A/N: Ok, my first Bones story, so I hope it goes over well. I just couldn't get this idea out of my head. It will most likely end up being a short- I'm betting in 10 chapters or less, but we shall find out.

Parts of the story in regular font are in the 'present,' if you will, (confusingly enough, that would be the future, if you think about it...) when Booth is telling the kids the story of how he and Bones got together. The parts in italics explain the case that finally brings B&B together, which I'm saying is set in season 5. :) Wishful thinking.

I'm trying to make this a light read. I love the banter between B&B, as I'm sure the rest of you do, too. There will certainly be a few darker moments, but overall, not the focus. I also want it to be believable, hence the title of this story. Bones will never be romanced like a typical female. All the better to write about! So please don't expect loads of cheese. I don't do that.

While I'm not going to beg for reviews, I sure do love them, and appreciate honesty. I don't care if you hate it. Tell me. I want to know. Of course, if you love it, that's better, but I always try to improve. A few reviews always gets me writing more, though I try not to let them dictate my writing schedule. Please let me know what you think. Good idea? Bad idea? Worth continuing? Read on, and decide for yourself.

Atypical Fairy Tale

Chapter One: Corpses and Alligators

Booth swung his legs over the side of the couch and cursed as his foot came in heavy contact with a small model airplane. He heard a gasp from the next room. Busted. All he was trying to do was take a nap after a few nights of restless sleep and a couple of near-relentless cases.

"Dad! I'm going to tell on you! You should put a dollar in the swear jar, remember how m–"

Booth rubbed at his tired eyes and ruffled his son's hair. "How about we forget about it just this once, since it was your toy I ended up stepping on, huh? I could tell your mom you didn't listen to her rather insistent lectures about the importance of 'keeping an orderly home.'"

The boy objected. "No, no, don't tell her, please, Dad! I'll pick it up right now."

Booth smiled at his minute victory but wondered how many years of easy, angst-free conversation he had left with his son.

"What is he doing?" he heard called from the living room. He had just managed to lie down again, dammit. "Don't touch that!" Another scream. This was not a good start to his evening. "You're going to ruin my exact replica of a four thousand-year-old Egyptian mummy!"

"Leave each other alone," Booth boomed. It was his go-to response for sibling arguments, and there seemed to be a lot of them. Life had been much simpler when neither of them could speak.

"Dad!" when screamed in unison, was never good, he thought as he rose from the couch and strode to the living room, intent on settling their petty fight so he could get a few minutes of shut eye before his wife came home. He hoped she was not expecting him to cover dinner. Not tonight.

Hanley, six, was bent over his sister's mummy replica, a fossil brush in hand, dusting the fake remains for clues, Booth was sure. "He's ruining it!" Tullia complained.

Booth knelt on the rug. "Dad's not in the mood for a fight right now, guys. And he's not ruining it, Tullia, he's playing. Can't you share with your brother for once?"

"No," she said defiantly. "I cannot. This mummy is called mine for a reason. It's my property. It's mine to play with and mine to share, if I want to. And I do not wish to share it."

The vocabulary and prose of his eight-year-old never failed to amuse him. She was sometimes too much her mother.

"Dad, this is a replica of a four thousand-year-old mummy. It's obviously too important to have his grubby hands all over."

Booth conceded. "Fine. But if your brother can't play with it then neither can you. Sound fair?"

He should have known better than to ask an open-ended question, he thought after Tullia began spinning a presentation on unbiased parenting.

Soon after, Hanley began whining too, and Booth was not convinced of his parenting skills or his ability to keep his frustrations in check. They all needed a distraction. "How 'bout a story?" he asked, hyper, hoping to God they would sit down and shut up.

"Tell me a story about a gruesome anthropological find," Tullia insisted. "I can handle it."

"No, I'm not telling you about murders again, Tul. I find it a little creepy how fascinated you are by that stuff."

Tullia crossed her arms in defense. God, did she look like her mother. "Mom says I have a healthy appetite for the harsh realities of this world."

Hanley stomped around the room, since moving from the mummy to the plane Booth had stepped on moments before. "I wanna hear about dinosaurs!" he yelled, interrupting the motor and flying noises he sputtered.

"Dinosaurs are dead, Han. I don't know much about them–"

"Corpses are dead too, Dad. And you know a lot about them. I would like to hear a story about a dismembered corpse."

Booth shut his eyes. Maybe if he kept them closed long enough, both of his children would suddenly fall tired and go to sleep. Maybe it would be quiet. Only in my dreamland.

"How about something a little less... graphic?"

Tullia shook her head. "That does not interest me."

"How do you know?" Booth argued. "You haven't even heard what I'm going to say!" He shut his eyes again. He was fighting with an eight-year-old. He definitely needed sleep.

"Ok," he said suddenly. "What about... a fairy tale?"

