Paranoia

Quick one-shot, set the evening after 'The Twist In The Twister'.

Series seven spoilers.

Brennan hobbled down the hallway towards their bathroom. There wasn't far to go, but she winced at each step. She reached it just as Booth came in the opposite direction.

'Hey, Bones. You need something?'

'I'm fine, Booth. I'm just going to the bathroom.'

'Bones, you're limping.'

'No I'm not. As you may be aware by now, my gait has altered quite noticeably in preparation for childbirth.'

'I know a limp when I see one and that is a limp. C'mon, let me take a look.'

'You're being paranoid, Booth.'

Brennan ignored him and carried on into the bathroom.

'Bones, you just went ten minutes ago.'

'Try telling that to your child, who is currently sitting on my bladder.'

xxx

Brennan flipped the toilet lid down and sat on it fully clothed, sighing in frustration. There hadn't been time for a proper examination in the short time Booth had been getting changed.

She eased the slipper off of her foot and urged her body forwards, but groaned as she realised that pregnancy didn't allow for the contortion she needed. Trying instead to pull her foot up sideways, she held a mirror with one hand and carried out her examination with the other.

'Dammit, Booth!' she muttered. This was an operation that would require more hands than the two she had. Or alternatively, two hands belonging to someone who didn't have a large baby obscuring the view of her foot.

xxx

Booth glanced up as she exited the bathroom. He decided to go along with her for the moment.

'Sorry about the bladder crushing, Bones.'

At first the steely eyes he knew and loved narrowed and pierced his own. Knowing she couldn't stay angry at him for long, he shot her a disarming smile. Her eyes softened and she flopped herself down on the couch beside him.

'Want me to take the splinter out?'

'How did you know?'

'You're never shifty about your body, Bones. Normally you gross me out by going into frankly unnecessary detail. I told you to wear the slippers.'

'I never got a splinter before on this floor.'

'There's a first time for everything. C'mon, gimme that foot.'

Brennan laid it across his lap as he got to work.

'God, Bones, you wedge this thing in with a hammer?'

'Normally I can adequately extract them myself, but it proves a lot harder when I can't see.'

She winced as Booth's fingernails dug around in her foot, and a few seconds later he'd retrieved the splinter of wood.

'How'd you do that so fast?'

'When Parker gets splinters, he cries like a girl, so I have to pull it out real quick. Now, slipper.'

She passed it to him without a word and he eased it onto her foot. Satisfied, she leaned against him.

'So, you going to listen to what I tell you next time?'

'That depends on the factors involved. You couldn't know I would get a splinter, Booth, the probability was extremely small.'

'I know. You wanna know something, Bones? I wasn't being paranoid. I just like the bunny slippers.'