Remembering N'awlins
Brennan cracked one eye open and stretched. The first rays of sunlight were slanting through her window shades. Since it was Saturday morning she didn't need to be at the lab quite as early as weekdays. She adjusted her pillow and rolled over, sinking into its feathery depths. Wincing slightly as her torn ear lobe protested, she inventoried the current physical sensations she felt. Her splinted wrist still hurt if she flexed it, and her temple was still tender beneath the yellowing bruise there. Shuddering at what else could have occurred in Graham Legiere's house, she thought back to the conversation she'd had with Booth in the New Orleans cafe.
"Why are you nice to me?" she'd asked him.
"Because." Booth had replied, looking her straight in the eye.
"Because they think they get away with it.
What? They burn their victim.
They blow him up.
They toss him in the ocean.
They bury them in the desert.
They throw 'em to wood chippers.
Sometimes, you know, years go by, they relax.
Then they start living their lives like they didn't do anything wrong.
Like they didn't spend somebody else's life in order to get what they got.
They think they're safe from retribution, but you know you make those bastards unsafe.
That's why I'm nice to you."
Her response had been heartfelt. "I couldn't do that without you, Booth."
He had grinned at her. "Yeah. Um, you should be a little nicer to me, huh?"
She remembered her bashful response. "I really should."
He'd given her one of those adorably crooked little smiles of his. "Yeah."
About that time, Caroline had sailed through the café door, putting an end to their quiet exchange. The woman was a force of nature, wrapped in Southern charm, understatement, and obvious force of will.
She was also quite perceptive.
"I walk in on something? - Beignet and a cafe, cher."
The server nodded respectfully, "Yes, ma'am." She produced a coffee mug, and filled it with steaming chicory brew.
Caroline reached to pull out a chair but Booth rose and beat her to it, seating her politely. She winked at him, "Your granpa taught you well, Seeley Booth," she said fondly.
Instantly back to business, the prosecutor turned defense attorney continued talking briskly to the pair, "Hospital records. The tox screen was negative."
Dismissing their surprise at this news, she declared Legiere a notorious horndog, and suggested a plea with three years….
Brennan smiled to herself, remembering Booth's immediate jump to her defense.
"I do need to be nicer to my partner," she mused dreamily as she headed into her shower.
"Especially after he risked his career, reputation, and ethics to surreptitiously retrieve my mother's earring for me. He was really observant to notice it, with Detective Harding carrying on like she was. If not for him, I'd have lost my only keepsake forever. Well, not forever, that doesn't exist but
Angela's right. Booth really is a chivalrous armored knight, but I'd never admit that to him."
A/N: This little snippet resulted from re-watching the Man in the Morgue," one of my many episode favorites. Conversation is borrowed from
. /view_episode_ ?tv-show=bones&episode=s01e19