A/N: Okay, so everybody likes a sweet, fluffy, Booth-and-Brennan-are-married-and-pregnant shot, right? Right? Please say right. Because if you don't, you really won't like the next 1,500 words. My friend Melissa gave me the idea for this one, and encouraged (read: made me promise to write) this piece. So I did. It's shorter, sweeter, and generally just different than what I usually write. There's nothing deep or subtle or thought-provoking about this piece. It's brain candy. Enjoy, and leave a review to let me know what you think! :)
As long as we got each other
We got the world spinnin' right in our hands
Baby you and me
We gotta be
The luckiest dreamers
Who never quit dreamin'...
- As Long As We Got Each Other, Dusty Springfield & B.J. Thomas
Brennan pressed her forehead against the mirror, feeling her hot breath fog up the glass. She leaned her weight into her hands on either side of the bathroom sink, resting against her enlarged belly on its edge. Something deep within her kicked back, not enjoying the squeeze. She looked down at her distended abdomen, stretching her nightgown to its limits, and sighed.
"Stop that," she ordered aloud. Instead of compliance, she got another hard kick. Already it was like Booth—stubborn, obstinate, and with selective hearing. Logically she knew the baby could feel and hear her speech but not understand it, and that as of now it had no personality, or concept of such a thing. But sometimes she couldn't help herself.
Couldn't help herself had become somewhat of a theme over the past few months. Like when she crept out of bed at two in the morning and drove down to the handy way because she was overcome with the desire for Phish Food ice cream and Vienna sausages. Or when she'd carried a small trashcan around the lab with her during the first trimester, when she had not just morning sickness but random bouts of vomiting throughout the day. Or when she would randomly burst into tears while reading particulate analysis reports from Hodgins, causing him to startle and call out for Angela in a panicked tone. She just couldn't help herself.
It was the ice cream and Vienna sausages that got to her, though. She had read that the average woman gained between twenty-five and thirty-five pounds during her pregnancy. At seven months and three weeks, she stepped off the scale at forty-two pounds heavier than the day she and Booth stood nervously in the bathroom with his wristwatch, counting the seconds until they could check the test. And she still had another month to go.
"Who're you talking to?" Booth asked, peeking his head into the cracked door.
"You're up late," she noticed, avoiding the question.
"So are you," he pointed out. "Baby keeping you up?"
"Kind of," Brennan replied. "I have to pee all the time now."
"Well that's normal, Bones," Booth said. "You've got 30 pounds of baby pressing on your bladder."
"More like five pounds of baby, thirty-five pounds of fat," Brennan replied grouchily. Booth came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her expanded midsection, lacing his fingers over top of her bellybutton.
"Oh hush, there's nothing fat about you," he said, nuzzling his face into the back of her hair. She scoffed.
"Booth, I'm more than forty pounds heavier today than I was when we began pursuing our romantic interests," she said. He laughed.
"Is that what you call it? Pursuing our romantic interests? Because let me tell you, I was pursuing a lot of interests, and they weren't all romantic…" He growled playfully and she smacked his arm, lips pressed together in a smile.
"You know what I mean," she said. "I've gained a lot of weight, and it's not just baby. I've gained weight—in my face, my arms, everywhere."
"It just makes you cuter," Booth said, looking up at their reflections in the mirror.
"I don't think so," Brennan said.
"Well I know so," he said. She leaned her weight back into him, looking down at the bump beneath the white linen gown.
"How can you say that?" she said. "I've lost our beauty's standard of culture, everything a Western man values as aesthetically pleasing. I am… what did Hodgins call it… a shapeless blob."
"Hodgins called you what?" Booth asked, tensing up. Brennan smirked, shaking her head.
"No, no, he said it to Angela once before, about women who have children. They lose their figure, their beauty. They become blobs."
"You are not a blob," Booth said resolutely. She shrugged.
"I feel like a blob," she admitted. He shook his head, turning her around and leaning her against the sink.
