Hey gorgeous readers!

How has you week been?

New chapter (Thank god, you're thinking, when the hell was she going to get around to posting again? Slacker!)

I know. I'm sorry. Beating myself up about it ;)

Anyhow - Enjoy!

Xx G

17. Shared Thoughts

Hodgins glared down the barrel of his microscope. He adjusted the slide. Turned the magnification dial.

"Anything?" Wendell asked, crossing and recrossing his arms. "Can't you just play a game of 'spot the difference'?"

Hodgins smirked. "Y'know, if it were that easy, I wouldn't have a job."

"Humph," Wendell sounded in agreement. "Do you still need me, man? If you don't, I should probably go and continue prepping the solider for the exhibit."

"Ah, that's right," Hodgins hummed, squinting into the depths of his machine, "that's the exhibit on this Saturday night, right?"

"Yeah. Anyway, Clarke wants to swap back, so I'll go and work on that. Later man." Wendell saluted briefly, and disappeared out the door.

"He-llo there," the scientist said a few moments later, vocal expression decorated with triumph. He swabbed the sample. "I'd like to see you explain away this one, little miss Mary."

-~B&B~-

"So the soil samples are a match?" Cam pulled on a pair of latex gloves.

Hodgins nodded smugly. "You betcha. King of The Lab?"

"Pretty close, Hodgins. This case would be dead without you," she admitted.

"Was that a compliment?"

"Don't push it."

Brennan strode into the room, a lilting glow added to her presence.

Cam thought to mention the change in their co-worker. Decided that it was best to leave it.

"What have you found?" Brennan asked, a hopeful quality hanging onto her words.

"The soil particles on our victim, match those taken at Mary Rushmore's place," Hodgins told her.

"Can you confirm that that was where he was killed?"

Cam and Hodgins nodded.

"Is that grounds enough for an arrest?" Brennan then asked, crossing her arms.

"Depends. We don't actually have any evidence that it was Mary. The murder occurred on her property, but up until very recently, it also belonged to Evan himself, and as far as we know, it could have been anyone." Cam rubbed her forehead - an action to relieve tension. "A crazy fan...jealous ex..."

"But we know that Mary did it," Brennan stated bluntly. "Logical conjuncture concludes that Mary murdered."

"No, we don't, Dr Brennan. That is an assumption. A gut feeling. Evidence that we may have on Mary, could mean nothing; he could have hugged his wife the day that he died, and one of her loose hairs could have caught on it," her boss said with an ounce of irritation. Here was Brennan, always so opposed to 'going with her gut', yet here she was doing exactly that.

"I highly doubt a disagreeing couple, that wanted a divorce would be hugging," Brennan muttered, more so to herself than anyone else. Placing her hands on her hips, she eyed the two other occupants of the room. "What do we do now?" she asked, at loss.

"I talk to Booth," Cam replied, somewhat warily. "You don't have to call him."

"Why not? I did have lunch with him yesterday, so it isn't as if I don't want to talk to him..."

"I have to talk to him anyway. I'll do it."

Brennan frowned slightly, but didn't say another word.

Cam left.

"Does Cam have some sort of beef with me, or something?" Brennan asked Hodgins lowly, when she was sure Cam was out of earshot.

"You two are fighting?"

"That's what I was asking you..."

"I'm not getting between anything." Her friend placed his hands up in a defensive posture. "If there's something going on between the two most powerful women in this institute, then I am Switzerland, okay?"

"But you're not Switzerland," Brennan replied in confusion, "You are Jack Hodgins. I don't understand..."

"It's a saying, Dr B. Just a saying."

"What does it mean? Besides the country name definition, of course."

"When all the countries were at each other's throats in the World Wars, Switzerland was right in the middle of them all, but remained neutral. When I tell you that I am Switzerland in a catfight, I mean that I am staying out of it. I'm not taking sides."

Brennan nodded in understanding. "Thank you for elaborating."

"Sure." Hodgins fiddled with a pen on his desk, eyes down and face twisted.

"I didn't even realise we were fighting..." Brennan posed thoughtfully, rubbing her neck."What's the matter?" she asked in addition, watching him carefully, cataloguing his body language.

"That matter? Nothing is the matter. Nothing. Don't you have work to do?"

