Found in You

"You all want to lose yourself in another person. You believe that love is transcendent and eternal. I want to believe that, too."

Author's Note: I have many little plot bunnies hopping around, but this one managed to escape. Just a short little reflection on that scene, y'know, the one where Brennan drinks from the bottle :) Leave a review, let me know if you enjoy this ficlette of fluffiness.

She is looking at him, eyes sparkling in the dim light of the living room, and he forgets to breathe for a moment. He wonders if she knows how easy it would be for him to show her, for him to reach that little bit forward and press his lips against hers. Before he can stop himself, he is setting his tumbler aside on the coffee table and sliding closer to her on the couch, one hand on her knee and the other running nervously through his hair.

"Bones…" he says quietly, afraid of what he sees in her steady gaze.

"I want to believe that with you, Booth," she replies, clutching the scotch bottle to her chest like a lifeline. "At least, I'd like to try."

He stills at her words. There must be something wrong with his ears, because never in a million years would he ever have expected her to say something like that. They have their moments, their stolen touches and subtle glances, but they do not make it past the almost to the reality. He has dropped hints, tossed around phrases like everything happens eventually and two become one and open enough to see it, but he has not taken the time to stop and think what to do if she ever did see it, the way he wears his heart on his sleeve for her.

"Are you hearing yourself?" he questions, suddenly tense as he searches for something.

"Of course I am," she reasons, narrowing her eyes as she realizes he is upset. "Don't you…? Okay then, I'll just… I'll go."

Her hand is turning the doorknob when he finds his voice. "Stay," he whispers, and for a moment, he's afraid that she won't. She hesitates, and he regains his senses and leaps to his feet, sandwiching her between his body and the door before it's too late. "I'm sorry. Please, don't go," he begs.

"I'm here, Booth."

She's here, and he realizes that through it all, she always has been. He turns her gently, his hands on her shoulders, and her face is calm when he looks at her.

"I don't want to lose myself in another person," he admits. "Only in you. It's always been you, Bones."

When he kisses her, she kisses him back, just like he always knew she would. Her hands frame his face, brush gently over his jaw and down his neck as her lips part beneath his. Something comes over him, something so strong and fierce that he cannot contain himself. He moans into her mouth, turning the kiss from tender to passionate in a heartbeat. His lungs are burning, but he's afraid to stop this, afraid that if he does, she'll realize that now is the eventually he spoke of and that there is no going back.

"Booth…" She wrenches her mouth from his, panting against his lips. "We have time," she says softly, voice barely above a whisper, and he realizes she is right, as usual.

"We have time," he repeats, musing over the simple statement.

Grasping his hand, she clasps it flat against her breast. "Do you feel it? Do you feel my heart beat?"

"Yes," he murmurs, slowly bringing their linked hands to his own chest, pressing his palm over hers.

"This is our time. Until that stops – for one of us, for both – it is our time. Now."

His vision blurs with tears, and suddenly she's the one leading. When he had let himself ponder how this would happen, he always had imagined that he would be the instigator. In the diner after a hard case, sharing ice cream at his apartment, walking her to her door after dinner with the squints… one night, he would crack. But this is unexpected, and it is with shaking legs that he lets her pull him into his bedroom. She undresses him slowly, piece by piece, until he is bare before her, and then stands as he does the same to her.

When they come together, stars do not explode and the laws of physics are not broken, but they each find a little bit of themselves in the other, parts they hadn't know were missing.