A/N: Thank you, once again, for all the wonderful reviews and alerts. There are four chapters left, including this one. Enjoy!
~o~ Chapter Eleven - Our Past, Their Present, Your Future ~o~
Jack Hodgins wants to kiss Seeley Booth. He wants to take his face in his hands and tell him, 'Thank you, my friend, for finally manning up. Thank you for inspiring my crazy, wonderful Angela and I to do the same. I stand here before you a married man, and I owe it all to you, dude. Now pucker up…'
Okay, so it's not all because of Booth, and were he to actually attempt a lip-lock with the G-man he's fairly certain he'd be shot, but the love he has for his friend right now knows no bounds. Hey, he's a metrosexual kinda guy.
As an extension of this brotherly love, he can't help thinking that no-one deserves an intimate island getaway more than said friend and Dr. B, and he can't help discussing this fact with Angela at every available opportunity; even at times and in places where they really shouldn't. Like the forensic platform in the Medico-Legal lab, shortly before lunch this sunny Tuesday morning.
He is not entirely to blame. There's a reason why discretion ain't Angela's middle name. He is near to completing the painstaking task of cataloguing slides from their latest case when she sidles up to him, her eyes alight.
"So it's eleven thirty five," she announces, tapping her watch. "That makes it five thirty five in paradise. Wonder what our little love birds are up to, because you just know they're not sleeping." There's the customary flick of an eyebrow and he's putty in her hands, leaning in far closer than he should be if they want to keep this whole marriage thing a secret a moment longer.
"I can think of a few things," he murmurs.
"Oh god," Angela whispers. "We have to go on honeymoon, as soon as they get back."
"Hell yes," he agrees, stealing a kiss and then looking around quickly to make sure they remain undetected, his face heating.
Angela chuckles. "Smooth, babe."
He clears his throat, turning back to his work station. "So, uh… what's on your agenda today?"
"Don't spoil my fun," she whines, walking two fingers up his back. "I want to talk about…" she lowers her voice to a soft purr "…wandering along a diamond-white beach. Soft sand." She grins. "Palm fronds kissing the water. Sun, sea, sarongs… salty skin."
"Oh god," Hodgins breathes, gripping the edge of his desk.
"I am so jealous of Brennan right now," Angela confides. "What I wouldn't give to be lying on a beach, hot guy at my side…"
Hodgins' ardor dies. "Hey, just any hot guy?"
She chuckles. "No not just any."
He gives her a satisfied smile and returns to his work.
"Although," she muses, "I'll bet Booth looks great in those little skimpy trunks."
"That's it," Hodgins snaps, throwing his pen to his desk and tugging her to him, his hands at her waist. "Just as soon as Booth and Brennan return from their romantic getaway you and I are on the next flight. They don't get to have the monopoly on sneaking off together to the sun."
Angela giggles softly, gazing into his eyes. "Oh, but it's so romantic," she murmurs. "After all this time, they're finally together."
And this is the point at which Dr Camille Saroyan pauses beneath the platform, ears tuning in to their conversation.
~o~
Cam is not an idiot. She didn't rise to the dizzy heights of running this lab without a degree from both a regular university and the university of life. Book smarts? Yes. Street smarts? Oh yes.
So it's not like she doesn't immediately know who Angela and Hodgins are not-so-quietly talking about. She's also not the type of friend to have had the conversation she and Booth had at Sweets' wedding and then turn her thoughts immediately to other matters – inspecting her manicure, say. Hell, no. She watched, with her heart in her throat, as the man she cared so deeply for took the second biggest chance of his life in as many months. Okay, so she couldn't hear the words exchanged by the partners as she watched them out there on the dance floor, but she could sure read their body language, see the way they clung to each other, shipwrecked in a swirling ocean of pastel chiffon. What was it about summer weddings that brought out the worst in peoples' dress sense? She had worn her simple black dress with dignity and style.
She had watched her friends leave the room hand-in-hand and at a near-run and she had smiled, swallowed the lump in her throat and ably distracted Angela for long enough that the suspected new couple could make good their escape.
Since the wedding she had not pried into the events of that evening, content to infer from the seemingly permanent grin now worn by one Seeley Joseph Booth that things were better than okay. And then came Brennan's, 'We're um… going on a… uh… partners' retreat… um…' and she'd done what any good friend would have under the circumstances – kept her mouth shut, her smirk internalized and smoothed the path to wherever it was they were actually going as best she could. She's certain that wherever they are, they're not so much retreating from the routine of work to brush up on their team-work, but retreating from life to work on them. She wishes them all the luck in the world.
