The FBI Agent & the Sciency Woman (1Shot, Fluff, BB, H+)

After a long phone call conversation with Parker, Booth came into the living room where his partner was waiting patiently. She looked up from the magazine she was reading with a look of annoyance.

"What took you so long?" She demanded.

Booth groaned inwardly and sat beside her on the couch and flipped his cell phone shut. "Bedtime story."

"Wha--Parker still needs bedtime stories?"

"No need, Bones. He likes them, yes."

Brennan sat quietly for a moment and reflected for a second. "He likes them?"

"Yeah." Booth reached for the remote and flicked the TV on absently, not noticing his partner studying his features, intrigued.

"What does he like about them?"

"Hm?" Booth looked away momentarily from the hockey game.

"Stories. What does Parker like about them? I might be totally off base here, but isn't he too old?"

Booth looked over again at her. A part of him wanted to ignore her comment completely and get back to the game, but a larger part of him wanted to teach her a little something about life. Real life. Not lab life. Booth tapped the mute button and turned to his left, resting his arm behind her neck on the back of the couch. "It's not that he needs stories to go to sleep, Bones. It's that I like to tell him a story, spend time with him, just him and me."

Brennan puckered out her bottom lip and scrunched her brow in thought. Her eyes bounced back to his. "What do your stories entail, exactly?"

"Entail?" His eyebrow hitched inquisitively. "Bones, I don't know," he ran a hand through his hair.

"Of course you do, Booth. You must have told him something back there than you can recite to me, right?"

Booth's gaze went from the hockey scores, then back to his partner. This was going to be a conversation, wasn't it? He went ahead and turned the television off completely and shifted his weight to his left. "I told him Jack and the Beanstalk."

She considered this before speaking. "A fairy tale about a boy, a mutant plant, and a man with a pituitary tumor."

Booth tried to hold back a peal of laughter. It was amazing how mundane even a fairy tale could sound from Temperance Brennan's lips. "Bones--"

"You're surprised, aren't you?"

"Well, I--"

"I do know my share of Mother Goose and Grimm stories. Did you know that at the end of the original Cinderella tale, pigeons pecked out the sisters' eyes? Their tales are surprisingly violent."

Booth made a face. "Yeah. Remind me not to ever tell Parker that story."

"Although I don't understand why anybody would write a story about a large human being overpowering, stealing, running amuck. I'm sure that doesn't help our declining culture's view on those who are different from the media-centered norm."

"Bones, it's just a story."

"I understand that, Booth. I'm just saying, if I lived in the eighteenth century, I would have written stories that told a more cosmic truth than 'those who are different than you are bad.'" Bones crossed her arms defiantly and sat back.

"Fine, what would you have told Parker?"

"Certainly nothing like you told him."

"C'mon, Bones. You're the big time author! What would you have told my son?"

Brennan's eyes rolled as she thought, then they rolled back to make eye contact with Booth. "I think I would have told him a story about a boy--or a man--who made a difference in the world with his intelligence and his individual strengths."

"Like what?"

"I'd tell Parker a story about a man, a scientist--"

"Oh, great... squint narrative."

She pursed her lips with annoyance. "Booth, you're the one who asked ME what I would have told him."

"Fine, fine."

"OK. Perhaps this scientist man discovers--a cure for... cancer or some other contagious, otherwise incurable disease, and he would fight... inner demons--"

"Inner demons?" Booth was intrigued at how his partner was piecing together the story as she sat before him.

"Yes. Inner demons. He would fight inner demons, and perhaps outward powers, to get the cure to be available to the world's population. Particularly those who are in the greatest need."

Booth sat back. "That's a great story, Bones, but there's one major flaw."

"Flaw? Booth. There's no flaw there." She was silent and studied him for a second. Defeatedly, "What flaw?"

"Parker would pass out within the first paragraph of that story," he then grinned widely. "Actually, that's not a flaw if it does the job. Gets him to sleep."

Brennan turned to her right a little more so she could face him. "What would you tell Parker? If you had to make up the story, that is."

Booth thought, then replied, "I think I'd tell him about a man who is... an FBI Agent." His brow peaked with that.

Brennan rolled her eyes. "Booth, is this going to be one of those stories where the FBI Agent has to go and shoot people to save the world?"

Booth winced, then smiled. "No."

"You were going to tell that story, weren't you?" She accused.

"No!"

"Fine. What were you going to say?"

"This FBI Agent has to... you know, fight all of those powers and demons and stuff to find his soul mate."

"I don't believe in soul mates."

"I didn't say you were this FBI Agent's soul mate, Bones."

"I didn't say that I thought you meant... That's not what--That's not what I meant, Booth."

"I know, relax. OK, so this--"

"Wait? A love story? You'd tell Parker a love story? Hmph." Bones leaned her elbow across the back of the couch and eyed Booth with a look of disbelief.

