AN: Jen and Shantai, I hope you fully appreciate the effort that is going into producing this fic! I burned my index finger on my dominant right hand two hours ago, but I simply could not NOT write this fic. It is inspired by a text Jen sent to me. Yes, the vinaigrette one. Pedia, you'll see what I mean by the end of this fic.

~It all happened because of a bottle of salad dressing.~

Temperance Brennan was pretty much in the best mood possible for her. She and her partner, Booth, with the assistance of the squints, had, just two days before closed the monumental Gormagon case. The murderer, Samuel Kilne, had attempted to eat only one more victim before the team caught up to him. He was now locked in solitary confinement for the rest of his life.

The night after the arrest was made, the entire team had gone out and celebrated at a fancy restaurant, and then a club after. A drunken Angela and an only-slightly-more-sober Brennan had shown off their dance skills. As a result, Hodgins had dragged his girlfriend out to his car and left an intoxicated Booth with a sexy, tipsy Brennan. They just danced; she had to remind herself that five times the next day. It was just dancing, the same dancing everyone else had been doing, just a display of close friendship and high comfort levels in a public place, simply moving their bodies to a rhythm.

So of course this morning, they had all gone back to their routine work schedule. No cannibalistic killers, no silver skeletons, no supposedly distinct secret societies for Hodgins to identify with. Just limbo cases for the Jeffersonian crew, and paperwork for Booth. Lots and lots of paperwork.

Bren had taken a five-minute break from the WWII skeleton she'd been trying to match dentals to when she thought, out of the blue, about her partner, stuck in his office, writing his way through a small hill of paperwork. She knew how much he utterly despised paperwork, and would use any excuse to just stop, if only for a few seconds.

She picked up the black phone on her desk and hit 1. The line rang twice before Booth answered. "Hey, Bones! What's up?"

"Oh, um... I need to check over one of the Samuel Kilne papers. I realized that I hadn't updated the information on the third page of the injuries to the third victim."

"Right. Hold on, let me see if I have it..." she heard him set the phone down on his desk and rustle some papers. And some more. And another stack. A loud "thump" sounded.

"What was that?" she asked.

"The smaller half of the paperwork."

"Technically if the paperwork is split in half, there is no smaller or larger half, they are both equal."

23 blocks away and three stories up, Booth glared at his phone. Bren could almost sense it (not that something like that was physically possible).

"You know what, Bones? I really don't care."

"Sorry."

He sighed. "Yeah, me too. This case is huge, and the forms are huger."

"Is that even a word?" She asked, sliding her feet up on her desk and leaning back in her chair.

"I think so. I was hoping you'd know."

"I'll look it up some time. Anyway, I really need that page BEFORE you sign it."

"I assumed that you'd need it before I signed it."

"Well I'm glad you're keeping up." She realized that she was sitting like he usually did, and immediately put her feet back on the floor.

"Ouch Bones. That hurt."

She pressed a hand to her forehead. "Sorry again. It's been a long day."

"Why, because you didn't get to see you're favorite FBI agent? Aww, that's sweet, Bones. I missed you too."

She playfully rolled her eyes. "Should I just leave so you can continue your one-sided conversations?"

"Would you please?" he teased.

"Hey!" she laughed. "Fine, I will. And you can reword the scoring marks on the third victim's 4th spinal vertebrae to better match the 43.6% angle that indicated a bite equivalent to a Mohs 10."

"Say what?"

She smiled softly. "I just...really need that paper."

"K, tell you what, Bones. You and me, dinner at your house. I'm bringing the main course, you dish up a salad, and I'll bring your precious paperwork, which I would be more than happy to burn at the moment."

"A fancy dinner just to celebrate the delivering of a piece of paper?"

"Did you just crack a joke?"

"Assuming that what you said means I said a joke, then yes."

"We are celebrating not only the safe arrival of the form, but also the closing of the case, Bones."

"We already did that. The club, remember?"

How could I forget? "Yeah, well that was a team party. This, Bones, is going to be me and you, congratulating ourselves on successfully being the center for 3 and a half years."

'We're now celebrating half-year anniversaries?"

"Hey, it's an excuse to see me, you know you can't resist. See you at 8:30," and he hung up.

Brennan left the lab twenty minutes after putting the phone back on its base. She drove to the store to grab some lettuce and veggies for the salad, and was about to get in line when she remembered the dressing.

That was where she ran into trouble. She and Booth had always split meals at the diner; he snuck some of her salad, and she took his fries. But she didn't actually know what dressing he preferred. Was he a caesar kind of guy? Creamy or oil?

Argh, she hated psychology.

And as she was scanning the bottles and bottles of dressing, it caught her eye. And she couldn't help but laugh out loud.

"Oh, this is just perfect," she muttered to herself, grabbing the bottle confidently and striding to the checkout stands.

Oh, I'm making you wait to see what the "perfect" dressing is. Actually, Jen knows, but Shantai doesn't. Which is bad, since she is actually at my house right now, waiting anxiously for me to print this out. She might murder me in my sleep. Technically, I'm sick right now, so I'm weak enough for her to just take me out whenever she wants to. I can't really stop her, except to threaten to cough all over her. That worked at dinner, but when it comes to BB, I'm fairly sure she'll risk her health to get revenge on me for messing with her head by writing cliffies.

Jen, if I'm not at school within the next two days, SHANTAI DID IT, and chances are, she buried me down by Willow Creek.

AN: I'm sick, today, Jen, Shantai didn't kill me. Although she sure as hell tried after reading that cliffie.