Thinking of the partners as a couple is… interesting. Cam knows she will always love Booth. But these days it's a familial love. In some ways it always was. She came from a large, loving family and he so did not. Looking back she knows that she responded on some deep level to his need for nurture. Not something she'd ever admit to out loud. At the time she was convinced she was drawn in by his striking good looks, by the breadth of the shoulders bearing such terrible burdens, by the brooding soul that smoldered in his dark eyes (she really should stop reading those trashy romance novels). Over the years the love she felt for him both grew stronger and changed. She'd never have described them as romantic, and now they were so far from that the mere thought could make her chuckle. These days he's family, as simple and as perfect as that. Any relationship they'd shared before pales beside the knowledge that she knows no-one she trusts more; that she has known no-one stronger nor more decent in all her life.
She wishes him the best, most lasting kind of happiness, and while she is fairly certain that notion is something Dr. Brennan will struggle with, the very fact that she is clearly trying fills her with warmth for the awkward, fascinating woman in whom Booth has met his perfect match.
She is beyond happy for both of them, and damned if she isn't going to protect them from idle gossip. The decision to intervene is further reinforced when she spots Daisy and Sweets entering the lab.
Angela is verbally painting a vivid picture of some kind of From Here to Eternity re-enactment with Booth and Brennan in the starring roles, when Cam marches up the platform steps and clamps her hand over her mouth.
The pathologist wonders if it's wrong to be quite so satisfied by Angela's wide-eyed, shocked expression as she tries to decide how best to stop Booth's news spreading throughout her entire lab.
~o~
It's early enough that the sky is streaked with red beyond the open drapes, but the breeze that stirs them lazily is already warm, carrying the promise of the days heat with the spicy ginger scent of the plants growing on their terrace.
Booth stretches languidly and presses the heels of his hands to his eyes, rubbing away sleep. His every muscle is infused with a kind of pleasant ache, overused and under-slept – but he's definitely not complaining.
Beside him, Bones doesn't stir as he slips from their bed and pads across cool tile to the en suite, taking care of an urgent need to pee before studying his reflection in the mirror as he lathers his hands with the sickly-sweet complimentary soap. Is that really him looking back, that guy barely containing a smile at this ungodly hour of the morning? That guy with clear eyes and a face smoothed of any lines of worry?
He decides he's probably imagining that he looks different, as he dries his hands. But maybe it's not so far-fetched – he can't deny he feels different. A tension he's been carrying around for as long as he can remember has released, leaving behind a version of himself that finally feels truly happy, relaxed, right for the first time in a very long time. He shoots the man in the mirror a cocky grin, then shakes his head as he returns to Bones' side. He may be feeling cocky now, but he knows there was a big part of him that thought she'd never say it.
His partner has rolled to her right, facing away from him on her side of the bed and the light sheet they are favoring in this climate has slipped to rest against the flare of her hip, barely concealing the rest of her from his hungry gaze. The fact that she somehow manages to be strong and lean yet curved and womanly all at once has long been something he's admired from afar. Now he gets to see those curves in all their glory, gets to touch not just look, and the barest peek is enough to light a long-familiar fire in his belly.
In the rose-light of the dawn she is luminous, a sleeping angel, skin glowing where she has caught the sun despite his enthusiastic application of lotion at every opportunity. Her arms are tucked at her chest, her shoulder blade a sharp angle that he drags a finger-tip across, breath held in anticipation of her waking. From there he follows the line of her spine, down over silken skin, increasing the pressure as he reaches what he's pretty sure is the last of her lumbar vertebrae – he'd be able to say for sure if he could see her bones beneath all that pretty flesh (he pays attention), but she'd know by touch alone.
Then he's sliding his palm beneath the sheet, unable to resist the sweet swell of her ass. If he was ever kidding himself that he was hoping for anything other than having her right this second it becomes a true exercise in futility once he's standing to attention beneath the sheet, nudging her thigh as she gives a breathy moan and pushes back into him as she wakes.
~o~
Upon waking, Brennan is first aware of the heady spice of the flowers on the terrace, but it's an observation that is quickly forgotten at the warm slide of Booth's hand under her bottom, long fingers questing low, pressing into her from behind. Her first deliberate breath is a gasp.
Long moments later she is mourning his loss, until he presses fingertips to her hip and then her belly, painting her with her own arousal and tugging her back as he rocks forward and fills her. They share a groan and he sinks his teeth into the flesh of her shoulder, retaliation, no doubt, for her bite of the night before. She releases his name on a moan as the hand at her belly slides between her legs, sure fingers slipping over her again and again until she experiences the curious sensation of sinking into heated bliss and flying all at once. She's panting his name as she feels her body draw him in, taking him with her.
"I love you," he presses to her ear. "Love you, love you, love you."
TBC…
