"I lost him, Sweets. I waited too long and I lost him."
Brennan's eyes were red-rimmed. Sweets had never enjoyed having to say I-told-you-so less. For all that Dr. Brennan was a kick-ass scary woman - he'd be lying if he said that time she'd saved his life with a sword hadn't spawned a ye olde fantasy for him - she looked deceptively small in his office. Tucked in the chair, with all its professional distance, she was deserted on an island in a vast ocean.

But he couldn't lie to her either. Hannah was a good match for Booth for the same reasons Brennan had been - professionally methodical, confident, with a lust for danger - the kind of woman that Booth would never get tired of chasing.

"Maybe there's another way to look at this." Sweets suggested, shifting his leg so it crossed his lap at the ankle. "Getting this far, allowing yourself to realise you love Booth, that you are in fact capable of love, maybe it's like a practice run? All these feelings that you've been putting on hold your whole life, you've finally been able to face them. That's a huge achievement." Sweets shrugged sagely: "Next time the opportunity for love comes along, whether it be with Agent Booth or someone else, you'll be ready."

"What if there is no 'next time'?" Brennan argued. "What if this was my one chance at happiness and I ruined it?

"Dr Brennan, I hardly have to explain to a world-class anthropologist how the myth that there is only one person that we can each be happy with was created to serve the needs of communities rather than individuals." Sweets prompted.

Brennan sighed. "Monogamy and marriage originated in agrarian societies where it was desirous for men to track and control women's offspring to ensure that their land and property was inherited only by their children."

"Exactly. And in modern societies, monogamous relationships are not about some archaic notion of 'fate' or 'soulmates' but are a conscious choice: an expression of trust and intimacy." Sweets gave a half-smile.

Brennan's brow furrowed as it did when she encountered something that was in danger of changing her mind. "You and I have trust and intimacy."

Sweets blinked. "We do?"
"Yes. I trust you, even though you insist on relating everything I tell you to your tenuous profession, and I tell you intimate details of my past."

Sweets leaned back in his chair, trying not to show his surprise.
"Not often."

Brennan looked hurt, but stubborn. "I tell you more in these sessions than I tell Booth or Angela!"

Sweets eyes widened. "Really?" he asked softly.
"Yes." she squared her jaw.
"Dr Brennan, I...I'm really touched." Sweets blushed. "I never thought you took me seriously."

"I am starting to take you less seriously now." she said pointedly.

"Right...right." Sweets straightened up in his chair."You and I do share a lot, and it's good that we do, both personally and professionally. But there's a big difference between what we share and a committed romantic relationship."

Brennan cocked her head to the side. "You mean sex."

Sweets spluttered and turned the noise into a clearing of his throat. "Like sex, yes."
Brennan frowned. "I've never had sex with Booth either."

"No, but you've both wanted to." Sweets smiled, trying to shuffle this conversation back into more comfortable territory.

"Then I still can't see any appreciable difference between the potential romance between Booth and I, and the possibility of one existing between you and I." Brennan continued stubbornly. "I've imagined you naked with pleasant results and I am sure you have done the same."

Sweets forced his eyes shut and rubbed his brow with one hand. This was not Dr Brennan hitting on him. It wasnt. It was just her using a really freaking awkward analogy to try to better understand the idea that Booth was not the only person in the universe that could make her happy. But the way it was making him feel - that sick pit in his stomach - it was like he was back in high school. He had to nip this conversation in the bud.

"The slightly inappropriate line this session has taken is called 'transference'. he said heavily. "It happens all the time with psychologists - they help you deal with the loss of a relationship, and you try to replace it with the relationship you have with your psychologist. You don't really find me - the annoying kid shrink - attractive."

But the more he argued the more committed Brennan got to the idea, in a purely intellectual way, as though she were the captain of a debate. "Why wouldn't I? You have a pleasing stature and musculature, a symmetrical face, with the large eyes, high Zygomatics and the fuller tubercule that connote adolescence and have historically been considered markers of sensuality. Perhaps, if your self esteem is so poor as to render you incapable of recognizing these attributes, you are in greater need of therapy than I am." she gave him a competitive smile.

Sweets had furrowed his brow while she was talking, partially fascinated at how completely Brennan had missed the awkwardness of breaking down his relative hotness to his face, partially wondering how this conversation had gotten so majorly hijacked.

"We're supposed to be helping you deal with the loss of Booth as a romantic partner." Sweets chided.

But her whole demeanor had changed - as rapidly as it had when they had played the word association game a while back that had brought Brennan's desire for a baby to her attention.

"I believe by helping me to redefine the necessary requirements for a romantic relationship you have helped me a great deal." Brennan smiled.

Sweets took a measured breath. He should have been more careful in offering Brennan a definition of anything. She'd gone from not believing in love at all to almost letting herself believe in Booth's one-true-love theory, and now, she was adjusting her belief system again on Sweets' say-so. Baby steps.

"Logically speaking, a romantic relationship is not just the about its baseline requirements, but also it's context." Sweets tried. "What you and I don't have is an environment in which our relationship would flourish, because of professional restrictions on my part and potential hostility from your friends. Nor do we share compatible world-views."

