Disclaimer: I do not own or lay claim to anything even tenuously associated with Bones; it belongs to various individuals and corporations who are considerably more talented and well-off than myself. I am only playing with the aforesaid characters, situations, settings, etc. for my own amusement and am making no profit whatsoever from this (other than the bettering of my writing skills and my own amusement). No copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

A/N: This was written pre-100th episode, so a few of the facts are a bit off. Each time I tried to adjust it so that it would be congruent with the new information, however, it refused to flow properly. In the end, I decided I'd just leave it as is.

She doesn't call him Seeley because it feels at once too intimate and not intimate enough for the relationship that they have.

They are close in so many ways; she tells him things that she's never told anyone and he returns the favor. They know each other's favorite everythings. They eat most meals together and spend more time with one another than some couples. She's undressed him, slept in the same bed with him – even kissed him once.

But they don't tell each other everything. She's never told him about El Salvador or about everything that happened to her in the foster system. She's never told him that when she thought he'd died, it was as though part of her had died with him. She's never told him that she is (more than just) attracted to him or that she's afraid to take the figurative hurdle (that is the correct phrasing, no?) because it might destroy what they have.

And what do they have, exactly?

She's always been one for labels, everything neat and in its place. But she can't quantify their relationship – or her emotions – and, thus, cannot safely hypothesize an outcome. She can (and does) conduct experiments, but the data that she receives is so subject to interpretation as to be utterly bewildering.

She's seen him naked, but she doesn't know his body. She knows that he has scars, but she doesn't know the stories behind all of them. She's been present for (been the cause of) a few of them.

Good people leave marks on one another, he says, but she doesn't think he meant it literally.

Nonetheless, he has marked her and she him. But their claims on one another aren't official, and she isn't exactly sure what they have claimed each other as.

They've spent sleepless hours catching criminals together. They've rescued each other from death and from fates worse than death. They've met (portions) of each other's families.

They've created their own family at the Jeffersonian.

They aren't just colleagues or friends, though they are these. And although 'partners' and 'family' are better descriptors, they aren't quite right either. Yet they aren't lovers or spouses. It is a conundrum.

When she finally uses his first name it will mean one of two things: either she will have resigned herself to a completely platonic familial relationship or she will have decided to embrace this… something. With or without labels. Regardless of the outcome.