On to the dinner! I'd just like to note that this isn't, to many people's dismay, a romantic fic. It's friendship, with a hint at romance.

Temperance was fixing her necklace in the mirror when her a knock sounded from her front door. She gave her figure in the glass one last check. Maroon silk top, which had a plunging V-neck, tight dark blue jeans, and formal Coach tennis shoes. Her hair was down...shit, she'd forgotten to fix it! She hurriedly raked her hands though it as she ran to the door.

She opened it and was greeted by the smiling face of her partner. "Hey Bones. Took you long enough."

"Sorry, I was just...finishing something up."

"What's with the music?"

Brennan realized that she had left the CD she'd been listening to in the stereo.

"Oh, just something Angela gave to me. Her niece apparently introduced her to this 'breakthrough' artist, and she really liked it, so she burned me a copy off some computer program."

They were in the dining room now, and Booth set down the package that he'd been carrying. The music was oddly upbeat and quirky, but Booth couldn't help but like it.

"Who's the artist?"

"Uh," Bren grabbed the CD case off the top of the stereo, peering at Angela's loopy script. "Mika."

"Huh. He's not bad."

"Yeah, actually, I really like it. Anyway, what did you bring?" She pointed at the blue ceramic bowl, covered in tin foil. Booth grinned and pulled the foil off with a flourish.

"Fettuccine Alfredo!" he announced, proudly. "I know it's your favorite."

She smiled questioningly at him. "How do you know everything about me?"

"I'm just amazing like that."

She rolled her eyes playfully. "Booth, there isn't enough room at the table for your ego, so you may as well get rid of it now."

He laughed. "Alright, alright. Where's the salad?"

"I'll grab it. Can you get the plates out of..."

"...the top cupboard next to the sink. I know." He strode into the kitchen, faltering a little when he crossed paths with the fridge. Bren observed this but said nothing as she followed him, reaching for the large bowl on the counter. Booth curiously peered inside.

"Wow, Bones. I didn't think this was a black-tie event." She'd tossed together spinach, iceberg lettuce, and some other foreign-looking greenery he couldn't identify. What looked like real French bread croutons topped the lettuces, along with slices of cucumber, mandarin oranges, shredded carrot, garbanzo beans, four types of cheese and sunflower seeds. The entire concoction was covered in just the right amount of a reddish-looking vinaigrette.

"You said a salad!"

"I was talking more along the lines of opening a bag of garden mix and throwing ranch on the top."

"Well you didn't specify!"

"Hey, hey, I'm totally not complaining. It looks amazing. What's the dressing?"

A comical and beautiful smile appeared on her face. "Try some and I'll tell you."

He looked at her in fear. "Oh no, you're going to make me eat something from a little-known country, where they mix the brains of rats into all their food."

She laughed at his conclusion. "Relax, Booth, there's no rodent cranial matter in here."

He still looked suspicious. She shook her head at him and took the salad out to the table, followed by Booth, who glanced warily at the bowl as he set out plates and utensils.

"Booth!" She was getting exasperated. "The salad is not going to kill you!"

"Hey, you never know! For all I know, you're mad at me for some reason, and are using this dinner to finish me off."

"First of all, that's illogical, because YOU suggested the dinner, not me. Second, if I wanted to kill you, which I don't, then I'm sure I could come up with more creative ways than a lethal salad dressing."

"Gee, that's comforting." He snorted as they sat down in unison. She grabbed the pasta and dished some onto her plate, then handed the dish to Booth. He took a mound, and then motioned for her to take some salad first.

"Oh for crying loudly, Booth!"

"It's crying OUT LOUD, and ladies first."

"Fine!" she scooped some of the greens onto her plate, and passed him the bowl, then stabbed some salad and put it in her mouth. She hadn't actually tried the dressing first, and was surprised at its sweet, tangy flavor.

"Wow, that's really good," she murmured.

"You've never had the dressing?" Booth questioned. She shook her head. He wondered what had possessed her to choose this one, then. Still a little hesitant, he put some of the salad into his mouth. The dressing was different, but he found that he instantly liked it.

"Dang, this is REALLY good," he agreed, shoveling some more into his mouth. Bren laughed delicately as she watched him.

"I thought you'd like it."

"Why? You said you've never had it."

She permitted herself a grin as she got up and walked into the kitchen, grabbing the bottle from the fridge and dashing back to her partner. She triumphantly handed him the glass container. He took it, a question mark etched into his brow, and then he read the name, and chocked on a crouton.

"No way!"he gasped. She smiled even wider.

"THAT is how I knew."

He regained control of his coughing and grinned, biting slightly on his bottom lip as his shining eyes looked over at her, shaking his head at the sheer irony of it all.

" Gorgonzola vinaigrette?!"

Finis! So so so???? How was it? Yes, Pedia, there is a gorgonzola vinaigrette. Jen found this out and texted me while I was in church. I chocked from trying to swallow my laughter, no joke. At least I blended in...at least 20 people were coughing throughout the entire mass, trying to drown out the screeching of the old lady choir.

So, there we go. I haven't actually tired it, so the description and taste is totally a figment of my imagination. Oh, and I hope you two appreciate the 15 minutes it took me to figure out how to correctly spell "vinaigrette." My word processor kept changing it to "vignette", and I spent 8 minutes looking for a dictionary before I realized we had a bottle of raspberry vinaigrette in our fridge. THEN, I kept forgetting the letters, so I ran back and forth from the fridge two times before I just brought the bottle back to my computer. My mom wanted to know why I needed a bottle of salad dressing sitting in front of me to do my "English study guide."

Loves and Hugs, Kia!