"Booth? I'm home." Brennan stopped to drop her keys on the entry table before walking into the family room. "How are you feeling today?"
He smiled as he kissed his wife. "Almost a hundred percent. The surgeon says he'll be ready to release me from his care after my next visit."
Frowning as she studied her husband as he moved to his favorite chair, Brennan wasn't as certain. "Did he state whether or not your wound will need any additional attention?"
"He says he wants to see me back in three or four weeks, but that I've made excellent progress. I can shower without taping plastic over it now, but I still can't soak in the tub. He said he was sure after the next visit I could. I was kind of disappointed. I've missed sharing those jets with you." He winked at his wife suggestively. "How was your day?"
"Fine. No new cases came in, so I identified several sets of remains in Limbo this morning, and then I worked on my journal article this afternoon." Brennan picked up Christine's backpack from the kitchen counter. "Where are the children?"
"Hank's napping, and Christine is at Jennifer's house. Jennifer's mom said she'd bring her home around six."
After looking through the mail, Brennan smiled as she embraced her husband.. "That's good." She glanced at the clock on the microwave. "We have approximately an hour until I need to start dinner...and since you're feeling better, maybe we could spend some quality time together."
"Hmm...I like the sound of that." Booth bent down to kiss his wife, only to be interrupted by his phone. "Dammit! I hate this thing. Booth...Hey, Smitty. What's up? Really...I see. Wow...no kiddin'...yeah, I get it. Yeah, maybe...of course, I'll need to talk to my wife...yeah, I think so...I'll call ya back...hey, thanks for lettin' me know…" He hung up the phone and tossed it on the counter before taking his wife back into his arms. "Now...where were we?"
"Booth...who is Smitty?"
"Smitty who?" Booth nuzzled Brennan's neck, caressing her gently. "Oh, that...that was nothing…"
"No, that wasn't nothing...you said you'd need to talk to your wife, so talk…" Brennan glared at him as she crossed her arms over her chest. "What's going on?"
Realizing he wouldn't be able to reclaim the mood or avoid the conversation, Booth sighed as he sat down on one of the barstools. "Smitty works in the National Security Division over at the Hoover. I've known him for years, but our paths don't cross very often. Anyway, I saw him at one of the Special Agent luncheons a couple of months ago, before all that shit with Jared went down, and he was telling me about this beach house time share he has in Ocean Pines, Maryland. It sounded like a really good deal…and I told him I might be interested in learning more about it..."
"Booth, please tell me you didn't buy into a timeshare…" Brennan was clearly not pleased with what seemed to be a ludicrous plan. "Those things can be so expensive, and they offer very little return on the investment."
"No, just listen, okay? It's kind of a long story. Smitty has a timeshare on this big house on the Atlantic shore. It's for a month, okay? But his wife is some sort of insurance executive, and she won a 3 week Caribbean cruise because of the way her division performed last year, so they don't want to use the timeshare this year. He has to pay for his time, even if he doesn't use it, so he wondered if we'd be interested in taking his spot." Seeing that his wife was not impressed, Booth continued quickly. "We only have to take it for a month, and he's gonna give us a good rate. Instead of the normal 5000 dollars, it'll only be 2500 for the whole month. That's cheap, Bones…a lot cheaper than a hotel, and it's not a long term commitment...it's just this one time. He's just trying to help me out, okay, and we can help him out at the same time. I think it's worth considering..."
"No." Brennan shook her head and moved into the kitchen to begin cooking dinner.
"That's it? No? You didn't even let me finish…", Booth sputtered. "We could go out on a big fishing boat for a day trip, and we could use the jet ski while we're staying there. It'll be a lot of fun. The kids would love it...playing in the water and building sand castles…"
She turned and shook her finger at him. "Spending a month at the beach is not my idea of a restful vacation, Booth. If we rent a large house, we'd still have to cook and clean every day. It will be hot and muggy at the seashore, and the house probably isn't be air conditioned. It would be a full time task just to keep our children covered with sunscreen, and they would constantly be tracking sand into the house. You won't be able to swim or use your jet ski because you'll need to keep that filthy ocean water out of your wound. Do you know how much fecal bacteria is present in seawater? If your goal is for Hank and Christine to play in some water, I'd rather stay home and take the children to a water park or the public pool down the street, where at least they chlorinate the water, and it would be significantly less expensive." Brennan slammed a cabinet door as she set a wok down on the stove. Pulling out a cutting board, she began chopping an onion noisily. "So, no!"
"I see." Booth used a finger to trace a pattern on the granite countertop of the bar, sighing heavily. "I'm sorry I mentioned it. I just thought that after all that's happened around here over the last few months, it would be nice for us to get away from everything for awhile. You know what happens if we vacation at home, right? Everybody at work says they'll leave us alone, but then they end up calling us to assist them with one thing or another, and we end up getting no rest." He shrugged a shoulder as he deployed some sad puppy eyes in her direction, which she attempted to ignore. "I just wanted to spend some time with my family...just the four of us, you know? And this beach house seemed to be the perfect choice for us to do that. It's only 3 hours away…but never mind. I'll just call Smitty after dinner and tell him we're not interested."
Brennan was ready to engage in round two of why going to the beach for a month was a bad idea when she heard a small voice from the hallway. "Mama? I hungry."
"I know, Hank. I'm working on it." She went to pick up the little boy, and then handed him over to his father. "Why don't you sit here with Daddy? Your sister will be home soon and then we'll eat."
Hank smiled at his father as he rubbed his eyes and pointed to a plastic box on the counter. "Dada...truck?"
