I thought of this as I watched the finale of Season 3 again the other night on the DVD box set. I hope this works for everyone. Tell me what you think.

Disclaimer: I don't own, or profit from, these characters or franchise in any way. No copyright infringement is intended.

"I took a bullet for you!" Booth had said as he stood up in his bathtub angrily responding to what Bones had said.

That had been just a couple of days before, and now she was here at the Jeffersonian sitting next to him on a staircase. Everyone was in pain over what had happened to Zack, what he had become. When all of his most precious possessions turned out to be things that everyone had gotten him over the years, she had felt horrified that she had not given him anything. Now, once again, Booth was here saving her. This time it was her soul, if she believed in that awkward concept. Considering the emotional turmoil that she was going through, and had been ever since Booth had been shot and supposedly killed, she was beginning to really believe in a soul. Hers was shattered and yet, he had taken another bullet for her. This time he wasn't facing death, but he was facing her pain and suffering. He had shown her the gift she had given Zack: a home.

"Would things have been different for him if I had been a different kind of person?" she asked softly. She had her head leaning on Booth's shoulder and she felt a real comfort from it.

"No Bones," Booth replied, suddenly feeling inadequate to deal with that kind of statement, but he also knew that he was the only person she trusted enough to open up to like that. Not even Angela was privy to a lot of her innermost feelings like he was.

"He wanted someone to be proud of him," she choked out. How could Zack have not known that she was so proud of him and all that he had achieved since she had met him?

"He had some problems, Bones," Booth told her. "Ever since he came back from Iraq."

"What do you mean?" she asked. What did Booth know?

"When he came back he talked to me," Booth explained. "A lot. He saw things that no one should ever have to. That, on top of what the Army told him really damaged him. I really hoped that he was moving forward and coping, but I guess he wasn't."

"Why didn't he try and talk to any of the rest of us, too?" she tried to understand.

"Because I've been in war, Bones, and none of the rest of you have," he tried to make her understand. He knew she was about to protest that she had also seen some horrible things, but he nipped it in the bud. "Seeing the after effects of war and actually having been in it, or near it while ongoing are two different things. I've pulled the trigger on people in war. He felt that I could understand. I really tried to help him Bones."

"Can you take me home, Booth?" she asked quietly. "I need to get away from here."

"Anything you need, Bones, I'm here for you," he assured her. He felt her simply nod in return.

Bones had been in the large tub she had in her bathroom for nearly half an hour when she felt she needed some company. She'd insisted that Booth stay for a while, and he was currently watching TV on the new television she had bought for when he was over.

"Booth?" she called out loudly.

"Yeah?" he asked from right outside the bathroom door a moment later.

"Could you come in here?" she asked. "I want some company."

"Bones?" came the very nervous voice she had expected.

"To talk, Booth. Come talk to me," she told him. She smiled for the first time that evening. She'd seen him naked, after all, when she'd barged into his bathroom the other day. It was only fair that he had the same latitude, so to speak. Besides, she was comfortable with Booth, even if he did have some rather Puritanical sensibilities regarding sex and the human body. She was very comfortable with her own body. She saw the bathroom door open a bit and watched him peer around it. "Will you just get in here?" she demanded.

"Are you sure you're okay with me being in here, Bones?" Booth asked as he took a seat on the toilet after putting down the lid. He tried not to look at her since she had no bubbles, just clear, hot water.

"It's fine, Booth," she assured him. "I've seen you before, haven't I?"

Booth chuckled as he remembered the other day in his bathroom. "Yeah, you sure have," he admitted. "Are you still mad at me?" he asked, still not looking at her.

"Booth, look at me," she directed him. She saw him lift his head and knew he had just had a really good view of the front of her body. She didn't cover up since she wanted him to know that what she was about to say was not about what she was feeling right now. The fact that she felt comfortable telling him this in this setting would be all the more symbolic. "I wasn't mad at you. I was scared."

"Scared?" he asked. He could admit that it made a bit of sense, but he had been forced to react to the anger she had been displaying up until they had figured out that Zack had been the Gormagon's new assistant.

"When we were told that you died, I shut down," she told him. "I became the same person you met a few years ago. No emotion, nothing but work. You had become the most important person in my life, Booth, and then you were gone. It was like losing my family all over again, and I was terrified that I wouldn't make it this time, or if I did, I wouldn't be able to ever be close to anyone ever again."