"Well, excuse me, Bones, but my original story wasn't that great apparently."

"I knew it, Booth. You were going to go around and start shooting people."

"Shooting people in STORY. Not in real life, Bones. There's a huge difference. Besides, murder isn't really that relaxing of a bedtime story."

"So, this agent has to find love. What are the outward forces? The antagonist of the story? Is it his career?"

Booth was beginning to feel annoyed. So he wasn't a best selling novelist? Give him a break! "No. No, Bones. It isn't his career." His voice crescendoed. "

"Then what is it? His boss? A bomber? Is the woman going to be kidnapped? Shot? Threatened?" She shook her head, "You really shouldn't quit your night job, Booth."

"Day. Day job, Bones. And no, it isn't a bomber, or his boss, or a killer of any kind. Or a kidnapper."

"Then who?"

"Maybe it's the woman herself. She's difficult to love."

Brennan perked a bit. "That's actually not too bad of a storyline. Go on, Booth."

Booth stumbled to think of what exactly this 'woman' would be like. "She doesn't know how he feels about her and she doesn't feel the same way."

"Intriguing. Continue."

"She's all sciency, like you, Bones, and she has to learn some things about what true love is before they can be together."

"Maybe she has an idea about what love should be like, but she has never experienced it before. She has an empirical mind. She has to touch it and see it to believe it exists," she squinted her eyes at him, irked.

"Maybe that's what the obstacle is, Bones. He has to try to show her something that can't be seen. It's like..."

"That's an impossible task, though, Booth."

"Maybe he knows that, Bones."

"Well, how does she feel about him, Booth?"

Booth sighed. "I don't know, Bones."

"Well of course you do, Booth. This is a fictional story, so you can read the minds of your own characters."

Booth let his facial muscles relax. "She doesn't love him, Bones."

Brennan leaned back against the couch. "I don't understand, Booth. Why would he keep chasing her if she doesn't care for him? Your story is full of holes, Booth."

Booth shook his head slowly. "No, it isn't, Bones. He doesn't chase her."

"I don't get it," she said skeptically. "Then what does he do? Does he pine for her, Booth? That's not a very strong reaction from an FBI Agent, Booth. You'd think that a strong character such as an agent would have enough nerve to just tell her how he feels, right?"

"Maybe he does pine, Bones." Booth pushed off the couch and pushed his hands into his pockets. "Maybe you should go Bones. It's getting late."

"Did I say something?" Brennan stood.

"No, Bones. I'm just..." He felt awkward. "It's just late, that's all."

Brennan looked hurt at being kicked out so abruptly. "He pines because he's afraid of her reaction, isn't he?"

Booth tipped his head to the side, trying to read what her curious blue eyes were saying. What they said was: naive, innocent, ingénue. "Yeah, Bones." His voice sounded husky. "Yeah. That's why he doesn't tell her." He forced his face to not look so serious, tipping the corners of his lips into a half-smile.

"I don't think that's a very good plot, Booth."

"Why's that?" He turned and picked up her purse from the coffee table and handed it to her. He led her to the door and opened it, standing with his hip resting against the door.

"Because, it only leads to stagnance, Booth. He should simply tell her how he feels. Whether the outcome be good or bad, at least there's a resolution, right? Why would you have him spend the better part of his years yearning for a woman who may never love him? What if she does love him? He won't have to focus all of his energy on that one portion of his life. If she says she loves him, then all will be right. If she says she doesn't care for him, then he can finally move on. See if there's another woman out there for him. Maybe, Booth, she's not the one." She pushed her purse over her shoulder and buttoned her jacket up distractedly.

"No, Bones. She's the one."

"Right. Because this is a fairy tale. Not real life." Brennan's face scrunched... Where had he seen that same face before? Only once. It was when he was sitting in the witness stand, betraying his partner.

Brennan turned and walked slowly down the hall. Booth let the door close behind him.

He quickly remembered that day in the courtroom. It wasn't that he was betraying her that she looked like that, was it? Her eyes watery and so blue they rivaled the sky on a perfect day, brows drawn northward and close together all at once. No, it wasn't that he had betrayed her. She had never mentioned that since. She understood. In fact, she had set the whole thing up. He had no choice. That was a look of understanding. A look of connection. She was using her heart.

"Woah." Booth quickly grabbed his shoe... he searched for the other one in vain, his heart beating wildly in his chest. How could he be so stupid? She was trying to use her heart and the only thing he had succeeded in was blowing her off and basically telling her that she sucked at it. Where was that d@mn shoe?!

Booth abandoned the search and ran out of his building barefoot. He ignored the sting of the December frost against his flesh as he pounded down the street toward his partner's outline.

"Bones!"

She looked up and waited until he had come within a few feet of her. He did a little dance, trying to keep his naked feet from freezing to the icy sidewalk.

