Part Three

Brennan breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth, trying desperately to maintain some semblance of control after her outburst. She couldn't believe that she'd said those things to Booth, and neither could he, judging by the look on his face.

She stood and walked past him muttering, "I'm sorry," as she passed. She was already in his guest room with her suitcase open when she heard him behind her.

"What are you doing?" he asked, his voice soft and unsure.

"I'm packing," she replied as she shoved another article into the case.

"The pizza will be here in a minute. You can't leave until you eat something."

And then she heard him walk away. She paused and closed her eyes, cringing when the doorbell rang and she heard him conversing easily with the delivery boy. She'd had a meltdown. A decidedly very-much-not-like-her-at-all meltdown and she was kicking herself over the things she'd said. But he wasn't kicking her out, and he wasn't making a fuss. She knew that they were going to have to talk about it at some point, and the pizza smelled divine, so she cursed herself and got dressed.

When she walked into the dining room, he was standing in the kitchen, looking in the refrigerator. "I'm pouring you a glass of wine," he said, and she knew it was a statement and not a question. The pizza was already on the table, plates set, so she sat down in what had become her chair and pulled out a slice for him and a slice for her.

She felt him behind her and stilled when he placed the glass of wine in front of her. Then he sat down and closed his eyes, offering grace for his meal. She waited until he mouthed 'Amen.' "Booth . . . I,"

He pointed to her plate. "Not yet. Let's eat first, and then we'll talk."

Brennan nodded, thankful for this short reprieve and the opportunity to try and get her thoughts back in order. Halfway through their meal, she remembered Angela. "Damn."

Booth looked up and raised an eyebrow in question.

"I was on the phone with Angela when I heard the commotion in the bathroom. I should call her back and let her know that everything's okay." She stood and picked up the phone which he must have placed on the bar when he was setting the table. As she dialed she said with a light laugh, "I'm surprised she's not knocking at the door, as worked up as I was."

Booth just smiled but didn't say a word. After two rings, Angela picked up. "Is everything okay?"

"Everything's fine," Brennan assured her. "Booth dropped something and I overreacted. I wanted to let you know so you wouldn't worry."

"Oh," Angela sighed. "Thank goodness."

"We're eating dinner right now," Brennan continued. "Can I call you later?"

Angela agreed, so Brennan hung up and returned to her seat. She picked up her glass and swirled the contents around before raising it to her lips, finishing her wine. "Can I talk now?" she asked as she put the glass down and nudged her plate away from the edge of the table.

Booth nodded. "Sure."

She took a deep breath before saying, "I want to apologize for my outburst. It was childish and unnecessary. My only excuse is that I'm tired and wasn't thinking straight. Will you forgive me?" She looked up to find him staring at her. "What?"

He wiped his mouth, took a drink of his water, and sat back in his chair. "Are you serious?"

"What would I gain by not being serious?" She sat back in her chair and they stared at each other across the table for a moment.

"There's nothing to forgive," he finally said. "In fact, I should be asking for your forgiveness."

Brennan considered his statement then shook her head, "I don't understand."

Booth smiled and stood, holding out his hand to her as he walked by. "Come with me," he instructed. She took his hand and followed him to the living room. He pointed to the couch, so she sat and waited while he looked out the window and organized his thoughts.

"I had the strangest dream after the operation," he began as he turned around and crossed the room. He took a seat across from her and continued, "I don't know if it was an effect of the drugs, or not, but it was so real that I've had a hard time forgetting it."

Brennan wondered why he felt that this was the time to tell her about this. She remembered what he had said when he woke up from the anesthetic. How could she forget? 'Such a weird dream . . . so real . . . it felt so real . . . who are you?'

"I know you're wondering what this has to do with anything," he said, and she smiled. "Trust me."

"I remember you saying something about a dream when you woke up," she admitted.

"Then I'm sure you remember that I asked who you were." He paused, waiting for a reaction from her, watching her carefully.

Brennan nodded. "Yes, I remember. I was worried for a moment that you might have some sort of short term memory loss, but then Angela came in, and then Sweets, and you seemed okay after that." She hoped that she was presenting the facts as unemotionally as possible. She didn't want him to know how much that one question had cut her.

Booth studied her before saying, "Let me tell you about my dream, and then I think you'll understand why I was confused when I woke up."

