Title: Velocity
Author: Lucy (somethingsdont)
Pairing: Booth/Brennan
Rating: PG-13
Timeline: 4.20, The Cinderella in the Cardboard
Summary: "It's her need that does him in. Raw, silent, and unfulfilled. He reminds himself to be careful."
Notes: I am in the middle of finals and swore I wouldn't write any fic until they were over. The rational thing to do then, of course, is to take a little trip to a different fandom and schedule enough "study breaks" to get a short little post-ep written. Please enjoy my lack of discipline!

It's her need that does him in. Raw, silent, and unfulfilled. He reminds himself to be careful.

Two pairs of chopsticks rest askew beside the empty cartons of Chinese takeout strewn across his coffee table. Booth's good bottle of scotch sits at one end, uncapped but barely touched. He'd managed to coax it out of Brennan's hand after a few swigs. She'd let him; she hadn't really needed the alcohol, just his company.

His company… and the better part of his left arm, which she'd been using as a pillow since dozing off against him on his couch twenty minutes earlier. Her breath rhythmically ghosts the front of his shirt as she sleeps, her fingers occasionally twitching against his side. His couch isn't particularly large, so he'd draped his free arm around her waistline to hold her in place, even though her body still hangs precariously close to the edge.

It's her need. He knows she'd disapprove of his usage of the word, argue that need requires something concrete and tangible, that her admission of jealousy doesn't qualify. But he knows better. She's too calculated to show up at his door unannounced without being driven by something greater than herself.

He recalls the hundreds of times he'd touched her on the shoulder to gain her attention or to direct her, remembers the handful of times he'd pinned her against the wall – and once, the floor – to protect her from a perceived threat. Those times, it'd been about the adrenaline, about fight or flight. But lying next to her on his couch, it's different. Softer, with a subdued intimacy that he knows he can get used to. Already has.

She shifts slightly in her sleep, and he tightens his grip around her, pulling her closer as she mumbles something unintelligible against his chest. He finds it incredibly charming anyway.

"What time is it?" she murmurs without opening her eyes.

"Little past one," he replies, his voice leaving in a croak.

She makes a small humming noise. "I should get home."

He shrugs his shoulders, slightly disturbing her makeshift pillow. "Might as well stay."

Her eyes finally drift open, and she sits up, slowly blinking away the sleep. He pushes himself up as well and waits. A minute rolls by, then two. She turns to him. "Does it really bother you that I think marriage is obsolete?"

"No," he replies honestly. A pause. "You really don't think people can be happy with the same person for life?"

She hesitates. "All the anthropologic evidence I have suggests otherwise," she explains.

"But?"

Her features soften. "But I see how happy it makes people, how much believing in eternal love means to them," she acquiesces, her eyes piercing his. "I see how important it is to you."

"There are more important things," he reassures her.

"Like what?"

"Like being a good person."

"Like leaving a mark?" she asks.

He nods. "Like leaving a mark," he echoes.

She looks down at her lap, then slowly back up at him. "Last year, when I thought you were dead…" She trails off, bracing herself for the impact. "If I understand your analogy correctly, I don't think the mark you left would've faded." It's not until after she's spoken that she realizes the accuracy of her statement. "I'd felt it," she continues, testing the words against her tongue. "Loss. I felt the… the mark. Your mark. I didn't know how to—what to do with it."

He lowers his eyes the same moment she does, his heart aching. He remembers her fury. "I'm sorry you didn't know it was staged."

"It's unreasonable, Booth, to be so dependent. Emotion is nothing more than neurochemistry, and yet—" She hesitates. "As much as I can appreciate his rationality, I don't want to share Dr. Collar's principles," she adds, looking up again. Her voice softens, and she blinks against the moisture in her eyes. "I don't want to lose your mark."

"You won't," he reassures her, sounding more sure than she'd ever heard him.

"You don't know that," she counters, falling back into the world of empirical data. "Just like marriage. It's impossible to determine with absolute certainly how two people will or won't change, yet the majority of human beings are open to this ideology that there's an eternal bliss that comes from a walk down a decorated aisle and exchanging a pair of rings."

"It's not about the ceremony," he explains gently, sensing her need for truth greater than ever. "It's about a lifelong commitment."

Brennan shakes her head, her voice rising. "But that's absurd! We are not a monogamous species. We shouldn't be devoting ourselves to one individual for life. There are too many variables we can't possibly account for. It's only society that defines what's appropriate and what isn't. It doesn't change the fundamental anthropology that defines us."

Booth shuffles uncomfortably against the couch. "No, Bones, that's just… not right, okay?" He isn't quite sure how to explain the merits of a monogamous relationship, but he tries. "All that stuff you said about jealousy, about wanting to believe; this is it. You saw how Sweets reacted. And those two guys you dated at the same time. I don't remember their names."

"Mark and Jason," she supplies quietly, surprised to still experience a tiny pang of loss.

"Yeah." Another uncomfortable shift. "They didn't want to share you."

"Rationally speaking—"

"I wouldn't want to share you either," he interrupts, watching as her eyes widened ever so slightly, not in surprise but in something else entirely. A hint of understanding, maybe, and he senses progress; he'd reached deep. "If I'd been in that position," he backtracks cautiously.

"I don't think you would've had to," she tells him, her words deliberate and carefully calculated.

He's surprised, tries not to show it. "Why's that?"

"Well, if I were in a relationship where I was both sexually and intellectually satisfied, there wouldn't be the need," she explains, a hint of uncharacteristic uncertainty tingeing her tone. "Even though your intelligence is merely above average," she continues, "I find conversation with you can be quite stimulating." The heat rises in her cheeks. She chastises herself for the uncontrollable changes in her physiology, but they persist, and she pushes on. "And, while I haven't had any first-hand experience to confirm, I imagine that you would make a more than adequate sexual partner."

He grins. "Is that so?"

She can't help but mirror his smile. "It's conjecture, but yes." She tosses him a look. "Don't get cocky about it." He points at his belt buckle, and she chuckles. She touches his leg in appreciation and presses a soft kiss against his cheek. "Thank you."

He's quickly reminded that it's not only her need that does him in. It's all the times she surprises him with her displays of affection, with her quiet, unassuming emotion. All the times she holds him up without even knowing it and all the times she does know and holds him up anyway.

It's all the time. It's too much.

He kisses her. Once. Gently. Lip barely brushing lip. It's all he allows himself.

If she's surprised, she doesn't show it. She smiles, permits him to partake in a second, equally chaste. A mutual understanding passes between them, and she tastes the first glimpse of what he'd meant.

"This belief of eternity," she says quietly, searching for his patience, perpetual and unrelenting. "It'll take time."

He nods. "I know. We go at our own pace, Bones. Our own pace."

She'd learn; he'd teach her.