"The finger of blame has turned upon itself
And I'm more than willing to offer myself
Do you want my presence or need my help?
Who knows where that might lead
I fall."

- "Fall At Your Feet", from Woodface, 1993

A tag from the end of "The Hole in the Heart." I do love that episode. Wrote a whole fic about it. Consider this an immediate prequel...

"You're staying at my place tonight."

Booth was insistent and rationally...? She could not refuse.

... Here they were, several hours later, laying sated under his blankets. His arms wrapped around her protectively, head buried in her hair, breathing her in. Her hand stroked his chest, using her sense of touch to find something tangible to anchor to, something to make sense of everything that had happened in the last day. Her eyes still red. Overwhelmed. Everything... all at once, emotionally walloping her over the head with a sledgehammer. Vincent. Broadsky. Booth. Undiluted grief for the first. Anger for the second and... Oh, Booth, sheer unadulterated joy... total pleasure... making him cry out her name over and over...

Oh. My. God.

It was love, she could feel it coursing through her veins at this moment. That's why it had to be her name he cried, her body satisfying his. It dawned on her that for the first time in her life she wanted to put a man's sexual satisfaction at the same level as hers. It was no longer about just satisfying her own biological urges. She did not want to share him with anyone else ever again.

He had given himself to her in this dark night. Given himself to her to comfort her. She knew... She knew exactly how much he'd given her. Absolutely everything.

She contemplated what all this meant. For a moment she felt panic and took a deep breath to steady herself. Had Booth noticed that breath? Was this too much? Too soon? The answers to all were no. Booth did not react. Not too much, in fact, not even close to enough. He filled her perfectly. They moved perfectly. They had even finished perfectly, one after the other, tumbling into a wonderful mindless oblivion. There was no doubt that she wanted more from him; but tellingly, not just from his body, but from his mind... and from his heart. But the irony, lost on Brennan - for now at least, was that he'd been giving her his mind and his heart for several years already. But she would learn about that soon enough. As for the timing? Too soon? Seven years would not be considered too soon in most cultures.

He'd said some things in the middle of... Some things they'd probably need to talk about, but Brennan felt she could now handle that conversation. But right now was not the right time.

"Bones, was that... um... OK?" He whispered the question in a low timbre, almost holding his breath as he did so, although deep down he knew the answer, he just hoped she did as well. She felt her whole body vibrate from the frequency of his tone. But there was no hesitation in her response once the words were out there.

"Better than OK." She leaned over to kiss him as much as anything to quieten him down, knowing they had maybe one hour of sleep left before dawn. "Talk later, sleep now" she whispered to him. She turned her back to him and backed into him, his arm and leg moving over her protectively in an automatic reaction.

"OK" he muttered, falling back asleep, tucking her into him. Soon his breathing evened out and she found herself falling too.