Temperance Brennan removed her gloves quickly and discarded them in the trash, on the exam table were the severely decomposed remains of a man, who although mostly intact skeletally, would have to wait to be identified. Brennan had other plans for this particular Friday evening. She packed up her stuff much more quickly than she would have several years ago.
Today was Lila's fifth birthday, and the plans for the child's first real birthday party had been planned for this weekend. Mostly by Booth, Hodgins and Angela. Brennan had helped, but her ideas for the theme of her five-year-old's party had been quickly vetoed. Apparently historical themes were clearly not popular or appropriate for this age group. In less than two months her younger daughter Grace would be having her third birthday; that would not be so busy, as Grace wouldn't start school for some time. At most that party would include her father, and Angela's family.
It also signalled the sixth year of her relationship with Booth. This is why Brennan had a surprise for him, now tucked safely in her car waiting for later. There was never any outward sign of what she was planning, even as she checked the time, and hurried down to the parking garage.
Five years ago she had given birth to her first child, and Booth had caught Lila in his hands. Everything she had learned about was true, the massive amounts of hormones created a powerful bond. The memory of any pain disappeared as soon as she saw Lila and held her close, the unbelievable high and elation. She'd been speechless most of the day. Giving birth truly was an experience that was more than worthwhile.
The next year Booth had brought her a single rose and watched her nurse Lila, before putting Lila down for a short nap and making lunch together and engaging in conjugal relations. They'd had a small family party for Lila later that night. The year after she had been pregnant again, and the day had been busy. Parker had joined them earlier that day , and had enjoyed playing with Lila and teaching her silly gestures while she lied down to rest before the small family party that night. The large age difference between Parker and Lila had almost completely eliminated sibling rivalry, something that surfaced between her own girls. Seven months pregnant with a two year old had been very draining, and she'd been grateful for Parker's distraction so she could get some rest. Booth had come home early that day too, and massaged out the knots in her back. He'd brought her yet another rose, and continued to do so for the next year. And she remembered clearly they had argued over Grace's name. In the end, she'd agreed to his suggestion of Grace, but not until after their second daughter had been born. Literally seconds after Booth had caught Grace in his hands, the same way he had with Lila, he started calling her Grace, and that is exactly what her name was.
For Lila's third birthday, they'd kept it small. Hodgins and Angela brought Malcolm as Lila's first peer-aged party guest. Malcolm was only two months older than Lila and the children made excellent playmates. The following year they got all four kids playing together as there was a similar age difference between Grace and their daughter Iris. That year there had been no rose, whether it was the distraction the children provided or stress from a particularly confusing case at work.
Brennan scolded herself inwardly, and returned her attention to the road. It wouldn't be the first time she'd missed her turn thinking about bones, or Booth or her daughters. She took the next left, and managed to make up for lost time as she pulled into her building's underground parking. She grabbed the present for Booth from the back seat and made her way to the elevator.
When she arrived in her apartment it was quiet. She slipped off her shoes wordlessly, first checking her daughters' room; then her own bedroom. When she returned to the living room she saw what she had missed. Booth was passed out asleep on their couch Grace snuggled under his chin and Lila squeezed in beside them her head resting on her father's chest. The TV remote wasn't far from Booth's hand, and Brennan wondered briefly what they had been watching. Brennan smiled; it was moments like this that she was certain she had made the correct decision. She leant down and kissed Booth gently and backed away, waiting to see if he would wake.
Lila woke instead, "Mom," she smiled and tumbled gently off the couch, "Dad took me out of school early and we played all afternoon. He let me play squint with your old lab coat."
"Sounds like fun," Brennan answered, making a mental note to remind Booth of this later when their daughter began to show more interest in science, "Happy birthday Lila." She pulled her daughter into a hug, and noticing that Booth had started to wake up she added, "Do you want to call Grandpa and invite him over?"
Lila beamed, "Yes!" And Temperance watched her daughter run for the kitchen phone, before returning her attention to Booth. She kept one ear on Lila's eager chattering to her grandfather.
"Enjoying your nap?" Brennan smiled and looked to meet his deep brown eyes.
"What brings you home so early?"
"It's ok Booth, child-rearing is exhausting, and it's only natural to take the chance to rest when our offspring do."
Grace began to wake her brown eyes starting to blink.
"Somehow, we managed to produce two mini-squints, Bones," Booth's tone changed, "Lila was pretending her sister was a corpse today." He looked back at her with exasperation.
"She wanted to know more about what I do, so I explained to her about forensics and studying bones in age appropriate terms. I think its the television though, they both watch a fair bit of the discovery channel, I mean Lila's pretended to be a corpse before, and a turkey vulture for that matter."
Booth became distracted for a moment as Lila hollered for Grace, who literally leaped off her father's chest leaving him gasping and ran towards her big sister yelling "I want to talk to Grandpa!"
"What's that?" Booth had finally noticed his present on the coffee table.
Brennan picked up the bouquet of roses from the coffee table, "Six roses, one for every year-"
"Bones..." Although he was interrupting her his voice went low and soft.
"It's to celebrate the sixth anniversary of us forming our permanent conjugal relationship to facilitate child-rearing."
"I love you too Bones." Booth responded rolling his eyes.
"Happy Valentines' Day." Brennan sat and leant down to kiss Booth properly. When this kiss ended he looked up at her in surprise.
"I thought Valentines' is a stupid social ritual with no significance."
"It is, but sometimes you just have to experience something to understand it properly."
"Change of heart?"
"No,
participant-observation."
"What?"
"Anthropology? Observation is more than just watching, I've told you this before."
"Well, I guess we can observe our
daughters fight over the phone." Booth gestured to the kitchen, and
the noises that sounded like whining and crying were
beginning.
Brennan looked up in surprise, "Fighting for
dominance once again..." Shaking her head she headed over to sort
out their disagreement.
Their talk would have to wait until later, but there was always next February 14th.
Authors note:
There is going to be one last chapter... but we're almost done with these glimpses.
