This fairly lighthearted piece features an established B&B, post-Ellie.


The Failure in the Supervision

What it all comes down to my friends,
is that everything is just fine fine fine.
'Cause I've got one hand in my pocket,
and the other one is hailing a taxicab…

Hand in My Pocket, Alanis Morissette

Booth had been on the phone for close to fifteen minutes now with a fellow agent, reviewing the itinerary for the field training day scheduled a week from tomorrow. Every once in a while he guiltily glanced up from the papers on his desk to look at the little girl fenced securely in her pen a little ways from him. While he had been letting his daughter roam his office freely for the better part of the day, he couldn't watch her properly while he was on the phone. Hence, the baby prison.

Ellie's slight fever that morning had disrupted their daily routine by making daycare an impossibility. Bones had been reluctant to let him take their daughter with him to work – something he had found mildly offensive considering the amount of time Ellie spent at the lab, but whatever – but his partner's time had been booked solid for the day and since he really didn't have anything pressing scheduled, she hadn't had any choice but to agree.

He tucked his desk phone between his chin and shoulder and scribbled a notation on the legal pad in front of him with one hand, while he opened drawers in search of his stapler with the other.

"Uh huh," he absently murmured his agreement with the voice on the other end of the line, and then a steady stream of babbling – interspersed with actual words – from the corner of his office caused him to forget both the stapler and his conversation alike. He grinned at his daughter and she laughed, and he tried to ignore the way his heart clenched every time she said daddy in order to focus on this semi-important discussion.

He was just wrapping up the call when he made another habitual glance toward the fancy portable pen and found it noticeably lacking a certain eighteen-month-old girl.

What the hell?

He sat up straight in his chair. The door was closed, so that was a good sign (although he was pretty sure he was the only person on this floor with a baby here today, so someone would have returned her if she made it out). Before he could stand and begin searching under bookshelves and behind filing cabinets, Booth felt the pressure of a tiny hand halfway up his calf, and he looked down in relief at the face smiling up at him. And everything was A-OK until Ellie took a half step forward, tripped over his shoe, and flew face first into the corner of his desk.

The howling began immediately (in all likelihood, equal parts shock and pain) and Booth cursed under his breath as he pulled her up from the floor.

"Shit. Oh no. Sam, I'm gonna have to call you back."

He slammed the phone into its cradle without waiting for a response and turned her toward him in his lap. "Elle, baby I'm sorry. Let me see."

But Ellie was not in the mood to be consoled. Between her screaming for her mother and burying her face in his shirt, he was getting nowhere pretty darn fast. When he realised that she had broken the skin on her forehead and a welt was already forming, he sighed, stood up, and made quick work of wrestling the incompliant toddler into her coat.

"Okay, kiddo, no mommy until we get this all sorted out, okay? She's not going to be happy about this. Daddy is in big trouble."


"Cam."

Cam looked up from the body on her table – partially stunned, but much more so amused – as Booth came running into the room with his daughter in his arms. Ellie had her tiny fists clenched in his shirt as she held on for dear life, and Cam was about to laugh (because there were only a handful of things in life as funny to her as Booth in his maniacal panic modes) when she caught sight of the bright splotch on Ellie's forehead. She frowned as she snapped off her gloves and met him halfway.

"What the hell happened?"

Booth skidded to a halt. "Where's Bones?"

"You just missed her. She went to-

"Fantastic. Okay, listen; I need you to fix this."

Ellie sat up a little straighter in his arms and pointed behind Cam. "Icky."

Booth followed her finger to the corpse resting on the metal table and sighed. "Great; now she's injured and traumatized. Bones is going to kill me."

Cam made a brief effort to draw her own conclusions, but it had been a long day so far and she gave up fairly quickly. "Explain."

"She had a bit of a fever this morning, so Bones kept her out of daycare. I'm working out of my office all day today and so I took her in with me and she smacked her head off my desk while I was on the phone."

She raised an eyebrow. "Way to keep an eye on her, Seeley."