Booth mentally cursed Sweets. He was definitely going to have a 'chat' with the little shit in the near future and let him know just how pissed he was over what he had done. Maybe Bones didn't want to slug him, but Booth had no such reluctance. It may cost him a temporary suspension, but it was worth it. No one hurts his Bones and gets away with it. He noticed how he had phrased that in his mind and admitted it openly to himself, though he had known for a long time that he was in love with her. He turned his attention back to Bones.

"Each night I would come home and I couldn't stop replaying the whole scene in my mind," she continued. Her voice hitched a bit as she saw him laying on the floor of the club as she begged him to not give up and stay with her. "I cried myself to sleep every time and when I woke up, I would have to drag myself up to go to work. I wasn't really living anymore, Booth."

Booth didn't know what to say. He was in agony that she had gone through that. He just kept his eyes riveted to hers as she talked.

"I even prayed," she admitted very reluctantly. She saw the look of wide eyed surprise on his face. She had told him over and over that she didn't believe in God. She still didn't, but she had been pretty desperate when she thought he had died. "I don't know if I actually believed it would do any good, if there is a God, but I prayed that he would recognize just how good a person you are and honor that, despite how you feel about some of the things in your life. If there is a Heaven, I wanted to try and make sure that you had a place in it, since I couldn't have you here with me."

Now her anger made all the sense in the world to him. Bones was an incredibly independent person. Because he hadn't made damn sure she had been contacted, or made the contact himself, law and protocol be damned, she had been reduced to what for her would have been desperation if she was actually praying for his soul. He only hoped that the Big Guy upstairs was impressed, because he himself sure was.

"You prayed for me?" he said, his astonishment, as well as his honest thanks, apparent in his voice.

Bones nodded shyly. She shifted in the water because it was getting uncomfortable laying in that position. The movement jostled the water a bit and her new position was a bit more up on the back of the tub, placing her in a semi-reclining position. His eyes almost popping out was amusing for her as she realized that her breasts were now almost totally on display without even the nearly non-existent cover the water provided. It wasn't embarrassing as she had let him see her full length under the clear water, but she was giving him a bit more to feast his eyes on. She felt her nipples tighten in the coolness of the open air, but she also knew damn well it was from arousal, too. She'd come to some serious realizations in the last couple of weeks, no matter how much she denied anything to Angela and anyone else. Chief among them was that she was in love with Booth, regardless of how illogical and irrational she found the concept of love. The fact remained, though, that she was. Regardless of how much she needed to tell him of her own anguish, she wanted to begin a serious commitment to him this very night.

Booth gulped as he saw her movements. He had fantasized about seeing her naked many times, and had confessed to the impure thoughts more times than he could count. He was dead certain that his priest was ready to have a stroke over the unbelievable amount of times that he had come to confession over thinking of Bones. Now here was Bones, naked, and she had just fully exposed her breasts to his eyes without the water to hinder a clear view. He offered a silent prayer to God for getting it right when he made Bones. Man did he get it right! Booth almost had a stroke himself as he saw Bones pick up a sponge and squirt some liquid soap on it before using that sponge on her arms and shoulders. Holy shit! Bones was going to wash in front of him, too! He made a mental note to hightail it to confession in the morning. If he was going to have a stroke, then his priest could, too. He had never thought it possible to be jealous of an inanimate object until now, but he was of a fucking sponge.

Bones was being very deliberate in her actions now. What had started out as simply wanting company and showing Booth how open she wanted to be with her thoughts, symbolically, was now more in the nature of slow seduction. She was well aware of how she wanted this evening to end, and she was working towards that: making love to Booth in her bed. To many it may seem as is she was wanting some release to get her mind away from the hell of the last two weeks, but in reality she was making the move to remove those lines that she had allowed him to draw a couple of years before, and making the attempt to have a real, and honest, relationship with him. Booth had shown that he would not make the move himself, even though he wanted the same thing she did. She wasn't as clueless as everyone thought she was. She'd simply followed his lead waiting for him to make the first move. No more of that, though!

"Do you think we will be able to visit Zack?" she asked quietly as she began to use the soapy sponge on her breasts. She drew out the sight, making sure he had his attention riveted on her movements.

Booth's jaw was about on the floor and he could have sworn he was drooling. This was the God damn hottest thing he'd ever seen. If she was doing what he was slowly beginning to think she was doing, then he was sure that he would be going to confession for impure thoughts and acts every day for the rest of his life. Screw the once a week stuff.

"Booth?" she said loudly with a grin on her face. She was very amused at his flustered demeanor. She knew he wasn't a prude, but she also knew that she had a much more varied sexual history than him. The whole issue of role playing came to mind as one example.

"Huh?" he jerked his eyes to hers.

"I asked if you think we'll be able to visit Zack?" she repeated.

