Okay, so I know I haven't updated in awhile and I'm sooo sorry! But I'm back! So, enjoy!

Cheerleader

"Ange, I'm not so sure about this..." Temperance Brennan said as her best friend pulled her into the gymnasium at their Chicago high school.

"Aw, come on, Bren! You're gonna do great! Besides, you heard what Mr. Stires said! You need some extracurricular activities! And no, Chess Club and Science Club do not count! You need to do something physical!" Angela argued back.

"But, I'm already enrolled in defense classes and I have a Black belt in Karate and Tai Kwon Do! Isn't that enough?" Brennan asked, still resisting.

"But none of those things has anything to do with any sort of school credit! And, besides, if you become a cheerleader, you can forgo all gym classes for the rest of the year." That seemed to get Brennan's attention, considering she absolutely despised gym class. She quit fighting Angela, with a sigh, and allowed her to pull her to the table where all the girls who were trying out were filling out forms and receiving numbers from the judges; the Head cheerleader, the Coach of the squad, and the Vice Principal, to make sure that the judging was completely fair.

As they stood in line, she noticed a few of the girls smirking at her and whispering in each other's ears as she walked to the table, but she ignored them.

She knew what most people said about her. That she was weird. That she was a death freak, just because she liked to dissect animals. It's not like she would ever find any living animals to cut up. She always made sure they were long dead before chopping them up. She walked right past them, keeping her head up as she took a form from the Coach, and began filling it out.

Once she was done with it, she handed it to the Head Cheerleader, Tessa, who gave her a pointedly nasty look as she pinned it to her tank top, before following Angela to the bleachers where they sat down next to Angela's boyfriend, and personal cheerleader, Jack Hodgins.

"Hey, baby," he said, kissing her cheek, "hey, Bren. You guys ready?"

Angela smiled widely. "Definitely!" she said at the same time Brennan shook her head. "I'm not sure..." she said, looking down and wrapping her arms around her waist.

"Come on!" Jack said, placing a hand on her shoulder. "You're going to do great!"

"You can't possibly know that." Brennan argued. Jack was about to argue back when Angela hushed him, looking pointedly towards the front of the room. Jack and Brennan turned to look where the Coach was standing, holding a clipboard, Brennan assumed held all the names of the girls trying out.

"Okay," the Coach said, "when I call each of your names, you will come up and do a sequence of gymnastics of my choice. Some will be difficult, and others...will not. First up...Hannah Burley!"

A young blonde girl stepped up and walked over to the Coach, before receiving her orders and performing the sequence, getting most of the moves right, but landing a little uneasily on the last one.

The judges apparently didn't seem to notice because she got a near perfect score. Hannah smiled at them and thanked them before walking back to her spot in the bleachers, high-fiving Angela on the way back to her seat.

"You know her?" Brennan asked, once Hannah was back in her seat.

Angela nodded. "Yeah, Hannah's in our Algebra II class and our Forensics 101."

"Really?" Brennan asked, uninterestedly, "I hadn't noticed."

"Well, she is, and she's pretty cool. We should ask her to hang out sometime."

Brennan frowned at this suggestion. Since her parents left her a year ago, closely followed by her brother, Russ, she'd been on her own, except for Angela, her best friend, whose rock star dad had taken her in as a Foster Daughter. She didn't like the thought of sharing Angela with anybody, especially not a girl who was about to become one of the stuck up cheerleaders that she despised, and vice versa.

Brennan was so caught up in her near-brooding thoughts that she almost didn't hear the Coach calling her name.

"Temperance Brennan?" Coach Andrews called for the fourth time. "Are you still here, Tempe?"

Brennan stood up, waving her hand to get the Coach's attention. "I'm still here, Mrs. Andrews!" she called, running down the steps, eager to get this whole try out over with.

Once she got to the floor, she stood to attention, waiting for the Coach to tell her the order of the moves she wanted her to do.

"Okay, Tempe, so first I want you to-"

"Hey, Morticia!" A voice called from behind her. "Knock 'em dead!"

Brennan turned around as the entire gymnasium exploded into laughter, except for Angela, Jack, and Hannah.

Brennan looked in the direction of where the voice had come from and glared at Tim Sullivan, who was doubling over in laughter and holding his arm as if in pain, pain which didn't stop his thunderous laughter, of course. Next to him was Seeley Booth, captain of the Basketball team, who was glowering at him, while still struggling to hide his own amused smile.

"Timothy Sullivan!" Coach Andrews called to him. "If I hear so much as another peep outta you, you'll be outta here before you can even say 'cheerleader'. You hear me?"

Sully rolled his eyes. "Whatever." he mumbled, still rubbing his arm.

"What did you say, boy?" Coach Andrews asked, in a low, serious, not-to-be-messed-with tone.

"I said, 'Yes, Ma-am'." Sully sighed, elbowing Booth's shoulder. Booth hit him back, mouthing something to him that Brennan couldn't quite catch, before turning back to look down at her, shooting her a charming smile.

Brennan rolled her eyes and turned back to Coach Andrews, who was still yelling at a few boys to sit down and be quiet.

"Okay, Tempe, so to move on, I want you to..." the Coach told her all the moves she wanted her to do, even demonstrating a few moves that she wasn't familiar with.

Brennan nodded and took her place in the middle of the gym, taking a deep breath and waiting until the music had begun playing before beginning her routine.

