'feeling a lot better'?" you asked, following her with your eye on that bag. Does she have one of those extra-gooey cinnamon rolls from Christy's Café in there? Oh God, Bones was the best, "When was I ever not feeling good?"

"Last night. I could tell," she replied, setting the coffee and the bag down on your table. She turned to face you, blue eyes filled with concern, "I'm not very good at interpreting others, Booth, but I know you. You seemed quite exhausted yesterday, and I can tell you haven't been sleeping very well for at least a week, probably longer."

Damn, you'd tried to keep her from noticing how tired you'd been feeling lately. Damn, damn, damn her and her stupid observation skills.

"How do you know that?" you asked.

"Well, while you can still be considered physically alluring to members of the opposite sex, there are uniform areas of pigmentation beneath each of your eyes, which can be an indicator of sleeplessness. Of course, they may also be an indicator of a few other things but, judging by the extra coffee you've been drinking every afternoon and the few times you've fallen asleep in my office, I think it's logical to conclude that you haven't been sleeping very well lately," she said this all very fast in her best squint voice, and you smiled. You had practically no idea what she was saying, but she sure looked cute saying it. Not that you would ever say that out loud.

"So you brought me coffee?"

To your amusement, her squinty chattering halted and she hesitated for a moment, glancing unsurely at the coffee and bag on the table. Was she blushing? Just barely.

Your smile got a little bigger. That was your Bones, all fast-talking and self-assured when she was spewing out facts, but when she had to explain the course of action she'd taken in a social situation, she got embarrassed. Not that it was all that obvious. You just knew her well enough to understand her pauses by now.

"Um…yes. You bring coffee to my apartment on occasion so I figured it's time for me to return the favor. And I was hoping it would help you wake up but…" she studied you intently and her cute lips curved into a smile, "It seems like you slept pretty well last night. The areas of pigmentation beneath your eyes aren't nearly as profound today as they were yesterday."

"As a matter of fact, I did sleep pretty well last night," Thanks to you and that scarf you wear that smells just as good as you do. You snatched the bag off of the table as she pulled her own coffee out of the tray and made for your sugar jar, "So what's in here, Bones, huh?"

"A cinnamon roll from Christy's," she answered just as you opened the bag and saw for yourself. One big, sweet, gooey, cinnamon delight in there, just for you. Bones, she was the best. She really was.

"Aww thanks, Bones. You didn't have to."

"It's not a problem, Booth. I wanted to," she froze with her arm reaching for the cabinet above her head, where she knew you kept the sugar, "What happened to your wall?"

…A sudden surge anger swept over you—anger at your exhaustion, at your inability to sleep, at that smell—and you couldn't help it. You whirled around and punched your wall furiously, your fist breaking through the plaster and leaving behind an ugly, gaping hole…

You hesitated. Telling Bones that you had spent a large portion of last night haunted by the smell of the corpse she'd worked on the day before and that the only thing that had finally lulled you to sleep was her scent that still lingered on her scarf was not a good idea. But she was looking at you now, those blue eyes once again flashing concern. Of course. Bones knew a hole in the wall that had been created by a fist going through it when she saw one. And, as if you needed proof that she suspected you of punching your own wall, her gaze briefly dropped down to your right hand, the knuckles of which were bruised.

Well, you couldn't lie. But you damn sure weren't telling the whole truth.

"I just ahhh…got a little frustrated. I'll fix it this weekend," you said, half-mumbling and not looking her in the face.

"That wasn't there when I was in here last night," she said carefully as you grabbed your own coffee and made a hurry for the sugar yourself, still not looking at her. Why, Bones? Why do you have to be so smart and ask so many questions? What is it with you and your need to know everything? Why can't you just leave it alone?

But of course, this was your Bones. And your Bones wouldn't be your Bones if she left things alone.

"What got you so upset after I left that you punched your own wall?" she asked curiously.