"Temperance Brennan," he started, walking his fingers up her arms, shoulders, and neck and causing her to shiver and smile until his hands finally cupped her cheeks, "is a world-renowned forensic anthropologist, award-winning novelist, and crime fighter extraordinaire. Not a blob."
"Is that so?" she asked, crossing her arms and smiling playfully.
"Allow me to explain," Booth said, spinning her around so that she faced her reflection in the mirror. He touched his hand to the top of her head, looking into her eyes in the mirror. "What do we call this?"
"A head?" she asked. Booth scowled.
"No, no," he said. "I mean, what do you call this. Talk squinty to me." Brennan laughed, resting her hand on top of his.
"That," she said, "is the skull. More specifically, where the frontal and parietal bones fuse on top of the skull."
"And what do we call that?" he asked with a grin.
"The coronal suture," she answered.
"The coronal suture," Booth repeated. "Not the blobby suture, not the fat suture. The coronal suture." Brennan smiled, and he removed his hand from the top of her head, replacing it on her nose. She crinkled it.
"That's not a bone," she said before he could speak. "That's cartilage."
"But there are bones in there, right?" Booth asked. She nodded, his finger still pinned to the tip of her nose.
"We do have a nasal bone," she affirmed.
"A nasal bone!" Booth proclaimed, as if it were an answer on a game show. Brennan laughed as he carried on. "A tiny little nasal bone for a tiny little nose. It's so cute and small." Brennan made a face.
"I prefer not to be called cute and small," she said.
"Would you rather be a blob?" he asked. She made a pouting face and he shook his head.
"I'm just kidding," he said with a smile. "Now what's next? I like this," he said, grabbing one of her hands and holding it out in the air for both of them to examine.
"My hand?" she asked. He nodded.
"Your hands," he said, enclosing each of her hands in his and holding them out in front of them. He rested his chin on her shoulder as they turned her hands over, marveling at them as if they were something new. He ran the tips of his fingers along each of the lines on her palms, settling his fingers in the spaces between hers.
"How many bones are in the human hand?" he asked.
"Twenty seven," she said without missing a beat. "Eight carpals, five metacarpals, five proximal phalanges, four intermediate phalanges, and five distal phalanges."
"Phalanges," Booth repeated. "That just sounds dirty. Hey baby, lemme see your phalanges." Brennan laughed, the sound of her amusement ringing against the bathroom walls. She held her hands up, wiggling her fingers.
"See, there they are," she snorted. He drew one hand to his lips and kissed each finger in turn. He paused on the finger that bore a small diamond ring, remembering just how terrified he had been to ask for that hand.
"They're beautiful," he said. "Every one of them. Every piece of you is beautiful. Especially," he said, pausing as he rested his hands on her stomach, "this one."
"The blob," she said with a smile.
"Our blob," he corrected. "Our bouncing baby blob to be."
"Say that five times fast," Brennan said with a smile, her hands resting on top of his on her stomach. They both sighed.
"You're happy, right?" Booth asked. Brennan looked up suddenly.
"Of course," she said, almost startled by the comment. "Is it because I complained about the baby fat? I understand it's an important part of—"
"No, no," Booth said. "I just meant in general. With this. With us. I know you never imagined yourself being the married mom and all that… I know this wasn't ever your dream."
"Dreams change," Brennan said, rubbing circles with her thumbs on her belly. "I didn't used to think I'd ever want this, you're right. My dream was to travel the world and study human skeletons, to write books and immerse myself fully in the world of academia. I never dreamed I'd work with the FBI, marry my partner, and have a baby. I never dreamed that."
"I guess I threw a wrench in those plans, huh," Booth said, pressing his stubbly cheek up against hers. She felt him smile, and caught it.
"Yes," she said, her smile growing. "But I'm glad you did."
"I'm glad you let me," he said, planting a soft kiss on her temple. "Come on, let's go to bed, it's late." She followed him into bed, curling up into his shape. He pulled the lamp chain and cast them both into the moonlit darkness, their breaths like rhythmic clock weights working in tandem.
"Sweet dreams," he said quietly, resting a hand on her stomach.
She only smiled in response, feeling that she was already there.