Brennan folded her arms across her chest. "I may not be apt at reading body language, but I have known you long enough to understand yours. Something is on your mind, Dr Hodgins. Please, share."

"It doesn't matter, really. It's just a thought..."

"Any thought is a thought," Brennan said, more quietly. "What is yours?" The vague response he had given, indicated that she had suspected correctly. She wondered whether Booth would have been proud of her effort to read emotional expressions.

"Are you and Booth together?" Hodgins fired quickly, wanting to purge the question before it suffocated him.

Brennan smiled.

It wasn't the usual one that she wore, every time someone would make the assumption that she had a romantic relationship with her partner. It was almost giddy. It gave an answer, though. It explained her radiant glow.

Hodgins felt a wave of giddiness himself, joyous for his long-time friend. "Really?" he asked disbelievingly, cracking a smile himself.

"I won't accept your question as a truth," she told him softly, fiddling with her shirt coyly, "I won't deny either, though."

"I'm happy for you. It's about time."

Her body shook slightly with silent laughter; almost as if it were her gesture of agreement.

"I have work to do," Hodgins said after a pause, "notes to jot and stuff...but I'll talk to you later, okay?"

She nodded, and went to exit. "Please send me a digital documentation of the results you found," she requested, over her shoulder.

"Course."

"Okay." She left abruptly then, knowing that she would have made their encounter awkward in one way or another, had she stayed any longer.

When his colleague had left, Hodgins couldn't conceal a beam from spreading across his face, and a small smirk from escaping his lips.

His wife entered the room to this image of good humour from her husband.

"What's with you?" she asked, coming to his side and rubbing a hand along his back, the other on her own abdomen.

"Bren is with Booth." His eyes twinkled warmly.

Although she had suspected as much, Angela couldn't conceal her delight, nor curiosity either. "For real? I mean, did she say so?"

"She said that she wouldn't contradict it, but she wasn't confident either...in saying that they were absolutely together. Then again, it has only been a month since Hannah and Booth split..."

"Hannah-shmannah," Angela scoffed, waving a hand dismissively. "You know it doesn't take Booth long to move on."

"Ah...Angie? He never moved on from Bren."

"Yeah but that's different. They were never really together anyway. Regardless though, whether those two admit it or not, they are soul mates. Of course he would never get over Bren." Her eyes drifted dreamily.

Hodgins smiled and brushed the length of his wife's cheek. "You believe in everyone, don't you? Everyone gets their happy ending in your eyes, love."

She smiled gently in reply. "Jack, let's be honest here; Booth started going out with the woman Katherine, not long after something went on between him and Bren. Hannah, although very pretty and sweet, was really nothing more than a diversion in their relationship. Bren and Booth will work this out pronto – you just see."

-~B&B~-

"So why am I only finding out about this now?" Cam demanded, trying to maintain a serious tone, although deep down, he could hear that she was excited. Genuinely happy for them both.

"I promise, Cam. You are the first to hear; on my end, anyway. No doubt Bones has told Angela, and she has gone and told Hodgins. It will be out to the press by tomorrow, of course." Booth swapped his phone to his other ear, and pressed it to his shoulder so he could flip through the case file. Again.

"So, it's official?"

"Well..." Booth grimaced slightly, not knowing how to explain the situation exactly. "You and I both know that Bones doesn't do casual, or secret, and we both know that this won't be screamed to the roof tops...but we haven't actually discussed the status of our relationship..." he trailed off, unsure. "I'm sorry, this is getting awkward for you. I'll stop."

"Honestly, Seeley. You're my friend; this isn't weird. Or awkward. If anything, it's probably good that you have someone to talk to about this, right? I mean, at least you don't have to talk to Swee-"

"Don't say his name, Cam. At the moment, he's probably the last person who needs to know about this. I know him, and I know that his version of logic and 'words of wisdom', if anything, would probably only throw Bones off, and send her into a whole wave of reasons why we couldn't be together."

"Fair enough; I wouldn't be blabbing anything unstable to him either."

"Bones and I are not unstable, Camille."

"Just be careful, Big Man. You might say that, but you have to take care of her. Give her time to adjust. If you go into this way to confidently, you could lose her. You hurt her once, and I think she is still licking her wounds, so just...think about it, okay?"

"She hurt me too."

"Seeley."

"Huh."