"It was…" you frantically racked your brain for a suitable lie and found none, "It was nothing, okay Bones? It's all over with and I'm gonna plaster up the wall this weekend. Don't worry about it."

Her gaze lingered on you for a few moments and you knew she wanted to know more than that. But she seemed to understand from your tone of voice that you were serious. You really weren't going to give her any details.

"Alright," she said finally, taking the sugar jar from your hands as you pulled it down out of the cabinet.

"Hey, Bones!" you exclaimed, annoyed, "I was actually gonna use that. I wasn't just pulling things down from cabinets for your personal pleasure."

"Well yeah but I was here first."

"No you weren't. If you were here first then how did the sugar jar end up in my hands?"

"Because I noticed the hole in your wall and got distracted," she said, gingerly shaking a miniscule amount of sugar into her coffee.

"Exactly. You snooze, you lose."

"I didn't say I was asleep, Booth. I said I was distracted."

You rolled your eyes.

"It's an expression, Bones. I know you weren't literally sleeping."

"Then why did you say I was?" she looked and sounded genuinely confused. You stared at her for a long moment—Since when have her little moments of ignorance actually become endearing to me?—before you heaved a heavy sigh.

"You know what? Never mind, Bones. Could you please just hurry up with the sugar so I can get some?"

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If she noticed that her scarf was missing—and she did, you were sure—she didn't say anything to you. And you weren't exactly going to be eager to hand it over to her. Unless she specifically asked if you had seen it, in which case you already had an excuse for not returning it planned—"Oh, is that your scarf? I thought Rebecca left it behind when she came over to pick up Parker after I took him to get ice cream on Wednesday afternoon."

But you hoped she would never ask. That scarf was magical, it was. For three weeks in a row you had spent night after night tossing and turning and having the most terrifying nightmares, but with that scarf near you—smelling just like her, all sweet and sensuous—you slept like a baby and the only dreams you had were pleasant dreams of her. And each morning when you woke up you felt just as good and rested as you had on that first Thursday morning. You didn't just want that scarf; you needed it in order to keep your sanity.

Unfortunately, it didn't take long for Bones's scent to begin to wear off. And by that time, you were positively sure that you would never be able to sleep without her invading your olfactory system again. You needed a way to get Bones's scent back on that scarf.

You tried to do it the easy way. While at her apartment doing what else but paperwork on Monday night, you excused yourself to go to the bathroom and spent three minutes going through her cabinets, trying to find her perfume. If you only knew what kind she wore you would be able to go out and buy it yourself. Then you could spritz a few drops on the stolen scarf—or anything else, for that matter; you might as well just douse your entire bed—whenever you so desired. But you couldn't find any perfume in her bathroom. She must keep it in her bedroom, and you knew that there was no possible excuse in the world that could get you alone in her bedroom for enough time to search for her perfume.

So you tried asking her.

"Hey Bones?" you asked randomly on Tuesday morning as the two of you sped off to a crime scene in the Tahoe. You were driving, of course, and she was sitting quietly in the passenger seat, looking pensive. She tore her eyes away from the window long enough to glance at you.

"What?"

"What perfume do you wear?"

Her eyes narrowed and she fixed you with a suspicious glare that could transform lesser men into pillars of salt.

"Why?"

"I don't know…" you muttered, trying your best not to sound too invested in the conversation, "I just…You smell really good today, and I was just…wondering…"

"I smell the same every day, Booth. Why are you only wondering today?" she demanded.

Damn Bones and her stupid damn fifty million questions. Why can't she ever just give an answer? Any other woman would interpret 'you smell really good today' as a compliment and just answer the damn question. But not Bones, no. Bones has to know everything before she can give an answer...

"Jeez, Bones, do I have to have an ulterior motive for everything?" you tried your best to sound annoyed, which wasn't hard considering that you actually were. A little, "I'm just trying to give you a compliment and make small talk, here, but if you don't want to talk then you can just say so."

