Title: Puzzle Pieces

Author: NexustehULF0o

Description: Two things so different, but when clicked together, make a bigger, clearer picture. It was funny how they fit together just like that. Oneshot. Parallel to "Only Time Will Tell".

Rating: K+. To be uber safe.

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN BONES. :D But I love it like an obese toddler loves anything even remotely unhealthy.

Nexus: Well, I was SO HAPPY with the way things turned out on my last fic, that I decided to write another one! :D Here to hoping that this one goes as well as the other one!

EDIT: OTL SO I uploaded this fic, and then went to look for it in the Bones archive...and it wasn't there. And then I searched the entire site and it wasn't there. LOL MALFUNCTION. XD

So I'm reuploading this. Hopefully it'll work this time. :3

"Hello, this is Catherine…" One of about ten messages left of his answering machine started, a rather worried-sounding feminine voice coming across the speaker. "Seeley, I've been trying to call you. Are you okay – "

He pressed a button.

MESSAGE DELETED. END OF NEW MESSAGES.

Well, he did feel bad about forgetting to tell Catherine about his reenlisting in the ARMY. But for weeks before that, she had been ignoring him – she wouldn't return his phone calls and would not attempt to make any herself. Neither tried to seek the other out, either.

He smiled. Besides…

Booth peered over his shoulder to the clock on his stovetop oven in his kitchen – the digital reading was a flashing 12:00 midnight, which made him chuckle. There must have been a power outage or something…

Booth dropped his carry-on bags upon entering his room from the sea of Parker's toys. He watched his bed carefully – jet lag aside, he had a promise to keep. And with that, he stripped himself of his dusty ACUs and made his way into the bathroom.

The showerhead sputtered abruptly before spouting cold sheets of rain upon the Sergeant Major, and he shut his eyes tightly to avoid the drops pelting his eyes.

"I just feel like, um...this is going somewhere."

"Why do you feel this is going somewhere?"

"Oh, I just…I feel like I want to kiss you..."

He snapped his eyes open.

Whew. Still in the shower.

But the words remained a dark echo in his head – as well as the few moments after that. Rain was pouring down on both of them that night as well. The taste of the tequila remained on her breath and lips as they shared a sweet kiss…she leaned close against him, fitting the contours of his body with her own…he caught a waft of something sweet and fruity – perfume, possibly – but at the same time, this was mixed with the lingering scent of bone-cleaner and chemicals – something he had smelled every time he stepped into that Jeffersonian place where she worked.

Of course, he had long gotten used to the Jeffersonian's smell through the years he had been partnered with the forensic anthropologist – even enough to associate the smell with its employees. With murder… with bones…and with Bones.

Pulling the lever to drain the shower, Booth grabbed a towel and rubbed the water from him, then wrapping it around him and stepping back into his dimly lit room.

Temperance. Even now, after a year apart and five years working together, his heart still fluttered at the subject of just her name. All of the times they shared together flooded back into his mind at the mere thought of her. He rarely ever called her that, though – she was always Bones. An affectionate term, yes, but strangely putting two people at arm's length. While the nickname Bones fit her occupation as a forensic anthropologist, it also applied to the wall that stood between them. Her work was her wall – she was always ducking behind a case or some kind of remains whenever he would get too close. But he kept on trying…even enough to kiss her and admit his feelings for her a couple of weeks before their departure. It started quite like their first, drunken kiss – she was surprised at first, but then slid her eyes shut, leaning against his body like a missing puzzle piece. But, soon after the euphoria had begun, it ended. She slowly pushed him away, with words like "I'm not a gambler, I'm a scientist…" and "I can't change. I'm not like you."

She had rejected him – the wall of Bones, a couple of seconds after he had torn it down with his lips meaningfully touching hers, had rebuilt itself in a flash.

Booth slowly pulled a faded blue t-shirt over his head, brushing his short, wet brown hair in the process. Being in Afghanistan had taught him something. Something more important than anything he had ever learned.

