Spoilers:
Spoilers: Neh. Tell me if you think I should continue! Feedback is loved, as my wonderful current reviewers know. I appreciate anything you have to say!
Disclaimer: We just found a creepy-as spider in my house. Ew. I think it's a funnelweb. Again with the ew. At least it was dead. But it may have little baby funnelwebs running around my house...Eeeeew.
Author's Note: I should really be finishing my maths homework. But, seriously, I understand it fine, and I'm going to fail the test anyway. There's really no point. So fanfiction it is! This chapter is dedicated to my awesome parents who spent the last day of the holidays perusing a wool-goods showroom. Oh, and I'm fully aware that this would never actually be an assignment, but for the sake of fanfiction, it is.
Brennan and Booth gawked at Cullen. He was sitting in front of them with a very self-satisfied smile flickering on his face. Booth looked mainly awkward, from what Cullen could see, but he appeared to be thinking very hard about it.
Brennan, on the other hand, was not going to be so easy to convince. She was glaring at him with what he could only describe as a terrifying passion. He almost squirmed under the gaze. This, he was not used to.
"Doctor Brennan, I-"
"No."
His jaw clenched as Booth remained silent. "Doctor Brennan," he began again, his voice claiming all the authority it could. "This will only-"
"No. I am not doing it. I'm not a part of the FBI; I don't have to be doing this!" Cullen had never heard her so...distraught. Cullen changed tack after glaring at Booth.
"If you wish to continue working with Agent Booth, you must do this, Doctor Brennan. It is required. You are not the only two being assigned to this. I cannot make exceptions based on your personal preference." He was forcing himself to keep his voice level at this point. Brennan could all but hear his vocal cords contract with every word.
Brennan and Cullen glared at Booth again. His head snapped up. "What?"
Before Brennan could begin, Cullen stood up and talked directly to Booth. "Agent Booth," he said, his voice still strained. "Please wrangle your partner before I do something I regret." His jaw clenched again, and his hands balled into fists as he made for the door.
Brennan glared after him. It was bad enough he was making her do this. Then he ignores her, talking only to Booth. Then he tells Booth to 'wrangle' her.
Booth looked over at a fuming Brennan. Bad move. As soon as he did, Brennan took it as a cue to begin yelling again.
"Wrangle? What the hell does he think I am? Cattle?" she cried. "He can't make us do this, Booth! It's totally unorthodox, not to mention unethical and blatantly ridiculous!" Booth almost laughed at her outburst, but was too afraid he'd get hurt. Or become her next target.
He tried for reasonable passivism. "Come on, Bones, it's only a week. One week is easy. And at least this time we don't have to talk about our feelings," he said, shuddering deliberately. "I don't want to do it, either, but, you know, I'd...I want to stay partners with you, Bones. Cullen doesn't joke about that sort of thing, you know."
Brennan looked at him, a little of the anger gone. "It's just so stupid. I mean, a week is a long time, Booth! I could do a lot in a week. But no, I'm stuck in a house in God knows where with you." She sighed loudly, throwing herself back in her chair violently and crossing her arms over her chest.
"Geez, don't hold back," Booth muttered. He sighed. "Look, Bones, if you don't do this, Cullen will hold good on his promise. We don't have a choice. It's not like I don't have better things to do, either," he said evenly, trying to play out the logic. He wasn't sure if it had worked.
Brennan stared at him from across the table. Her brow furrowed. "Fine. But I'm doing it against my better judgment. I'm doing it under protest," she said bitterly.
Angela screamed as loud as her shock permitted. Brennan glared at her. "Ange, this is not something to squeal about," she said.
"Are you mad? Of course it is, Bren," she said, rolling her eyes. "You are doing partner building with Booth. For a week. Alone!" She jumped up and down in her chair. Brennan made a noise of dread.
"No, Ange, we won't be alone. There's another two people staying with us. For some reason, the FBI decided that their previous attempts at 'partner building'," she hooked two fingers in air quotes, "Didn't work."
To Brennan's disappointment, Angela's enthusiasm hadn't appeared to deflate at all. She started again. "That's probably because it's stupid and pointless, and people either like each other, or they don't. If they're friends, they're friends. Sticking them in a house together for a week is more likely to damage a relationship, anyway!" she said. She was near hysterics. Again.
Angela was still unmoved, smirking at Brennan from her chair. "Trust me, Bren, when I tell you: it will not damage your relationship." She enunciated everything perfectly, staring Brennan down. Or at least trying to.
"No, Ange. There is a reason I've never lived with a man before!"
"Fear of commitment?" Angela suggested smugly. Brennan glared at her, but decided not to dignify that with a verbal response.
"And ankle bracelets! What the hell is with that? This assignment is deranged!" Brennan buried her face in her hands, trying not to think about what she was getting into. Angela was silent and Brennan looked up.
"Ankle bracelets? You didn't mention that before. You have to wear ankle bracelets?" she squealed in laughter. Before she could become hysterical, Brennan spoke.
