I don't own Naruto or Bones. They are the property of their respective owners. Considering this is Fanfiction, you can assume I don't own any of this, unless I introduce OC's, which I will mention and claim as my own if I put them in. Other than that, I own nothing. If I owned Gaara though, he'd be my ultimate best friend because he's awesome.
Rated T for mention of mental disorders. If this bothers you, or you think it needs a mature tag, please let me know.
-Aar
It was a beautiful morning at the Jeffersonian. So far the day had been murder free and the team had just solved a case of a massacre the day before. Most of the team was still a bit rattled by the startling amount of victims in the recently closed case, and two smaller closed cases that had been happening simultaneously.
"I just can't believe that all those little boys went through that at such a young age. I mean, I can't even put my finger on the worst one," said Angela, "At least they all had each other to relate to."
"I'd have to say the massacre would have to be the worst. That Sasuke kid's brother was the murderer, after all. Kids whole family's dead," Hodgins piped in. Angela looked at the ground sadly. Bones put a hand on her shoulder to comfort her as Sweets looked at her in concern.
"I just wish there was more we could do. All of them are orphans now..."
Booth got an idea from this.
"I have the perfect plan, Angela. Anyone interested in adopting? I already have Parker though..." Angela and Hodgins looked at each other and smiled, while Sweets smiled to himself as well. Booth knew that somewhere inside her, Bones wanted a child too, but he didn't know how she'd take to a six or seven year old. She had always wanted a baby.
"We're in," said Angela quickly for her and her husband Jack.
Sweets nodded, and all eyes turned to Brennan.
"I would be willing to consider taking in a child after further interaction with the individuals," she said. Everyone smiled.
It had been six months since then. It had taken that long to get adoption clearance for a couple already expecting and a single therapist. Brennan got clearance far faster because of her fame but decided to wait for the other three.
The day had come, the four were choosing their children today. They'd agreed to let each boy pick their family. Bones, Sweets, and Angela and Hodgins sat in a small but brightly colored room waiting for social workers to drop off the boys, who were eager to be going somewhere without their foster parents for once. None knew what waited for them. Everyone but Bones was unnerved by the fact that the children might be wary of wanting to live with any of these possible parents because of the past it could bring up. No kid wants a constant reminder of their traumatic pasts.
Sasuke arrived first. He had recently turned eight, and was now much more reserved than during the investigation six months prior. He sat in the waiting room until Naruto and Gaara showed up.
Gaara arrived next, his red hair longer than it'd been the last time he'd been seen by the team. His teal eyes were blank, not blind, but somehow unseeing, like he just didn't care anymore. Naruto got there only minutes after. His smile brightened up the waiting room with the other two dreary boys. A couple minutes after his arrival, Sweets entered the room.
"Come on boys, this way," he said with a smile sweeping across his face. Naruto bounced out of his seat while Gaara and Sasuke lagged behind. They walked to another room, filled with bright colors and toys. Brennan, Angela, and Hodgins sat in too small chairs on one side of the room, awaiting the children.
Naruto rushed to play with a huge fox stuffed animal with nine tails that was sitting next to Angela and Hodgins. Angela sat on the floor with him, laughing and smiling with Naruto as he put noises and words in the foxes mouth. Hodgins smiled and laughed with her and the blond child.
Sasuke walked calmly to the bookshelf where Bones sat, looking at the books quickly and muttering an annoyed "hn". Bones asked what was wrong.
"None of these books are any good," he declared. Bones smiled and started talking to him about which books would be good enough.
Gaara stood at the door still, saddened that the people sitting in the room had been taken. He sighed and took on an angry expression. Sweets noticed this and directed him towards a bulky, plastic table in the center of the room. He sat down awkwardly, and Gaara took a seat as well.
"Are you alright Gaara?" Sweets asked.
"I... don't really know." He answered.
"What do you mean?"
"Sometimes I can't remember things... my foster parents yell at me for it. They say I become like another person but I don't know what that means..."
"Do you know what happened to you a while ago?"
"What?"
"Do you remember the death of your uncle?"
"I know he's gone but I don't remember when or how... my social worker tells all my foster parents of the funeral whe I first get there... I don't even remember going to one. I've never been to a funeral in my life..." and with that Gaara started to cry, mere tears running down his cheeks. Sweets comforted him, with an aching suspicion of Gaara's situation beginning to fester within him.
Two weeks later.
Angela stands at the counter of her and her husbands home, cooking Ramen noodles in a pot for their newly adopted son, a an eight year old blond boy with whisker shaped scars on his cheeks with no story behind how he got them. The date is October tenth, Naruto's eighth birthday. Seeing as he hardly has any friends in D.C. yet, Angela had decided several days ago that she was throwing him a party. Sasuke and Gaara are on ther way, driving with their adopted parents to greet an all to eager Naruto.
The blond boy leaps down the stairs, smelling the noodles and pork cooking.
"Ramen for breakfast?" he shouts, words ringing through the household, effectively waking a sleeping Jack Hodgins from his slumber.
"No, Naruto, I'm making enough for you and your party guests, happy birthday Naru," Angela coos sweetly. As Hodgins waltzes in the room, curly hair a mess, he can only think how great of a mother she'll make. She's already become a mother to Naruto, what with the boy already calling the couple Mom and Dad after only two weeks of living with them. Somehow they had gained his trust and respect already. They had been pleasantly surprised when he'd called Angela Mom. She'd cried.