"I'm not sure," he told her honestly. He hoped for her sake that the answer would be yes. She needed to be able to spend time with Zack and tell the kid some of the things she felt she could have done better. "I'll talk to Caroline in the next few days to make sure and if need be start any process that needs to be done."

"Will Sweets interfere with the non compus mentus issue?" she asked. She'd been shocked when Sweets had objected to that part of the deal that Caroline had made with Zack. She wasn't angry with him since he was only doing his professional job in that, but she had been saddened.

Booth shook his head. "No," he replied. "I had a talk with Sweets and he knows to keep his opinions to himself on this one and what's expected of him." He made sure to remind himself to add that little point in his 'chat' with Sweets when he confronted him later on. A little reminder of who that bit of silence was for was definitely in order. Bones would be devastated if Zack wound up in prison.

Bones slid under the water and washed the soap off. When she reemerged she loved the dazed expression on Booth's face as he watched her. This was fun! She pulled the plug on the bath and stood up in front of him like he had done for her a couple of days before. Grabbing a towel she dried her hair briskly and then wrapped the towel around her hair before grabbing another one and slowly drying off her body.

Booth was convinced that Bones was deliberately trying to give him a heart attack. He was less than six inches from her sinfully naked body. He wondered briefly if there was a dial-a-confession line that he could make use of. Her scent, both natural and the scented bath oils she had used, was intoxicating and he was having even more difficulty controlling a certain piece of his anatomy. When she had the towel she was drying herself off wrapped around her, she stepped from the tub and left the bathroom, giving him a look that said follow her. He jumped up and went after her, going into the living room where she pointed him to the couch. He took a seat as she opened a bottle of wine and poured them each a glass. He took the one she offered him and almost came unglued when she sat down right next to him with her whole side pressed against him, her head leaning against his shoulder. He took a deep calming breath.

"Uh, Bones?" he asked. He knew he would sound like a complete idiot, but he didn't dare assume anything with Bones. She could kick his ass in a flash, and she had a nasty right cross that he was still feeling the effects of from when she slugged him at his staged funeral.

"Hmm?" she replied with a small smile. She knew he was finally going to ask what she was doing. She'd been patiently waiting since she had called him into the bathroom.

"What's going on here?" he asked directly. He prayed right then that it was what he thought, or he was going to be taking a very long ice cold shower when he got home.

"What do you mean?" she teased, though she said it in her most serious of voices.

"Are you trying to seduce me?" he asked very carefully.

"Yes."

Booth almost dropped his wine glass in shock. No long winded speeches on the anthropological aspects, and no remarks about lines. "Yes?" he asked.

She nodded. "I learned a lot of things in the last couple of weeks," she told him. "The most important thing is that I need you, and not just as my partner and best friend. I want all of you, Booth. The bathtub was only to let you know that I was being completely honest about what the two weeks had done to me. The little show when I washed and dried myself was to let you know I wanted more from our relationship."

"What about all that stuff about monogamy being unnatural and inhibiting?" he questioned.

"I was wrong when it comes to us," she informed him. She was not about to alter her views on the subject, but a caveat here or there was acceptable. "I want to try and break the laws of physics, Booth. With you, and only you."

"You're in love with me?" he asked. Again a dumb question, but she had been almost blasphemously blunt about her opinion on the concept of love. Blasphemously to him anyway. But this was Bones, so he had been able to overlook it in her case. She could break most of the commandments and he would overlook it. Except for adultery, of course. Then he would reclaim her and kill the bastard she was with. Call him a possessive Alpha Male Neanderthal, but he couldn't live without her, either.

Bones nodded. "Yes," she said as she put her wine glass down and wrapped her left arm over his abdomen and hugged him tightly. "Do you love me?" she asked with a certain amount of fear. She had a lot of fear where Booth was concerned when it came to his feelings and opinion of her. That's why this night was so important to her. She was facing her fears once and for all. Fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of abandonment, and, most of all, fear of being alone.

"I have for a long time, Bones," he said softly as if saying it in a normal tone would somehow break the moment. He felt her move up towards his face and he turned his head and kissed her, allowing her to deepen the kiss as much as she wanted. His tongue accepted hers as she tasted him and explored, and then he did the same with her. He finally pulled back.

"What?" she asked a little breathlessly. She was incredibly turned on and wanted nothing more than to drag him to her bedroom and make love all night. She was a bit startled that her mind told her making love and not simply sex, but she realized that with Booth it would never be simply sex, even their first time together.

