Collide

BB When you cross the line there's no going back. Where do they go from here?

Chapter One: You Make A First Impression

Disclaimer: I have custody of my Muse and the plot but I humbly acknowledge that I have no jurisdiction over the characters themselves.

A/N:- I thought I'd do something different and set myself a challenge of a multi-chapter fic and by writing something which isn't a hundred-percent in canon. I find both things incredibly hard to write but I hope this works out as my Muse intends it.

I know the basic outline of the fic. There's going to be a lot of fluff mixed in with occasional angst and some action-drama in the middle.

'Collide' – Howie Day

"Look, I said I'm sorry a thousand times." Booth said exasperatedly as they entered her office.

Brennan tossed her case notes on the desk. "You humiliated me Booth. In front of a dozen people." She said, shooting him a deadly glare, her hands on her hip, her posture defiant.

"What was I supposed to do Bones? I had to put you down and dismiss the authenticity of your findings to trick Edmonds into a false sense of security – which we succeeded in doing may I add." Booth explained.

"Well, you could have given me some warning beforehand!" Brennan shot.

"But then we wouldn't have got the authentic 'Bambi' look from you." Booth said, unable to contain the small smirk that he let slip. The look on her face when he had actually called the findings she had presented 'unauthentic scientific garble' had been priceless. Of course as he continued to shoot down her claims in front of everyone, her astonishment had quickly turned to hurt and he had felt unsettling guilty. True to form though that hurt soon faded into anger and Booth was glad. Angry Bones was something he could handle, he even found it strangely attractive and half of the things he said sometimes were just to bait her.

"I thought we were partners!" She huffed exasperatedly. "And I don't know what that means." She added, almost as an after thought in response to his mention of Bambi.

"It means that if I'd told you what I was going to say beforehand, you wouldn't have reacted in the same way and he would never have bought the act." Booth explained.

Brennan's eyes narrowed. "You find this amusing don't you?" She said, disgust dripping from her voice. She held his gaze challengingly. He was giving her his most irritating arrogant superior look, gloating at having managed to wind her up so much, even if it was for a case. "You gave the excuse that your little act today was for the purpose of the case but I bet you were just glad to be able to put down my work. You know we've worked together for awhile now but you still don't accept the value of what we do here and how my findings hold the key to all your cases."

She was getting more and more worked up with each word. And all Booth could do was watch how she did that adorable thing where she scrunched up her nose in irritation the angrier she got.

"If it wasn't for me Booth we never would have identified the victims in half of the cases we've worked and in the other half it would have taken your FBI Forensics department days to scrape off enough DNA and another week before the lab could get back to you with information. You know, I think it's time you stopped being so-"

Brennan never got to finish her rant because at that moment something which well and truly shut her up happened…………………

She wasn't sure whether the first thing her brain processed was the fact she had been pushed up against her bookshelf and had a very large hard-covered volume digging into her spine or the fact that someone else's hands and not her own were now resting on her hips.

Or maybe, just maybe, it was the fact that Booth was kissing her.

And not in a friendly, jokey, playful way either. It was more of a determined, one-mission, take-your-breath-away kiss. Which it did, literally.

And for the first time in her life, her brain froze and refused to start working. Just as she thought she was going to pass out, he pulled his head away but didn't step back. Instead, he just stood there, staring at her, the only thing breaking the silence was his heavy breathing.

It turned out that her brain was not the only thing that was frozen. She couldn't move a muscle in her body. She couldn't think, she couldn't process and she most certainly couldn't move or speak.

What felt like several light years had passed before she'd managed to get as far as realising that Booth's eyes had been boring into her own, waiting for a reaction.

She most probably should have run. Or slapped him. Or demand to know what he thought he was doing. Or done all three. Instead, she didn't have the physical power to implement any of these and at that very moment she did the thing which was the very very very opposite of rational. She reached up and brought his lips crashing down onto hers again.

Booth had always been a very impulsive man, guided by his emotions, seeking out to get what he wanted but the one thing he couldn't be impulsive about was Brennan. And yet after one year and several months of trying to control himself around her, he had still, in the end, failed. She was in the middle of one of her rants but he wasn't really paying attention to what she was saying. All he could think about how if he was going to give into the impulse he often got when he was around her he might as well do it when she was so mad at him since her anger couldn't possibly increase anyway. And so he had done it and she hadn't pushed him away, nor had she run when he had finally given the chance. In fact she had done the very opposite.

"Bren-nan!" Her best friend called, half way down the corridor towards her office.

Booth and Brennan sprung apart at the sound of Angela's voice and Booth had just managed to take a few steps back whilst Brennan was straightening her blouse when Angela walked in.

"Hey Booth!" Angela said cheerfully before turning to Brennan, completely unaware of what she had just interrupted. "Zach's scanned in the skull and I'm ready to do the reconstruction when you are."

Brennan nodded in reply, trying to regain her focus on the case. It seemed like Booth was having the same trouble as he was wringing his hands together nervously.