She nodded and he began. She listened as he set the stage: a night club with all of their friends and colleagues involved in some way, even Zack. He explained how it was their night club and that they had been married.

"Married?" she asked with a small smile. "Us?"

He nodded and shrugged. "It's not that much of a leap for my subconscious," he explained. "We spend more time together than most married couples and, honestly, you're the most important woman in my life."

She felt the heat rise in her cheeks and realized that she was blushing as this admission. "Perfectly logical," she agreed. "Go on."

He went on to tell the story of how a hit man had been killed in the club and how all of the evidence seemed to point to the two of them as the killers. "The staff was covering for us, for me, though," he said with a smile. "It was strange."

"Not really." Brennan scooted forward on the couch, leaning a little closer to where Booth was sitting. "Our friends would defend us to the ends of the earth. I think we're both aware of that. They admire and respect you. From what you've said, in your dream, the hit man was there to kill your wife. I know I wouldn't be surprised if you were to react that way, and I know that we would all try to protect you under those circumstances."

He opened his mouth to say something, paused, and then asked, "Are you saying that you would willingly obstruct justice to protect me if I were to kill someone who was trying to kill my wife?"

His brow was furrowed, in confusion or amusement she couldn't tell, but she didn't see what was so confusing or amusing about the hypothetical. "In this situation, your wife is me. I know that you've gone to great lengths, in this reality, to protect me, and we're not married. Logically, knowing your feelings about marriage, I can deduce that your actions would be escalated if our bond was, in your eyes, stronger."

He seemed to accept this explanation, but he was still looking at her strangely. She wished Sweets was there to help her read him. When he didn't continue, she prompted, "Go on, I want to know who the killer was."

He grinned and nodded, continuing his narrative, concluding with the revelation that Jared had taken care of the hit man in order to protect her. "Like I said, it was so very real. When I woke up, I had a hard time distinguishing the dream you from the real you. I knew who you were; I just didn't know who you were. Does that make sense?"

Brennan sat in silence, soaking that in. "While your sentence doesn't make any sense at all, I know what you mean by it," she finally said. "You weren't sure if I was your wife, or your partner."

"Exactly!" Booth leaned back in his arm chair and smiled.

"What I don't understand," Brennan continued, "is why you're telling me this now."

Booth groaned. "You really don't understand, do you?"

She rose to her feet and walked over to the window, looking out into the night. "I'm guessing that I don't," she admitted. "And I don't like that."

"What I meant," he said, rising to his feet and walking over to stand behind her, "is that I was having trouble reconciling what your role in my life was because, no matter what that role is, my feelings for you are the same."

She looked at his reflection in the window and met his eyes. Her heart fluttered in her chest as she finally understood what he was trying to tell her. He cared about her as much as he would a significant other. He actually thought of her as his significant other.

"So, what I'm saying, Bones," and he placed his hand on her shoulder, still watching her in the reflection of the glass, "is that I understand what you mean when you say that you care so much that it scares you, because it kind of scares me, too."

He had purposely left out the part about the baby. Watching her now, he was sure that had been the right thing to do.

"Why are you scared?" she asked then, her voice small and quiet.

His hand was still on her shoulder; worried that if he broke contact with her she might run. Why was he scared? How could he put this in to words that she would understand? "You know you're my best friend, right?" Off of her nod he continued, "I don't want to lose that."

She turned, then, to face him. His hand dropped to his side. "Why would you lose that? We're a team. Just because the dynamic might be changing doesn't mean that we should lose each other."

He couldn't meet her eyes so he looked around the room, anywhere but at her. "I didn't expect that," he admitted.

"I don't know what you mean," she said.

He met her eyes again and smiled. "I mean that I didn't expect you to react this way."

She placed her hands on her hips and tipped up her chin - a challenge. "How was I supposed to react?"

"Well," he began, taking a step back, "since we're being honest here. I thought you'd be halfway out the door by now."

"How does your head feel?" she asked, throwing him off balance when she shifted gears. "It's past time for your medication," she explained, pointing at the clock.

He sat down on the couch and ran his hand through his too short hair. She wasn't going to run. He was sure of that, now. "I'm fine," he said, though now that she'd brought it up, he could feel the pressure of a slight headache beginning to build.

