A/N: This works whether or not you have read my slightly off-canon story Family. If you have, it falls sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
"Booth. Please?" Temperance Brennan, multiple-time best-selling author, tried to imitate the pout Angela made to get Hodgins to do things for her.
"Not a chance, Bones. Why don't you just do it yourself?" He said to Temperance Brennan, world-renowned forensic anthropologist. He wondered what she was doing with her face.
"I can't! I sleep at the lab way too often! Sometimes I don't get home for days! It would be cruel. Plus, my superintendent would never allow it." She said triumphantly.
"Then I guess he'll have to go to the pound."
"Booth!" she cried in outrage. Temperance Brennan. Dog-lover. "How can you say no to this face?" she held up the puppy for his inspection. It was a mutt but obviously a large part Golden Retriever.
"Bones, I don't want a dog."
"Parker would love him,"
"Don't you dare show him that mutt."
"Guess what guess what guess what?" Parker screamed as he ran to hug his father.
"What?"
"Tempe says she has a puppy and she can't keep him and she wants to give him to me!"
"Oh she did?" He froze in horror, smile still pasted on his face, becoming more forced by the nanosecond. "She and I will have to have a little talk."
"Please please please?" he begged, pouting. "Mommy said once he's housetrained he can come and stay sometimes and I can come every weekend to take care of him and Drew's building him a doghouse but he won't have to sleep outside as long as he doesn't sleep on the sofa and please Daddy? It'll be so much fun!"
"Ange. Ange!" she whipped the gloves off and hurried down the steps when she saw him.
"What is it sweetie?" Angela emerged from her office as she walked briskly to hers.
"Help!" Booth caught up and she grabbed Angela and swung her around as a human shield.
"You – you – I expressly forbid you," he stuttered, incoherent with rage.
"Back up, bucko. Out of my personal space. Thank you. Now, what did she do?"
"She – she,"
"Bren?"
"I might have gone by Rebecca's to introduce the puppy to Parker."
"You did?"
"You see! I told her not to! I specifically told her not to involve Parker!"
"That was kind of below the belt, Bren."
"Thank you!"
"He chewed on my most comfortable pair of heels!" she whined.
"Sorry Booth. A woman cannot be held responsible for actions taken to protect her shoes." Angela said seriously. Booth glared at her. She shrugged. "You try finding a comfortable pair of heels." She challenged. He grabbed around her for Brennan, who shrieked playfully and ran. Unfortunately, she was in heels today, not the comfortable ones, and Booth caught her. Cam and Hodgins walked up to stand beside Angela as Booth caught the anthropologist around the waist and swept her off the ground, feet kicking uselessly.
"Should I say something?" Cam wondered.
"Don't." Angela ordered. Hodgins chuckled. Booth was sitting on top of her on the floor before it hit them and they both turned, red-faced, to look at their audience.
"Look, sexually harass each other all you want in the privacy of your own homes,"
"Or your office," Angela interjected.
"Try to keep it clean in the middle of my lab, please?" Cam continued. "I want to have plausible deniability." Their faces burned as the audience drifted away and Booth helped her up, clearing his throat and dropping her hand the second she was on her feet..
"Um, sorry."
"Yeah, me too." They couldn't meet each other's eyes.
"So, I have Parker on Friday. We'll come get the mutt then?"
"Okay. Sure."
"See you later, Bones." He muttered, and left almost as quickly as he had entered.
"What do you want to call him, buddy?"
"We get to name him!"
"Yeah." He couldn't help it. The mutt was so darn cute, rolling around on the floor with Parker, who followed it on his hands and knees.
"Princess!" Parker pronounced gleefully.
"Princess? But buddy, he's a he."
"Princess!" Parker pouted (for real this time, he was overtired and cranky), folded his arms and threatened to let loose the waterworks.
"Princess it is." He nodded. Just so long as the guys at work never found out.
"Guess what we named the dog, Tempe? Guess!"
"I don't know, Parker, what?"
"Guess guess guess!"
"Um … Spot?" he shook his head gleefully at each wrong guess. "Rover? Yeller? Clifford?" she looked at Booth for help. She only knew those through Parker and she was running out. "Goofy?"
"Goofy's not a dog silly!"
"Oh. Okay. I give up."
"He's called Princess!" Parker jumped out of his seat and bounced up and down in front of her from the sheer excitement of it all. She pulled him into an abrupt, slightly tearful hug. After a moment he started squirming and ducked out underneath her arms to run off after Princess. She watched him, wiping self-consciously at her eyes. Booth stood there, looking from the boy to the anthropologist, not sure what was going on or what to do.
"When I was three we got a puppy. I named her Princess. We grew up together. I was never good with people, never popular or pretty. Princess was my best friend for eleven years. When my – when Mom and Dad disappeared and Russ left, princess was arthritic and going blind. She was over eighty in 'dog years'. They put her down when they put me in the foster system. I told Parker – not about putting her down, but the other stuff." Another tear leaked out her eye. He immediately felt guilty for giving Parker a hard time about the name. He gathered her into his arms as she sniffed and wiped at her eyes. He planted a kiss on the top of her head. He didn't know how long it was until her breathing evened and softened, but he didn't move and neither did she. In hindsight, Parker saved him from an awkward and embarrassing moment, but at the time it really annoyed him when Parker broke them apart to show them how Princess would jump up to try and grab the sock dangling from the child's hand.
"You're responsible for any sock casualties." He told her before turning back to Parker, who was now trying to teach Princess to roll over by demonstrating. Brennan laughed and the sound of it, totally relaxed and unguarded, made him feel like all the furniture, socks and shoes the dog would chew were totally worth it.