We were leaning on the railing upstairs in the lounge, looking down not into the lab but out into the gardens. It had been a hard case, and the whole team was bushed. I'd come up for coffee and Bones joined me as we idly looked out the window, content not to talk. It had been a two sunrises and three sunsets case, the last finally setting outside the lab. I checked my watch, and noticed it was almost fifteen minutes since the rest of the team said they'd be ready to join us for the now-usual all-team dinner and drinks at the bar down the street.

"Stop fidgeting," she said, laying her hand on my arm when I turned to look down onto the platform. "They'll get here when they get here."

"You know, Bones, I'm still having a hard time getting used to this Zen thing you've got going on."

She snorted. "You're just mad because my meditation teacher training classes on Saturdays cut into your breakfast plans at the diner."

I shot her a smile. "Got to fuel the machine, Bones, and if you're with me, I've got a 50/50 chance I don't have to pay."

She slapped me on the arm. "I'm glad I'm of some use to you, then," she said, then mock-glared at me.

"Nah, Bones, you've got lots of uses," I said, slinging my arm over her shoulders and pulling her in for a long kiss. She held onto my arms with her hands and kissed me back, her soft honey lips under mine.

"Hey! Try to keep it professional, for Pete's sake!" came Jack's voice as he mounted the stairs. I looked over, and he practically snickered as he reached up and goosed Angela as she climbed the stairs in front of him. Nah. Forget practically. He actually snickered.

"Hodgie, so help me," she said when they both hit the level. "If you goose me one more time I'm taking you off to the decontam shower."

He just waggled her eyebrows and said "Maybe that's what I want you to do, babe."

Bones and Angela both rolled their eyes at Jack, then joined us at the railing to look down into the lab. At least Jack wasn't calling Bones 'babe' anymore—she'd karate chopped him once, not even that hard, and he'd knocked it off right away. Good thing she apparently decided to put up with 'Bones.'

"So…" I drawled. "Intern O' the Week joining us?"

Bones shook her head even as she twined her hand in mine. "No. Wendell went home for the weekend, we're just waiting on Cam and Sweets."

Now I was the one to roll my eyes. "Well, we'd better just go downstairs and get them. They'll keep us waiting all night…"

Bones snickered, then followed me downstairs as Jack and Angela followed. As expected, Cam was sitting on her desk, and Sweets sitting in the chair opposite her, telling her yet another knock-knock joke that he quickly broke off as soon as we walked in.

"Come on, kids," I gestured. "Bones has to get up early to mull over koans and shit, and if she gets any more pooped tonight it's going to be too hard to get her back into the car."

Bones hip checked me and I pretended to stagger. She just stood there, her hands on her hips, glaring.

"Booth, you know perfectly well I can ambulate on my own, and in any event, it is highly likely that I will be doing the driving home, since I will be sober and you will, most likely, consume an alcoholic beverage or three."

"Try six," said Jack, punching me in the arm as we all headed out the front door and started to walk down the street. Sweets and Cam hung back, still chortling over something, and Jack caught up with Angela ahead of us, slinging his arm around her waist until she leaned over to kiss him on the cheek.

It was a nice night out, and we took our time, Bones putting up with my slinging my arm over her shoulder and leaning in to kiss the side of her head every ten steps or so.

We hit the light at the crosswalk at just the wrong time, to everyone else's chagrin, but not mine. Standing behind Bones, sliding my arms around her, I asked her like I did every month—"Still happy where you are, Bones?"

She turned slightly to look at me and smiled, that breathtaking smile of hers that makes my knees weak, my stomach flop, my heart stop, and my breath all disappear. "Yes. And I still like where we're going." Her hand came over mine, patting me where I held her at the waist.

And then I felt it, under my hand. Something so slight, almost an imperceptible flutter. Bones, her hand over mine, and my hand over her only slightly round belly, felt it too and gasped audibly. Everyone turned around. I can't imagine what the look on my face must have been, or on Bones', and any response to Angela's "what?" had to wait as we both felt the kick again under our hands.

I never thought I'd be glad to lose Bones because I'd been too afraid to say anything, but she was right in the end—she usually was. Just because you regretted a lost opportunity for some bit of happiness in the past didn't mean that's where you should have been at some later point—or that the opportunity would never happen again. I'd tried to plan it the first time, and it hadn't worked out at all. But this time, late night Thai and early breakfasts and not abandoning the squints at the lab when they were working all night, and just trying to pay attention to things as they came along all worked out—pushing things in the direction I wanted them to go, rather than wondering what might happen and letting the moment pass. And Bones and I met in the middle, a month after she explained all about Chaos Theory and Time Paradoxes and how, though she'd never put it this way, sometimes you have to lose something in order to find it again. Although she'd just blame it on my holding the Mee Krob over her head as she tried to get it back from me, and us both making the move to kiss in the middle. Dynamic actors, as she'd say, moving toward a desired result.

"Hey Bones," I whispered in her ear. "I like where we're going, too." Our own little in utero butterfly kicked in agreement.