"You shouldn't wait until you're in pain to take something, Booth." She walked toward the kitchen, and he could hear her opening the cupboard and running the faucet. When she walked back into the living room, she sat next to him on the couch and handed him a glass of water. "Here," she said, holding two pills out to him.

Booth groaned. "I don't want to get sleepy," he complained. He hated the way the painkillers made him feel; he wanted to be in control of himself tonight.

"These are ibuprofen," she explained, pressing the pills into his hand. "They won't make you sleepy. Stop being a baby."

He popped the pills into his mouth, following them with half of the glass of water. "Happy," he said, as he placed the glass on the table, pointedly ignoring the baby comment.

"Overjoyed," she dryly replied, as she settled back into the corner of the couch, facing him. She was quiet, thoughtful, and he knew better than to break her concentration with words. He knew she would speak when she was ready.

Instead, he studied her. Her hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail with wavy wisps falling loose to frame her face which had been scrubbed clean of any make up. Her skin glowed. He wondered why she bothered with the stuff when she was so naturally beautiful, and he hoped that, some day, he might get the chance to ask her. She wore lounge pants in a light gray, and a t-shirt to match, making her look, all at once, comfortable, at home, and beautiful. She looked like she belonged on his couch in her comfortable clothes.

"You once told me that, in order to get people to open up, you have to offer something of yourself, first."

His eyes snapped to hers. "I remember," he said. "That was a long time ago."

She smiled and looked down at her lap. "It wasn't that long ago, Booth. Besides, it made an impression on me. *You* make an impression on me." She looked out across the room, chewing on her bottom lip. "You make me want to be human," she admitted.

He started to tell her that she was human, more human than most of the people he knew, but she turned to him, pulling her legs up onto the couch and tucking them up, lotus-style. "You offered up something to me," she continued, "so it's only fair that I reciprocate."

"Okay," he agreed, knowing better than to get in her way when she had that look in her eyes. She was on a mission.

"I've been in relationships before, some of them serious," she began, and he sat back, wondering where she was going with this. "Before we started working together, I was even living with a man. We broke up, badly, before I left for Guatemala. Angela would tell you that I ran to Guatemala and, thinking back on it, I think she was probably right. And you remember Sully."

Brennan sighed and rubbed the back of her neck with her hand. "I think what I'm trying to say here is that I'm not a novice when it comes to relationships with the opposite sex. I've had numerous partners, serious and casual, but none of them, obviously, have lasted very long." She laughed to herself. "Some men think I'm not very easy to get along with."

Booth smiled. "I don't know where anyone would get that idea," he teased, pushing the thoughts of her with 'numerous partners' out of his head.

"All of these men were different in their own ways," Brennan continued, giving him a pointed look and refusing to acknowledge his remark. "But it's how they're all alike that jumps out at me now." She paused, her eyes boring into his. "Not one of them was my friend."

Booth remained silent, waiting for her to continue.

"I'm a scientist," she said, her hands now clasped in her lap. "I observe, collect, and analyze data, and then I draw conclusions based on understood scientific principles. I don't leap to conclusions and I never, ever, go with my gut."

She paused, her gaze locked on her hands, and he wondered if she was waiting for him to say something.

Finally, she said, "When you were in the hospital, I had a lot of time to think."

"Bones." She looked up when he spoke her name, and he could see that she was struggling with this. "You don't have to tell me anything you're not ready to share," he said, reaching out to place a hand on her knee.

She looked down at his hand and, slowly, she placed her hand over his. "I want to," she said, softly. "I need to."

His hand was warm on her knee and she couldn't help but run her thumb along his wrist as her fingers rested atop his. How many times had she sat in his room, waiting for him to open his eyes, while doing this exact same thing? "I'm not very good at this," she admitted, though she knew he already knew that.

He squeezed her knee and said, "Say what you feel you need to say, Bones. I'm not going to push you, and I'm not going to judge you."

"I was so scared," she blurted, regretting the words as soon as they were out. "I like to be in control of things, and there you were, suffering from something completely out of my control, and all I could do was wait to see if you were going to be okay." She looked up at him and admitted, "I don't like not being in control, Booth."

He smiled and nodded. "I know you don't."

"But," she continued, "I know that not everything is within my control. I'm just usually much better at avoiding those situations. If I can't control it, I remove myself until I can."