A sly smile crept across Booth's face. He was determined to go to the beach for his vacation, and he was willing to use any trick at his disposal to achieve his goal. "Here's your truck, buddy." The little boy was content, babbling about his truck as his daddy rolled another one across the counter. "Here we go, Hank...me and you are gonna drive these trucks across the sand at the beach."
"Bea?" The little boy repeated.
"That's right, Hank. The beach. It's a lot of fun to go to the beach. We can go swimming at the beach…"
"Twim? Wanna go twim, Mama…", Hank squealed, as he bounced in his seat and waved his toy truck in the air. "Twim at bea, Mama…"
Brennan was indignant at Booth's subterfuge, and was on the verge of being really angry when she heard the front door slam. "Hi, Mommy. Hi, Daddy. What's for dinner?"
"Chrissy! Chrissy! Twim at bea! Twim at bea!" Hank was waving his hands emphatically as he burbled excitedly.
Christine was very confused as she turned to her father. "What's Hank talking about?"
"Oh, he's just excited because he wants to go swimming at the beach this summer." Booth winked at his daughter. "But we have to see what your Mom says. We can spend a whole month at the beach if she says it's okay, but she's not sure it's a good idea."
"Mommy! Can we please go to the beach? Pleeeease? Come on, Mommy! Please say yes! Please?" Christine clasped her hands together in supplication. "It'll be so much fun…I promise I'll wear sunscreen without whining...I love to go to the beach. Please?"
"Yeah, Mommy. It'll be so much fun…" Booth laughed as he winked at his wife, who gave him an icy glare.
Turning back to the wok, she dished out the stir fry mixture onto some dinner plates. "Your father and I will discuss it later this evening, but I'm not promising anything. Right now, we're going to have a pleasant dinner and talk about other things."
"Okay…" Christine sank sullenly into her chair at the dinner table. "But I'd be really happy if we could go…"
Booth took a big bite of his dinner and made a horrible face. "What the hell is this anyway? Where's the chicken that goes in this stir fry?"
Brennan smiled primly as she sprinkled some soy sauce on her meal. "Oh, I'm sorry, Booth. I was so caught up in our discussion about going to the beach, I forgot to cook the chicken. I guess you'll just have to eat tofu this evening."
Taking a big drink of his water, he glared as his wife as he wiped his mouth. "Oh, I get it. You want to play dirty, huh? Well, we'll just see about that…"
Oooooooooo
Booth stood in the bathroom brushing his teeth, trying to watch his wife's reflection in the mirror as she lay in bed. He could tell by the way she turned the pages of her magazine that she was still annoyed, but he figured it wouldn't be too hard to make her more amenable to seeing things his way. After rinsing out the sink, he turned off the water and sauntered toward his side of the bed, pausing to turn back the sheets and comforter.
"You know, Bones…" he began, as he climbed into bed next to her. "...I have great memories of going to the beach with Pops and Nana…we always had so much fun. I think we should help our kids make some great memories of vacations at the beach, too."
"Hmmm...I also remember you telling me about how much time it took your grandmother to prepare for your trips to the seashore." Brennan turned to the next page of her magazine without looking at her husband. "You said she'd spend hours packing the old Pontiac just to spend a day at the beach. I think you mentioned that it seemed she was trying to prepare for an Army battalion to go on bivouac."
"Yeah, but this will be different, because we'll be able to get groceries and other supplies in Ocean Pines. We won't have to take all of our food with us…"
"I'm sure the food prices in the stores will be greatly inflated since it's a resort town.", she huffed. "We'll also need to bring bedding and towels in addition to our clothing, and beach umbrellas, and folding chairs, and…"
Booth interrupted Brennan by putting his arms around her and pulling her close for a kiss. "You know what other wonderful beach memories I have? Remember when we went to Cape Hatteras for the weekend? Just the two of us? We were at that nice little bed and breakfast, with the private patio that looked out over the beach and the ocean beyond…"
"Except we never actually made it down to the beach, did we, Booth? We didn't have to worry about tracking in sand, because we never left our room. In fact, I'm not sure we actually got out of the bed." She giggled as he nibbled her ear. "We did have a wonderful time…it seemed like there was something about being next to the ocean that I found quite stimulating…"
"Or maybe it was your partner that you found stimulating…we made love for hours, remember?" Booth twitched an eyebrow at his wife. "Smitty says that the beach house has the master bedroom on one side of the house, away from the other bedrooms. We wouldn't have to worry about the kids hearing us if things get wild, you know? We could have the breeze blowing in off the ocean, cooling us off when things got hot…" He gently ran his hands over his wife's body. "And things will probably get very hot. C'mon, Bones...let's go to the beach, okay? The kids would have fun, and me and you would have some fun as well. There wouldn't be anybody to bother us...we could reconnect as a family. I think the kids need that…" He kissed her again and gave her a bit of a pouty face. "C'mon...it's not like we can't afford it, and we have some vacation time coming", he wheedled. "I want to have some time alone with my wife and my kids...because I love you and my kids so much…you know that, right?"
Brennan couldn't help but grin at her husband's sad little boy routine. Figuring she'd been beaten fair and square, she sighed softly. She knew how important this vacation was to Booth, and she had to agree that maybe her family needed some time to reconnect with each other after the recent traumatic events. Booth rarely asked for anything from her, so perhaps it was time to indulge this whimsical wish for their vacation. She also knew that she might regret her decision later, but…
"Okay, Booth...we can go to the beach."