Author's Note: This story is actually two stories rolled into one. Chapters will alternate between Christine & Parker in the present learning the story of Booth and Brennan and one shots into what life was like growing up as Christine Booth. Story will be updated on Mondays & Wednesdays until complete, though it may not post every week. Reviews will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for reading. :)
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Chapter One:
It was a small silver box with light blue stripes. She had found it in her parents' bedroom closet, buried deep in the back, hidden beneath stacks of winter clothing. She wasn't trying to be nosey. She was just cold. She had gone into their closet to retrieve one of her heavy sweatshirts that her mother hadn't brought out yet and had stumbled upon the box.
It was all perfectly innocent.
She didn't have quite such a good reason for why she had opened the box. Except that it was shiny and mysterious and she had never been able to resist that kind of temptation. It was like the time when she was four and had heard a strange sound outside. She'd driven her Barbie jeep so far into the woods behind their house that she'd gotten lost. It'd taken her parents, her brother, and a particularly frantic game of Marco Polo to rescue her.
Her mother had scolded her for going outside of her predetermined perimeter. Her brother had reminded everyone that none of this was in any way his fault. She'd presented them all with what she was convinced was a new species of flower that she'd found; happily babbling on about wanting to discuss this discovery with her Uncle Jack. And her dad had been prompted to install a mini GPS into her motorized toy.
With this and other memories in mind, she rationalized that they shouldn't be surprised that she had found the box. They actually should have been expecting it. Besides, if either of them had found something similar in her room they most certainly would have helped themselves.
Half an hour later, her desire for a sweater long forgotten, she sat cross legged on their closet floor surrounded by pictures, newspaper clippings and other random treasures. Looking around at the mess she had made she was suddenly very happy that her parents were in Florida attending a forensics conference this weekend.
Thinking that all this was lost on her alone she fished her cell out of her pocket and gave the command to voice dial. Always protective, he answered on the first ring and she decided to jump straight to the point.
"Parker, why would my mom have a blonde wig?"
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Christine had placed the items back into the box, and moved everything to the kitchen table. She was busy organizing the contents by item type and size when her brother walked in.
"I suppose a simple 'this is a bad idea' wouldn't go very far here, would it?"
"Probably not."
"Chrissy." He was the only one who could get away with calling her that name. He tried to give her a patented Booth warning glare but she called him on it.
"That doesn't work when Dad does it. What makes you think it'll work for you?"
"Dad and Temperance are going to kill you."
"No they won't. They love me." She shot him a confused look at the idea that either of her parents would be capable of harming her.
"It was just a figure of speech."
"Oh." She never resembled her mother more than when she was being overly literal, which was fairly often.
Parker knew he was fighting a losing battle. He joined her at the table and began to look through the strange assortment of items in front of him.
"What are you hoping to accomplish here?"
"This is their story. I want to know how Mom and Dad fell in love."
"Ever think about asking them?"
Christine rolled her eyes. "They talk about it all the time. But I know that they're leaving out all the good parts."
"Ever think that maybe they're leaving out all the bad parts?"
"Either way, I think I deserve to know the entire story."
"Am I just here because you know I'll take the fall for you if we get caught? Because that may not work this time."
"Yes it will."
They held a brief staring contest. Parker, as usual, blinked first. "Fine. I'll stay."
"Good. Because I already called my nanny and told her that her services were no longer needed this evening."
Parker gave up and began to rifle through the items lying on the table. "This is all random. How is this going to tell you anything?"
"They kept all this for a reason and I intend to find out why."
"How? By osmosis?"
"That wouldn't work."
Parker nodded at the incredulous look that she gave him.
"I plan to ask questions. And to do it in such a manner as to not raise any suspicions," she said as she returned her attention to the items that were laid in front of them.
Her confidence amused him and he was content to play along.
Christine frowned as she studied a piece of yellowing paper in her hand. "This says that my grandmother died in 1998."
"So?"
"Then why was her funeral in 2004?"
Parker took the announcement out of her hand and read it for himself. "That's weird. Dad knew Temperance in 2004; neither of them has ever mentioned this?"
"No. They said Max and my grandma got mixed up with some criminals and that they had to run away to hide. That's why Mom was in foster care in high school." Christine ran her finger along the black and white picture of her grandmother on the obituary card. "They talk about my grandma sometimes, I know that's who I'm named after but they've never mentioned anything about when she died."
"Maybe whoever they were running from killed her." Parker studied the paper with a puzzled expression, "How old is Temperance?"
"She's forty nine."
"Then she would have graduated from high school in-" Parker stopped to do the math but his sister was several steps ahead of him.
"1994. Can you not do math in your head? Subtraction is a basic function of arithmetic."
"Do you want me to help you or not?"
"Sorry. I sometimes forget that not everyone is as intelligent as I am."
Parker knew a sincere apology from his sister when he heard it. "Maybe you could ask Russ? He should know what the delay was about."
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"Mom passed away in '98 but we didn't know that until '04."
"Why did you have a funeral if it'd been so long? What's the point?" Christine had only been to one funeral, when Pops died. That'd had been held just a few days after he passed. Her mother had taught her then about the anthropological significance of burial rites and she knew that in most cultures a service and burial were held as soon as possible.
"Funerals are for the living, they're not for the dead. We needed the closure."
