Well, this is quite possibly the most romantic thing I've written for FFN. Because usually, anything too romantic is not canon, and I like to stay as much in canon as I can. But for Bones- romance IS canon. Yay. I kind of went off into a bunch of little sections, as I generally do when I write one-shots, and many of the sections reference things that have happened in S5. So, there are minor spoilers for that season. Most of this is in second person. It just happened that way. There is one section that isn't. I can't seem to stay in one form. Sue me.

Reviews are almost as cool as Booth's rainbow socks. Just sayin'.

Once, you told Wyatt, "She and I, we aren't compatible."

You were sure of it, you still are. You hate the way she talks about religion; she thinks that you have been indoctrinated into something that isn't real. Almost every time you make a joke, she explains to you why it doesn't make sense. She doesn't want to get married; you can't imagine growing old alone. She has changed some, but these things will always be the same.

You used to be sure that being incompatible was the kiss of death, that you should be with someone more like yourself. Because that would be easier, and relationships were hard enough anyway.

But the thing about all of that is—you don't care. Not anymore.

You don't need her to be like you. You just need her to love you.

***

Sometimes, you still slip and call her Bren.

She'll look at you, momentarily confused, before letting it pass without comment. These are usually moments when the two of you are alone in the diner, after a case is over, or when you're driving to some crime scene or another, the two of you in the van with the windows up. Or on those occasions when she invites you to her place to make you dinner, as you sit at the breakfast counter and watch her bustle at the stove. They are gentle, domestic moments when it feels like she is so close to being yours, but still just a tiny bit out of reach.

One night, after she makes you dinner, she stops you just as you're about to put your fork in your food. "You don't want to get anything on your clothes," she says, and grabs a cloth napkin from one of her cabinets, with an embroidered Santa Claus on it.

You start to put it in your lap, but she stops you again. She reaches over, a hint of amusement in her eyes, and tucks it gently into the collar of your shirt, like you're five years old. Her hands are soft and warm, you can feel her breath on your neck and chin. She does not meet your eyes, but doesn't move, either, and the proximity takes your breath away. You whisper, "Thank you."

The tips of her fingers are still resting on your collar bone. She says, "My mother made this, when I was a child."

You look down at the silly little bib with new eyes. You whisper again, "Thank you, Bren." Her skin is soft, her hair smells like vanilla.

So, so close.

***

When Bones goes outside to take a call from her father, and Padmae leaves to use the ladies room, Jared turns to you.

"I have a serious question to ask." His voice is as level and sober as you have ever heard it. It worries you.

He scoots his chair up a little closer, so that he can look you in the eye. "Are you still in possession of your balls?" There is heavy irony in his tone, his eyebrows are raised in mock concern.

"My...balls?"

"Yes, Seeley, your balls. You know, there are two of them, they hang below your--"

"Hey!"

"I'm just saying. I've never known you to sit around and pine like a little girl, instead of going after what you want." His voice is more serious as he comes around to his point. "Makes me wonder if you got 'em snipped, and neglected to tell me."

You don't know what to say, but you don't want to lie, because lying is getting old. You're doing it every waking second you're with her, every time she steals one of your fries in the diner, or when she says things like "It's heart-crushing, " or when she asks you for advice about Angela, or her father. You're lying every single time you don't say, "I love you." You don't want to lie now, so you keep silent.

Later, as Jared and Padmae are leaving, Jared leans over you and whispers, "I'm happy now. And I want you to be happy, too."

You brother is finally growing up, and it feels like you're regressing.

***

For a while, you think it hurts too much.

You and her, going on like you always have, like nothing has changed. Meeting for dinner during cases, or going to the openings of drive-in movies and art exhibits. You never realized you spent so much time with her until it started haunting you.

It almost feels like she's teasing you, like she knows that you find it so damn endearing when she twirls her fork around before putting food in her mouth, or that she knows that your whole body clenches up when she hugs you, so she does those things. You're torn, because you want to be with her all the time, but whenever you are, you feel a heaviness in your chest, an ache, like you're about to cry.

So, for a while, you blow her off. You stop taking her to lunch, you make excuses when she wants to go out for drinks after work. You're gruff, and distant, and silent.

This goes on for about two weeks, until she asks you suddenly why you've been avoiding her.

At first you play dumb. "I'm not ducking you, Bones, I don't know what you're talking about."

She shakes her head, and doesn't back down. "Well, you don't eat with me anymore, and we don't go out for drinks. You don't talk to me when we drive to crime scenes. Objectively, one would have to conclude that you are avoiding me." She ticks off her points on her fingers so methodically that you almost miss the vulnerability in the words.

You miss it until she looks at you with those big eyes of hers and says, "Did I do something wrong?" And you have to stop yourself from reaching out right there, in the middle of the FBI building, and pulling her into you. You can imagine Hacker's reaction if he were to walk in on that. She looks so confused, so vulnerable, that you almost hate yourself for doing this to her.