"Booth? Where are your shoes?"

"Bones--"

"You should really go back inside. What if you get frost bite?"

"Bones, I--"

"Booth, you couldn't just call me on my cell?" Warm clouds of air puffed around her mouth as she spoke.

"Bon--"

"Booth, you're being ridic--"

Booth placed a hand on either side of her face and kissed her. It was tongueless and sweet, but it stopped her in her tracks.

"Booth? What--"

"I love you."

A chill ran through her body at the revelation. "What?" Her voice quavered.

"Temperance, I love you. You're the most difficult, annoying, sciency, bull-headed--beautiful, sexy, wonderful woman. And I think you're the one. I know you're the one. I can't have you walk out of my life again, Bones--"

This time Brennan wrapped her arms around his neck and drew him close with a hand behind his head. She let her tongue slip between her lips and into the warm recesses of his mouth. Booth acquiesced and returned the tongue action. The kissed hungrily, tongues dancing, saliva exchanging, hands reaching, running through hair, along jaw lines and necks.

Finally, biting pain shot through Booth's feet, causing him to have to pull back from the kiss. Reluctantly.

"How's that for a resolution?" Brennan grinned at him and let her hand slide into his. She tugged at it and took two steps toward the building before she and Booth broke into a dead run toward the front doors, up two flights of stairs, through the entryway attached at the lips. Brennan stripped Booth wildly as they stumbled clumsily into the bedroom.

Booth stood in his underwear as he watched Bones. She leaned a hand on the bed so she could unstrap her heels and slide her pantyhose off. She looked up, an auburn wave framing her face, her breath heavy with passion. "Booth, why aren't you taking my clothes off?" She stood up and placed her hands on her hips.

Booth's face turned from lust to love, and the change was very apparent. It almost frightened Brennan. She had never been looked at like that before.

"What?"

Booth stepped forward slowly and placed his hands on her hips gently. Then he whispered into her ear. "I'm not one of those guys, Bones. I'm not going to use you."

Holding her breath, she tipped her head back so she could look into his eyes. "I don't understand."

"I'm not in lust with you Bones. I'm in love with you." He kissed her softly in the pale darkness of the room.

Confused, she replied after a pause, "Don't you want me, though? Sexually?"

Booth leaned his forehead against hers. "You have no idea."

"Then what's the matter?"

"I need to know, Bones."

"Know what?"

"If you feel the way that I do."

She could feel her pulse speeding up. "Like... love?"

"Like love," he agreed.

She swallowed nervously. "You know how I feel about love, Booth."

Booth nodded and let his hands fall from her hips. "And you say you don't think it exists."

"I don't believe in love, yes."

"Do you even know what love is, Bones?"

She sucked oxygen sharply into her lungs. "What?"

"When you think about the other person even when she isn't around. When you would do anything to make sure she is safe. When you don't feel complete when she isn't around, Bones." He tilted her chin. "When they're your other half, no matter how hard you try to fight it or not believe it."

"When you--" Booth thought he caught a glimmer of light reflect off moisture in her eyes. She trembled ever so slightly. "know... that they're the only person you want to wake up next to. Even on bad days?"

"Especially on bad days."

She was quiet for over a minute. Booth started to fear that he had made a horrible mistake. "Then you can take my clothes off, Seeley Booth."

Booth raised his eyes to her.

"Because... I love you, too. If that's what love is, then I've loved you for some time now."

Booth laughed lightly, then pulled her close to his body.

you had me really worried there for a moment.....I thought he would let her go again......
but she finally found out what love is like.....*sighs happily*

I'm so glad you liked it, ToZika!

why?
you probably knew that I would like it.....like all the other stories you posted here......

ToZiKa wrote:why?
you probably knew that I would like it.....like all the other stories you posted here......

You're as sweet as peach cobbler, girl!

That story was absolutely amazing; I loved it. I'm a fluffaholic so I ate that up. I also love the angst, squeeze your heart stories as long as there's that bright shiny light at the end of the tunnel, but I can take angst if it's well written. So if any of your stories are angsty I'm sure I'll like them.

We haven't really met. I know my name says CSI-4077. I actually loathe it now, but I've had it forever and don't really want the hassle of changing it.And it's my ff.net pen. But I prefer Leah:) So...it's nice to met you.

I haven't been on since about April so it seems I've missed out on a ton of amazing stories if they're at all like this one.

Awesome job!

HI Leah!! It's great to see you and meet you! I'm so glad you liked my story! I've got a few other stories on this board, several actually. I'm glad that your first post was on my story. That's awesome!

I am to. I was on the ABY before it moved, but never posted after the site moved. So my review for your story was my first official post on the new ABY:)

That's awesome!!! I'm glad you're back. I'm a relatively new member myself.