"We're not in grade five anymore, comparing battle scars; please, do the right thing."

"And I will," Booth sighed, complying. He knew that she was right. "Okay. I have some work to do, so I thought-" he broke off when he looked up to see a smiling Brennan in the doorway of his office. "I'll catch you later, okay? You know the drill; call me if you hear anything else." He disconnected.

Back in lab, Cam smiled to herself contently, having no doubt what had caused him to cut off.

Booth, on the other hand, pushed aside his files and stood to meet his partner.

"Hey there," he greeted, trying to side a strange nervous flutter. For a fleeting moment, he realised that that feeling he experienced, was not foreign; he felt it almost every time he saw her. If it wasn't the giddiness, it was sexual frustration. Either way, it was a good.

"Hi," she breathed, swinging a leg slightly. "I was in the lab...and I had nothing to do, and so I was just sitting there thinking, and it...Do you want to have coffee with me?"

He laughed. "I'd love to."

"Have you got time, though?"

"I'll make time."

"Keep on pushing your schedule for the case like this, and they're going to start wondering whether anyone is solving it." She smoothed a hand against his shirt.

"Well I am sure they can wait for ten minutes. There can be no time limit for justice."

She smiled shyly at his quote of her own words.

"Come on," he beckoned, shrugging into his blazer. "Let's go."

They left the Hoover, and strolled towards the reflecting pool, where their coffee cart stood, as it always did.

"I might have accidentally let it slip to Hodgins that you and I were...on the way to entering a monogamous relationship," Brennan admitted as they walked, putting her hands in her pockets.

"Accidentally?"

"Well, I started smiling like a fool; I don't think I was convincing him of otherwise."

"You couldn't smile like a fool," he assured her dotingly, brushing her hand with his.

"I am certain I could," she told him surely, pulling a face. "You weren't there."

"I should have been," he smirked.

They arrived, ordered their coffees, and in the mean time, they stood off to the side.

She threw her hands up. "No doubt, wherever I am, my facial profile will deceive me. Soon the whole world is going to know about us. How do I turn it off?"

"That's not horrible, Bones," he said warmly, taking her hands in his, "you're experiencing deep, emotional feelings. You can't turn them off."

"It isn't love, Booth. It is a very large amount of dopamine and serotonin stimulating me." The man passed over her latte, which she accepted, and Booth's fragrant black.

"Really?" He tossed over a note for their drinks. "Keep the change," he told the man, waving a nonchalant hand.

"Yes," Brennan answered singularly as they walked away.

"Fine." He moved so closely to her, that she thought he might as well have been welded to her. After placing a deep, chaste kiss on her lips, he stood back.

She flushed.

"So what was that?" he asked huskily, staring into the depths of her sincere blue eyes.

"T-that was..."

He placed a hand over her heart.

"Do you feel that?" he whispered, almost so quietly she didn't here.

"Feel what?" she stammered, heart pounding and ears ringing dizzily.

"Your heart."

"I can-"

"You pulse is racing. Your eyes are glowing. You can't stop smiling. I bet you think about me, when we're not together-"

"But I did that anyway," she interrupted quickly.

He pressed the fingers of his free hand, not holding the coffee, to her lips. "You can't deny that feeling of warmness all over you," he continued gently. "That isn't just any old chemical, Bones. This isn't science. This is you falling in love."

She smiled. "Maybe it is."

"Maybe?"

She shrugged, and her smile grew wider.

"I give that beautiful speech," he said, beginning to walk again, "and you give me a maybe."

"Shall I never satisfy you, Mr Booth?"

"Maybe."

She reached out and tugged his ear affectionately.

As they moved back towards Hoover, his phone paged.

Hissing, he held it to his ear. After slipping it back into his pocket when he was done, he looked at his partner ruefully.

"Cops out Mary Rushmore's way caught her trying to skip town," he told her quickly, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"For someone who is in possession of quite a lot of money, and is the prime suspect in a murder investigation, you would think she had more brains than to leave town; it only raises more suspicion on her behalf."

"Do you want to know what I think?"

"What?"

"I think that she didn't kill them."

Brennan gawked. "Have you lost your mind? Evidence points at her, Booth. She is weird, and..."

"But that's just it; yes, she is weird. Yes there is a hair and a soil sample that points the finger towards her...but I don't think she did it. And when we put fourth this profile towards Sweets, I think you'll find that he might just agree with me."