Booth shifted his weight agitatedly from foot to foot and ran his free hand through his hair. "She unlocked the gate door, Camille! From the inside! She's fucking Houdini, alright? I screwed up, you lectured me, let's get to the part where you make sure she doesn't have brain damage, okay?"

Cam shook her head and reached out to take the young Booth, but at the last second he gripped Ellie protectively and pulled away.

"What now?" Agitation was beginning to creep into her tone as well, and pretty soon things between the two of them were going to get downright snippy.

"Shouldn't you wash your hands or something first?"

Cam took a deep breath. "Booth, give her to me now, or fix this yourself."

Booth glowered, but he obediently shifted the little girl toward his friend. Ellie willingly held out her arms to the familiar face and balanced herself with a hand against Cam's chest as Cam settled her on her hip.

"It doesn't look too bad," Cam assessed as she set Ellie on a countertop. "She's not bleeding anymore, that's good."

"She all but hollered down the building at the time, not that you'd know that by looking at her now. She's got Bones' lungs."

Ellie whimpered and pushed away Cam's hand as the doctor pressed lightly on the raised spot.

"Alright, you don't like that. I got it," Cam said evenly. Then she turned back to Booth. "A little disinfectant and a Band-Aid and she'll be good as new."

Booth rolled his eyes. "That's it? Four years of med school and you're giving me disinfectant and a Band-Aid?"

Cam finally grew exasperated. "What were you expecting? I'm busy, Booth; kids fall down, they bump their heads. You already have a son; this can't be the first time something like this has happened."

"Yeah, I have a son. This is the first time that something like this has happened to Ellie. She's Bones' first child and Bones is going to freak out when she sees a lump the size of Texas adorning her only child's forehead. So, no, Cam, slapping a Hello Kitty Band-Aid on her really isn't going to help me."

Cam shrugged and turned back toward the one and a half year old. Ellie instinctively began squirming away from her when she brought a Q-tip soaked in disinfectant near her face.

"What do you want me to do, glue the skin back together? Cover her in foundation?"

Booth raised his eyebrows and absently lifted his daughter from the counter as she began to cry again, never taking his eyes off Cam. "Are those real options?"

Cam sighed loudly, "No! They're not! I may not know Brennan as intimately as you do, but I am one hundred percent sure that putting makeup on her baby is going to piss her off a hell of a lot more than a little scratch and some mild swelling."

Under the gentle sway of Booth's embrace, Ellie began to settle, but the memory of Cam's hands and the disinfectant were still fresh. When Cam reached toward her with the tiny piece of stitching tape, she buried her face in her father's chest.

Booth jiggled her lightly. "Come on, pretty girl; cooperate with Cam. Daddy's in enough trouble as it is."

"No."

His phone beeped in his pocket and he handed a resistant Ellie over to Cam, despite the little girl's protests. He groaned at the message from his partner asking why he (read, Ellie) wasn't in his office, and he knew that his time before she returned to the lab was short.

Cam successfully distracted Ellie with a weighty silver pen and stuck the piece of tape firmly in place; Ellie glared at her accusingly, but she didn't cry.

"Alright, new plan. You keep her and tell Bones I got called into the field."

"What part of 'I'm busy' did you not understand? Ellie's beautiful and I love her, but I am not falling even further behind in my day than I already am just because you're afraid of your girlfriend. Take your baby and deal with this like the big boy I know you can be."

Cam held Ellie out to him and Booth took a step back. "No. She's already stressed out right now because you are making her give some lecture on Tuesday, so as far as I'm concerned, you owe me. This is the least you can do."

"Exactly. I'm making her give the lecture, and I don't want to deal with more attitude than I'm already getting by becoming involved in this. You're the father of her child, Booth; she can't stay mad at you forever. Good luck."

She shifted his daughter toward him once more and Booth hesitated, but he sighed in defeat when Ellie reached for him expectantly.

"Fine," he grumbled, taking possession of his offspring. "Tell Cam, 'thanks for nothing,' Ellie."

Ellie stared at him blankly and then performed her latest trick of blowing kisses instead. Cam laughed and kissed the baby's soft cheek in return while Booth observed begrudgingly.

"You are absolutely no good to me, kid."