AN: Hope I made all the suggestions from my suggestors happy in some twisted way. Here's what we've all been waiting for: the kiss scene. This chapter is really short, but I promise I'll make up for it come chapter five.

Chapter Four: Christmas Eve (Part Two)

* * *

Brennan and Booth looked up together, each wearing similar expressions of fear.

"Uh oh." her head slowly made it's way to level and looked squarely at Booth.

"Mistletoe." he replied.

* * *

"Come on, Seeley. Plant one on her!" Jared encouraged from a non-deadly distance.

Booth gave his brother a vicious look, blatantly showing how much the chant had helped. Brennan stared at her socks that were now wet from stepping in the puddles their boots had created. Both of them were a flushed red and incoherently stammering.

They seemed to have the same idea simultaneously and they kissed each other on the cheek.

"Oh, come on! What was that?!" he complained.

"You're not making this any easier, you jerk!" Booth countered.

"Booth," Brennan finally spoke up, her usually pale face redder than a tomato. "just…get it over with." Her voice was cracking either under the weight of either embarrassment or nerves. He couldn't tell which.

Booth stared her squarely in the eye, trying to convey his thoughts to her. She gave him a look that said she understood what he was trying to get across. This obviously wasn't the way he wanted to do this. He'd been thinking about the mere possibility of it since he'd rescued her from that pack of cannibalistic dogs. Now, it burned his brain to think about in her presence. It was as though she might have some sort of mind-reading ability and use it to find out and kick his ass for it.

He looked at their grinning, moronic spectators before he looked Brennan in the eye. It didn't appear to bother her that his family was standing there, waiting for the union of lips. Unknown to him, she'd been thinking the same thoughts for a long time, too. Brennan could recall numerous times where she thought that he was literally this close to kissing her, all of which went denied. She remembered dreaming about the moment where he would finally cross that stupid line of his. However, Brennan was far too rational to think anything of these instances and brushed them of to say that it had been her "biological urges". She was bound to have a few seeing as she hadn't been with anyone since Sully.

They were still standing there, just staring at one another. The annoying grins from the audience grew into looks of encouragement, then to a face that said 'hurry up'. Parker and Michael had come in behind the two of them and began removing their wet winter clothes.

"What's going on?" the small voice asked.

Amelia replied, "We're waiting for your father and Dr. Brennan to kiss."

Parker got a smile on his face. "Oh, that's easy. All you gotta do is this…" the boy walked in behind his father and gave him a good, unsettling shove to his father's backside. It wasn't enough to topple Booth over, but it was enough to push him into Brennan's lips.

It was slow and passionate, the way it should have been in both minds. The only thing complain-worthy was that it was over way too fast. Barely ten seconds after it started, it was already over. Their audience applauded even as Booth lifted his lips from hers.

Brennan's cell phone rang, Booth's dad needed help hauling the tree in off the truck. There wasn't time to talk about the events of those few minutes. It would have to be put off for a until later.

* * * *

The day went on as if nothing had happened between Booth and Brennan. They acted nonchalant and normal (well, as normal as these two got), all the while both couldn't stop their thoughts from floating back to that serendipitous kiss. The tree was decorated, the stockings were hung, and the holiday food was eaten. No one else gave it a second thought, brushing it off as an embarrassing blip in their lives. It was no little spot to them.

Later that night, everyone was gathered around the living room watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Brennan knew it was a movie for the kids, but found herself looking up from the book she'd been reading several times, only to ultimately put it aside. She remembered it was the book that her father had read to her every Christmas Eve until she was fourteen. He probably would've when she was fifteen if he and her mother hadn't left.

Almost as if Booth had read her mind, he wrapped an arm around her and gave her shoulder a friendly squeeze. She looked up at the charm smile that was radiating on his face. Brennan didn't stop the grin that came to her own lips. At least I'm with living people this year, and not some Argentinean mass-gravesite. She thought it was a refreshing change.

Bedtime apparently came too soon for the miniature Booth boys as they begged not to go to bed.

"Daddy, please! Can't we stayup just a little longer?" they pleaded with the respective adult figures.

"You guys want Santa to come, don't you?" Jared asked them both.

They nodded together.

"Then you're going to have to go to sleep. Santa won't come if you munchkins are still awake." Christine replied.

The boys looked at each other and figured just as much. Michael obediently followed his father up the stairs while Parker came and buried his head in Brennan's shoulder. Booth laughed.

"You know, you're gonna have to go to bed at some point if you want Santa to come, buddy." he reasoned.

"I know, Dad. I was just wondering if Dr. Bones could tuck me in?" Parker asked with wide, Bambi eyes.

Booth looked at Brennan, who didn't seem bothered or skittish to the idea of putting his son to bed. "That's up to Bones." he replied though. His partner had been doing wonderfully at acting normal, but he still didn't want to put her in an awkward position that she might not want.

Brennan looked down at his pleading eyes. "Sure, let's go."

Parker grinned and dragged her by the hand up the stairs. She knew that he was anxious to go to bed so "Santa" would come, but still thought that it was strange that he wanted to stay up just two minutes ago. That's how children are, Tempe. Don't question it, it's all about instant gratification in the end, the voice in her head told her to clam up.

He crawled up onto the bed by himself while she pulled back the covers. Her maternal instincts, if she believed she had any, kicked in when she tucked the covers around the squirming boy.

"Dr. Bones?" Parker half-whispered and half-whined.

