Dr. Temperance Brennan was sitting at her desk in her office at the Jeffersonian, grading the essays from some of her anthropology students. She had meant to finish with these papers the night before, but she had found herself sucked in to watching a couple classic movies on her new 55" flat screen television. She loved classic movies. She'd finally caved in over the weekend and bought the TV because Booth was always telling her she needed one, she liked when Booth occasionally came over and hung out with her at night, and she reasoned that if she had a nice TV, Booth might come around a little more often. But, she'd gotten distracted from her work, which is why she had avoided owning a TV for so long. Booth was distracting enough as it was. Thoughts about his smile, his warm brown eyes, his sentimental heart, his prominent mental protuberance, his symmetrical features …. All too too distracting.

"Bones? You in there Bones?" Speak of the devil she thought as she watch Booth charge into her office. "Hey, Bones, we got a body. Grab your stuff and let's go." A few minutes later and they were out the door.

"What do we know?" she queried.

"Well, not a whole lot yet. Some 10-year old kids found a body about 30-ft off of a jogging trail in a wooded area of the park. They were drawn off the trail when they spotted a raccoon and went to investigate. Turns out their cute little raccoon buddy was snacking on the remains of a person. The remains are apparently just the way you like them so our field agents couldn't tell much about the deceased."

"Did you know that the natural life span of a raccoon in the wild is close to 16 years, but that today most raccoons don't live much more than about 2 years due to their interaction with humans?"

When Booth and Brennan arrived at the park, she hopped out of the SUV and went to the back to put on her ookey suit and grab her field kit.

"We'll need to walk about a quarter mile from where we're parked to get to the body. There's no vehicular access any closer than this. How 'bout you let me carry your kit for you?"

"OK, thanks Booth" she surprised him by saying yes. Normally, she would insist on carrying her kit herself. However, it was a mildly warm day today and she figured if he carried her kit for her, he might get a little warm, take off his jacket, and loosen his tie. Pathetic, but she enjoyed watching the play of his shoulders without his suit jacket on. Now, if she could find a way to get him out of his shirt too … focus, Brennan. She'd always found Booth attractive, but lately her libido and her thoughts seemed to be running a little wild around him. Too much distraction.

They approached the scene which had been cordoned off with FBI crime scene tape. There were about a dozen FBI field agents milling around, questioning the kids who found the body, and processing the scene. Brennan put on her gloves and knelt down next to the body to start her initial examination. After watching her poke at the remains for a couple minutes, Booth started their familiar routine.

"What do you think, Bones?"

"Well, based on the shape of the pelvic girdle, the deceased is a female." Leaning over the head and brushing her fingers gently along the eye sockets "based on the curvature of the orbital cavities, I'd say she was a Caucasian" then leaning back and examining the jawline "dentition indicates that she was probably in her mid-twenties to early thirties." Sitting back onto her haunches and giving the corpse a head-to-toe perusal "based on the level of decomp, I'd estimate time of death to be between 10 and 14 days ago, but I'm sure Cam and Hodgins can give a more accurate estimate once we get the body back to the lab."

"Any signs of foul play?"

"Well, she has what appears to be defensive wounds on her forearms." Brennan leaned forward again and ran her hands around the skull, gently feeling for any anomalies. "It feels like she might have some fracturing of her parietal bone which could be indicative of blunt force trauma, but I won't be sure until I can get a better look back at the lab. Right now I'd say there's a good possibility we're looking at the victim of a homicide."

After a few more minutes of Brennan's investigation, she noticed the victim appeared to be clutching something in her left hand. "Booth, can you grab me a couple small evidence bags from my kit?"

Booth grabbed the requested items and placed them in Brennan's outstretched hand. "Thanks darling."

Darling? Did Bones just call me darling? Booth froze at the words watching Brennan pull a small set of forceps off her utility belt and extracting whatever was in the victim's hand, carefully putting it in the evidence bag and sealing the bag which she then handed back to him. He looked around and noticed several of the FBI techs smirking at them. Yep. She called me 'darling' and I'm not the only one who noticed it. Brennan, he noted, just collected her evidence and then kept on examining the corpse as though calling him "darling" was a normal, everyday thing.

"Booth, there are some scratches here on two of her ribs. They could indicate she was stabbed by something. Of course, they could be the result of animal predation as well. I'll need to examine them closer under a microscope once the bones are clean to determine the correct cause."

Darling. Booth decided he liked the way it had sounded rolling off her tongue. It had a rich, melodious, full bodied sound to it, maybe even a tad husky. Darling. It was odd hearing her say it, as Brennan wasn't one you usually associated with endearments, but it had also sounded natural, like she was comfortable with the word. It was a classy word, as far as endearments go, not something too cutsie like snookums, cuddle-bear, or, heaven forbid, big-daddy-yum-yum. Jared once had a girlfriend that called him her big-daddy-yum-yum. Booth had about gagged every time.

"Booth, are you listening to me?"

He noticed she was standing in front of him now, with her hands on her hips, looking at him expectantly.

"Yeah, sure. Absolutely. What did you say?"

She rolled her eyes and gave him that annoyed school teacher look she had perfected. Call him odd, but he found that school teacher look damn sexy and, truth be told, it had fed into a few of the fantasies he'd entertained about Brennan over the last couple years.

"I said I'm done here. We can go ahead and release the remains to the FBI recovery team. Let's get them to collect everything and have it sent back to the Jeffersonian so my team can start doing their thing. It's late enough in the afternoon today that you and I can probably just go home and I'll start on the body in the morning."