"Because you were sad? You and Mom must have assumed she was dead by then."
"I'm honestly not sure what I assumed had happened to them." Russ paused, reconsidering how much he should tell his niece. Temperance had always made a point of being very open with her daughter but still he wasn't sure exactly what Christine did and didn't know. "And your mom and I weren't close back then."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean I left her too. I wasn't much older than you and I freaked. I left. I didn't come back into her life until after she'd met your dad and they'd found Mom."
Parker leaned in, interested in what he could learn. Temperance's childhood had always been a taboo subject with his father, and he was eager to hear more.
"Dad was the one who found my grandmother?"
"No, Booth was the one who found me. Tempe found Mom."
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The last conversation he'd had with his sister had been an argument. She refused to listen to him. How was he supposed to take care of her when all she would do was scream at him and argue about every issue they faced? He didn't buy the right laundry detergent, he put too much salt in the chili, he made her late for school. Nothing he did for her was right. Why couldn't she see that his heart was in the right place? That he loved her?
Finally, he got tired of fighting. She would never let him take care of her the way that he wanted to. Besides, every adult he knew was telling him that he couldn't do it. That she would be better off without him. They told him that the state would find a good home for her. That she would be fine. They were holding each other back.
But still he worried. For months he'd wake up every morning and have to force himself not to go back and get her. He cried. He was a nineteen year old man and he spent every night crying like an infant. His parents were gone. They'd abandoned him and though he had a hazy recollection of once being someone else, an inbred knowledge that he had something to fear he still couldn't justify why they'd just run away.
He never stopped worrying about his sister. What if him leaving had left her open to the danger? What if they found her? Killed her? He'd abandoned her just like their parents had. He kept track of her enough to know how to contact her. He tried to talk to her on every birthday. But she never answered. He'd talked to three different sets of foster parents, they'd all seemed nice. None of them could get her to come to the phone. His sister hated him. He didn't blame her.
He worried about her being alone. Temperance had always lived much of her life in her head. She had trouble communicating with other people. Social interactions were hard for her. He reassured himself that her superior intellect would be what saved her. She was too smart to fail. Even with the weight of the whole world on her shoulders his little sister wouldn't give up. It came as no surprise to him when he read her name each semester on the Dean's List of Northwestern University. No shock when he saw her listed as a doctoral candidate in one of the most elite schools in the country. He was bursting with pride when she was named Chief of Anthropology at the most prestigious lab in the nation. He bought a dozen copies of her first book and gave them to all his friends. They asked why he didn't talk about her more often. He dodged the question.
When the FBI showed up, flashing a picture of his mother and telling him that his sister had made the identification he saw more than just a man with a gun and a badge. He saw a man that had traveled hundreds of miles to track him down. To blackmail him into helping his sister. He knew then that Temperance would be okay. He never again worried about her being alone.
He and Temperance had chosen a headstone and planned a simple, secular service. They buried their mother just outside of Washington. The wind made the early winter air feel thirty degrees colder than it actually was. Huddled beneath his heavy overcoat, Russ studied his sister carefully. The stress and pain of discovering their mother's bones were etched into her features. Her brow furrowed her eyes red rimmed from crying. But she remained stoic, shoulders high and straight, chin lifted even when it was quivering as she fought off tears. Classic Tempe, unwilling to admit her vulnerabilities to anyone but unable to keep them completely hidden either.
As the casket was lowered into the ground he noticed Temperance lean closer into her partner's side. Watched as Booth's hand found its way around her waist, steading her on her feet even as most onlookers wouldn't have realized she needed the support. And he smiled. Booth was a good man. Even if he was also decidedly one of the good guys. He watched as Booth silently and efficiently protected and comforted his sister while she allowed herself only the tinniest moments of grief. He knew that no matter how much toil taking her mother's dry, dismembered bones into her hands had taken on her, that Tempe would be just fine.
And the next year, when he called her on her birthday, she answered the phone.
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"Your mother is the strongest person I know. What she was able to do with her life, despite all the challenges she had, it's remarkable. Just like her. She thought she could always take on the world alone. And she probably could have but once she met your dad, she started to figure out that she didn't have to."
"You thought they were in love then? Because they weren't even dating," Christine asked. Her understanding of love and relationships was naïve at best, and this didn't make sense at all.
"Well, Booth was in love with her. It took your Mom a little while longer to figure that out though. What's with all the questions?"
"Just being inquisitive. Mom says that's how we learn."
"Your mom is right."
Parker nodded his agreement with the two of them but remained silent as they spoke. Russ was a nice guy but he really hadn't gotten to spend much time with him. And after one particularly embarrassing incident involving his step daughter while they were all at the beach, he tried to avoid being alone with the man.
"I should go, Uncle Russ."
"You guys need to get down here soon. Meet my grandson," Russ said.
"Mom says we're going to come and visit next month."
"Hey, whatever you're digging into? Don't dig too much. Okay, Squirt?"
"I won't."
"I love you."
"Love you too! Bye."
She ended the call and turned to face Parker. "I can't believe Mom had to do that. How did she do that?"
"Like Russ said, she's the strongest person he knows."
"I'm glad she found Dad."
Parker nudged his little sister in the ribs and smiled, "Yeah, me too."
