Author's Note: This space left blank unintentionally.


The Care and Keeping of Christmas Trees


Rule #3: No Pain, No Gain

The answer was no, his gut did not have a good grasp of geography.

Much to Brennan's consternation, even intestinal hunches as gifted as Booth's proved unreliable at navigation when working in tandem with vague directions and inexact addresses. His gut feeling resulted in another twenty minute drive, two calls to Charlie Burns for revised directions, quite a bit of backtracking and no end of bickering, but eventually they passed a hand-painted sign proclaiming the existence of Eddy Bear Tree farm was at hand. Somewhere up ahead, assured the second sign. Keep going, the last one urged.

Right here, proclaimed the largest one, with a reassuring arrow pointing out a less-than-reassuring gravel road. A road that stretched for miles. A road that was poorly maintained and would end only at the very western edge of the continent from the looks of things.

For several seemingly endless minutes they bounced over chuckholes, Brennan murmuring that the constant yaw and pitch in their seats was going to strain ligaments and couldn't possibly be good for Booth's back.

"My back is fine."

"Only because you finally let me fix it," she countered.

He scowled her into silence. The road dipped and swayed, the front end of Booth's car plunged steeply starboard then jounced violently back upright, expelling tension and breaths but at the same time revealing a most welcome sight up ahead: Finally, a fence ... with a gate. Signs of civilization.

At the gate Booth turned into a wide, gravel car park that contained no less than two other cars. (However, one of the cars was rusted and gave every indication of having existed in the same location since the day it rolled off the production line ... at Studebaker.) Off to their right, a circle of concrete cinderblock bricks caged in an anemic fire; beyond that stood a ramshackle shack precariously perched on the edge of a steep bluff. Brennan turned to Booth. "Where are the trees?"

There weren't any. Not one single tree that wasn't deciduous.

"Uh..."

He turned a circle, taking in the sloping hills carpeted with oak, ash, beech, maple, (or whatever they were, since they were all naked and one naked tree looks pretty much like another to people who aren't boy scouts or Jack Hodgins). No Christmas trees at Eddy Bear Tree Farm? This caper was starting to smell like a snipe hunt.

"Hey there!"

A thickset, burly man bearing an ursine beard shambled towards them, clothed in flannel, and heartily pumped Booth's hand. Then he turned to Brennan, tipping his cap (at least it wasn't coon-skin, Booth mused) with a jaunty, "Ma'am."

Brennan's nose wriggled disapprovingly but she kept quiet and nodded.

"Y'all here for a Christmas tree?"

"We thought so," Brennan remarked blandly, "but it would appear you have them well concealed."

Tossing his head back so far in laughter that his cap fell off, the Eddy Bear took nearly an entire sixty seconds to compose himself, retrieve his cap and wipe his eyes free of their liquid merriment. "That wasn't on purpose, you understand. It's just the lay of the land. The trees are all down there."

Down ... where...?

He was pointing to the edge of the earth, or what appeared to be the edge of a hitherto unknown abyss hiding in northern Virginia. There?

Booth and Brennan edged closer, peeking over the rim. A tiny trail slithered through more naked trees in serpentine switchbacks down ... down ... down the steep cliff to reach a river so far at the bottom that they couldn't hear it. There were indeed trees down there, so distant that they resembled toothpicks stuffed into café-style Reuben sandwiches, tiny little trees pinned to the sides of the river.

"You have got to be kidding me," Booth muttered.

"It's not that far," Brennan ventured gamely.

"No?" He turned a sour grimace her way. "Assuming we survive the trip down to the bottom, we gotta get a tree from down there ... back up here."

Brennan pursed her lips, considering the challenge ahead. "I guess it's a good thing you brought me instead of Parker."

As if the daunting trek they faced didn't present enough of an obstacle, the brooding clouds overhead decided they'd contained themselves long enough. A few flurries had first fluttered down when they got out of the car. Within the span of the last few minutes, however, it had begun to snow in earnest.

~Q~


Author's Note: Did I mention this misadventure is based on a true story...?