II.
Nothing had happened during the lightning-touched night, except that it had. Happened. Something.
There was a new kind of awareness, as they packed up their things and when Booth maneuvered their van through narrow mountain roads, he could feel her eyes on him. They finally stopped in a little village and took the chairlift up to the mountain. The Picos de Europa cut like a jagged line into the sky and the view was beautiful; alas, the mountaintops were not the only beautiful sight up there, he thought, while following his partner on the hiking trail they had chosen.
He loved that she was just as physical as he was, loved that she wore neither makeup nor jewelry for their activity. Her high ponytail reminded him of the woman he had first met, and her eyes shone even brighter in this land of sunshine. He could share laughter, stories and silence with her, and in the three hours they needed to complete their hike, Booth felt closer to God than he had in a long time. He mentioned it to her.
"That's because you are closer to him, at least following your myth that your God resides in the sky above us," she replied, gesturing at the bright blue space over their heads.
He looked up before shaking his head.
"Nah. I never had that feeling in a plane. It's this place."
She shrugged, uncapping her water bottle and bringing it to her lips. Following her lead, he took his own bottle and gulped down half of it.
"This is a beautiful place," she finally admitted. "The sheer size of the mountain range is dazzling. You're bound to feel some kind of reverence."
"Bones, I'm happy." He outstretched his arms, slowly turning around in a circle before plopping down onto the grass. "I'm happy here in this place and with you."
He looked up at her with boyish glee and a smile washed over her face.
"It's probably the sun and the serotonins from our hike. Also, you're on holiday, almost 4,000 miles away from your daily duties."
She sat down in the grass beside him.
"What about you? You're also 4,000 miles away from all the bones at home. Plus, the serotonin stuff."
Shifting her head, she squinted against the sun.
"I'm happy, too."
He nudged her with his shoulder, gently, and she nudged him right back.
"You know what, Bones? You might be my favorite person in the whole world."
"What about Parker?"
"That's not fair. He's my kid. But you're my favorite grown-up person."
"I appreciate the sentiment. The feeling is mutual, Booth," she answered almost shyly and for a moment, something sweet and heavy saturated the sunny easiness of their banter. He swallowed, looking at her profile while she studied the grass between her feet very intently. Booth realized that maybe he should not hug her at night and call her his favorite person, but it seemed as if he didn't know how not to be close to her anymore. Intimacy, it was so easy here with her, maybe too easy, considering her ongoing silence.
Eventually, he tugged at her shirt sleeve, trying to lighten the moment.
"Come on, favorite person. We should probably get the cable car down."
And that's what they did, the two of them plus their old fellow attraction.
-BONES-
Two plus two equals four. You put sugar in your coffee, and it tastes sweet. The sun comes up because the world turns. A man and a woman are drawn to each other and… yeah… and?
For maybe the first time ever, her world of logic failed to make sense. She could feel his eyes on her just as much as she couldn't stop looking at him. Her body reacted to his slightly sweaty and very male scent as they were driving to the next campground, and she could feel dampness pooling between her legs. She couldn't remember the last time she had gotten wet simply from smelling someone, couldn't remember any time her mind had stopped her from following her body's urge. A sexual encounter between two healthy and consenting adults was perfectly normal. Why was she even hesitating? Immediately, her mind provided her with the answer. Because it was Booth, and he was more than just a man causing a reaction.
And after all, he was her favorite person in the whole wide world.
She thought about his handsome face later while she was washing herself in the shower house of the little campground; thought about his kind heart when she was buying bread, cheese, tomatoes and wine in the local supermarket.
He found her uncharacteristically quiet during their simple dinner, but something told him to leave her to her musings. Eventually, the sun put on her red gown, touching the horizon, marking the end of yet another day. Today, the beach beneath them was almost deserted, and he suggested a walk. With a nod, she followed him and for a while, they just roamed. They had left their shoes at the van, and maybe that was a tad reckless, but maybe it was not the most reckless thing they were considering.
She was wearing a summer dress she had bought just the other day, claiming she had not brought beach-appropriate clothes to their conference. Her hair was open, falling over her shoulders, and without questioning it, he raised his arm, and she slipped under it with gentle ease. His hand curved around her shoulder just as she wrapped her own arm around his back. It could be awkward, walking like this, but it wasn't.
After a while, they reached the shore, and the Atlantic was greeting them. It was the end of the blue hour, and the daylight, that had been fading ever since they started walking, had given way to pale moonshine. They stopped, watching the silvery waves, and after a while, she turned in his half-embrace until her head found a comfortable place on his chest. Raising his other hand, he stroked over her hair once, twice before he curled a silky strand around his finger.
"You're thinking about it as well, aren't you?" she finally whispered, and his hand on her stilled.
