Random days in their lives, some sad, some hot, some not. Some plain ordinary. Moments that have been, could have been, will be.

THE DAYS IN A WEEK

I. Monday

Mondays... they are mean by nature. The weekend still fresh on your mind, they creep up on you with the noise of your alarm clock cutting into the silent clouds of your dream.

There was a man, his dark hair tousled, the bones in his arm creaking, as he outstretched it to hit the snooze button. For Seeley Booth there were Mondays and Mondays. Mondays he dreaded because they marked the end of a weekend with his son; precious Parker time. And Mondays when he woke up alone like today. Those weren't even that bad, they brought him closer to a weekend with his son.

This particular Monday stood for something else as well. Lying in bed, stealing some time of half slumber, half wake, Booth couldn't stop his drowsy mind from traveling to his partner. Dr. Temperance Brennan. Bones. Today she would be back from a dig.

They'd been doing this for years – dancing around each other like the two sole planets in a weird kind of pocket universe. Sometimes so close that one or both of them almost started to burn, so close that a collision seemed unavoidable. The result was always the same. Literally or metaphorically – she fled.

They had almost kissed. Before she had run this time, there had been this enchanted moment, and Booth simply knew that Brennan had felt it, too. Knew it with the same sincerity why he knew that it was Monday. He had seen the realization in her big eyes, had waited for acceptance to follow. However, she had broken the gaze, had stepped back. Her cheeks had been flushed, and Booth had felt her mind going a mile a minute, trying to rationalize it.

It had been easy, so damn easy that it had almost saddened him. A fundraiser event. Champagne. A midsummer night's balcony. Formal attire, exquisite perfume. Hell, even he had been able to rationalize the moment; had been able to forget almost everything about it... everything but the dark silkiness of her curl twisted around his finger. It had been a gesture so utterly private but so them.

Two days later she had been gone.

The alarm rang again, and Booth hit the snooze button once more. He knew her flight number from the single email she had written, and even though she hadn't asked him to pick her up, Booth wondered why she had provided him with the information.

On a whim, he snapped his eyes open and threw one leg out of the bed. The wooden floor creaked along with his foot. He would pick her up from the airport; would look into her pale blue eyes and maybe... maybe he could finally forget the silky perfection of her hair. Maybe.

-BONES-

Brennan had lost track of time.

Maybe it was Monday. It didn't really matter, though, because to her it was all the same. Her days were made of work – only that the lab was quieter on Sundays. Rolling her head, she tried to banish the stiffness in her neck. There had been a time in her life when overnight flights hadn't bothered her that much.

She was on her way back home. In former times, "home" had described a place where her stuff was, an apartment with a bed waiting for her. Now... there was something else. Four weeks on a dig, four weeks under the burning sun hadn't been able to erase the memory of his breath on her face.

They had been so very close to crossing that line – again – and the line itself had been reduced to the fragility of a dewdrop.

It wasn't as if she didn't feel, on the contrary, she did. And that did pretty much sum up the problem. She simply didn't know what to do about it. Booth the partner, Booth the friend – they were safe ground. Booth the man however...

She had tried to forget the surreal moment they had shared, had looked into even darker eyes, had tried to surrender herself to the excitement of different hands on her. It hadn't worked. Worse, it had felt plain wrong. Had felt suspiciously like cheating.

Her ability to compartmentalize somehow lost, she hadn't been able to have sex with the dark stranger. And it had shaken her.

She was Dr. Temperance Brennan, and she wasn't committed to anybody else. Except for... that didn't feel true anymore.

It was Monday as real and merciless as they come. People were leaving their homes, the memory of morning coffee on their lips – the weekend a mere shadow on the corners of their minds – ready to go to work, to begin anew. Deals were made, milkshakes were shaken, school bells rang. Somewhere in a dark alley a dead body was found. A plane landed.

One man stood like a tower in the sea of people, his suit dark, his shirt freshly ironed, his cheeks smooth. The scent of aftershave and honor surrounded him. He was waiting for a woman and a sign.

Then he saw her. Wrinkled clothes, tired face, high ponytail.

Then she saw him, and for a brief moment she lost her rhythm.

Thirty steps later she was standing in front of him.

"Bones."

He looked at her, his name for her on his tongue, but her beautiful face was blank.

"Booth. Why are you here?"

To see you. To get an answer.

"To pick you up."

"I could have taken a cab."

"I know."

Silence settled over them, while they tested the boundaries of their stalemate.

"It's good to see you," she finally admitted on a whisper, and her tiny words gave him the courage to reach out to her, to tuck one loose curl behind her ear. As silky as he remembered it...

It was only the briefest touch, faint even, but she flinched at his unspoken tenderness. For the fraction of a second he saw a book full of emotions in the depths of her eyes, but then her guards were up again.

He had his answer.

Mondays... they are supposed to mark a beginning, but sometimes... sometimes they are just as cruel as the day after Christmas, as unfair as rain on the first day of your holidays.

However, there would always be a Tuesday to follow.

To be continued...

Well, don't expect something monumental storytelling-wise. I just wanna play a little bit. And, of course, we all know how it works out in the end. Don't worry, "Becoming One" will be updated next. Just indulge me for a moment while I need to write about days.