They packed up her field kit, and to Booth's surprise, she let him carry it for her again on the way back to the car.

Booth knew that he had a tendency to call the women he was involved with 'Babe' or 'Baby' as an endearment. He had had several fantasies which involved Brennan where she greeted him with a sultry smile and a "Hello Handsome" or a "Come a little closer, Loverboy." Not too long ago, he'd watched Grease with Parker. Somehow, that movie had become a lot more sexually explicit than what he remembered from when he'd watched it a long time ago, but thankfully, most of the references seemed to go right over Parker's head. After the movie was over though, he spent the night picturing Brennan dressed up in skin tight black leather pants with a skimpy tight black off-the-shoulder top and bright red stilettos on her feet, looking at him with a saucy grin and saying "Tell me about it, Stud." He could totally picture it happening with Angela taking on the role of Frenchie to get her all decked out.

They reached the area where the truck was parked and Booth placed Brennan's field kit in the back. Since it was a warm day, he took off his suit jacket and tossed it over the case as well. Glancing over at Brennan as he reached up to loosen his tie and undo the top button of his shirt, he thought he caught a slight upward tilt to her lips, almost as though she was smiling at some inner thought.

"You've been pretty quiet this afternoon Booth. Is everything OK?" She asked a moment later.

"I'm fine Bones. Just fine." They got in the car and Booth started the engine. "You realize though that the gossips are going to go a little crazy after today, don't you?"

"What gossips? What do you mean?"

"You know. The folks at both the FBI and the Jeffersonian that like to speculate on our relationship."

"Why would they be going crazy? We behaved in a perfectly professional manner today, like always."

"Weeelllll, you did call me Darling" He said with a grin and a waggle of his eyebrows.

"What? No. No, I didn't. When?"

Booth just smiled at her and watched the blush steal onto her cheeks. She must've realized he was telling her the truth because she leaned her head back against the head rest, closed her eyes, and simply said "Oh, God. Sorry about that Booth. It wasn't intentional." Distracting. He's just too damn distracting.

"I'm not complaining Bones. Although, I'm a little puzzled as to why you'd call me darling."

When she didn't respond after a moment, Booth teasingly prompted her again "Is there something going on between us that I should know about?"

Brennan chuckled, glad he didn't seem upset. "No Booth. It's just … I told you I bought a new TV the other day right? Well, last night I watched a couple old films where the female lead addressed the male lead as "darling" and I can only assume the term was lingering in my subconscious today and must've just popped out at an inappropriate time. Again, I'm sorry." Probably because the old films were romances and in the love scenes, which she'd envisioned as Booth and herself, the female lead had called her lover 'darling' during their passionate encounters. Not that she'd share that little extra tidbit with him. That was more than he needed to know.

Booth was a pretty smart guy and he'd known Brennan for several years now. He wouldn't be so naïve as to ever claim he had her figured out, but, he was pretty sure that she would never, even accidentally, address someone with a romantic endearment if there wasn't at least the potential for romantic involvement with that person somewhere in her mind. For example, there's no way in hell that he'd believe she'd ever accidently call someone like Fisher "darling". Therefore, by Booth's reasoning of Brennan's mind, that must mean she could picture him as a more personal, or intimate, relation. Booth was immensely pleased by this line of reasoning and figured he just needed to get her to admit it. Just. Climbing Mt. Everest in foul weather might be easier.

"I've no problems with you calling me darling, babe. Just know that I draw the line at being called any kind of flower or food item – like kumquat, pumpkin, sweat-pea, or buttercup."

"Why would I …? Did you just call me babe?"

"Well, yeah. If you're going to go around calling me darling, I'm going to call you babe, or baby. It's only fair after all. Why? Would you prefer I called you something else? Like sweet-cheeks?"

"What? No. I don't want you calling me sweet-cheeks. Booth …"

"Tootsie?"

"No, of course not. That's a ridiculous moniker." She was so confused.

"Well then. We'll stick with darling and babe. Probably best anyway. I'm not sure anyone would take us seriously if we went around calling each other some cute little name like pookie-bear. We'll leave those type of nicknames to Sweets and Daisy. Pookie-bear is not at all professional."

"Booth, traditionally nicknames like 'darling' and 'babe' are reserved for people who are involved in a romantic relationship."

"So you're saying we're in a romantic relationship now Bones? No more 'just-partners'? Okay. But if that's the case, how about dinner together tonight? If we're going to be in a romantic relationship, we should at least go out on a date occasionally."

Brennan had completely lost control of this conversation. Booth had just pulled up in front of her apartment and turned to face her in the front of the car. The bizarreness of their discussion had thrown her off balance for a bit, but her mind was rapidly catching up and telling her Booth was asking her out, and not as his work partner. Brennan was not typically very good at reading people, but she knew Booth and looking into his face now, she was pretty sure she saw signs of nervousness as well as anticipation. Booth wanted to date her!

Before she could check the impulse, she leaned forward, wrapping a hand around his neck, and pulled him into a kiss. A kiss which quickly escalated as her fingers wound their way into his hair, their tongues entwined, and his arms wrapped around her snuggly, holding her chest pressed to his. A kiss which lasted several minutes, until the partners were out of breath and there was no doubt in either person's mind what change was about to occur in their relationship. A kiss which left both partners smiling like giddy school children as they looked into each other's eyes.

Then, in a soft, sultry voice, Brennan responded "Dinner together tonight sounds wonderful Booth, but it's still a little early yet. Would you like to come upstairs with me and see what we can find to entertain ourselves until then, darling?"