"It?" he asked, because after all those years with Temperance Brennan, Booth knew that you should always make really, really sure to be on the same page.
"This. Us," she clarified.
He inhaled deeply.
"Yeah," he finally admitted. "But there are still a million reasons why it shouldn't be, right?"
"They are all in Washington, though," she finally replied. "Aren't they?"
"And whatever we do here…"
"… doesn't have to have a consequence at home."
"I don't know, Bones. Can it be that easy?"
She shrugged.
"Nothing has really changed. You're a very attractive male specimen, I've always thought so. And you're my best friend, my partner. But suddenly, ever since we rented that van... I'm just wondering why it is so easy to touch you, why I can't stop myself from gravitating towards you. Maybe it's this place, Booth. This place with its sand and surfers and sangria."
He sighed, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head.
"What if we cross each and every line just to find out at home that we made a terrible mistake?"
She nodded.
"A valid point. But what if not crossing them right here, right now is the bigger mistake?"
He squeezed his eyes shut.
"Bones … what happens if you try not to think about it? Any of it. The right thing, the wrong thing, the consequences?"
Pale blue met hazel brown, as she shifted in his arms anew. And in the vast land between reason and faith, where nothing was simple and everything was possible, their lips finally met. The sand was cold underneath her feet and every once in a while, a wave reached and caressed her ankles, but where their chests and heads connected, everything was warm and vibrating.
His arms around her tightened as she opened her mouth to let him in, and as his tongue moved against hers, the brief memory of tequila flickered through her mind. That was her last coherent thought, because kissing Booth… kissing Booth was as exhilarating and all-consuming as it had been the first time. Back then, the magnitude had scared her, but she was not the same woman anymore, and he was not the same man.
And so, they kissed.
The moon and the stars were shimmering reflections on the water, the whooshing sound of the ocean was not as loud as their hearts chasing blood through their bodies.
She took another impossible step closer to him, stepping almost into him, and he groaned deep in his throat, as her hips pressed so intimately against his.
With a gasp, he broke the kiss, but immediately, her lips were on his throat, kissing their way around his mandible.
"Bones," he breathed, but she made nothing but a tiny sound and resumed kissing him. Her hands slid down his back and came to a halt on his hips, intensifying their contact by pulling him to her, and while it might have been unintentional earlier, it definitely wasn't right now. He grew hard in response to her, even harder than before, and her breathless whimper told him that she had felt it, too.
His hands fell to his sides, finding hers on his hips, squeezing briefly before roaming up her bare arms. He followed the slope of her shoulder and skin was replaced by cotton, but he moved even further up until one hand cupped her cheek and the other tangled in the silkiness of her hair once more. With gentle force, he tipped her head, finding her bright eyes in the pale light.
A shiver ran through her, and the eye contact was maybe more intense than anything they had shared so far. His eyes were infinitely dark, searching for something deep within her, and she hoped that he could find what he was looking for, and maybe he did, because suddenly his lips were back on hers.
And so, they kissed.
It was warm, deep and more she had ever experienced in a kiss. He continued to hold her head in his big hands, and she wrapped her arms around his midsection, embracing him firmly.
A particularly high wave chose that moment to hit them mid-leg, and they jumped apart with a mutual shriek.
Breathlessly, they stood, and his heart was racing, and her cheeks were flushed. Finally, she reached out her hand.
"Come," she said, and he took her hand and her offer, following her back to the dunes, back to the trail leading to their camping spot.
-BONES-
He unlocked their little van with trembling fingers. The door closed softly behind them, the night folding in like a thick, warm blanket. Outside, the surf churned steadily, the stars still spilling their light across the sky, but in here – just here – it was only the two of them.
It was years of wanting her, years of learning her language coming full circle.
Booth exhaled slowly. "Bones…"
She turned to face him fully. There was no hesitation in her fingers as she reached for the hem of his shirt and lifted it, a silent question that he answered by raising his arms. The fabric caught on his shoulders briefly before falling away. She looked at him then – not like she was assessing, not like she was cataloging – but like she was seeing him for the first time. Seeing his strength, his scars and everything that made him brave and beautiful. Raising her hand, she caressed the marred skin of the bullet wound on his chest, before closing the distance to him with a sigh, finally touching it with her lips.
It was the sharp reminder of losing him that opened the floodgates of feelings even wider, and when she lifted her head anew, letting him see her eyes, they were brighter and deeper than ever before.
He swallowed hard, reaching for her in return His fingers found the thin straps of her dress, brushing them down her shoulders one by one. The dress slid over her skin, the whisper of fabric as soft as a breath, and when it pooled at her feet, she stepped out of it like she was shedding logic itself.
The dim glow of the overhead reading light cast shadows over her body, and she was the most exquisite contradiction he had ever seen. Strong muscles and soft curves, vulnerability without fragility. He touched her like she was still a dream, his fingers skating over her arms, her sides, her hips, learning her with a reverence she had never known, but she welcomed it all the same.
