Brennan stopped outside of the door to Booth's office and raised her hand to knock. Through the glass she could see he was looking at some kind of a poster. She knocked and then entered.
She walked to his desk and looked down at his desk. "A poster of the human skeletal system, Booth?"
He said, "Yeah. I have to sign off on some of your reports and I need to make sure I know what I'm signing. Hence the poster and a dictionary." He motioned in the general direction of his bookshelf.
Brennan walked over and noticed not just one dictionary but several. She turned to face him and quirked an eyebrow at him. "I'll turn you into a squint yet," she threatened.
He rose from behind his desk, choosing to ignore her last remark. "Are you ready to question our suspect, Bones?"
Late one evening a few days later, Brennan stopped by Booth's apartment so they could finish a couple of reports. As they worked the papers took over more and more of the empty space on his living room floor.
Brennan completed her part of the work quickly and began to fidget in her seat. He looked up and said, "I'll just be a few minutes. Why don't you head back to my office and see if there's something interesting on my bookshelves?"
She walked into his office and started perusing the shelves. Fiction, fiction, and more fiction. Didn't the man own anything worth reading? Remembering his comments about guys organizing methods and inferring that he preferred fiction to non-fiction, she checked the bottom right corner. There were a few college textbooks and what looked like gift books. His idea of crap is interesting. I wonder what he considers good.
She stretched to see what was in the top left corner of his shelf and was surprised to find An Introduction to Physical Anthropology next to The Basics of Forensic Science, copies of her books and the latest Stephen King novel. Curious, she turned to his desk and noticed an open journal. Marking his place with her finger, she closed to read the title. A forensics journal, not exactly what I expected to find here. She grabbed the journal off his desk and returned to her seat. Before she started to read the first article, she glanced at him in amusement.
About twenty minutes later, Booth looked up. "Hey Bones, I'm done." He pushed the file toward her and started to stretch. When he saw what she was reading, he froze for a moment and then said urgently, "I hope you didn't lose my place."
"No, Booth, I didn't. I put a bookmark in it." She tossed him another amused glance. "You have some interesting titles in your 'good stuff' section. How long have you been studying up on science, forensics, and anthropology?"
Booth looked abashed and said, "Oh, a few months." At her hard stare, he muttered, "Okay, so it's more like nine."
"What? I didn't catch that last bit," she said with a small grin.
He cleared his throat, embarrassed, and repeated himself a little more loudly.
She looked at him curiously. "Why are you doing this?"
He quickly replied, "Self defense." She looked confused so he explained, "It looks like I'm going to be the Jeffersonian liaison for a while. I'm tired of not understanding what you and the squints say, you know. I was getting tired of asking for translations from squint speak to modern English. "
"But you're still demanding them." Brennan still looked confused.
"Oh, I'm beginning to understand more and more of your squint speak, but I'm still learning. It wouldn't do for me to assume I understood something and then get it wrong. The translations help me test how my knowledge is progressing."
Brennan's confusion turned into a full-blown smile. "I've been turning you into a squint for the past nine months and I didn't even know it."
"Oh no, you haven't. I've just been trying to improve our communication," Booth objected.
Brennan's smile grew even wider. "All these months I've had two interns and I didn't even know it! I'd be happy to assist you in improving our communication," she said, using air quotes around the phrase "improving our communication."
Booth looked at her, amused in spite of himself, and said, "Nice use of air quotes. You learn them from Angela?"
"Nope. You. I've been trying to master a broader variety of pop culture references and understand non-verbal communication better by observing you." She winked at him.
Booth couldn't help the grin that came to his face. "Hey, Bones. Let's make a deal. I'll explain my pop culture references if you'll help me with deciphering this article I'm reading."
She looked at him for a minute and a smile broke over her face. "Works for me, Booth."