Angela glanced at both of them. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah, yeah of course." Booth said instantly and then realising he had spoken too quickly, too soon, he tried to brush it off. "You go do that Bones and I'll go check with the surveillance team and see whether Edmonds has given us anything to go on." He said keeping his voice level and much calmer than he felt.

"Okay." Brennan replied.

"Good, we'll, er, catch up later then." Booth said giving her a small, unsure smile.

Brennan met his gaze for the first time since their big loss of rationality and she felt herself grow warm with embarrassment. "Yeah, sure."

"Good. See you Angela!" Booth said throwing the artist a quick grin before heading out.

Angela watched him go before giving Brennan a puzzled look. Brennan didn't let her say anything though. "Right, let's start on the reconstruction then." She said walking out of the room and down into Angela's studio, trying to wrap her mind around what had just happened.

"We know he's male and Caucasian so I've entered those details already." Angela said as a holographic skull appeared in front of them.

Brennan took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a split second as she tried to focus. She had the important task of trying to identify the dead body in front of her and all she could think about was Booth and the kisses and what this meant for them – damn him! "Erm, lengthen the nose slightly." She said before Angela could give her another one of her suspicious looks. "Then make the eyes slightly wider." Brennan said, studying her notes.

"Like this?" Angela checked.

"Yeah, good."

"I think I'm going to give the mouth more expression. He looks like the kind of guy that would smile a lot." Angela pondered. "I wonder whether his hair was long or-"

"I kissed Booth."

Angela looked up from her sketchpad and although it was dark Brennan could tell she was giving her a look of quiet disbelief like she was sure she had heard her wrong. "What?" She said finally, sounding like she was on the verge of hearing the punch-line of a joke.

"I kissed Booth." Brennan repeated like it was obviously the only thing she could possibly have said.

"You what?" Angela said sounding rather like a child on Christmas day seeing her presents for the first time.

"Don't make me say it for a third time Ange. I already feel like a giant doofus."

Angela paused in her escalation to excitement but only for a minute. "Okay we'll get back to you saying the word 'doofus' in a minute but oh my god this is huge! I mean, this moment has obviously been inevitable but….. how, why, when??"

Angela was all but pushing her onto the comfy sofa in the corner, the half drawn man suspending in mid air forgotten. Normally Brennan would have insisted they concentrate on the case but truth was she had to get it all out of her. "Just before you came in. As to why he kissed me I would really like to know that too."

"Wait. Before, you said that you kissed him. Who did the kissing Brennan?"

Brennan frowned slightly. "Does it make much difference? Obviously there was mutual participation both times."

If Brennan thought Angela was positively shrill before, she went through the roof now. "It happened more than once?! And yes it makes ALL the difference."

Brennan shrugged. "We were arguing…"

"As usual." Angela interjected but quickly shut up when her friend shot her a look. "Sorry. Carry on."

"I was really really cross at him because he'd made me look like an idiot in front of lots of people and I think I must have been in the middle of ranting at him when all of a sudden he'd pinned me against the wall and erm, yeah. And then afterwards it was like a freak of nature and I couldn't think of anything to say or do even when I should have been even angrier at him."

"So your only recourse was to kiss him again?" Angela said, eyebrows raised.

"I never said it was the sane response."

"No sweetie, I'm proud of you!" Angela beamed. "So was it good?" She asked, her voice lowered a bit, longing for details.

Brennan smiled faintly. "Yes."

"Of course it was. It's Booth."

Normally Brennan would have said something here about how anthropologically speaking, being good-looking bears no relevance to whether he can kiss well or not but for once she really didn't have it in her to ruin the mood.

"Is it going to happen again?"

"No." Brennan said quickly and firmly, resolve setting in. "It's crazy. We work together, we're partners. It should never have even happened in the first place." Angela opened her mouth to say something but Brennan stopped her signalling the end of the dreamy high-school moment. "Drop it Ange. There's a victim that needs justice." She said, waving to the hologram.

Ten minutes later they had finished and were both heading out of the studio when Brennan ran straight into Booth and she dropped her folder on the floor.

"Oh sorry." Booth said, quickly bending down and picking it up for her. He looked at her with an unrecognisable expression on his face but then he noticed Angela staring at them, a small smile on her face. "I was just coming to see Angela for a copy of the victim's face."

"Oh, yeah, sure, we've just finished." Brennan said, feeling slightly flustered around him, her eyes darting this way and that.

"Okay." Booth said, stepping out of her way.

"Okay." Brennan said before walking away quickly and deliberately.

Booth watched her go, hoping the awkwardness between them wouldn't last. He didn't want it to be like this but then again he had expected to be able to laugh the whole thing off. That plan had well and truly fallen through with the unplanned second kiss. "What?" He asked, looking up from the sketch, feeling Angela smiling at him. "She told you. Of course she told you." He said, taking a deep breath. "It was nothing. I just lost my self control."

"Well, I wish you'd lose your self control around me some time Seeley."

Booth smiled at her joking flirtatious manner. "So what did she say?"

Angela shook her head with a laugh. "It's going to take more than your charm smile to make me break my friend's confidence Booth." She told him.