Tullia looked less than impressed. "I'm not interested in hearing about something that is so statistically improbable," she deadpanned, sitting cross-legged on the rug, her chestnut hair hanging to her shoulders.

"You're eight," he admonished. "How do you know these things?"

"Almost nine."

She is growing up too fast. "Ok then, you're almost nine, so how about the story of... how your mother and I fell in love?"

"Does it involve corpses?"

Booth grinned. They could compromise here, if only for a little silence. "It most certainly does. Lots and lots of corpses."

Tullia pumped her elbow down and closed her fist, hissing, "Yes!"

"What about dinosaurs?" Hanley called.

"Err," Booth hesitated, "there's an alligator thrown in there somewhere." That has to be good enough.

Hanley dropped the plane loudly on the hardwood floor and took a seat near his older sister.

"Ok, this was quite a while ago, so let me see if I can remember it right," he teased. "We were at the Jeffersonian..."

God, this couch was comfortable. Booth sighed contently while he waited for Bones to return to her office. He didn't mind taking a little break. He didn't mind trekking over to the Jeffersonian when he knew perfectly well that Bones would be still be a while on the platform, either. He liked the comfort that her office brought.

An hour later she leaned over the couch, as if inspecting him or expecting him to do something inhuman. "Booth," she tried softly, attempting to treat him with the same grace she would expect when being awoken. He did not stir. "Booth," she tried again, this time more loudly. Nothing. "Booth!" she yelled, yanking her head back when he sat up suddenly, alarmed.

"God, Bones, what the hell is it?"

She flipped through the contents of the manilla case folder she held. "You might have very weak auditory receptors," she noted setting the folder down on the coffee table, taking his jaw in her hands and twisting his head to her liking. "The decibel at which I had to yell to wake you up is out of the ordinary."

"I was asleep, Bones. Peacefully."

"What are you doing in my office?" she asked matter-of-factly. "I thought you were stuck with desk work today."

He mentally cursed himself. He could not quite admit to himself that he found himself missing Bones when they had no case to work. He was around the woman all the time. Was he crazy to want more?

"Lunch," he stammered. "I wanted to see if you'd like to get lunch with me. At the diner."

"Where else would we go?" Bones asked. "It's statistically improbable that you would suggest a different eating establishment."

He sighed and brushed off the comment. She was so literal. "Lunch, Bones? Is that a yes?"

Raking a hand through her hair, she surveyed her workload. "I suppose I could eat."

A few minutes later, "I don't know how you eat that," she pointed to his plate of steak and eggs. "It looks foul."

"It's beef," he deadpanned.

Missing the joke, she corrected him. "I believe you're thinking of fowl, as in birds belonging to one of two biological orders, namely the gamefowl or landfowl, which are called Galliformes, and the waterfowl, or Anseriformes–"

"Thanks for the biology lesson."

"Oh. Oh. You made a joke. Right?

He raised his eyebrows and held her gaze. "Now you're catching on."

"I've become decidedly more amusing since I've been your partner, Booth."

"Mom is not funny," Tullia said. "She is brilliant."

Booth stopped, mid-sentence. "How many interruptions do you plan on making?"

"Only when the story needs correction."

"You can't correct a story if it's already taken place, Tul. This is how it happened..."

"So, no new cases?"

"Is that your way of saying you miss me, Bones?" he asked, smirking as always, watching her pause before she fished a french fry from his side plate.

"No," she said evenly. "I was simply inquiring about your job, since we're partners. I thought maybe that was why you brought me to lunch."

Booth deflated. He could not explain his intense connections with her lately. He could not explain why he wanted her to say she missed working with him, and it was beginning to freak him out.

"No new cases, at least none involving your talents. Investigated a fraud issue this morning. Nothing exciting. What's keeping you so busy at the lab?"

"The thousands of sets of unidentified remains we have in storage."

"Talk about morbid, Bones."

"I wouldn't say morbid. I would say fascinating."

"What are you doing?" Bones asked when she arrived home, hanging up her coat and placing her purse on the entry table. "Is this some kind of powwow? The Native Americans would actually use a formation very similar to this one in their ritual ceremonies–"

"It's a story, Bones," Booth told her, clasping the back of her neck when she leaned down to kiss him hello. He breathed her in. It was good to have her home. They were interrupted by both Tullia and Hanley, who were waiting for their usual hug and kiss upon a parent's arrival.

Tullia resumed her position on the rug. "Dad's telling us about corpses!"

"No, I'm not," Booth cut in.

"And dinosaurs!"

Bones raised her eyebrows. She was not sure if her husband's storytelling skills should be admired or feared.

"No," he said again, turning toward her. "I'm telling them the story of... us. I'm trying to prove to Tul here that fairy tales do exist. That story happens to include corpses. And alligators, not dinosaurs. So, not your typical fairy tale."

She nodded at him, holding his gaze, meeting the warm brown eyes she looked forward to seeing every day. She snuggled against him on the couch, smiling when he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Permission to continue..."