"Like Guatemala," he offered.

"Like Guatemala," she agreed. "But I couldn't leave you. I didn't want to. I knew that, no matter what happened, I needed to be there. As terrifying as it was, I couldn't walk away."

His expression softened as she spoke, and it was in a whisper that he said, "Thank you, Bones."

"You would have done the same for me," she replied, reverently. "And I don't know what I could have done to deserve that kind of . . ."

"Devotion?" he offered.

He spoke the word solemnly and the gravity of it nearly overwhelmed her. "I don't know," she said. "I suppose you could call it that."

"I do," he insisted.

"But, you see, that's the point I'm trying to make," she leaned back and looked up at the ceiling, trying to line up her thoughts into some sort of coherent and logical order. "I'm not doing this right, am I?"

"You're doing fine," he assured her. She felt his hand slip from her knee as he leaned back, relaxing into the cushions. Her knee felt cold in its absence.

"I spent a lot of that time thinking, Booth. Thinking about what you mean to me - what we mean to each other. I can't pretend, anymore, that we're just partners. I think we've moved past that. In fact, I think we moved past that a long time ago. We just weren't paying attention." She spoke the words to the ceiling, knowing that she wouldn't be able to get them out if she were looking anywhere else. When she was done, she lowered her head to find him watching her. His face was schooled into the smile that so often infuriated her. The one that told her that he knew something she didn't know.

"I tried to write, to pass the time," she said. "I deleted it all because, really, it was overly emotional, and understandably so. But there was something that I wrote that I've been playing over and over in my mind."

"What's that?" he asked, still holding back, giving her the space she seemed to need.

She closed her eyes and began to recite, "I wrote, 'The thought of losing so much control over personal happiness is unbearable. That's the burden. Like wings, they have weight. We feel that weight on our backs but they are a burden that lifts us, burdens which allow us to fly'." Speaking the words out loud felt like an actual burden was being lifted, and she exhaled, letting the feeling wash over her.

She opened her eyes and looked directly at him. "I'd like to give flying a try," she said. "I think we'd be good at it."

He tilted his head to the side and looked at her, his expression unreadable, and she instantly regretting saying anything at all. His silence was unnerving. She was debating getting up and running for the door when he finally spoke, "Are you being literal or metaphorical there, Bones, because, and I'm going to be honest with you, I'm not too keen on flying in the literal sense."

She let out a breath and rolled her eyes. He was teasing her! At a moment like this, he was teasing her, and it felt wonderful. "Metaphorical, of course," she huffed.

He reached for her, gently pulling her closer. She unfolded her legs and allowed him to draw her into his arms. As she settled into his embrace, her head resting on his chest, his breath blowing through her hair with each exhale, she realized how lucky they were.

"We shouldn't be here," she said, his heartbeat thrumming steadily under her ear.

"Why do you say that," he asked as his arms formed a protective cocoon around her.

"Statistically speaking," and she heard him groan, but she continued on, "you've been shot, blown up, and kidnapped several times, and so have I. Not even taking into account your most recent trip to the hospital, the odds are astronomically against both of us surviving in order to make it to this place in time."

"I prefer to think of it a little differently," he said before placing a gentle kiss on the top of her head. "I think we were meant to make it through all of that so, when we did make it to this time and place, we'd be all the more thankful for what we have."

She considered this for a moment before shifting away so she could look up at him. He was smiling, his eyes bright and clear, the only overt evidence that he'd recently had brain surgery was the uneven cut of his rapidly growing hair. "You think so?" she asked.

"I do," he answered. And then he was kissing her.

They'd kissed before, under the mistletoe, and it was supposed to be a means to an end, a way for her to be able to let her family have a decent Christmas. It had been, undeniably, arousing, although she couldn't admit that at the time. This time, however, there wasn't a puckish district attorney counting out steamboats. This was the real deal.

The kiss was slow, languid, sexy, and promising, and when he released her, placing a warm kiss on her forehead before guiding her head back to his chest, she sighed, knowing that when the time was right, the next step was going to be smoldering.

"What do we do now," she asked, and she knew that he would know exactly what she meant. What did this mean for their working relationship? How fast or slow should they take things? Would they tell their friends or keep it a secret?

"One day at a time, Bones," he whispered. "One day at a time."

And that was good enough for her.

End