"Yeah I thought as much." Booth sighed. Guess he had to figure out where to go from here himself.

Now that Booth had a face for the victim, the speed of the case really picked up from there. After scanning the database, he managed to match the victim's face to someone in the system who, predictably, had a connection with Edmonds. That gave Booth enough to bring the suspect in for questioning. Knowing how much Brennan loved having full involvement in the case, he had run by the lab but when he couldn't find her anywhere or get hold of her by phone, he had arrested Edmonds himself and she had walked into the interrogation room halfway and hadn't looked at him once. Determined that he wouldn't let Brennan's avoidance technique get the better of him once the case was wrapped he offered her a ride.

They rode in silence which was something they never did and Brennan knew that although neither of them were talking about it, they were both thinking about what happened earlier. She glanced over at Booth but he was staring straight ahead, his eyes fixed on the road. She followed his lead and concentrated on the license plate of the car in front until she simply couldn't take being this silent anymore. "We kissed." She stated bluntly.

"I know." Booth replied, looking over at her as he waited for the traffic lights to change. "I was there." He smirked.

"It's not going to happen again."

Booth shrugged, his eyes back on the road as they started moving again. "If you say so."

There was something in his tone of voice that Brennan just managed to pick up on. "It's NOT." She insisted. The smile on Booth's face grew. Trust him to find this amusing. "It was completely unprofessional of you in the first place." She said, crossing her arms.

Booth made a noise which sounded like half a chuckle, half a splutter. "That's very hypocritical of you Bones."

"What? It came out of nowhere, you took me by surprise."

"So your defensive action was to kiss me back. That's rational Bones, very rational." Booth said sarcastically.

"Are you complaining? Because from where I stood you seemed to be enjoying yourself." Brennan shot indignantly.

Booth chuckled. Trust her to be evasive and change tactics. "The question should be why you kissed me."

"You tell me why you kissed me first."

"Fine! I kissed you because it was the only way I could think of to stop you shouting at me!"

Brennan bit the inside of her cheek. His words stung more than she wanted to show and she turned her head away and looked out of the passenger window.

"And because I've wanted to for quite some time." Booth added quietly into the silence as he pulled up in front of Brennan's apartment.

"Well you should have not-wanted to then Booth. We work together and there's the line that you keep talking about." Brennan said, a hint of tiredness in her voice as she got out of the car and started walking up to her place.

Booth quickly locked the car and jogged to catch up with her. "Bones, just face it – you kissed me back and you just don't want to admit it because of stupid pride or something."

"Booth I'm a woman. I have impulses like anyone else. It was a one time thing."

"So it won't happen again?" Booth asked.

They were standing outside her apartment door now and he was looking at her challengingly, a small smile pulling at the corners of his lips.

Brennan looked at him and everything that Angela said to her about him over the past year and a half came rushing at her at once. She was attracted to her partner, she did love being in his company, she did get a secret thrill from their banter and even though she was as independent as hell, she wasn't always as annoyed as she seemed when he was over protective. But there were boundaries and if she wanted to keep all of the above then her lapse in judgement wasn't going to happen again. "No." She said determinedly. And it wasn't.

He was holding her gaze and she knew that the safe thing to do was to say goodbye, turn round and go inside where it would be much easier to keep her resolution than out here. Now she knew how suspects felt when Booth stared at them, willing them to back down first and at the same time making it impossible for her to do so. He took two steps forward, closing the gap between them and placed a hand on the wall behind her. Then he lowered his head so his face was so close to her skin she could feel his breath kissing her neck. He was teasing her, testing her, she knew what he was playing at and yet she didn't push him away. He moved his head slightly so he could look at her, their lips a fraction of a millimetre apart. Her breath caught in her throat as a rush of desire ran through her body.

Screw resolve. Brennan closed her eyes and brushed her lips against his. Booth didn't even have time to smile at his small victory as he kissed her back, softly at first but gradually deepening the kiss until they were kissing passionately.

If during the first kiss she had been too shocked to be aware what was happening and the second kiss had been his turn to be taken by surprise, Brennan was sure that this time they were both very very aware of what they were doing. She wanted him and now was the only time she wasn't afraid of showing it. Her arms went around his neck, her hands tangled up in his hair, holding him against her. Their kisses were getting more and more heated with each passing second. Booth's fingers were softly stroking the skin above her hip where her blouse had hitched up and he was sending shivers through her body.

"Do you want to come in?" She asked breathless.

Booth kissed her again before moving his mouth away slightly. "I really shouldn't." He replied, his lips moving from her mouth, planting kisses all the way down her neck until he found a patch of soft skin near her collarbone and he sucked on it gently.

Brennan tipped her head back and rested it on the wall, eyes closed, her mouth parted slightly. There was no going back, rationality flew out the window. She reached behind her, just managing to twist the doorknob and they stumbled into her apartment, their bodies glued together.

A/N:- Three kisses in one chapter? What has come over me eh? I love reading all your reviews so feedback is greatly appreciated.