That got her. It always did. Now she was going to question her reaction to this particular social situation and rethink her response. You felt a little bad about taking advantage of her inadequate social skills, but you needed an answer from her. This was a life or death situation.

"I…I…" she shook her head and let out a long breath, "I don't wear any perfume."

What?

She didn't wear perfume? That had to be a lie. There was no possible way that a woman's scent could be as sweet and heady and intoxicating and inducing of sex-thoughts as Temperance Brennan's. Not naturally.

No way Temperance Brennan didn't wear perfume. No way.

"What about lotion?" you were trying your best to sound nonchalant. She shook her head.

"I don't wear lotion, either…Well I do, but only on dates and formal events," she elaborated, "I'm a forensic anthropologist, Booth. A lot of my work involves seeing and smelling. If I wore perfume or scented lotion around the lab it would interfere with my findings. So I use mildly-scented shampoo at night, but that's it…"

After that conversation, you had only one choice: you would have to make Bones "forget" something else. So you did. Many times. She came to your apartment on Wednesday afternoon, and when she took her gloves off—they were white, matching the scarf—you discreetly slipped one into your back pocket. Before she left she spent a good five minutes searching for it, until you promised to let her know if and when it turned up. You did just that, five days later, when her scent faded from the glove as well. To replace it, you stealthily stole a tiny little tank top from her hamper. The tank top you kept even after her smell wore off, of course—you couldn't very well return it to her saying "I found this in my apartment." After that you stole another tank top. Then her hat. Then another glove.

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You sat in her living room on a Friday afternoon a few weeks later, waiting for her to change so the two of you could be off to a meeting with Caroline Julian.

"Bones!" you called after what seemed like an eternity of waiting, "Will you hurry up? I don't want Caroline to be angry with me because you spent twenty minutes getting dressed like a girl."

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" you heard her heels clicking rapidly down the hallway before she rushed into the living room, buttoning up her coat and tugging on her gloves, "And don't be dramatic, Booth. I was hardly in there for five minutes, much less twenty."

"To-may-to, to-mah-to," you said, standing up and ushering her out the front door, "You should know by now not to take too long when it's Caroline Julian waiting for you."

"I wasn't trying to," she insisted, hastily whipping her keys out of her purse so she could lock the door, "I just…I was looking for my other tank top to wear underneath this sweater. I seem to have misplaced quite a few things recently. I can't find two of my favorite tank tops or that white hat I always wear. And I keep losing my gloves and I haven't seen my white scarf in weeks…"

"Yeah, well maybe you're getting delusional with old age," you placed your hand at the small of her back and began walking her quickly towards the elevators as she fumbled to put her keys back in her purse.

"Booth!" she exclaimed, offended, "I am only thirty-two years of age! I would hardly call that old, or even middle aged!"

"It was a joke, Bones. I'm kidding, I'm kidding," you said distractedly, pushing the button for the elevator down several times in rapid succession.

"Pushing it that many times isn't going to make it come any faster, Booth," she chided, swatting your hand, "And anyway, all of my things keep disappearing whenever you're around. If I didn't know any better, I'd think that you were stealing them."

Um…shit.

You felt your face burn red and hoped like hell she didn't see it. Thank God she didn't.

You managed to play it off like everything was cool.

"I don't know if you didn't know this, Bones, but I have no interest whatsoever in any of your personal belongings. Why would I be stealing from you? Where is this damn elevator?"

"The elevator is coming, Booth, will you be patient? And I didn't say that you were stealing my things. I merely remarked on the coincidence of my things always disappearing whenever you're around."

"Yeah, well in that case maybe it isn't old age that's making you delusional after all. Maybe it's me," seeing her pointed glare, you shot her a teasing grin, "Maybe I'm just so…well structured and my features are so—what do you call it?—symmetrical that you can't help but get a little loopy whenever I come around…"

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Don't worry, people. There's much more good stuff to come soon. Just give me another day or so so I can do some rereading/editing, then I'll be good to go =)