He Called Her Bones, She Called Him Booth
By: Lesera128
Rated: K
Disclaimer: I own nothing... Obviously. Just playing in someone else's sandbox for a bit.
Summary: It is a biological fact that intelligent and stubborn children mimic the behavior of their parents… particularly verbally. Futurefic. Oneshot. Complete.
A/N: This is just a bit of Booth/Brennan futurefic family fluff that occurred to me the other day. As ever, annoying flames will be fed to my pet dragon. A good piece of advice... if you don't like the story (be it premise, writing style, plot, characterization, or INSERT RANDOM GRIPE HERE), stop reading, and hit the back button. It's that simple. :)~ Otherwise, enjoy.~
"Grax! Grax! Grax!" came the excited chant.
Max Keenan barely had enough time to shut the front door before thirty pounds slammed into his right leg and clasped it tightly. He looked down at his foot and saw a pair of blue eyes staring back up at him… his wife's eyes… which had been passed to their daughter, and their granddaughter, in turn. "Hey munchkin."
"Christine," came the sharp retort from the family room.
Max took a step forward, but the two-year old would not let go of his leg. He looked down at her and said, "Why are you holding on to my leg for dear life, munchkin?"
"Because," Dr. Temperance Brennan said, as she came forward and gave her father a nod of greeting. "Chrissy knows she's behaved inappropriately and is going to be penalized by not being able to watch her DVD before dinner because of her insubordination."
Her small daughter's head snapped up and said defiantly, "Am not, Bones!"
Max looked from his daughter to his granddaughter and back. He had the nervous feeling that he had stumbled into a Mexican stand-off. However, his curiosity got the better of him as he said, "Since when does she call you 'Bones'?"
"Bones! Bones! Bones!" Christine yelled. She then giggled.
Brennan shook her head with a 'please don't ask now look' that betrayed the exasperation she was feeling to her father. Max eyed her, but said nothing, allowing Brennan to maintain the facade necessary to parent her daughter.
"Christine, if your father and I have explained this to you once… we have done it several times. You may not call me 'Bones'. I am 'Mommy'," Brennan said.
"Naw-uh," Christine said, shaking her head as vigorously as she could despite the fact that she was still attached to Max's leg.
"Christine," Brennan said firmly. "You will call me 'Mommy'."
"Nope… nope… nope," came the sing-song reply. "You're Bones! Bones… Bones… Bones… BONES!"
Brennan sighed in exasperation. She looked up to her father and said, "She has never been this vehemently willful about anything in her life, so as far as my memory can recall... and I have an excellent memory."
Max nodded and said, "When did she start with the Bo—"
Brennan shook her head. "No!"
Max looked at her. "What?"
"Spell it. B-O-O-T-H insists that if we spell it, she won't know what that means. I disagree, but, to appease him, I told him we would try it for a suitable test period. However, as Christine is a highly intelligent child, she's going to figure out what the letters eventually mean anyway. She already knows half of the alphabet, so it's only a matter of time," Brennan said.
"Okay," Max said. "I understand the part about spelling B-O-N-E-S… but why do you have to spell Booth's name too?"
Brennan winced at the words as soon as they were out of her father's mouth. She was doing a lot of that lately... wincing.
"BOOTH!" Chrissy yelled. She then detached herself from Max's leg, apparently bored. She trotted past her mother in the direction of the family room. "BOOTH! BOOTH! BOOTH!" she yelled in a chipper, sing-song chant.
"Why is she yelling Booth's name? He's not here yet, is he? I didn't see the Sequoia out front," Max said.
Brennan sighed. "He's not. He's on his way home… she just… she… about a week ago… Chrissy woke up one morning… she finally figured how to get herself out of the crib and crawled out… She opened the door to the nursery and went trotting down looking for Booth and I. We were asleep when she threw open our bedroom door and proceeded to pull herself into our bed and begin jumping on it."
"But, she's two," Max said.
"Yes, I know," Brennan said. "To say that Booth was shocked is an understatement. He almost fell out of bed when he saw her jumping up and down at the foot of it on my side."
"But... you and Russ weren't doing that… well, I don't remember exactly, but you weren't two," Max said, the disbelief evident in his voice.
Brennan sighed again. When she wasn't at the lab, this is what her life seemed to have been reduced to... wincing and sighing. "I know… like I said, we knew when she was born there was a high likelihood that she would be extremely intelligent given her DNA… and I've been warning Booth the intelligence was going to manifest itself rebelliously somehow at some point. Anthropologically-speaking, such an occurrence was inevitable... but, this past week… ever since that morning… she heard Booth call me 'Bones' and me respond to him as 'Booth'… And, well, she's refused to call either one of us 'Mommy' or 'Daddy' or any derivations of the paternal and maternal monikers like she had been doing before…. And... it's gotten more than a little annoying."
