I am speechless. Guys, really, the response for the last chap was incredible! I was kind of nervous, to tell the truth, but I'm dancing around right now!

Thank you! I can't mention every single person, but I hope you all understand I've read each and every comment and they all meant a lot to me!

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CHAPTER 19

When I began to shiver he held me tighter, but it was useless. The shaking didn't stop, and now was time to face the real world again. He reached out and grabbed his jacket.

"Put it on, Bones. You'll freeze."

I shook my head, giving it back to him. Only now was I beginning to feel the bruises I'd have tomorrow. Booth would have fared worse than I. Would he let me fix his back this time?

"Bones. Are you okay?" he sat up, managing to look concerned even though we were still both completely naked, and sitting side my side on the steps of the Jeffersonian. I couldn't believe it had just happened here. Here, out of every place where… here?

"Just cold. If we get back inside my lab coat is in my office."

"Okay. Quick, then." He stood and I let my eyes watch him, rivulets of rain running down his broad back and perfect gluteus. He looked like something out of a fantasy, not real.

I put my dress back on, without the bra or my panties, both of which were in no state to be worn again. The blue fabric clung to my body like a second skin, and really impeded my movements. Booth had put his pants back on as well, but his underwear was still on the floor. His shirt was completely torn.
"What are we going to do?" I asked, standing up and looking around for my shoes. The were a few steps down. He took so long to answer I though he hadn't heard me, first. The rain was still very loud.

"About… what?" he finally said.

"The party. Everyone worried about us."

"Oh, that. Let's just get warm again before we get hypothermia, Bones. We can decide about that after I've made sure you're not going to die of a cold in the United States after all." I smiled at the floor.

"Right."

He put his jacket on but not his shirt, and I began climbing the steps. The knowledge was shattering. All this… knowledge. I knew. I knew now. It would break me, this knowing. Knowing it all. All that I should know I knew! I'd seen, I'd felt, we'd… oh God…!

"Bones, wait up."

I turned around, now safe under the Jeffersonian's roof. How did he do it? I was about to have a profound personal crisis and he brought me back to reality with two words. Wait up? I'd just had the best sex of my life on the front steps to the entrance of my workplace and he said… wait up?

I waited.

And to my horror, realised why he'd asked me to.

He still stood right where we'd… right there. He was looking at the floor and I saw what was troubling him. Before I could run, however, he spoke. "I can't. I'm sorry, you have to come back out but I can't touch them, I can't deal with it if I… nope. Not happening, Bones."

I ran outside again and grabbed the bra and panties off the floor. I didn't even glance at him when I passed him because I couldn't, but he waited for me. Once the two items were firmly balled up and in my hand, we walked side by side and the automatic doors opened for us.

*

Any other time, I would have flat-out asked. "Does this have serious ramifications on our relationship?" or "Do you think we'll be able to work together again after all that has happened?", maybe "Can our partnership continue to function flutenly given our sexual attraction?" or simply "What's going to happen, Booth?"

But I didn't. Something held me back, and I resented it because this wasn't me.

"Bones… I think I'm going to wait here, okay?"

We had just passed the platform, and Booth stopped walking.

"Why?"

"Another step… no, I can't. You… I can't. Just go change and…"

"Booth, what's wrong?" I turned to look at him, wearing only his jacket and not his shirt, still dripping water too close to my precious equipment.

"Nothing. The… you. The dress. The water. Everything." For a moment it felt like it had outside again: time stood still, the distance between us was infinitesimal, it would be so easy to give in…

Then he turned away. "Go change, Bones."

I nodded and strode away, heels clicking loudly with every step I took. I wrenched open the door to my office and quickly took the lab coat hanging from the hook next to the door. No underwear and no clothes… should I take off the dress?

The cold was making me shiver again, and I decided the dress would need to go. Security cameras pointed everywhere in here, so I'd have to change inside the closet. Fantastic.

Once I was done, I buttoned every single possible stitch and look at myself in the mirror. My eyes looked like I'd been crying ink, and my hair hung in strands around my face. I tried to remove some of the black make-up and managed not to appear quite so much like a clinically insane woman, then quickly went back outside.

*

"Hey."

"Hi."

We stood facing each other, the dim lights still too bright.

"We should converse." I said firmly.

He burst out laughing.

"What?"

"We should converse." He mimicked my serious tone and then started laughing again. "I'm sorry, Bones. You're just…" the laughter slowly died as his expression filled with something I didn't understand. "You're…"

"I meant it, Booth."

