The next morning Booth shuffled slowly into the kitchen, stretching and groaning as he walked gingerly on his aching feet. He'd been surprised when he'd found himself alone in bed so early that morning, especially since his wife usually slept late on the weekends if she had a chance. Today, however, she was sitting at the kitchen counter with her coffee mug as she read something on her tablet. She didn't acknowledge him as he ambled into the kitchen

"Mornin', Bones…", Booth muttered as he bent down to give her a kiss. She turned slightly away from him, just enough so that he missed her lips. Surprised and slightly irritated, he stood with his hands on his hips as she continued to read her article. "Okay...what's the matter now?"

"I find that I'm quite annoyed with you, Booth.", she sniffed without looking away from her tablet. "I spent a long time trying to arrange the perfect April Fool's joke for you, and you ruined it by trying to trick me with a joke of your own."

Scratching his head at his wife's logic, Booth was incredulous. "Wait...so I was supposed to know that you were planning a trick to play on me, and because I should've known that, I wasn't supposed to plan a trick to play on you? Seriously? How does that even make any sense?" He watched in amusement as she tilted her chin and turned up her nose at his question. "Oh, I get it. You're not mad at me because I played a joke on you, right? You're mad at me because it was a good joke and you fell for it, even though you're a genius, and you actually believed me when I told you you'd made a mistake with your birth control pills. That's it, right? Dr. Temperance Brennan was taken in by her husband's trick…" Laughing as she glared at him before returning to her reading, he shook his head. "Well, you gotta admit...it was a great joke…"

"I disagree, Booth. It took very little imagination to prepare your joke." Brennan ran her fingers across the tablet screen so she could read the next page the article. "In any event, I knew all along that those were baby aspirin in my pill case."

"You did not! I could tell by the look on your face that just for a few seconds at least you thought they were leftover birth control pills and that you hadn't taken them correctly." Booth pulled a mug out of a cabinet and poured himself a cup of coffee as he teased his wife. "Why not just admit it? I fooled you. At least I fooled you better than you fooled me..."

"That's not true! You were very surprised when you thought I was pregnant!" Brennan tried to hide her grin as she pretended to be frustrated with Booth. "You were especially surprised when I told you that I had conceived while you were out of town."

"Aw, c'mon, Bones. I knew you were joking. There's no way you'd do that, right? That's what gave the joke away. I know there wouldn't be anyone else in your life but me." He chuckled as he stirred some sugar into his coffee. Sitting next to Brennan at the counter, he elbowed her gently. "I know you love me. I know something like that wouldn't happen…"

"Really? So you know where I was and who I was with every second of the day while you were out of town? Can you account for all of my time?" She gave her husband a coy smile as she picked up her coffee mug to take a sip. "You know, it only takes a few minutes for that sort of thing…"

"Enough of that kind of talk! What if the kids hear you?" Booth knew his wife was teasing him, but that knowledge didn't keep him from feeling a bit jealous. "I trust you, Bones, and I know you wouldn't do something like that." Taking a sip of his coffee, he shrugged. "I have to admit, though...I was a little disappointed when you told me you weren't really pregnant...that it was all an April Fool's prank. I kinda liked the idea of having another baby around the house. You always look really good when you're in the family way...you just glow when you're pregnant. Oh well...maybe in two or three years, right?" He bit his lip to avoid laughing out loud as he prepared for the explosion that he expected to occur any second.

"Do you know where that test indicator came from?" Brennan nonchalantly pulled up the next page of the article as she laughed to herself. "How would I get pregnancy test indicator to indicate positive if I wasn't pregnant? It's extremely difficult to fake a home pregnancy test…"

"Wait...wait a minute." Booth eyed his wife suspiciously. "What do you mean, where did you get that indicator…"

"The indicator that showed that the test was positive. How do you think that happened?" Brennan smirked at her husband, watching him as he tried to process what she was telling him. "It could be that the April Fool's joke wasn't the positive test result part. Maybe the real joke was me telling you I got pregnant while you were gone…"

"But you're on the pill, right? And you said you've been taking it correctly…" Booth was dumbfounded. "You're really pregnant?"