"A party? Really?" Naruto asked, an exited look upon his face. "I've never had a birthday party before..." With that he leapt forward, nearly knocking Angela down, crying into the belly of her maternity clothes, leaving tear stains. Hodgins stepped in the door and swept the little boy off the ground, hugging him tightly between himself and his wife.
"Don't cry, Naru, you're eight now. No reason to be sad," Hodgins said , a worried tone in his voice.
"I'm not sad, I'm happy..." the boy said, wiping the tears from his azure eyes. "Does that make any sense?"
"All the sense in the world hon'." Angela said, kissing little Naruto on the forehead.
Gaara is not at all excited. He never is. His face shows the least amount of emotion that Sweets has ever encountered in such a young child. He is nine now, but is in the same grade as Naruto and Sasuke. In the past two weeks Sweets has observed him as much as he has tried to nurture the child back to normalicy with no luck. He still has his suspicions but remains passive until he sees some solid proof to act on them.
The man leads his adopted son to the door of the Hodgins house. He rings the doorbell, no hesitation to let the child ring it. Gaara isn't the average nine year old; he is passive about silly little actions that others his age would be overly excited about. Sweets sighs, worrying, but this is supposed to be a happy day.
A smiling Angela and an ecstatic Naruto open the door. Naruto bursts out and pulls the redheaded boy into a bear hug. Sweets is surprised when Gaara wraps an arm around the blond, his expression unchanging, but the gesture is enough to make Sweets doubt the boy is completely heartless.
Sasuke arrives with Bones only moments later. Naruto shouts his name like a banshee as he spots the raven, running to him and jumping, successfully tackling him, luckily having the courtesy to push the boy onto the grass.
"Get off me dobe!" Sasuke yells as he pushes Naruto off of him. Naruto runs away, and Sasuke takes the bait and chases after him. Gaara watches wordlessly.
"What exactly does 'dobe' mean, Bones?" Angela asks as she reaches where her friend stands.
"Dobe is a village in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. It lies 4234 meters above sea level. Oh, and it has a population of only two hundred and one people. It's a very interesting place," she states almost monotone. Angela just chuckled at her friend.
"I meant what does it mean as in why would Sasuke call Naruto that, Temp,"
"Oh, I get it. Well, it's also a Japanese slang term for idiot or dead last. I've heard both of them call each other synonyms of the word. Sasuke callsNaruto dobe or usaratonkachi and Naruto calls him teme. They do have some Japanese descent, as does Gaara. Sasuke's really the only one that looks it though. I researched their families extensively during- well, you know."
"Yeah," says Angela, "Don't you find it to be a bad thing that they're making fun of each other in Japanese though?"
"They can't avoid the real world forever. They'll learn it's alright eventually, what does it matter if they learn it now? I don't support bad habits, I find them pointless, but people give the words meaning. They don't matter. I don't really care if Sasuke uses bad language. It's not like his teachers will know Japanese anyway. Highly unlikely."
Angela is thankful Brennan doesn't go into statistics of how many people actually knew the language. That would be too much work. She just wants to relax today, and celebrate Naruto's first ever birthday party.
After a few minutes of silently watching Sasuke chase Naruto around the yard, Naruto gets distracted by a black SUV pulling in the driveway. He stops and is tackled by an irritated Sasuke, who pins him to the ground, muttering "usaratonkachi".
Out of the car comes none other than Seeley Booth, followed by his son Parker. All three boys have met the FBI agent's son, who joins in the mock fight between the Sasuke and Naruto.
"Wanna play tag?" Parker asks. Naruto nods, while Sasuke just mutters "hn". The blond laughs and taps Parker on the shoulder, yelling "tag, you're it!" at the top of his lungs.
Sweets still stands at the door with Gaara, who has seated himself on the stoop of the house, intently watching the other boys. Sweets gets the feeling he doesn't really care about the game, watching is just something to do.
"Why don't you go play with them?" Sweets suggests, but the redhead shakes his head.
"It's a stupid game."
"Come on, please go play?" Sweets pleads, wishing only some sense of normality for his adopted son.
"Fine."
Gaara stands in the middle of the yard, the other boys run away from him. This is the first time he's been tagged, but he stands and does nothing. He remains here for several minutes. Soon the others come over to him.
"What's the big idea, Gaara? You're it, you're supposed to chase us!" yells Naruto, his voice somewhere between excited and angry.
"But I didn't get tagged. Isn't the point of the game to tag others if you've been tagged?"
"Yeah, and you were tagged!" Naruto argues.
"No I wasn't." With that, Gaara walks back to the porch and sits down. The others continue their game.
Any need for mature yet? Probably not. But does anyone know what's wrong with Gaara yet? Because Sweets does. I really feel kind of bad for making the other boys be mean to Gaara, but Naruto gave him a nice big bear hug :3 Anyway, if you guess you get a special mention in the next chapter. Don't expect that too soon though. It might take a while, as my school is having a college fair soon that I must prepare for. School must come before Fanfiction, unfortunately.
Any ideas for pairings? Some I won't accept, but others I'll be willing to throw in. But please, no creepy couples, I.E. thirteen and thirty year olds... I definitely won't include completely pedophilish couples (however, if the young one is like, fifteen and the older eighteen, I'm fine with that, because that's my situation. So about three to four years apart if the older one is an adult). I'm fine with yaoi or yuri, but I refuse to make a story where it's like "oh so and so came out of the closet and now everyone is gay" story. But yeah. Review with suggestions, comments? Please and thank you!
-Aar