Valentine's Day one-shot. Not based off of any spoilers for the V-day episode. Assumes knowledge up to 6.13 "The Daredevil in the Mold".

I meant to have this posted earlier in the day, but RL got in the way.

And I know what you're thinking. Jen, why on earth did you write something when you really need to write a chapter for "She Isn't Enough" not to mention a fic you haven't touched since September. Yeah, I know. I just needed to get this one out. It's done. Just a one-shot. There will be no follow-up, and it took me all of an hour to do. I will work on "She Isn't Enough" in the next couple of days though. Fear not.

Here we have some Bones and Parker cuteness. How will Parker get Brennan to go see Booth? And offer him the comfort and company he needs?

Will You Be My Valentine?

Doctor Temperance Brennan was getting ready to lock up her office and leave for the day. Everyone else had taken early leave given the fact that it was Valentine's Day. She didn't; she thought it ludicrous to shut down on part of a perfectly good workday when the only real reason people cared was because they got to play a part in the now commercialized version of what was once a meaningful day to those who loved and were loved by someone. People weren't in it for the affection anymore; they just wanted the candy, cards, roses, and other material indicators of the day. She just didn't believe that one day out of the entire year should be set aside to show someone how much you cared about them when that should be their goal all the time.

Now that she'd acknowledged her feelings for her partner, Seeley Booth, she imagined that if they were to ever be together, she would expect the same treatment on everyday of the year, and not just on one special day.

She'd tried hard all day not to think of the fact that she was spending yet another day alone. Everyone going on-and-on about Valentine's Day hadn't helped. She kept reminding herself that he wasn't hers. She'd tried to push down her feelings for him. She loved him, very much. This much she knew. What she didn't know was how he felt about her now.

She knew that he wasn't ready to be anything other than just partners at the moment (he'd told her that much), and she wasn't sure if he even really wanted her like that anymore. He and Hannah had just broken up a week ago when she'd rejected his marriage proposal. He was devastated by the event. He had truly loved Hannah, and Brennan wished, more than anything, that she could be the one to help heal Booth.

Lately, though, he'd shut everyone out. He called in sick three days last week. He'd even canceled his weekend with Parker, she found out this morning from Rebecca after the woman had called her to check to see how Booth was doing. It wasn't like him to cancel on his son, no matter what; so she knew that it was serious.

As she was putting case files in her messenger bag, she heard a knock on the frame of her office door. Even as timid as the knock was, it startled her since she knew she had been the only one there since about four o'clock and the soft knock seemed to reverberate throughout the open space of the lab.

Brennan looked up expecting to see a night guard or maybe even Booth, who she hadn't heard from all day. Again, she was startled.

"Parker?"

"Hi, Bones."

Brennan looked around the lab, seeing that he was alone.

"What are you doing here?"

"I came to see you."

"I see that, but how did you get here?"

"Cab."

"Alone?"

"I'm ten. It's not a big deal."

"I'm not sure Booth or Rebecca would say the same. Why'd you need to see me?"

"I just wanted to ask you something."

"Come on in; let's sit here on the couch."

She ushered the boy into her office and grabbed one of the pillows and sat down holding it to her abdomen. Parker sat next to her, fidgeting with something in his hand.

"What do you want to ask me?" Brennan asked.

Parker held his hand out flat and showed her what was in his hand. He held it out to her and he blushed as she took it in her hand.

It was a little card attached to a bag of peanut M&Ms.

"Will you be my Valentine, Bones?"

"Why me?"

"Well, my dad is always talking about how you don't have anyone to love you like you deserve. For a while, I was pretty sure that was going to be my dad, but he came back home with the reincarnation of Medusa and it ruined everything. I know that he isn't with her anymore and that he's hurting. He didn't even take me home with him this weekend. That's how I know. Well, I just thought that if he didn't make you his Valentine by now, then I would. Bones, you need someone to love you."