"Yeah, Park?" she met his eyes while she sat on the bed next to him.

"Do you like Daddy?" he asked.

Brennan chuckled slightly at the innocent question, "Yeah, Parker. I wouldn't be friends with him if I didn't like him."

"No, not like that. I mean, do you like like him?" he emphasized.

She opened her mouth as if she were going to ask him something, then closed it and thought about what he meant by that. Parker had obviously meant something stronger than friendship. It wasn't a question that Brennan took lightly and often denied the real answer to. However, in the presence of the famous Booth charm smile and genetic brown eyes, she felt a odd sense of honesty wash over her when she spoke.

"Yes, I do." she kindly left out the scientific speech about endorphins and biological urges.

"Why don't you guys act like you do?" he pulled the blanket up.

Brennan was stumped. "I-I don't understand what you mean."

Parker groaned, "Okay; he likes you, you like him. Why don't you guys act like you like each other like that?"

She didn't know that the word 'like' could be used so much in two sentences. "Do you mean why don't we act all…" she didn't quite know how to put it. "lovey dovey?" she'd heard Angela use the phrase before. It seemed appropriate.

"Yeah, like that." he confirmed.

"Parker," Brennan couldn't wrap her large brain around what the four-year-old was trying to horse-shoe her with. She decided to go with denial again. "Your dad doesn't think of me as more than a friend. Does that make sense?" she squinted (ha).

"No. He likes you. He told me so." Parker said definitively.

She sighed. When did all of this suddenly come out of the blue? Booth had never made the slightest indication that he thought more of her than a friend and partner. Well, Brennan thought, there was the time he saved you from man-eating dogs…and that time in the dinner where he was talking about that "breaking the laws of physics" nonsense…and that time that he knew all of your passwords before you did…and then today with the mistletoe. Where the hell have you been?! There were plenty of opportunities that could've happened but didn't. Swallow your pride and talk to him already!!

"I know, I know." she shouted inside her head. "That's something that your father and I are going to have to talk about. It's not something I expect you to worry about." she finally found the courage to trust her voice.

"Okay. Can I have a hug?" he opened his arms for her.

Brennan laughed and met the boy's request. He wrapped his arms around her neck patted her dark-brown hair softly.

"I love you, Bones." he whispered. She felt tears sting behind her eyelids as she forced them back. She tried to explain it anthropologically, telling herself it was a natural reaction to her feminine, motherly instincts, but failed to convince herself completely with science. For the first time since she was fifteen, she felt loved unconditionally. Who knew that one small child could fill that void she'd felt since her abandoned childhood?

"I love you, too, Parker." she rubbed his back soothingly. There wasn't anything else she could or wanted to say. "Get some sleep or Santa's going fly right over this place." she smiled. Brennan didn't know when she started lying to children. It was probably around the same time that Parker figured out that she was in love with Booth.

It worked, though. The boy giggled and buried his head underneath the pillow, hardly able to wait until morning came. She patted the lump in the bed and turned out the light. Brennan watched for a moment as the lump settled down into slow, rhythmic breaths. She then gently closed the door and allowed herself a minute to pull her thoughts together.

She should've seen it years ago when Angela was badgering her to go for it and ask Booth out. She, however, thought wiser of it at the time and decided not to get into a relationship with guy that she would later work with so closely. Brennan thought that Booth was just being a jerk when he would refuse to take her out into the field if it was dangerous and avoidable. She'd attributed it to his alpha-male qualities to protect those weaker than himself. Now, the reasons for his actions were more distinguishable and made more sense. All the times he didn't want her to have a gun, guard her from sociopaths, and left her behind at the lab were because…he loved her.

Brennan couldn't make sense of it. She decided the best thing to do was to talk to him about this (duh…). She wiped away any stray tears that might have escaped her eyes and any other evidence to indicate she was crying. She took a deep, shuddering breath and walked towards the stairs.

It wasn't until now that she realized almost all of the lights were turned off. When she was at the bottom of the stairs, she saw Booth sitting on the couch tinkering with what looked like a child's toy. The only light was from the multi-colored lights of the Christmas tree. All thoughts flew from her head as she took notice of what he was wearing. "Booth, what are you wearing?"

Booth hushed her, "I'm Santa, just in case those two get any hair-brained ideas to come down here. Parker asleep?" he whispered.

She was too lost in his outfit. He sported a red and white fluffy coat, pants, and hat. Black boots were pulled over his feet and a white beard muffled his words slightly. "Huh? Oh, yes. He's asleep." she whispered with a chuckle.

"Ha, ha. Very funny. Anyway, you and I are on toy arrangement duty. We get to put together the hard stuff and put the rest under the tree." he gestured goofily with a screw-driver.

"Booth, I think we need to talk about something first." she tentatively walked toward the couch.

He nodded and gently put the screw-driver down. "Can I just say one thing first?"

"Sure."

"It's 12:01. Merry Christmas, Bones." he grinned.

"Merry Christmas, Booth." she smiled.

They looked each other square in the eye, smiles still lighting them slightly and noticable in the dim light. This was the moment each was waiting for. The line was enjoyably crossed. Neither could tell what the other was thinking. No matter what happened here tonight, the was a whole crap-load of secrets that were gonna come kicking and screaming to the light.

"Okay. Let's talk."

****

I know, I just keep making you guys angrier and angrier with me and my cliffys. I had to do this one though so I keep my mind straight. Technically a new day has started so I need make a new chapter for it.

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