"Booth..." she said and silently mouthed his name a few more times. Once she realized who the man in front of her was, her mouth fell slightly ajar.

Booth turned to Brennan. "Bones, I would like you to meet my daughter. This is Rachel Booth Williams."

Brennan smiled and offered her hand to Rachel. She shook it gently, still staring at Booth in disbelief.

"H..Hi?"

Booth offered his hand to her and she shook it a little more roughly than Brennan's.

"Listen, we've got to go. But I would really like it if you had dinner with me tonight."

"Um..sure." Rachel said still in shock.

"How about we meet at the Royal Diner at 7?" He looked at Brennan. "We should be done looking at the crime scene by then." Brennan nodded.

"Alright." Rachel replied.

And with that Booth put his hand on Brennan's lower back and guided her to the car as Rachel watched the couple in awe.


Rachel walked into the diner to see her father sitting in a booth at the end of the restaurant. He was looking at some paperwork as she approached the table. He was still wearing his work clothes but his jacket was lying next to him and his sleeves were rolled up and his purple tie was loosed around his neck.

Booth looked up from doing his paperwork as he saw her approach the table. She had exchanged her dirty baseball uniform for a loose grey tanktop and a pair of dusty blue capris. She was holding a cream colored sweater in her arms and a medium sized designer bag on her shoulder. Her hair was now down and in wavy, brunette locks that fell down to the middle of her stomach. Booth stared at her for a few seconds before realizing she was awkwardly standing before him waiting for an invitation.

"Hey." He points to the seat in front of him. "Please, take a seat."

She slides into the booth and sets her things down next to her. "I never thought I would actually meet you." She says without looking up yet.

When she finally made eye contact, he said "I never thought I would have another kid."

She chuckled. "Well that's where you're wrong." He looked at her in confusion. "Did you forget you have one on the way?"

He smiled and laughed lightly. "Well she wasn't planned at all. Kids hadn't even crossed my mind in a few years." he trailed off. "But that's a long story you probably wouldn't care about."

She grinned. "I've got time. I listen to people for a living. Give me the shortened version of Seeley Booth's life."

Booth rubbed his temple. Now wasn't the time to tell her about his childhood or when he was in the army. "If you just promise not to look too far into what I say. She nodded. "How about I just start at the part when I met Bones."

"Bones?"

"Yeah, Bones, my partner. Dr. Brennan? She works with bones so I call her, Bones." He smiled at the statement.

"Alrighty then, so how did you meet 'Bones'?" She asked.

So then Booth began to tell the story of his life with Brennan. He began to tell her about their first case, their first kiss, the year they spent apart, how they found her mother, when Brennan was buried by the Gravedigger with Hodgins, the Christmas they kissed, when he shot a clown, and everything in between. She sat and listened with interest, nodding occasionally. When he began to tell her about his brain tumor she asked "Why didn't you do it?" He mentioned how he hated psychology so she wondered if asking would be pushing the limits. They had been talking for 2 hours and she began to become comfortable talking to him.

"She didn't want me involved in the kid's life. Bones, she's a very independent woman and she wanted to raise a kid on her own." He replied.

"But you initially told her yes?"

"I just wanted her to be happy, that's all." His brow furrowed.

"Oh." She said softly.

"Now you're getting all shrink-y. Just tell me. Tell me why I said yes." He challenged her.

"Okay...Did you ever think that maybe you wanted a child with her? You didn't just want her to 'be happy' but you wanted a family with her?"

Booth thought about the question. She was right. It's what he wanted this whole time. A family. With Bones.

Rachel leaned back in the booth and put her hands behind her head. "I know, I'm right."

"You're good." He said with a smirk. She was good.

"I have another question though."

"Oh god..."

"It's not bad." she paused, "How come you and Dr. Brennan didn't think of a romantic relationship before when obviously there was a romantic connection between you two?"

Booth smiled slightly and replied. "I went into surgery and came back out in a coma. While I was sleeping, Bones wrote a story about how we were married and owned a night club. There was a murder in the nightclub and we were on the other side of the law. But at the end of the 'dream', Bones told me that she was pregnant."

"It was a sign." she said.

"I woke up and Sweets is telling me I'm in love with her, or I thought I was in love with her. A few months passed and we saw Sweets together in partner's therapy. He was writing a book on our partnership and he made a mistake on our first case. We told him about our first kiss and well you know the rest of that story. He said that once we kissed the dam would break. Since we already kissed, he said that I was the gambler and to make it work for me. We left abruptly before I responded to his statement. When we were outside I asked to give 'us' a shot. I told her she was the 'one'. I knew it, right from the beginning. She told me she couldn't change and she was protecting me. I told her I had to move on and find someone who would love me for 30 or 40 years..." he trailed off and put his head in his hands. If he had only waited...

"You found someone else." she stated.

"I went to train kids in Afghanistan and Bones went to some dig in some islands. She said she needed to get away from the murder so I left too...then I fell in love with a reporter." he said sadly.

"How did Dr. Brennan take the news?" she asked.

"She was happy but a few months later we had a case and it hit her pretty close to home. The woman died alone and with regrets. She didn't want to live with regrets so she told me that she made a mistake. I couldn't just leave the woman I was with...it was my turn to hurt her I guess."

"So what changed your mind?"

"I proposed. She wasn't the marrying kind but I did it anyway. She said no and it ended." Booth looked into his daughter's eyes. She stared at him before she said what was on her mind.

"You were looking for an out of that relationship. You purposefully compromised it so you could have an excuse to get Dr. Brennan back." she stated.

"No. no. no." he said angrily. "I loved her. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her."

"What would happen to Dr. Brennan? You knew her secret, how she felt for you. Sure you were able to move on but what if she couldn't? You wouldn't be able to live with her being hurt like that. You said she was the 'one'. You couldn't have stopped loving her even though you thought you were in love with someone else." She was pushing him, she knew it was close to him breaking and ending the story, but it was for his own good.

"I..I.." he trailed off.

"Listen, you did what you thought was right. You wanted the wife, the kids, the white picket fence. It makes sense, but part of you wanted your relationship to fail so you could give you and Dr. Brennan a chance." She stared at him as he was looking down rubbing his forehead. "So..how'd it work out for the two of you?"

"We were chasing a really dangerous guy I used to be in the army with. He was trying to kill me. One day he shot at us, but it hit one of her favorite squints and killed him on the floor of the lab."

"Squint?" she asked.

"I'll show you later...anyways she was pretty upset so I told her to stay at my place for the night. She took the couch and I went in my room for night. Early in the morning she came in my room and was really upset wondering why an innocent kid would get killed. So I just held her and then we were kissing and then BANG! We made a baby."

"So that was it? All she had to do was be upset and then everything falls into place?" Rachel asked with a confused look on her face.

"Bones, doesn't get that upset very often. When I met her she was 'impervious'. Over the years she has lost her imperviousness and that night, it was gone and she was ready. Not the best timing but we are happy. God bless Vincent." He silently put his hands together and closed his eyes.

Once he opened his eyes again. Rachel began to grab her things. "It was really nice talking and meeting with you. I guess that I'll see you tomorrow at the Hoover?"

Booth nodded. "Yeah, I'll see you tomorrow."

And with that Booth was left sitting at the table alone in his thoughts.