"Yeah. Sorry, you're right. We…" he smiled again. "We should talk."

And yet neither of us seemed to be able to say anything.

"You've always made it abundantly clear that there can't ever be an emotional connection between us, Booth." I said flatly.

"I…"

"And that you don't want one. Many times, you've said it. I understand." He didn't speak, he simply looked at me. I sensed something was wrong… I'd forgotten something… oh! "And I agree, of course." I added quickly.

"Right. Well, you've also said it about a million times, Bones."

I felt like I was being chastised.

"Well, yes, but you…"

"Just once, Bones."

"What?"

"I've only said that to you once."

"Oh."

Was something happening? I wished I could ask Booth, who was the person I'd usually turn to, but he was the one person I couldn't. Was something changing right before my eyes? Was this a moment?

"So we agree?" I said hesitantly.

"Agree on what?"

"That there can't ever be an emotional connection… that there isn't one. That today was…"

"Don't say mistake." His tone made me jump. I hadn't been about to say it anyway, but he scared me with the sharpness in his voice.

"No, that's not what I was going to say. Today was something that can't happen again… correct?"

"Right. I just want you to know…" he a ran hand through his hair, and the water flew off in every direction; including me. I wiped my face with the sleeve of the coat and he smiled. "I want you to know that I…" he took a deep breath. "You…"

"Explain." I asked quietly, hoping he'd understand. I needed him to explain.

"Emotional connection." He suddenly said. "Feelings, attraction, all that… I… you don't feel that way about me, right?"

Once again time froze, but for a different reason now. I thought we'd aleady established this. Why was he making me lie over and over again? Didn't he know that eventually, because everything happens eventually, he'd catch me and find out the truth? I looked at him but he wasn't looking at me, he was looking at a point somwhere above my shoulder.

"You don't." He answered himself. "We've always been just partners. I knew this." And almost to himself, he added with a rush of feeling. "I knew this."

I didn't know what to do or say. Was it lying if I didn't contradict his false statements?

"Friends, though, right?" and finally he lowered his gaze and I could answer something that had basis in truth.

"Of course we're friends, Booth."

He nodded, smiling.

"So today…"

"Now…"

"Only once." He echoed. I didn't notice, but my arms instinctively hugged my chest as if to protect my body from a blow that didn't come. Or had already come.

"So… we'll stay friends? Partners?"

"Yeah, Bones. Of course. What would I do if you weren't there to correct my every sentence?"

"I don't correct your every sentence. I merely try and improve your scientific vocabulary."

"Right, because your normal vocabulary is already so well-honed."

"That's how you help me."

"I know. I mean, Charlize Theron, Bones!"
He chuckled, and I smiled sheepishly.

In the silence I heard the distant sounds of the party. Low music drifted down here from upstairs, and the clink of glasses, the meaningless chatter in the background. I raised my eyebrows in question.

"Nah. Let's just go home. I don't feel like explaining…"

"Me neither." I said vehemently.

"Great. Let's go, Bones." He turned and I followed him, feeling the uncomfortable roughness of my lab coat against my bare skin as I walked. The heels clicked on, unaware of what had happened.

"Bones, before we go…"

He stopped walking and turned around. His chest glimmered in the dim light, and when he moved the water shone. I prepared myself for what came now. "… before we go, Bones… this meant something."

I hadn't expected this.

"This meant…" he took a deep breath. "… something, okay? This wasn't just sex. This wasn't meaningless. Not something I can easily forget either, do you understand? I'll be okay, we'll be fine, but this wasn't nothing. This was something."

"I know. You're right, remember? I know."

He smiled, but his eyes remained dark.

"Booth… the center." I said softly.

"Yeah, that's what I meant. The center."

We were one. We were together at the center of so many things… and we had to hold. Not just for the things around us… but for us.

In a breath he put his arms around me and held tight. This hug was different than the rest, because one of his hands caressed my hair, and I buried my face on the hollow in his neck, the same place where I'd kissed him such a short time ago. I breathed in his scent and thanked his invisible entity for still being able to hug him. Because I didn't believe it could hear me. I didn't believe it existed…

But he did.

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I hope the chap made up for the wait! And nooow… I feel like the past few chaps have been full of NOT-fluff. Most of the story is fluff-less, but these have been definite NONE-fluffy chaps. Fluff is healthy. I think we should fluff some fluff for the next chap, don't you?

Or do you?

Tell me!