"Why?" Max said. "Parker calls you 'Bones'… so what's the big deal if Chrissy does, too?"
"First," Brennan said. "Parker was significantly older when he began to call me 'Bones'. Two, he never ever shouted it like Chrissy does… and quite frankly its starting to make me a little nutty, Dad… metaphorically speaking, of course."
"Did you ask her why she was doing it?' Max mused.
"Of course," Brennan said. "That was the first thing I tried... but, for some reason, she wouldn't answer the question."
"Well, honey, she's two… almost two and a half," Max said as the pair walked into the family room. "You know the saying… it's the terrible two's."
"That's what…" Brennan looked around conspiratorially… looking to see where her daughter was currently located.
"Christine?" Brennan called out.
"In my room, Bones!" came the response.
Brennan sighed. She then turned to her father and said, "That's what Booth said, but I've done an extensive amount of research on the issue. All the evidence shows that given her high intelligence level, I should be able to rationally and logically explain things to her and get her to modify her behavior accordingly based on that action."
Sitting down on the couch, Max laughed. He patted the seat next to him and pulled his daughter into a hug. "Tempe… she's two," Max repeated. "You can't necessarily reason with a two-year old. Sometimes… sometimes they just do what they do, and there's not necessarily any rhyme or reason to it."
"I know!" Brennan said. "And that is… she's… just *SO* frustrating to me."
"Don't let her see that she's getting to you," Max advised. "If she does, she'll keep behaving in the same way."
"Booth said that too."
"Yeah, well, he's been through this with Parker, Tempe," Max said.
Brennan vehemently shook her head. "Oh, no… he hasn't. I asked Rebecca. She told me Parker was never this willful or frustrating."
Max laughed. "Yeah… well, he is a *boy*."
Brennan nodded. "I thought that maybe gender might be playing a part in the difference between their behaviors as well…"
"Honey?" Max said.
"What?"
"Did you ever think she's just emulating the behavior she sees in the house?"
"Of course, Dad, that's how this whole thing started…."
"Not just the you calling Booth 'Booth' thing. Maybe she's being as stubborn as she is… because she's copying her mother… and trying to push the boundaries to see how far she can go with you," Max offered.
Brennan bit her lip for a moment, a light coming into her eyes. "I must admit I had not considered that possibility."
Max shrugged. "You did with your mother when you were a little girl."
"If that's true," Brennan said, "I'm surprised that Mom didn't do something drastic to develop a coping mechanism to deal with my tenacity."
"Oh, she did," Max said. "How do you think she got so good at doing numbers in her head?"
Brennan shrugged. "I don't know. I never really thought about it."
Max laughed. "It was less so with Russ… but, you… with you… you weren't exactly defiant with her… but you loved to prove her wrong. You were six years old and would launch into a logical diatribe about something like why it was better to buy two gallons of milk on each trip to the store instead of just one since we were always running out. I think the thing that got her most was that usually you were right… but we couldn't tell you that when you were that young. So, she started doing equations in her head. By the time you hit adolescence, she was pretty good at it too."
Brennan frowned. "See? This is a perfect example of why I regret Mom not being here… there is so much so could do to help me explain how to handle Chrissy."
Max kissed her. "You're doing fine, baby. You're doing fine."
"Then, even if it's illogical… why do I feel that this past week I have been outsmarted by a two-year old?"
"Fatigue," Max said honestly. "You just can't compete with her energy level…."
Somewhat ironically, his words were interrupted by a loud crash. Brennan sighed as she stood and said, "Christine!"
A quick pitter patter of small feet suddenly went *thwack* *thwack* *thwack* on the wood floors. Suddenly, her daughter was standing in front of her, her posture mirroring Brennan's as she stood on the defensive with arms posted on her hips, legs spread in a waiting stance. "Yes, Bones?"
Brennan sighed again. "What was the incident that resulted in the loud crash I just heard, Christine?"
The toddler shook her head. "Not telling."
"Christine—" Brennan warned.
"Hey munchkin," Max asked, hazarding a guess. "What were you climbing on?"
The child's head spun in her grandfather's direction. She smiled a toothy smile and said to him sweetly, "The rocking chair, Grax. Wanted my hat."
Brennan immediately shook her head. "Christine… you have been repeatedly told by both your father and me that if you want something from the dresser that you should come and get one of us."
"No, Bones!" Christine responded. "I do it myself!"
