"I'm going to be late, Booth, I don't see why you can't use your siren and drive on the shoulder. I said I'd be there in twenty minutes and I still need to change. Caroline will not be happy if we delay her trial," Bones insisted.
Gripping the wheel tighter, Booth stares out at the standstill in front of him, ignoring her restless squirming beside him. "Look, Bones, you're the one who insisted that the Beltway would be faster. I told you it was still rush hour, but did you listen? No, you were too busy calculating the number of miles we could cut off our trip by taking the Beltway versus the surface streets."
Rubbing his forehead, he glances out the window, hoping she'll let the issue drop. Even if he turned on the siren, he'd have to get over through three lanes of standstill traffic to get to the shoulder. They still have almost an hour to get to the federal courthouse, plenty of time. Metro wouldn't let the standstill last for long - they'd have the commotion cleared up shortly and theirs was the next exit.
Suddenly, he realizes that the driver in the bakery van next to them is gawking at them. His head swivels around to find Bones wriggling out of her crime scene jumpsuit, revealing the soft blue blouse and jeans beneath.
"Bones! What are you doing?"
"I'm changing. If I'm going to be late, I should at least make sure I will not have to take extra time to change when we arrive," she explains plainly, bent down to free the fabric now around her ankles.
"You can't change on the Beltway, Bones," he says, his head jerking from her to the voyeur next to him, trying to silently threaten the guy to back off. It only takes two hard looks to back him off and Booth lets out a sigh as the guy purposefully puts both of his hands back on the wheel and turns to zero in on the road directly ahead of him.
Meanwhile, Bones is toeing off her boots and twisting in her seat so she can reach into the backseat to grab her garment bag as she points out, "I'm quite adept at changing in confined spaces, Booth, and I'm not where near as modest as you are about inadvertent exposure."
The woman then starts working loose her belt and the fly on her jeans and he just can't speak. They're literally surrounded - bakery guy on his left, a tired white-haired guy in his rearview and a blond with a ponytail to her right - and she's going to change. "Bones, stop. Just stop," he coaxes her, keeping one hand on the wheel as she reaches over in attempt to block her from unzipping the garment bag.
"Booth, we're moving," she points out suddenly.
His eyes jerk back to the road to see that the herd of cars is indeed crawling forward. Shifting back into drive, he eases the SUV forward, stealing glances at her every other second as she lifts her hips, wriggling out of her slacks. She's down to her underwear, her dark blue lacy underwear that is just so not what he thought she'd be wearing, below the waist and not blondie to the right is stealing wide-eyed looks at Bones and her contortions.
"Bones, please, people are staring," he pleads, very aware that blondie is now talking into her phone with this huge grin on her face.
But Bones just ignores him, pulling out the skirt from her garment bag and slipping it up her bare thighs without a word. Propping her head against the seat back, she arches her whole body upward, tugging the skirt up over her hips and holding herself with her head while she uses both hands to find and close the zipper.
He thinks she's done. She's wearing a perfectly acceptable blue blouse that would look great with her navy skirt, but she's still moving. When she reaches for the buttons, his hand shoots out, covering hers. "Bones, c'mon. That shirt is just fine. Can't you just wait?"
"I don't know what you're so concerned about. It's not like I'm exposing myself as part of some sort of exhibitionist display. Besides, I'm nearly done," she insists, managing to evade his hands and open up the blouse. It leaves his hands on her breasts and the minute he feels bare skin under his fingers he jerks his hand back to the steering wheel.
He cannot watch her do this. She's topless over there and wriggling out of her blouse and pulling out another one and he just tries to think of his son and baseball and Caroline as he listens to whisp of fabric gliding over her skin. "Bones..." he starts, but loses his thoughts when he sees an opening to get over to the next lane in front of blondie and pushes the SUV into place. At least it cuts off her view and he hopes by now Bones has managed to get her new shirt on.
There's another opening and he gets over to the far right lane as he hears her let out of a relieved sigh. Daring a glance, he finds her fully dressed now, a suit jacket laying across her lap and the garment bag crumpled and ignored down on the floor. As if she can feel him looking, she glances his way. "See? Now I'm ready to testify. I told you I was quite capable of changing. I really don't understand why you're so concerned about my modesty."
"Bones, you just stripped down to your underwear. On the beltway. During rush hour. That woman next to us was staring at you," he points out, his voice straining a bit because it's hitting him now just how close she was and that she'd been nearly naked next to him.
"It's not like she knows who I am, Booth. Or you for that matter. Even if she did, it's not like I was doing anything wrong. There were no children around, I checked."
"Doesn't matter, Bones. People just don't do that."
"If you had used your siren, it wouldn't have been necessary." With that she settles back into her seat and drags the seatbelt back into place like it was nothing.