He sighed and thought that if anyone should be nominated for sainthood it should be him right at this moment. "This isn't the right time for this," he told her. He prayed that she would let him explain and not kick his ass.

Bones looked at him astonished. How could he say that with all that had been said and how the evening had gone? Had she done something wrong? Did he not want her as much as she wanted him? "Why not?" she asked. She kept her arm over his torso and made small circles with her nails. Not enough to arouse necessarily, but easily enough to tantalize.

"Because if we slept together tonight it would be incredible, but for all the wrong reasons," he said with some real confidence. "I do love you, and want this, but I also want to be able to look at you when we make love for the first time and not have the emotional baggage we both have right now."

Bones nodded slightly. There certainly was a lot of baggage. She still was trying to deal with his fake death and also what had happened with Zack. She also felt a warm feeling inside when he had essentially said that when they finally shared a bed, intimately, he wanted to be able to focus solely on her, and she him, without all the other issues. "I think I understand," she said after a long moment to process what he'd told her.

"I don't want to fall back to where we were, though," he told her. "It kills me to see you dating someone, and knowing that you're sleeping with them."

"I was hiding," she admitted. "When I realized a few months after we started working together that I wanted more, but you drew that line, I used the dating and sex to hide from my feelings for you. I've always been uninhibited when it comes to sex, Booth, and it lets me feel alive since I had nothing else in my life. I didn't know what else to do, but I didn't mean to hurt you."

"I can't argue with you on that since I pretty much did the same," he replied.

"Are we really a couple now, Booth?" she asked cautiously.

"Yeah, Bones, we are," he answered with a tighter squeeze to her shoulders.

"What do we do now?" she asked him. Her plans on winding up in bed with him for some mind blowing sex were now shot for this night, but she also didn't want him leaving.

"I'd like to take you out on a real date," he informed her. "Any place you want. I'd also like to spend more time with you like this. Just us talking. We've always been honest with each other except for our feelings for each other. We need to change that."

"Can we talk tonight?" she asked. "I don't really want to be alone right now, and talking sounds good. That is unless you want to reconsider about the other alternative?" she teased, pressing herself further against his side.

"Why do I have the feeling that I'm going to be spending a lot of time in confession?" he groaned as he chuckled at her teasing.

"Because you have a wicked mind, just like me," she laughed. She thought it was cute that he was so dedicated to something, even if it was an idea that she did not really believe in.

"After what you put me through in your bathroom tonight, you have no idea," he told her seriously.

She grinned. "Did you like my little display?"

"You are without a doubt the sexiest, most beautiful woman I've ever known," he let her know.

"And you are the sexiest, most perfect male specimen I've ever encountered," she told him, knowing he liked it when she talked with a smattering of scientific terminology.

"So what do you want to talk about?" he asked her. There were any number of things they could discuss, but he wanted her to have the lead. She needed to feel comfortable with this change in their relationship, and this would help in that.

Bones woke up very sleepily the next morning with the sunlight streaming in through the large window at one end of her apartment. She raised her head to find that she had apparently fallen asleep on the couch with Booth as they talked through the night. She felt him curled up behind her with his arm over her protectively, his hand on her abdomen. She sighed happily.

They had talked about a lot of things. Nothing was off limits. Past relationships, likes, dislikes, favorite pastimes, the works. Surprisingly they had a great deal in common, though their basic outlooks were so different. She had stayed curled up next to him in the towel all night, and she now noticed that the towel she had wrapped herself in was lying on the floor, which meant she was in his arms fully nude, with the exception of the towel she had wrapped her hair in. The situation was very arousing, but after having thought about it very hard while they were talking, she knew he was right. Last night would have been spectacular if they had fallen into bed with each other, but it would have been much more like a sympathy fuck that a real start to a serious relationship.

She listened to the steady breathing patterns he had as he slept and she was very comforted. Looking at the clock she saw that it was about 10:30. Angie would no doubt be calling soon to see if she was alright, but she wanted to stay like this for a while longer. For the first time in years, and especially the last two weeks, she was starting the day without any fear. The fear over the years went from a fear of facing the day alone, regardless of the number of bed partners she had over the years, to a fear of being rejected by Booth if he found out her true feeling, to the last two weeks where the fear and complete devastation was over being alone the rest of her life, not just the day. Recognizing this wonderful change, she snuggled back against him and let herself fall back asleep. She smiled as she thought of the surprise that awaited him when he woke up and found her completely naked in his arms. She wondered if he would be going to confession that day. What's more, she wondered if he would ever divulge any of those impure thoughts. Maybe facing her fears wasn't as bad as she had always thought it would be. No matter what, she was done running.