Jenny1701 and jsboneslover thank you for your suggestions. I couldn't think of just one moment where she suddenly knew she loved him. So I combined both of your suggestions and I hope I did them justice. This one is a little more wordy. As always thanks for the great reviews and we have three more left.

7. Sunrise

Bones had risen well before dawn, as was her habit. Wrapped in her fluffy white robe, she took a sip of the morning's first coffee. She sat back in the cushy chair and propped her feet on the ottoman. She was completely happy and content. Never in her life had she ever thought that she would fall in love, and have a family, yet here she was, and she was amazed by it.

She took another sip of coffee and tried to remember the first time that she knew she was in love with Booth. Oh, she knew that she had never admitted it was love until she fled to Maluku, but the truth was, she didn't remember feeling any other way since they had met. She didn't believe in love at first sight, but a small part of her wondered if that what that spark had been.

She thought back to the Kenton case, Gallagher, the Gravedigger and so many others. Booth had brought her family back to her and he had made her his family. He had bonded the team at the Jeffersonian so tightly that they had all become family, both his and hers. She wasn't foolish though. Booth called them the center, but she was wise enough to know that they weren't the center, he was, and she loved him for it.

She honestly didn't know if she had fallen in love with him when he had rescued her from those dogs, or when she had kissed him under the mistletoe. She wasn't sure if it had happened when he and Parker had brought her family the Christmas tree to the prison. But she had known when he had been shot. Those few days when she had believed that he died, she felt that a part of her had died too. When she had rescued him from that ship, she remembered holding him so close to her in the helicopter. She had wanted to kiss him, to tell him how she felt, but she had been so afraid. That's why she had written the book while he was in coma. She wanted to experience what it would be like to just be free to love. She had been so close to telling him then, but when he woke up confusing her with the character she had created, it had hurt, and she had retreated.

Then that night outside the Hoover, her heart had screamed yes, but her mind had refused, knowing that if she let him in, he would hold a power over her that no one else ever had and if she screwed it up, it would have been worse than when he had died. So she ran.

She had been ready after Maluku when she discovered that no amount of time or space would change the way she felt and the need she had to be with him. He had brought home Hannah and she had lost again, this time because she had waited too long. After Hannah, and after Vincent, when she and he were both finally on the same page, she had lost the rest of her imperviousness and let him in. Then came Pelant and their lost summer.

Things had been good since she and Christine had returned, but it was not like it had been before they had gone. It was like Booth was waiting for her to leave again. There was only one way that would ever convince him that she was home to stay and that she never wanted to leave again, not in thirty, forty or fifty years.

She picked her newest book from the table and flipped to the dedication. It was perfect and her editor had been ecstatic. It was a huge gesture and a bold statement for the world to see. When the book was released to the public the next month, it was guaranteed to create a media storm.

This is dedicated to Special Agent Seeley Booth, my partner, my best friend, and the love of my life. Will You Marry Me?

She hugged the book to her chest and took another sip of her coffee and continued waiting until sunrise.