"My world-view is far more compatible with yours than it is with Booth's. And if I chose you as a mate, of course our friends would be happy for us." her brow was furrowed again.

"Get real Dr Brennan - the Jeffersonian has almost as much invested in you and Booth getting together as I did. No way would they calmly accept you trading in the FBI agent for the screwy kid shrink!"

"You're angry." Brennan observed.
Sweets' eyebrows drew together in a pained expression. "No, I'm stressed out."
"You always say to let anger lead you to the fear." Brennan said in a low tone. "Since this discussion of our compatibility is a completely hypothetical enterprise, why does the idea that our friends would not accept you as my lover make you angry?"

Sweets glared at Brennan, but it was the processing kind of glare where he was sorting things out in his head. "I...don't feel accepted there." he admitted slowly. "None of you at the Jeffersonian really believe in psychology - or if you do, you all think I'm too young and inexperienced to practice it. Even here, at the FBI, where they at least find my profession occasionally useful, I cop a lot of macho crap about my age and masculinity. I don't belong here either."

Brennan's eyes were large and compassionate. "You belong with us. You do." she insisted.

Sweets' lip curled the way it did when he was trying to stifle the way he was feeling. It was more than not belonging, he was starting to realise. He had liked the idea of being with Dr Brennan. A little too much. But since that was the most unprofessional thought he'd ever had, and she was so, so fragile right now, he was going to shut his god damn mouth on the subject.

"Linguistic markers..." Brennan now looked at him curiously, as though he were a skull refusing to yield cause of death."You said 'did'... 'the Jeffersonian has as much invested in you and Booth getting together as I did.' What's changed Dr Sweets?"

"I...uh..."Sweets clasped his hands nervously, trying to work out what to say. Damn it, he'd been seeing her professionally and personally for over two years and he was only just this second realizing he might be in love with her? What was wrong with him?

"Booth and Hannah have changed." he croaked weakly.

"Oh. You believe their relationship has long term viability." There was hurt in Brennan's eyes.

Sweets had not intended to tell her so bluntly, but he was too grateful to be off the hook to soften the blow. "I do."

Brennan nodded. She was quiet for a moment.

"That means I'm free to pursue other romantic potentials." Brennan smiled coyly at him.

Oh god. He hadn't conned her for a moment.

"Dr Brennan, you've heard the term 'rebound' before." Sweets began.

"Yes. It's the layman's term for transference." She was smiling a little as though the fact that he'd clutched for the same argument twice in one conversation meant she had him on the back foot.

"Whatever you call it, it's still a real thing." he leaned back in the chair, all of a sudden feeling a little pursued. He made a show of casually glancing at the clock. "Oh, wouldnt you know it - session's over." He made to stand and escort her to the door, but Brennan crowded him back beyond the purview of the glass doors.

"Dr Brennan..." His voice was high and tight, registering his distress.
"I'm your psychologist."
"And you just said the session was over." Brennan arched her eyebrows and placed a hand on his chest. "I just...want to conduct an experiment." his heart was beating wildly. Sweets looked uncomfortable, even hurt, but the jut of his jaw seemed defiant, and his eyes, when Brennan met them, the pupils were dilated.

They stilled, staring at each other.
A game of chicken.

Brennan was amused, but hesitant, waiting.

Finally, Sweets ducked his head and crashed his mouth into hers, pulling her closer towards him and twisting so he was leaning her up against his office wall. Brennan's arm tangled up around his neck and her fingers dug into his curls.

He let out a particularly guttural moan as Brennan found the erogenous zones on his neck that shocked him back to reality.

"Oh god...what are we doing? Temperance?"
Brennan broke away from him with a final nip. "You usually call me Dr. Brennan."
"I think we've graduated a little beyond that point, don't you?" Sweets ruffled his already mussed up hair and tried to calm himself.

Brennan took a step back from him.

"So what was that to you?" Sweets gestured wildly at the air as though that could sum up their passionate encounter "Were you just 'experimenting' as you put it or do you have any real interest in me?"

"I don't know, Sweets. I think I do." Brennan was looking a little out of her comfort zone. "I'd like to see how it plaids out."

Sweets frowned. "It's 'plays' out. It's a sport metaphor, nothing to do with - oh who freaking cares? Either way I'm so fired."

"Then wouldn't you prefer to be hanged as the proverbial sheep than the lamb?" Brennan persisted, pretty sure she'd gotten that idiom right. She smoothed a hand along his collarbone and begun to massage his tense trapezius with reassuring squeezes . "Come on, Lance. I am serious about this."

He turned and caught her gaze and suddenly his eyes were stormy and pained. He was no more used to trusting people with his heart than she was.

This time she reached over and deftly took his left hand in hers, tracing his supraorbital margin gently with her right. Somehow she felt braver with Sweets - maybe it was because he was younger, or because she could relate to so much of his past, or simply because as a psychologist he tried to make connections with people instead of blocking or deflecting.

"Let's just sort out what this means to us tonight, and worry about what it means to everyone else tomorrow morning."

This time when they kissed they closed their eyes and soft lips melted into each other, both of them sighing contentedly.

Brennan didn't think of Booth once.