Love, no matter how much you try to will it away or block it with other things, will always win. If you think you can win, you can't – love will stay with you, sometimes even in the slightest way possible.

At night, in his large-ish cot while every other soldier was asleep, his eyes would pry themselves open, no matter how hard her tried to close them. It was crazy, he knew – Bones had assured him that he would be all right, and Hodgins had given her that like, list of bugs or whatever…but something about her being in Indonesia, something about her being ANYWHERE but right next to him sent him spiraling into a worried mess. What if a snake or some poisonous spider bit her? What if she was attacked by…you know, natives…or something? He couldn't shake the thought of her being injured in some way without him to protect her. Wall or no wall, he had promised SO MANY people, himself included, that he would keep her safe.

And, as like every night, he would shake the thought violently from his mind and turn over, sighing heavily before leaning against the pillow and starting all over again.

He had received e-mails from her quite often, exchanging what Indonesia was like and how the dig was going. She would always be talking about some new find they had discovered or something interesting that he didn't understand. He would always chuckle and read on, reading about her annoyance at Daisy, which later turned into reluctant acceptance of the young, aspiring anthropologist.

Ms. Wick has been talking an awful lot about Dr Sweets, and how she misses him. Bones would explain. He could hear the mild annoyance in her voice even through e-mail. It seems to be the topic of many of our conversations together. I often tell her what you used to tell me – that there is someone out there for everyone, and if she feels that Dr. Sweets is the one that she wants to spend the rest of her life with, then she should continue to pursue a relationship with him, and should look for him as soon as we return. Although Ms. Wick's intentions for returning to such an attachment is still quite trivial to me, and although she herself, as I have reiterated to you over and over again, is quite strange and irritating to say the least, I cannot help but wish her the best of luck…which is strange, because I don't believe in luck, either.

Oh, how she made him laugh. He was chuckling now as he zipped up the zipper to his pants and walked out into the living room. He laughed at the naiveté in her brilliance. He laughed at how she was trying more and more to be like him every day.

And he loved her for it.

The soldiers on base would rag on him for hours about it. He guessed it was strange to them that people of authority could have lives outside of the base, like a student seeing a teacher outside of school.

"What's she like?" Those interested would ask. They would fantasize this tall, leggy blonde – smart, funny, an attorney…but he would shoot them all down with stories of her brilliant work as a forensic anthropologist, and as his partner in finding and jailing murderers. Of course, he didn't forget to mention her bright, spectacular eyes that lit up whenever she got a pop culture joke or realized something important, her wavy auburn hair that she brushed out of her face when it blew in the wind, or her delicate but various facial expressions – all of them beautiful. He reiterated the Gravedigger and Gormogon cases many times to his recruits around the dinner table, the twenty-year-olds laughing and joking, but listening attentively all the same.

"Damn, Sarge, I never knew you had it so bad." One of the recruits punched him said once, punching him playfully in the arm. He smirked, brushing it off.

"Yeah, well…"

The words came out of his mouth the exact same way he has said it then. Then, picking up his cell phone, Booth quickly checked the time.

Wait.

It was THAT late?

Dammit!

He had said he MIGHT be a LITTLE late, but not almost THREE HOURS! Booth fumbled around for his keys, patting down his pockets before, thinking about where he might have left them. Let's see…he used them to open the door, and then he put them down on the counter – or did he?

Rrrrgh, he didn't have time for this! Grabbing a pair of sunglasses and stuffing his phone into his pocket, he left his apartment, using his hidey-key to lock the door behind him.

The taxi door clicked shut as Seeley Booth made himself rigidly comfortable in the back seat. His hair was still mildly wet, but he didn't care – It'd dry sooner or later…this was more important.

Even though she'd said that she would be fine with it, he didn't want to keep her waiting TOO long, and –

He heard voices coming from the surface.

