Just a fun, fluffy little story. Oh, and by the way, CANADA WON HOCKEY GOLD! WOOOO! It's completely crazy here in Vancouver!
It was an interrogation, something that was usually his strong suit, but Booth found his concentration slipping, and slipping, and slipping still further.
Slippity slip slip.
They were questioning an archeology student, a suspect in a murder case that he and his partner had been working on for days. The curator of a museum had been found dead in one of the larger drawers in the archives, and after questioning what seemed to be a million people, they had stumbled upon the young, lithe woman the fifty-two year old had been having an affair with.
Normally, Booth would have been jumping all over her, questioning her motives, whereabouts, the whole she-bang. But Brennan had a few questions of her own, and before he could stop them, instead of questioning the witness, his partner was having a highly technical discussion with the suspect.
Maybe she had a plan, maybe she didn't. He didn't have the energy to sift through all of the techno-babble, not when he had had a long night and an even longer time without coffee. The lines on the sheet of paper in front of him were starting to blur a bit.
Every few seconds, he would tune in to make sure that he wasn't needed, but those little check-ins were becoming less frequent, as he twirled a blue pen between his fingers.
Blue, blue, blue, pen makes lines on paper, cap makes slidy noise as it comes off of pen. It was a really nice pen too. Really smooth ink, good for writing. Booth. Seeley Booth. Special Agent Seeley Booth. Gosh, that looked good in swirly blue.
If he squinted real hard, it all blended together with the lines on the notebook paper. Maybe Bones' name would look pretty too. Brennan. Temperance Brennan. Dr. Temperance Brennan. Yeah, that was really pretty. Swirly blue pretty letters. The p was all swoopy, and he made the B really curly. The names looked kinda lost on the big paper though. They needed a little shield.
Pointy bottom, curving up, up, up, around the pretty letters, down, down, meeting in the middle. Pretty blue heart. Bones would say it wasn't anatomically correct, but Bones was silly. Bones wouldn't see how pretty the blue letters looked, Bones would complain about the silly heart. There. Now the heart was thicker. But the pretty names needed something in the middle of them.
What would fit between pretty Special Agent Seeley Booth and Dr. Temperance Brennan, surrounded by thick blue heart? Booth knew. Bones would fit between the pretty, swirly names. One bone lying down, the other standing up. That made a pretty plus sign. Man, he and the pen made a really good, pretty team.
"But I'm sure Agent Booth would be able to tell you about that, wouldn't you, Booth?" Temperance Brennan's pretty voice brought him out of his little blue pen world.
"Hmm?" he asked, looking up, blinking his eyes. Stupid fuzzy world.
"Booth, were you paying attention at all?" she asked. His Bones was acting all serious and stuff, but didn't she see how pretty his drawing was?
"Huh… yeah. Paying attention, yup." He looked down at the paper quickly, to make sure it wasn't a dream. Maybe the whole thing was a dream. Maybe dream was a dream. Wait, that didn't make any sense.
Brennan followed his eyes downward.
"Booth, you weren't paying attention at all!" she scolded.
"Sorry, Bones, your squinty, squinty talk made me sleepy."
"What's this?" she asked, examining his paper. Bones sounded different, didn't she? Her voice went all soft, like she was looking at something… pretty! Of course! She was looking at the swirly blue letters!
"Uh, that's just um… some, uh… doodles I was doing." he mumbled, looking away from her eyes. They were pretty and blue too.
"Is he on something?" the archeology student asked, but Brennan didn't pay any attention.
"Booth, you appear to be in a state of decreased mental function due to lack of sleep. I've finished questioning Diana, so I'll drive you home." There it was again, the soft voice, with soft, pretty Bones eyes to go with it.
"Okay, Bones." She let Diana out, before grabbing his arm, trying to drag him out of the room.
"Wait, Bones! I need my, uh, papers!" Booth grabbed the doodle, and she got the rest of his papers, and they left the Hoover building together, Brennan giving him funny little looks as they went on.
"What was the drawing about, Booth?" she asked, as she let him into her car. He smiled at her, really wide and bright, and she smiled that nice Bones smile back at him.
"I, um… Well, you see, uh… the pen was really nice and blue and smooth and I was writing my name and then I wrote your name because I thought it would look nice, because the pen was so nice, and then, um…. well, the names were looking kinda lonely and scared in the middle of the paper, and so I, um, well, I drew the, uh, kinda… heart shape." he said, looking away from her as he sat down in the car.
"It was very pretty." Did he detect a hint of playfulness in her voice? Her eyes were all twinkly, and her smile was all bright, so maybe-
"Do you want to go to the diner, Bones?" Booth asked, looking at her with a pair of chocolate puppy dog eyes. He knew she couldn't resist those.
"Alright." she smiled, looking away from him. They were silent on the drive to the diner, but Brennan spoke as she finished parking.
"Booth?" she asked, hesitant, and her tone reminded Booth painfully of why she was so endearing and irrevocably precious to him.
"Yeah?"
"The… drawing, that you made, in the interrogation room? Does it bear any resemblance to the drawings that schoolchildren make when they had a 'crush' on one of their classmates?" She looked at him, a little bit scared, and a little bit brave. Booth gulped. This seemed like 'it'.
"Maybe." he ventured, looking back at her hesitantly. "But you're the anthropologist, so maybe you should tell-" The softest, warmest, kindest and best lips in the world (she would correct him if she said that, saying that he couldn't possibly compare all the lips in the world, but that sure as hell was what it felt like-) cut him off.
They kissed tenderly for a few minutes, before Booth realized that they were still in the car, and maybe it was time to go into the diner, because along with being really tired, he was pretty hungry too. He broke it off reluctantly, and was met with the sight of her pretty eyes staring back at him.
"I love you, Bones." he said simply, stroking her cheek, and it was just as soft as it had always been, except it felt a little different this time, like there was something new and wonderful added into the mix of all of the wonderfulness they already had.
"Let's go in to eat." she replied, giving him a quick peck. She got out of the car, while Booth looked at her. She would say it to him too, someday.
Later, after he had come back from the restroom, Booth was met with the sight of an empty table. They had long since finished their meals, and the coffee had long since gone cold, but he had been looking forward to sitting back down with her. Had she run? Had he scared her?
But there wasn't anything to fear, because when he looked down at the table, he saw a little piece of white paper, and in the middle of it, drawn in red crayon, was a picture of two stick figures, obviously male and female, with the names Booth and Bones underneath them, and a big red scribbley heart in the middle of them.
"I love you too, Booth." Brennan said, as she came up behind him, putting her arms around him and kissing the back of his neck.
Booth smiled.