Ok I know I need to get on with What a difference a year makes but this just wouldnt leave me alone. Its my first oneshot so be nice lol and reviews are always welcome :) Enjoy

Disclaimer: I dont own Bones

He's watching me again, I can tell. I wonder sometimes if he even knows he's doing it. I lean closer to the bones, trying to puzzle out the markings on the outer rim of the left clavicle and he leans forward too. He stares harder as if, were our situations reversed, I'd be the bone and he'd be me. He often looks at me like this now, as if I'm a problem to solve or a puzzle to work out and put together. Sometimes I call him on it, asking if there is a reason his line of sight is fixed on me. He shrugs it away, flustered and apologetic and I let it drop.

After all its just a look.

Other times I don't ask him and as I turn I catch him looking and our eyes lock and its my turn to stare at him, two perfect brown eyes staring right back. The seconds tick by and neither one of us moves, until that is one of us blinks or we're made aware of the sound of our own breathing. We step away from each other and glance in a different direction. We both know what almost happened but neither one of us says it.

After all, it was just a glance.

And then in the car on the way from a case we're talking. I'm sad but he makes me smile, my fresh grin mirroring his own. The mood lulls again but he doesn't let me sink back into my depression. As we stop at the lights a hand appears on top of mine and the skin tingles. I look at him and he moves his hand away, the lights have changed and the car's moving again but my hand still tingles. He looks straight ahead and I understand.

We aren't going to talk about it.

Then in out of the corner of my eyes I see him as his eyes flick over my face. He's watching me again, trying to read me, but it doesn't matter.

It was just a touch.

Then one day at Christmas we slip, our strict non-spoken rules are forgotten and the way we suppress the feeling we have deemed inappropriate is dulled by the alcohol we have consumed.

We get too close.

Our lips meet for the briefest of moments but the alcohol isn't enough this time and we spring apart, blushing and both pretending we're more drunk than we actually are, it's easier that way, we can blame the spiked punch, the ambient lights, the festive season, anything but our emotions, our desires. We laugh it off and reach for our glasses and an unopened bottle of the Jeffersonian complementary sparkling wine. We dance, we laugh, we enjoy each others company and we never talk of our kiss again. As far as the world is concerned it never happened and if the world ever found out we'd give a small giggle followed by a disbelieving 'tut' and we'd smile at the world telling them they were over-reacting.

It was just a Christmas kiss.

For my birthday he buys me flowers. He drops them off with a smile and vainly attempts to avoid Angela. They're daffodils, my favourite, and I smile and thank him. Angela smiles politely but isn't thrilled, she was expecting more. It's an ordinary gifts but thirty minutes after he's left a package arrives containing an antique book I've been hunting for. A dolphin bookmark is tucked in the cover and Angela tells me its from him. I shush her and carry on with my work, I know she's right. She tells me constantly that I'm crazy, that he loves me, that I love him and that I'm blind not to see it. I smile and shake my head.

As much as I love her she has no idea.

She tells me again how one day I'll see what's staring me in the face and I'll thank her and tell her she was right all along but she doesn't understand. I see it everyday and when I close my eyes at night I continue to see it, our delicate fantasies played out safely behind the curtain of my eyelids. I let her think I'm naïve and sometimes I think I almost convince him of the same opinion. I don't mind, that's the way I want it. For what Angela doesn't know wont hurt her and the longer I seem oblivious the better. What she doesn't understand, what Booth doesn't know is that its easier to be clueless. It means I can kiss him and he'll accept that I thought it was nothing, he can touch me and he'll move away not knowing how much I enjoyed the feel of his skin on mine, I can stare in his eyes that little bit longer and he'll 'know' it doesn't mean anything and he'll watch me. Yes he'll watch me, trying to puzzle me out, trying to figure out if I'm 'just' a girl he works with or if I'm something more. I can live with that for now, while he ponders and queries and tries to work me out I can take the small mercies, the innocence of his hand on my back that seems to slip lower every day, the way we can sit close together without the question that nobody bothers to ask anymore and I'll wait. I'll wait until he's figured me out, evaluated whether or not 'just partners' will ever be enough and when he knows what he wants, what he makes of me I can stop hiding, stop being naïve. Until then I'll be content

Content to be just his mystery.

Come on, click the button, you know you want to : )