"Birth control pills are effective 99.9% of the time if they're taken correctly, but there's always that slight margin for error...that less than one percent." Brennan sipped her coffee stoically. "I've always known you were an extraordinary man, Booth, but this just proves it…"

"Yeah, I guess…" Scratching his chin, Booth thought over the situation. "So you're really pregnant? How far along are you?"

"What do you think?" Brennan giggled as her husband cast an appraising eye her way.

Booth shook his head, knowing that was a loaded question, and he'd certainly have a load dumped on him if he guessed incorrectly. "I have no idea." He quirked an eyebrow as his pride finally got the best of him. "So I really got you pregnant, even though you're on the pill?" He looked down at his crotch and pointed toward the area with both hands as he grinned from ear to ear. "Way to go, boys…"

"Way to go, boys, indeed. We'll have another college education to pay for now, Booth, which means less money to spend on project cars and jet skis. Diapers will also be a huge expense, even if we use cloth diapers. It's also possible that you may not be able to retire as soon as you planned if our new child needs extensive orthodontic work. There will also be added costs for car insurance…and you might also consider that having a third child might make me too tired to engage in intercourse as often as we do now."

"I get it, okay? I get it." Booth sighed as he embraced his wife. "It's gonna be expensive and there's a lot of time that's gonna be involved, and we'll have to find time for each other. But you never did answer my question. How far along are you?"

"I never said I was pregnant, Booth. I asked you if you knew where I'd gotten the indicator with the positive response on it." Brennan waited for Booth to figure out what she meant. "You made an assumption based on my question about how I attained the indicator but it wasn't me that provided the urine specimen that made the test result positive. I think you've forgotten how easy it is to obtain that sort of thing where I work…"

"So you're not really pregnant, after all." Booth rolled his eyes as he realized he'd been caught again. "April Fools to me one more time, right? Ha Ha. That's a good one." Frustrated at how easily his wife had trapped him, he drained his coffee cup and pushed himself away from the kitchen counter. "I'm hungry. You want some pancakes?"

"That would be very nice, Booth. I'm pleased that you've decided not to hold a grudge after you've been duped again. Of course, you should've realized that with my superior intellect I'd be able to best you in a battle of April Fools' pranks." Brennan smiled as she returned to reading her tablet.

"Whatever." He pulled open the refrigerator door with a flourish and let out a loud, shrill yelp. "What the hell is this?" He pointed to the refrigerator's interior. "Bones?"

She wore an innocent smile as she rose from her chair and came to stand next to him as he tried to avoid looking into the refrigerator. "Oh, that? It's a clown doll…"

"Why is there a clown doll in my refrigerator? It almost made me drop the eggs." Booth glared at his wife as she snickered at the item causing the issue.

Pulling the doll from the refrigerator, Brennan waved it back and forth in front of him. "I wanted to make sure you saw this, and the clown seemed to be the best way to get your attention." Handing her husband a business card that had been attached to the clown's costume, she pointed out the name as she chuckled. "Dr. Robert Gregory is a urologist. He performs vasectomies, and he's currently accepting new patients…"

Without thinking, Booth shuddered as his hands dropped to cover his crotch. "No way...I am not getting a vasectomy…"

"It's a very simple surgery, Booth. You'd be in and out within a few hours, and you'd have a very short recovery time. It's much less invasive than when a woman has a tubal ligation. Afterwards, we'd have very little need to bag your sniper unless it was to enhance the enjoyment of our sexual encounters." Brennan turned away from him as she refilled her coffee cup. "You know, next time I have a positive pregnancy test, it may not be an April Fools prank…"

Booth beat the eggs with gusto as he grumbled about the situation. "I'll think about it, okay? But no promises…"

"That's all I ask…" She wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him tightly before giving him a passionate kiss. "Happy April Fools again, Booth."

He grinned as he returned her kiss. "Happy April Fools to you, too, Bones…"