Booth shook his head, his eyes focusing on a middle-aged man giving him weird looks from the rearview mirror of the cab.

"Sorry, what was that?" he asked, leaning forward as if to hear the man better.

"Where'm I takin' ya?" the other man replied in a heavy New York accent, the clichéd norm for a cab driver. But, having come straight out of Philly himself, Booth could easily decipher those types of things.

"Oh, um…National Mall, please. Reflection pool – in front of the Lincoln Memorial." He answered. The driver grunted in reply, flicking on the meter and pulling off the side of the street.

Booth leaned his chin against his open palm before staring out the window at the blur of foliage and tall, pearly-white buildings rushing by. His eyes slid themselves closed, thoughts momentarily returning to his comfy bed and the severe jet lag that walked hand in hand with it. The flight home was filled with excited, not-to-mention drunken twenty-year-olds screaming and whooping at the top of their lungs – too loud for him to sleep soundly...Besides, he was too busy thinking to sleep anyway…

They turned off Northwest Constitution Avenue and onto 23rd. The cab pulled up to the curb in front of the reflection pool in the middle of Lincoln Memorial Circle, the driver stopping the meter and turning to face the FBI agent-turned-ARMY soldier.

"`Bout as close as I'm gonna getcha, boss." He nodded Booth's way. Booth pulled out his wallet and handed the fare to the man, thanking him before stepping nervously out of the cab and closing the door behind him.

It was strangely empty on a day like today – not many people rushing to get home from work or catch the taxi he just stepped out of, not really any early evening tourists gawking awkwardly at the memorial or glancing around for something to eat…perfect.

Pulling his dark sunglasses over his eyes, Seeley Booth began his search. Like a true FBI agent.

A couple minutes in, he was admittedly losing his enthusiasm - she was nowhere in sight. What if she had gone home? She had probably been very tired from her flight from Indonesia, and was suffering from a mean jet lag herself…she was probably eager to get home, and after three hours of waiting, she would have assumed that he wasn't coming…

But then, something caught his eye.

She was thinner and tanner than he remembered, probably from spending all those days digging in the hot Makalookoo…Maipupu… the hot sun. She was dressed in a hip-length plaid blue coat, a professional white blouse, and a dark blue skirt to match. She looked at her wristwatch for a moment after pushing her auburn hair out of her eyes, as if it were telling her something very important...

Then she looked up – he thought about calling her name, but refrained when he saw her glance his way.

He smiled.

She smiled back.

His feet began to carry him faster, but not enough to run. She began walking toward him as well, and they met in a green patch of grass next to a sidewalk.

He couldn't hold it in any longer. He watched her face, the both of them grinning freakishly large.

"Bones." There was so much in that one word. So much he'd said, so much he'd left out. But in the end, it seemed to sum everything up. His hand found hers, his fingers twisting about her own in a slow, anxious pattern.

"Booth." She almost whispered, laughing softly under her breath. "You're late."

He was. But that didn't matter any more. It mattered that she waited.

"Yeah, well…" he chuckled a bit, then heaving a heavy sigh – in spite of this, neither of them could seem to shake this smirk plastered on both of their faces. He stuffed one hand into his pocket, breaking eye contact for a moment only to look to his left.

This moment didn't last long, however, as their eyes were soon watching each other intently once more.

"I'm here now, right? And that's all that matt –"

He was silenced abruptly by the touch of her lips to his in a fervent, spontaneous kiss.

He was surprised at first, but he suddenly leaned into it, closing the gap between the both of them. He placed his hand about her waist and felt hers extend about his neck, knowing that the euphoria wouldn't end this time – the wall had broken, and she'd let it.

He just never thought she'd been the one to break it.

Nexus: A lot of you asked me to write another fic involving Booth and Bones, so here it is - a parallel fic! :D (Not that exciting, but better than nothing LOL) Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this one too! And if you did, be sure to leave me a review! Because I LOVE reviews. ;D