The little boy rambled his explanation so fast that Brennan had trouble keeping up with him, but every one of his words melted her resolve about this day. Every word he'd uttered was about affection and not about the card or candy he'd placed in her hand. Definitely a product of Booth's parenting.

"Bones, don't cry." He said placing a small hand on her arm, just as his father would do.

She hadn't even noticed the tears welling up in her eyes.

"Yes, I'll be your Valentine, Parker." She smiled at him and he hugged her tightly.

"I love you, Bones."

"I love you, too, Parker. Will you be my Valentine, too?"

"I would, but I think there is someone you would much rather be your Valentine."

"When did you get so wise?" Brennan asked.

"Hey, I'm a Booth."

"Yes you are very much Booth's son."

"That's a good thing right? Because mom usually tells me that when I burp or fart or do something she doesn't like."

"It is very much a good thing."

"So are you going to ask him?"

"I don't know if your dad will want to see me. He has called in sick a lot of last week, and I haven't heard from him at all today."

"Oh." Parker said with blaring disappointment.

"You know what?" Brennan said, standing with a newfound resolve, "I'll go and see him anyway. Like it or not, he isn't going to be wallowing in self-pity for the rest of the night. Your dad deserves someone to love him, too. I'm going over there to give that to him, whether he feels he can return it right now or not."

Parker's face lit up, "Really?"

"Yes, really. Come on, I'll take you home."

.

Brennan stopped at the drugstore to pick up some of Booth's favorite candy on the same corner as Booth's apartment above the liquor store after dropping Parker back off at his house. His mother had seemed furious, but backed off once she had heard Brennan's explanation as to why he had gone to her and her plans to go rescue Booth from his self-pity.

What Brennan hadn't seen or heard when she left was the high-five Rebecca had given Parker upon the anthropologist's departure. Parker had come up with a brilliant plan to set Brennan up to where she would want to go see Booth. Rebecca thought that if anything or anyone could pull Booth out of his stupor, it would be Brennan. She backed the idea one-hundred percent and had even dropped Parker off at the Jeffersonian after checking to make sure that Brennan's car was still parked in the parking structure. She then went home and waited for her son to use his Boothy magic.

.

Booth was laying on the couch with a beer in one hand, the remote in the other and a cigar in his mouth as he flipped aimlessly through the channels on the muted TV.

One hundred and eighty channels and not a damn thing on other than those cheesy chick flicks. Figures.

He flipped through again. Nothing. He just kept flipping through the channels. Finally, he shut the TV off and dropped the remote to the ground. The remote made a loud noise on the hardwood flooring.

The noise was shortly followed by a knock on the door. Booth groaned as he moved his feet from the coffee table to the floor. He looked down at the mess in front of him on the coffee table. The table was filled with beer cans and bottles, and that was just from today. The rest were on the floor where they'd been carelessly swiped off the table when he'd run out of room this morning.

He ran his hand over his face and rolled his eyes at himself for not being much more presentable than his living room. He couldn't remember what day it was when he'd showered last, and it had been the night of the proposal that he'd last shaved.

He sat there for a minute, hoping the person would go away. There was another knock. It was louder and more insistent this time.

He stood, kicking away some of the cans from around his feet. The impatient person began knocking a third time, well, more like pounding actually.

The knocking he could deal with, but the pounding, he felt it was uncalled for. Who did that person think they were anyway? It really pissed him off. He stalked over to the door and whipped it open, yelling his unkind greeting, "What do you want? Don't you realize how rude it is to…" He froze upon seeing her. He removed the cigar from his mouth and straightened up taller. "Bones, what—"

His appearance and yelled greeting surprised her and shook her up a little. It didn't take her long to recover and she cut his question off.

"Will you be my Valentine, Booth?"

Booth started to shake his head, "Bones—"

"Just listen, okay?"

He still hadn't made any move to let her in the door, and she didn't force him to move either.

He gave a stiff nod and she continued.