"Not literally, Angela. It was a metaphor," she said curtly, rolling her eyes. It reminded her why she was usually so literal. "We just can't leave the house. They're bringing us food, and anything else we might need. We can take our things, but we're not allowed cell phones? Argh!"
She hadn't any anger left, so she slumped on Angela's office couch, her head in her hands. Angela moved to sit beside her. She rested a hand one Brennan's knee.
"You'll be fine, Bren. Look on the bright side; you have a week without Cam breathing down your neck," she said, grinning.
Brennan just stared at her skeptically.
"So, where are we?" Brennan asked flatly. Booth looked over to her. They were the first words she'd spoken all day. "Are you going to stare at me, or are you going to answer me?"
Booth rolled his eyes. "No need to get grumpy, Bones. It isn't like we're going to have an easy time living together for a week; you being snippy won't help," he scolded. Brennan's glare told him not to push it. "I don't know, exactly. It's an FBI safe house that they don't use anymore, for whatever reason." He shrugged and lifted their suitcases out of the trunk.
"They did some developing just over there," chimed in another of the agents they were staying with, Agent Rice. "It's not so safe anymore. You can see straight into the house from basically any of the western facing apartments, see?" he said, pointing across to a multistory apartment complex about a quarter-mile away.
"Of course, you need binoculars," added his partner, Campbell. They both laughed. Booth and Brennan just looked at each other.
Brennan, Booth, Agent Rice and Agent Campbell sat in the boringly furnished lounge room, staring at their new surroundings. The FBI had just left the previous furniture there, adding only a few extra armchairs and a larger table. To Brennan's relief, there were no knickknacks or tacky rip-offs of turn of the century impressionist paintings, like there seemed to be in most places like this.
The house was big enough for all four of them to have an almost-comfortable amount of personal space, but still forced them to share as much of it as possible. There was one bathroom for the men, and one for the women; each of the four had a bedroom; there was one kitchen and a large living room, decked out with a TV and DVD player.
There was a generous collection of DVDs and generic novels filling a glass-doored cabinet in one corner of the room. To Brennan's displeasure, there was also a shelf entirely dedicated to board games. The kind of board games that were so easy that she almost always lost.
"So," Booth started. The other three agents looked at him. Great icebreaker, Booth, he spat at himself. "Agent Campbell, Agent Rice, do you have first names? Or would you prefer formalities?" he asked. He sounded like he was trying too hard to be genial. Mostly, he just sounded bored.
Brennan looked at the two agents. She figured may as well learn their names. A week could be a very long time.
Campbell took charge. "Please, call me Laura," she said. "This is Alex."
She tucked her blonde hair behind her ear with long, slender fingers. At first sight, she had looked like an FBI agent. She wasn't unattractive, but lacked any sort of personality to her features. Her hair was just past her shoulders, tied back in a loose plait. Her dress sense was equally as generic; black pant-suit, cut well to fit her tall, slim frame, though not flattering in any feminine sense.
Her blue eyes seemed to be forever watching. Brennan imagined she was a very good character reader.
Her partner looked as if he'd been cut from the FBI handbook. His short dark hair was cut very similarly to Booth's, though he had obviously put some time into exactly how he wanted it to look before going to work each day. He, also, was not bad looking, but lacked any sense of physical personality.
Both were roughly the same age as Brennan and Booth, and had been working together about as long, which was why they were both assigned to the same training. Cullen had figured it was pointless to send in pairs who'd been working together for any less than two years, and any more than seven.
Less than two years, and they're still getting to know each other. Partner building would drive them, more likely than not, to failure. It was better to know, and be able to tolerate, bad habits before doing something like this.
More than seven years, and it was likely that they already knew each other well enough to be useless in the trial of such an iffy assignment.
Booth and Brennan, Laura and Alex seemed to be the best two to fit the criteria.
Booth looked around again. Silence has fallen as soon as the question had been answered. "So, can anyone here cook?" he ventured, hoping to start conversation, but really wanting to know. He was hungry.
Lauren nodded. "I cook a little. I mean, I'm not brilliant, but..." she shrugged. Booth almost laughed at her false modesty. He settled for a smile while Brennan rolled her eyes. Alex patted her shoulder in an oddly platonic gesture.
"Don't be silly, Laura," he said. He turned to Booth. "She's an excellent cook." Laura flapped a hand at him.
"Oh, stop, Alex, you'll make me blush!" she giggled. Booth looked at Brennan helplessly. These two reminded him of two teenagers. Making fun of people. He couldn't believe that they had such an odd way of communication. But then, most people didn't quite get the relationship he had with Brennan.
But at least they acted like adults.
"Bones makes the best mac'n'cheese," Booth pointed out, rather pointlessly. The other two agents made him a little uncomfortable. Bones smiled at him, and he winked at her.
Alex looked at Laura in a what-are-they-doing way. She shrugged, and then frowned, watching them. They stared at each other for a few more seconds than totally necessary and then looked back to the other two. Brennan was grinning as she spoke.
"So, do you two like Thai food?"