The Domino Effect
In the wake of beyond-the-grave cyber revelations regarding a secret government conspiracy, Christopher Pelant continued to plague the F-B-Eye, as Christine enunciated it. Booth and Brennan, Angela and Hodgins were working at the Hodgins Mansion basement in an effort to unravel the clues the evil genius had hinted at. Hodgins' grandfather had built a bunker beneath his house during World War II and acquired his own Enigma machine to monitor governmental activities he perceived as questionable. Hodgins' father had added state of the art cyber security as it became available. Of course, now it seemed as much a fossil as the huge IBM mainframe dinosaurs which had once been the wonders of the computing world. Angela and Hodgins had updated the firewalls as technology became available, and 'beefed up' their security to a maximum in the months when Brennan was on the run. Now they were using the basement computer center again.
The two couples' investigative efforts took place outside of normal working hours. This meant that Christine was spending a lot of time with her grandfather Max. Never one to plop a child in front of the television for entertainment, he was enhancing her Jeffersonian pre-school education during their evenings together. She knew the alphabet and was learning her numbers as well. Max decided to make a game of helping her under the guise of a game. He introduced her to dominoes. Matching the number of spots on the various tiles was good practice for her, and lent itself to her understanding of rudimentary addition and subtraction.
The little girl had seen folks playing this game at his her Great Grand Pops' retirement center when she visited Pops with Booth and Brennan. Her mom had even played a domino match with Pops while Christine perched in her lap. So when Max brought out his domino set, she recognized it as Pop Pop's game right away.
"Oompa, you play dom-e-nose too?"
"Yes, Chrissy, who else plays this with you? Your mom?"
"No, Oompa, Pop Pop does, with Mommy."
As the weeks went by, Brennan's daughter and her dad engaged in many simple matches and Christine gained a basic understanding of the game.
When Booth drove up and brought Pops back to spend Thanksgiving with them, the little girl hugged him around the knees and ran to their family room game cabinet. She returned with a box of dominoes and plunked them in Pop's lap.
"Oompa taught me to play your and Mommy's game, Pop Pop. Will you play dom-e-nose with me?"
Puzzled, Pops looked over at Booth. "Shrimp, who's Oompa? Did you guys hire a Swedish nanny?"
Booth chuckled. "No, Pops, that's what she calls Max. He taught her to play dominoes, and she's actually getting pretty good at it. He's coming for dinner on Thursday, so you two can show her how it's really done, by the 'pros' if you want!"
Pops removed the box lid, and dumped the ivory spotted tiles on the coffee table. "Okay, Pumpkin, let's play some dominoes until dinnertime! Let's see whatcha got, kid."
When Brennan came home from the market, she looked in on her family. Booth was engrossed in a football game on tv. The coffee table was covered by a maze of black and white tiles, scrutinized by a gray head and a little blond one, as their owners leaned on their elbows over the table. She smiled and returned to unpacking her groceries.
