In Which WE HAVE THE REAL KISS!

Season 3, Episode 9

The Santa in the Slush

Oh, The Santa in the Slush. This episode was such a turning point; positively earth-shattering at the time it aired.

Fun fact, I actually watched the past two seasons of Bones in a week in preparation for this episode. I had just started watching the show this season, and thanks to spoilers, I knew they were going to kiss about a week before the episode aired, and I wanted to know everything ~leading up to this point~, so I watched it all in week. For the longest time I couldn't discern episode from episode in seasons 1 and 2 because I watched them all so closely together.

Oh gosh, when he talks about her “sad little girl face” after seeing her dad - WHITE KNIGHT ALERT! He notices. He notices her moods. He notices her facial expressions. He notices with everyone, because he's good at that type of thing, but they way he goes about it with her, letting her know that he knows, is special, because he knows he can't push too hard. He knows more about her than she could ever know, and he knows that she can't know that he knows so much, you know?

And again, Booth pulling Brennan back from the street when the cars were going by – WHITE KNIGHT!

“I'm sorry you can't have Christmas with Parker”, Bones says. Great example of how she's started to grow. She knows that she can be as sorry as she wants, and it still won't change anything, but she's learned from him that things like that make people feel better. She doesn't always completely understand certain social things, but because of him, she is slowly starting to do them more, and the more she does them, the more she understands them.

Seems they go through phases where they get along, then bicker.

AND THE KISS! Let's go through this step by step:

Brennan goes about setting it all up, not giving him OR her any time to back out, Booth being totally WHAAAAAAAT, glance toward the misletoe before saying “Caroline's feeling puckish”, he's starting to warm up to the idea.

After “the cute little sprig” - Booth is still bugging out about it, trying to find a last minute excuse, but still, not refusing, not stepping away. Brennan's looking him down, moving forward, zooming in, because she knows she has to do this to get Christmas for her family, but there's an ever-so-slight hint of whimsy in her expression, which doesn't matter, and she knows it doesn't matter, because in a few seconds they'll have kissed, and none of that will matter.

FANGIRL ALERT: THE GRABBING OF THE LAPELS! Pretty much my favorite thing ever. So typically Brennan, of course, but more than just a “I'm in charge because I'm Brennan and I'm domineering” thing. The way she pulls him to her... it's desire. Which, once again, doesn't matter, and she knows this, at least on a subconscious level, because they're friggin' kissing, and even though they've done it before, it's different now. Yes, they were working together when they kissed before, but things have completely changed. They have both been in near-death situations with the other. They have been through emotional trauma. They know each other now. Before, all they knew was their chemistry. Now they know so much more.

And, of course, Caroline realizes all of this during the kiss, which is why she's so awkward about it afterward. She only ever had them do the kiss to begin with because she realized, as did they the first time they kissed, that they have this crazy off-the-charts chemistry. But she didn't know that had all this other shit, that they really knew each other, until she saw them kiss. Something extra was going on there, she saw it, and she never would have had them kiss had she known there was something extra going on.

And, of COURSE, they themselves are awkward about it afterward, because they both know, most likely not on a conscious level at this point but on a subconscious level, that something went on just there that they were totally not ready to deal with. So he went off to catch bad guys, and she went off to work with her bones. The same goes for the scene in the diner later with Sweets where they repeatedly insist that the kiss meant nothing, sex-wise or otherwise.

And, what I love even more than the kiss, believe it or not, is Booth setting up the tree for Bones. The acting in that scene is so perfect, there's no need at all to write anything about it. The cuts from “I love my gift, Booth” to “Merry Christmas, Bones” to her saying “Merry Christmas”... the looks on their faces are so perfect and telling that even to attempt to explain it all in words would still fall very, very short from what it truly is.