Brennan looked to her father and nodded, mouthing the word 'see'?
Before Max could respond, the front door opened again. This time, anticipating her behavior, Max moved quickly and intercepted his granddaughter who made a tear in the direction of the door.
"Grax! Put me down, Grax!" Christine squealed. Brennan smiled a smile of appreciation at her father.
"Hold up a minute, munchkin," Max said.
It took only a few seconds before Booth came trudging in, a stack of file folders in his hands. He dropped them down on a bookshelf that was tall enough to be out of reach from Chrissy's prying hands. He dropped his keys and phone on top. Turning, he smiled as he first went over to Brennan. "Hey."
"Hi."
He moved to lean in to give her a kiss. She didn't turn away, but didn't respond either. Booth frowned. "Has it been another kind of *that* day?"
Brennan nodded. "Yes."
Booth sighed. "Okay."
"Okay?" Brennan said. "'Okay', what?"
"Time for a new tactic."
He turned from Brennan and looked at her father. "Hey, Max. How are you doing?"
Max shrugged. He gestured to Chrissy, who was still squirming in his arms. "Not bad. Just helping with guard duty, it appears…"
"Grax! Lemme down, Grax. Booth is here!" Christine yelled again.
Booth nodded with a frown. He reached for his daughter and said to Max, "Here, let me have her."
"Booth! Booth! BOOTH!" Christine yelled as her grandfather shifted her squirming body in his arms.
Max nodded and passed the toddler off to her father. Booth took her and then said, "Okay, bubette, come here."
Sitting down on the couch, the pair was watched by Brennan, who was still standing and moved behind them as Booth began to speak.
"Okay… Chrissy, seriously… sit still for a moment, will ya?"
"Why?"
"Because I asked, and it's nice to do what people ask you to do?"
"Okay," Christine said suddenly as she stopped struggling in Booth's arms.
Booth turned his head to Brennan and smirked. She looked in amazement at him and said suddenly, "How did you do that?"
"Easy, Bones—" Booth began.
Again, Brennan winced once more as her daughter started up her chant again. "Bones! Bones! BONES!"
She looked at her father then and giggled. "Did you hear me, Booth? I said 'Bones'!"
"I heard you," Booth said with a look. He then turned to Brennan and said, "That's it… I am not spending the next four years of her life spelling your name until she learns that too. I'm just not…"
He looked to his daughter, and she giggled once more. Booth pulled her to his lap and said, "Okay, bubette. This is it. Moment of truth."
"What?" she asked, suddenly turning to him, cuddling into his chest, and examining the pattern on his tie.
"Why do you keep calling me 'Booth'? You know I like it much better when you call me 'Daddy' right? Just like Parks does?" Booth said.
"Yes," Christine began hesitantly. "But—"
"But, what, Chrissy?"
"But," the toddler pointed her finger in the direction of Brennan. "She calls you 'Booth'… and you call her 'Bones'… and I want to be like Mommy."
Booth looked up at her and eyed Brennan as he saw a strange look fall over her face. Booth arched an eyebrow, but said nothing. Hesitantly, Brennan took a step forward and interrupted, "You want to be like Mommy, Chrissy?" Brennan asked.
The toddler yawned. And then reached out her hands to her mother as she smiled a small smile. "Yes."
Brennan realized the look and reached down to take her daughter. Suddenly an idea occurred to her. "How about this, Chrissy... How about if we get you a blue lab coat that you can wear… then you'll be just like me. Would that make you happy?"
Christine looked at her mother and nodded. "Yes?"
"And you'll stopping calling me 'Bones'?"
"If I get a blue jacket? Just like yours?"
Brennan nodded.
"Okay then," Christine agreed. "But, only if it's just like yours." She sighed and then said, "I'm hungry, Mommy."
Brennan bit her lip. She looked to Booth and breathed a sigh of relief. Turning to her daughter, she said, "All right then, baby girl. Let's go look for a snack, huh?"
Turning, she carried the toddler towards the kitchen. Booth, letting out a breath of relief reached up and began to loosen his tie.
Max watched him and said with a smile, "Nice move, Booth."
"Thanks, Max. I try…. I try." He then began to smirk as he said, "Of course, I can't help it really. I'm just *that* good."
With a small chuckle, Max then said, "Yeah, sure, kid. I have just one question for you."
"Sure."
"If you're that good, why didn't you try that a week ago?"
Booth looked at Brennan's father, opened his mouth to say something, and then abruptly closed it. Deflated, Max laughed as Booth merely shrugged and finally reached for the television remote… distant shouts of "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!" happily echoing in the air.
~The End~