"So you believe Mary Rushmore didn't do it." It wasn't a question Brennan posed, it was a statement.

"Yes." He seemed confident.

"Is that just because she looks like Hannah?" she supposed inoffensively.

"What? No! What the hell, Bones?"

"I was just wondering!" Brennan replied defensively. "It appears that your personal life intertwines more and more with your work these days; I just wonder whether your opinion on the case may be swayed because the prime suspect looks like your ex lover."

Booth emptied the rest of his coffee into his mouth, swallowed, and threw the cup neatly into a nearby rubbish bin.

"Bones, I can understand why you would think that my personal life gets caught up in work, but that is no reason to run off on tangents suggesting that my professional judgment is tainted by the appearance of this woman. I have a hunch, and nothing more. I made it pretty clear yesterday that Hannah is no longer in my life, and I never intend her to be again, so I can't believe that you still believe that I am tied to her."

"I'm sorry. But my conjuncture is not ridiculous. It was merely a logical suggestion. It makes sense."

"Well, suggest less. You only get snapped at, when you make the wrong one." He continued walking at a hasty pace.

She remained.

After a few strides, he realised that she wasn't following him anymore. He turned. "What's the matter?" he demanded.

She exhaled sharply through gritted teeth. "I'm sick of fighting. I'm sick of having these great moments, and then having them ruined. I understand that I overstepped the boundaries, suggesting that you were conflicted on this case because of the way Mary looks, but I am sick to death of you snapping at me whenever I mention Hannah's name. She was not my fault. Cut it out. If you and I are going to make a relationship work, then some things have got to change." Brennan took one last sip of her coffee, and shoved it into another bin. "Okay?"

"Okay." He took a deep, calming breath, and a serene composure melted into his presence. "But you have gotta understand that, yeah, I get defensive about Hannah, because a great part of me, kicks myself for ever allowing her into my life. I will talk about her, but she is in the past. It has been a month, and the sting of her betrayal is still raw, but you have got to let me get over it, okay? It feels as though every time you bring her up, you're trying to force a reaction from me. It's like you want me to feel sorry in front of you. Do you want me to apologize? Is that it? Do you want me to apologize for-"

His phone buzzed again.

Of course, Brennan thought irately, it always has to sound at just the right moment.

Booth answered. Hummed a few responses. Fired a few questions.

Brennan, whom would normally hang of every word, was too lost in her own thoughts to hardly pay attention.

When he finished, Booth pointed a finger at her.

"This conversation, isn't over," he told her sternly, waving the finger in a gesture. "I really have to go back, but don't think I am going to forget this. I will find you."

She nodded understandingly. "Do you need my assistance? Is it anything that you need to consult with me about?"

Booth shook his head. "Blake's coming into questioning. Sweets is observing, and I am interrogating. You don't need to come."

"But I always do."

Booth shifted uncomfortably. "Yes, you do-"

"So why can't I come? I might be of use to you. I might be able to loosen his tongue-" She cut of abruptly when Booth grasped her shoulders.

"You are not and interrogation tool," he said roughly, but softened when he read the alarm and regret in her eyes. "I really don't like idea of your seducing a psychotic, seedy freak."

"I wouldn't be seducing," she argued, completely missing where he was coming from. "I'd be enticing. Or 'bending his arm', with a hint of beguilement if you would prefer-"

"No." Booth almost growled.

"Why not?"

"Because I won't have you putting yourself out there like that."

"Why? You have no sway over what course of action I choose to-"

"For heaven's sakes, Bones. I will not watch you be a tease for that creep, okay? I won't. You're mine, and no one else..."

She shook off his hold. "You don't own me!" Her chest rose with the heavy breaths she took. She was upset.

"You know what I mean," he whispered almost inaudibly, eyes burning protectively. Without another word, he walked away.

She stood paralysed, hands hanging uselessly by her sides as she watched him walk away.

No chapter comment at the bottom of this one: but you are more than welcome to leave one. =)

(How about the new promo for season seven, huh? Cute! If there's some form of news relating to Bones, I'm bound to sniff it out!)

(I will quickly thank my reviewers and new favouriters and alerters – thank you guys!)

Next chapter will be along soon =)

Xx G