"I don't mean romantic Valentine. Not today." She took a deep breath. "I received a visit from Parker about an hour ago. He took a cab to the lab—"

"Alone?"

"Yes."

"Great. Rebecca will find some way to blame me for that."

"Actually, while she seemed upset, she didn't seem unreasonable. I explained the situation and she made him promise to never do it again."

"Situation?"

"He wanted to ask me to be his Valentine. He told me that you always tell him that I deserve to have someone love me. You know what else he said? He said that he figured it would have been you, but since you hadn't asked, he took it upon himself to make sure I felt loved today."

"That kid is really something. Gonna be a heartbreaker one day, instead of constantly getting his heart broken like his old man." Booth took a few puffs from the vile cancer stick.

Brennan coughed and waved her hands in front of her face to waft the smoke elsewhere.

"Sorry." He told her, helping her to fan it away from her face. "So why are you here?"

"Well, I asked him to be my Valentine, and he said no. He told me that he knew who I'd rather have as my Valentine. Look, Booth, I want you to know that I do love you. I want you to know that you are loved, okay. I understand that you can't return that love right now or maybe ever."

"Bones, don't you see? I do love you. Love, true love, doesn't just go away."

Brennan nodded, "Just as my feelings for you didn't go away even though you had found someone else. You also loved Hannah, and I understand that. I know you need time to get over that. If all the love you can handle for now is love from a friend, then I can do that. Is that what you want?"

"Yeah, I do." Booth stepped aside and motioned toward the messy living room. "Want to come in?" He asked.

Brennan stepped in the door. "Sure. I brought you something," she told him shyly, holding out a bag of his favorite candy.

"Reeses! Aw, thanks Bones." Booth moved in to kiss her cheek.

Both giver and receiver felt the sparks of electricity that flooded through their bodies at the brief contact, giving each a flicker of hope.

"Do you want one?" Booth asked opening the bag.

"No thanks, Parker brought me candy earlier. I'll just have that."

Brennan went straight to the kitchen and pulled out a couple of trash bags from the cupboard. She came back in the room and held one out to Booth who took it and got to work.

"Sorry about the mess." He told her, sweeping his collection of trash on the coffee table into his bag as Brennan kneeled on the floor to pick up more trash.

"Have you eaten?" Brennan asked, knowing that given the state of the living room that he hadn't really been taking care of himself, and that probably included eating.

"Not today, no."

"Booth! It's almost nine! You had all of that beer on an empty stomach? That is so bad for you. When was the last time you ate?"

"I haven't felt like I'd be able to keep food down.

"Just beer?" He nodded to her question and received an incredulous look. "You could keep down what is essentially a toxin but you couldn't keep down food?"

"Hey, I never said it made sense."

"Do you think you feel like eating now?"

"You mean other than the Reeses? I probably could."

"Thai?"

"Of course."

"I'll order, you…go shower. You stink."

"Thanks Bones."

Brennan narrowed her eyes at him, "For insulting you?"

"No, for loving me, you know…as a friend… for now."

Brennan returned his half smile before he walked back into his room to tidy himself up.

.

Booth had taken a little longer than he normally would have in the shower but he'd taken the time to scrub away the three-day build up of body funk and he'd also taken the time to shave.

He'd come out of the steaming bathroom looking like Special Agent Seeley Booth again rather than Seeley Booth, street bum. He walked into the living room just as Brennan was paying the delivery boy.

He met her over at the couch where they'd both sat down and divvied up their food containers. Booth reached for the remote and turned the TV on.

"I'm afraid the only things on right now are those lovey-dovey chick flicks."

Brennan settled down further into the couch making herself comfortable leaning into Booth's warm side. She rested her head on his shoulder and looked up at him taking in his familiar scent that she'd missed so dearly.

"I don't mind those sometimes. If you recall from the ones we've watched together in the past, it's always the guy who keeps getting his heartbroken that ends up with the girl."

FIN

Thoughts? Love? Hate? Cheesy?

XOXO,
CrayonClown