Author's Note: I'm going to start by saying this isn't really going to be an angsty story. I know it seems that way now and I'm sure you'll feel that way after you finish reading this chapter. Prepare for laughs in the future – the near future at that. But you've got to trust me to get you through these first chapters unscathed. It'll happen, I promise!

And yes, it's another chapter, quick fast and in a hurry. Please don't get used to it. Most you know I write when I can – both in schedule and in brain power. Today, despite massive amounts of DayQuil, the brain's cooperating. Besides, this story is just begging to be written!

Also, from here on in there will be a quote at the beginning of each chapter. These are shamelessly stolen from What to Expect (the website version, though, because alas I have no copy of the book in my house). It'll be the main focus of each chapter, but of course, from time to time other stuff will be going on as well.

This is a short chapter. Some will be that way. Some won't. And honestly I don't know until I'm writing. I just go with what feels right. But I can tell you this – the story will be at least 42 chapters long.

~A.

"This is the last period you'll be having for a while."

When she and Booth had decided they really were going to try to get pregnant she'd gone out and bought a copy of What to Expect When You're Expecting. It seemed to be the most oft named book when she asked what she should read. She'd read it cover to cover in just three days. Booth had laughed when she told him then grimaced when she handed him his own copy of the book – a copy of which she'd pre-flagged the pages she wanted him to pay particular attention to.

Then she'd gotten the second "sorry" from Dr. Ashbacher and she resisted the urge to throw the damn book away. One more time, they'd said. They'd try one more time. After she stopped the bleeding that was becoming insult added to injury.

She hadn't minded getting her period in years. In a way it always made her feel particularly womanly. Not that she'd ever wanted children before but it gave her a bit of a thrill to know she could have them, if she wanted. But in the last couple of months, as if PMS wasn't enough, she'd fought tears of disappointment the entire time she bled.

Booth coddled her in little bits since she'd made up her mind for one more try. He brought her ice cream in the middle of the afternoon on Tuesday. Cam had raised an eyebrow when he'd forked over the treat right there on the platform but had graciously not said a word. Wednesday he'd dropped a chocolate bar on her desk in exchange for a file while she'd been in Limbo. Thursday had been takeout eaten much later than they should have. Friday was an invitation dinner at the diner with him and Parker. Sunday they'd gotten together for coffee after he took Parker back to Rebecca. He was just a little nicer to her, didn't poke didn't prod, certainly didn't instigate a round of bickering.

It seemed like all the glances she and Booth shared were sad, somehow. There was still another chance so even she couldn't figure out why it already felt like it was over. She thought perhaps she was just trying to prepare herself. The odds were against her. Fifteen to twenty percent. One and a half to two times out of ten she'd get pregnant. And this was only the third shot. No, statistics weren't on her side.

But it was hard to think about being pregnant when she had to change a tampon every five hours.

Her weeks started on Tuesdays and that seemed incongruous to her – so long a professional woman instead of a woman. She'd been told on a Monday the second IUI hadn't taken. Told on Monday that her body just didn't want to be pregnant. Told on Monday that she'd failed. By lunchtime Monday she'd had to look Booth in eye and dash his own set of hopes as well. She thought, perhaps, it would have been easier to let the doctor tell him. Or at least to have had him sitting next to her when she found out. To have let his solidity comfort her.

By Tuesday afternoon she'd started bleeding. She cried like a silly little school girl in the Jeffersonian lavatory as she'd pulled the pink and white packet out of her purse to stem the flow. She didn't know why she'd cried. She already knew she wasn't pregnant. He'd brought her the ice cream that day. The look in his eye meant something to her. It raised the smallest of suspicions in Cam. Because while Booth catered to Brennan in a way that made the others feel just a little like outsiders he'd never brought her ice cream in the middle of a work day.

By Wednesday she had collected herself. She didn't want people looking at her with questions in their eyes. He'd come to the Jeffersonian but she'd been in Limbo, piecing together the skeleton of a two-hundred year old Dutch girl. She didn't see him but she'd known he was there because where there had been a file documenting their most recent case was later a Hershey bar with almonds. Later that afternoon she'd been sitting at her desk typing her findings on the Dutch skeleton when Angela had wandered in and commented on the half eaten chocolate bar that had almond pieces jabbing out from an otherwise smooth break.

Thursday night he'd shown up at her apartment with Thai take out and a small smile. She could tell he was trying to hide the bit of sadness in his eyes. She wanted to tell them they could try again and again until finally it worked – just to make that look of defeat disappear from his beautiful eyes. But she couldn't. Not without making her own eyes swim in a desperate sea. They'd eaten, that night, at eleven o'clock while bad news played in the background on a television she'd bought at the local branch of some huge electronics chain.

Friday she'd had dinner at the diner again sitting shoulder to shoulder with him and across from Parker whose adorable little face no longer held any trace of Angela's semi-permanent paints. Parker went on and on about visiting the pool that weekend and couldn't she just take one day off to swim with them? She begged off, citing work, but promised to go along the next time. Spending time with Parker when all she really wanted was a tiny little Parker growing inside her made everything harder, somehow.

Sunday afternoon, late when the sun was trying it's best to finally go down, she and Booth met for coffee at the Starbucks right around the corner from her apartment. They'd talked about anything in the world but babies and he didn't talk much about Parker, after that one moment he swore she'd teared up at his name. Just as they were getting ready to leave she'd said, "A week from tomorrow we'll try again."

He nodded at her and asked as he had the previous two times, "Want me to go with you?"

She shook her head emphatically. "No, there's really not much to be there for. You can't be in the procedure room anyway." Which was a lie. He could be in the procedure room if she let him. But if it wasn't going to take she didn't want him there for the crucial moment. Not that, she couldn't bear it.

When Monday dawned she discovered she wasn't bleeding anymore. Ahead of her was a week of inaction. At least while she was bleeding her body was preparing. And, she supposed her body still was – she just didn't have any evidence. Never having been one of the women whose breasts started to go tender when they ovulated, she had no outward indications her body would be receptive to the very last of Booth's sperm she'd be privy to. But it was Monday and that meant it was the last day of her week.

Tuesday she'd start again and be just one step closer to what she was sure would be another failure.