You suddenly remember something that she told you Nakamura said to her, when his sister had just died.

I would give my life for Sachi, so why would I not risk my happiness for her?

And it's true for you, too. So you say, "I'm sorry." She just looks at you, and then nods her head, accepting your apology.

And then you say, "Meet me at the diner, at seven." You are setting yourself up for more torture, and you know it. But you also know that you can be hurt yourself, you can deal with that.

But you wouldn't be able to live with yourself if you hurt her.

***

On New Years Eve, you take Brennan out to a bar to watch the ball drop.

She drags her feet a little, saying that she doesn't understand what a giant disco ball has to do with New Years Eve, anyway. But when you knock on her door at ten o'clock, she answers it wearing a flowy, deep green dress with sleeves to the elbows, and knee-high boots. All of her hair is up, and she has one of those ornate necklaces she loves fastened around her neck.

You stare at her for a moment, acutely aware of your washed out jeans and flyers tee-shirt. You're dressed for a dive bar, and she's not. But you keep your mouth shut, and she either doesn't notice or doesn't care.

While you're out, she consumes glass after glass of champagne, and smiles as the two of you talk. She becomes more touchy as she gets tipsy, linking arms with you, and resting her chin on your shoulder. You are sure that to the untrained eye, you have to look like a couple, and an affectionate one.

The ball drops at midnight, the two of you clink your glasses together, and she looks you deep in the eyes, like she's not going to let go. You look back, and you feel your lungs getting flatter and flatter, and it's harder to breathe. It would be so easy. She's so close. It would be so easy.

But you don't want to kiss her when she's drunk, or maybe you're just too much of a punk to ever do it at all anyway. So you break the moment by pointing out some idiot outside, streaking in the cold. She goes off on a ramble about the Alpha Male need to display his penis to assert his masculinity, and the two of you are on safe ground again.

You drive her home later, and help her up the stairs. She is laughing, clinging to the railing with one hand, and your shoulder with the other, and you guide her into her living room. She collapses onto her couch, and you root around one of her linen closets to find a blanket to cover her up with. You pour her a glass of water, and find a bottle of Tylenol in her medicine cabinet. None of these things are remotely strange to you, going through her apartment like you live there. You somehow know she won't mind.

When you come back to her, she's already fallen asleep.

You don't take off her boots, you don't try to undress her. You do take off her necklace, because it's huge and can't possibly be comfortable to sleep in, and you cover her with the blanket. She doesn't stir; she sleeps soundly.

You lean in, and just barely ghost a kiss over her forehead. You whisper softly, "Happy New Year."

When you get to her door, you hear a soft voice from the couch.

"Happy New Year."

***

Angela knows.

You're not sure how, but you can't mistake the way that she looks at you sometimes, empathy heavy in her eyes. You should be uncomfortable, but you don't really mind. Something about understanding is nice, and you know that Ange isn't judging you.

One day she calls you into her office, and hands you a sketch she's made.

It's of you, wearing your cocky belt buckle and rainbow socks, and Bones, across from you at a table in the diner. It is colored with color pencils and sharpened crayons, detail heavy in each inch of the page. In the bottom left corner it reads simply, in small letters, hang in there.

Somehow, it's exactly what you need.

You reach out, and hug her.

***

He doesn't know that she notices which foot he leads with when he climbs stairs, or that she knows which hand he twirls his keys in before he opens the car door.

He doesn't know that his face is the last one she sees when she's about to go to sleep, a memory of him smiling at her, jabbing her in the shoulder just to annoy her when they are at crime scenes.

He doesn't know that sometimes her mind drifts back to that moment under the mistletoe, pulling him closer by his suit jacket, and then closer again, something primal in her brain going off, wanting more, more, closer, not enough. Not enough.

He doesn't know that she sees him everywhere, in everything—that she sees small, banal things, and comes up with ways that they are like him. She has found that the more things are like him, the more she tends to appreciate them.

He doesn't know that in the two weeks that she thought he was dead, she never slept more than three hours in a single day. He doesn't know that she refused to eat anything, and that for the entire first day after she heard it, she couldn't stop throwing up every time she remembered him being shot.

He doesn't know that a very small part of her still resents him for that, for making her confront the fact that attachments are real, and she is so very fallible.

***

You would have to be an idiot to not notice how much she has changed.

She is still herself, of course, she still has everything about her that you love. She still has faith in logic, she finds her God in numbers, in facts and figures. She still lacks something in social skills, and she will never be known for her ability to make jokes.

But she's growing.

She tells you that she might be able to accept your premise about love (with one caveat—love comes first, but brain chemistry still comes later).

She is willing to lie to your son, she says, to convince him that your life is gratifying.

She knows that you use a different number system than she does, but she accepts that it works.

It makes you smile to think about it. Brennan wants a big life; she wants to change, to grow, to transform.

All you want is her.

***

Once, you told Wyatt, "She doesn't love me, I would know if she loved me."

You were sure of that, but you're less sure now.