Brennan leaned in then, brushing her lips along his jaw, her breath warm against his skin. His hands steadied her waist, and then one slid up to the nape of her neck, tilting her face towards him. Their mouths met again – slower this time, less fire, more gravity.
The bed creaked when they finally lowered themselves onto it, bodies tangled and desperate but patient all at once. She was over him, was beside him, then beneath him – every angle of their intimacy unfolding like they'd always known the choreography, just had never dared to perform it.
His mouth found her neck, her collarbone, the curve of her breast. Her fingers traced his ribs, the line of his spine, the firmness of his thigh. He tasted sea salt on her skin, the faintest remnant of sunscreen, and something that was entirely her. Little gasps and moans were leaving her lips, as he licked her, and Booth had to squeeze his eyes shut for a moment against the onslaught of tenderness. It was for her, everything, and suddenly, it made sense. It made sense that no man had ever been good enough for her, made sense why his eyes always found her in a crowded room. She was his, was his as much as one could ever claim another person.
When she finally opened herself to him, when he slid into her, there was no pause, no dramatic gasp. The universe didn't stop. It was just a collective breath, held and finally released. And, once again, he marveled at the perfect fit, the rightness of this.
It was slow at first, so slow. A study in restraint, in detail, in everything they hadn't said over the years. Then her legs wrapped around him tighter, hips lifting, meeting him stroke for stroke, and the slowness gave way to something deeper. Something urgent. Still reverent, but no longer tame.
She whispered his name, resting her forehead against his, and he held her tightly in his arms. They moved like the tide – rising, pulling, crashing – and for once, she found something else in the physical act itself, something she had only ever experienced with him: belonging.
A breath rushed through her body, as she burrowed her face in the curve of his neck, as her hands cupped his buttocks to pull him even deeper into herself. He was magnificent, she had never doubted that, but she found herself believing, irrationally so, that he could never be this magnificent with someone else but her.
Opening her mouth, she found his earlobe, grazing it with her teeth, just this side of gentle. A deep groan was her answer, and he lost his rhythm for a moment.
"You like that, don't you?"
"I like you, Bones," he breathed, and she rolled them around until it was her turn to set the rhythm.
What do you like? It was on her lips, but it died unspoken, as she found his gaze, realizing that, maybe, some truths should remain silent, even in a night as candid as this one.
When she came, it was with her eyes open, locked on his. He followed moments later, body tense, heart completely undone.
Bodies cooled slowly, their breaths and the shore the only sounds in the night.
After a while, it might have been five minutes or an hour, Booth brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. "So… that happened."
Her lips curved. "Yeah. The sandy version of us is quite adventurous, it seems."
It sounded wrong somehow, and Brennan felt a sharp pang of something. Lost in her musings, she missed how his face turned serious but couldn't miss his suddenly tense tone.
"So… no consequences, right?"
She lifted her head from its place on his shoulder, carefully studying his face. It was more guarded than it had been all night, his eyes sad somehow. Consequences… she suddenly saw them. Saw the messy entanglements of a successful work partnership with a romantic relationship, the potential for disaster. But… there was a "but", and she saw it as well. Saw Sunday morning breakfasts and visiting the zoo with Parker. She saw Booth laughing, his eyes lighting up in a way that was usually reserved for her.
Suddenly, Brennan couldn't tolerate switching of that light, if only for a moment. He deserved to be happy, deserved every ray of sunlight there was.
"You don't want that, do you?"
He studied her in the Spanish night, taking his time although his heart already knew the answer. Eventually, he took a deep breath.
"I want what's best for us."
And while that was a hundred percent true, she recognized another kind of truth on his face.
"Whatever that was, it wasn't just the ocean, Booth. We're not going back to how things were," she finally said, and his face cracked wide open with emotions. Once more, he reined them in, though.
"I don't want to lose you, not even for a shot at happiness. You're too important, way too important, Bones."
Slowly, she lifted her hand, cupping his face. Booth clasped her hand with his, placing the sweetest kiss in her palm. In this moment of tenderness, she found clarity. This was the man that had given up his moment of fame for his brother. The soldier sacrificing everything for his comrades. She would not allow him giving up on them because he thought it was easier for her.
"Booth, I can infer cause of death from a bone and speak eight languages. I can certainly figure out how to love my partner without ruining everything."
Slowly, ever so slowly the sun rose on his face.
"Really?"
A matching smile was his answer.
"Really, Booth."
And he crashed into her, crashed into her with lips and hands and hopes. This time, there weren't any restraints, as he lost – and found – himself in her completely, as he loved her all night long until the cicadas were singing anew.
Until the colors of Cantabria came alive under the light of a new day.
To be continued…