Everybody in the gymnasium's eyes opened wide as they looked on at Temperance Brennan, the weird girl, Morticia herself, perfecting every single move that Coach Andrews had given her, even the ones that she wasn't familiar with. When she was finished, she kneeled on the floor in the landing that she stuck perfectly on the mat closest to the judging table, attempting to even out her breathing, looking to the judges for scoring.

Rebecca looked absolutely stunned, while Coach Andrews and Principal Julian looked amazed that she'd been able to perfect one of the most difficult routines they had. Both of them gave her perfect scores, which caused Rebecca to come out of her daze.

"What? There is no way that freak is gonna be on my squad!" She exclaimed, loud enough for the entire gymnasium to hear. Brennan tried ignoring her, but couldn't help the lump forming in her throat at Rebecca's hurtful words. She'd known how freaky many people in the school thought she was for as long as she could remember, but nobody ever vocalized it so loudly.

Coach Andrews turned to Rebecca, glaring. "Well, then, Rebecca, I guess you're right." She turned to Brennan, who looked on the verge of tears. "You can have her spot." she said, nodding to Rebecca, who looked livid.

"What?" Both Rebecca and Brennan said at the same time.

Andrews turned to Rebecca. "You heard me. If you can't be at least civil towards all the girls on this squad, then you don't belong here. So, either you apologize to Tempe or you hand in your uniform and leave right now. And Tempe will be the new captain."

Rebecca looked from the Coach to her teammates, who seemed to be appalled at their captain's behavior and were all glaring at her and shaking their heads in disapproval.

She shot one more glare at Brennan, before stalking out of the gymnasium. "Wow! What a bitch!" someone yelled in the stands.

"Mr. Sullivan!" Coach Andrews yelled.

"Hey, I just said what everybody's thinking!" Sully called back.

Coach Andrews shook her head, trying to hide a smile. "Well, Tempe," she said, smiling at Brennan, "Looks like you're our new captain. You wanna finish judging for us?"

Brennan dazedly nodded her head and took the seat next to Principal Julian, looking back at the audience, where Angela was giving her a thumbs up and Jack was clapping silently. Brennan smiled at them and waved, before turning forward to watch the next girl trying out.

An hour later, when all the girls were finished trying out, Brennan sat down with all the girls on the cheer leading team, asking for their advice on who to choose from the two girls that got the lowest qualifying score. Most of the girls told her it was her choice, since she was now the captain, but Brennan didn't want to make the wrong choice. In the end, though, she chose Daisy Wick, a particularly perky girl whom Brennan felt would make the perfect cheerleader.

Happy with her choice, Brennan walked over to the eager girl to give her the good news. Brennan was extremely surprised, and somewhat disturbed, when the girl squealed and pulled her into a bone-crushing hug, squealing loudly, before running over to her boyfriend on the other side of the gym, jumping into his arms, practically knocking him over.

"Well, she seems happy." Angela said, coming up next to her.

Brennan smirked. "It would seem so." she replied, turning to her best friend. "So how do you feel about becoming a cheerleader?"

"Amazing! Look! They gave me my own set of pom-poms!" Angela said, waving the blue and white pom-poms in Brennan's face, causing her to giggle. "Thank you so much for your generous score, Sweetie!" Angela said, throwing her arms around her best friend's neck.

"No problem, Ange." Brennan chuckled, hugging back, just as fiercely. "What are sisters for?"

Angela squeezed her harder at this comment, then moved back a little with a large grin. "Uh...Bren, I think somebody would like to talk to you!" she practically squealed, turning Brennan around to face...Seeley Booth?

"Hey," Booth said, sheepishly, "I'm sorry about Sully's behavior before, and about Becca...that relationship is so over." he said, partly to himself. "I had no idea she could be that venomous. Well, actually, I did. She can be a real bitch sometimes, as you clearly saw." he was rambling, becoming more nervous with every glance at her, as she stood stunned, staring at him with large, blue, dazed eyes. "Um, anyways, I was wondering if maybe you'd want to, uh, hang out sometime. And before you say anything, I'm not asking you just because you're the captain of the cheer leading team now, and I'm definitely not looking to push you into anything you're not ready for. I truly just want to hang out cause I think you're kinda cool and I like how you're comfortable being yourself, and-"

"Okay." Brennan shrugged.

"Come on, just hear me out. I- did you say okay?" Booth asked, surprised.

Brennan shrugged again. "Why not? I can clearly see that your intentions are pure by the way you seem to be rambling and I know you aren't being nice to me because I'm a cheerleader, because of the way you punched your best friend when he was making fun of me before I even tried out, so it couldn't hurt to just hang out. Logically, since I'll be cheering for you, it only makes sense that we get to know one another."

A wide, charming grin spread across Booth's face at her answer. "Yeah!" he said, a little too enthusiastically. "Um, ahem, I mean cool. So, where are you guys headed?"

"We're going to the diner to celebrate!" Angela answered from her spot behind Brennan, smiling widely.

"Sounds cool. Mind if I join you?" Booth asked, hopefully.

Brennan smiled politely. "Not at all. That is, if you don't mind walking."

Booth smiled and pulled a set of keys out of his pocket. "No need. My Pops lent me the car tonight. It's got enough seats to fit us all."

"Awesome!" Jack exclaimed, walking up to stand next to his girlfriend. "I call shotgun!" Angela elbowed him in the ribcage, not so discreetly and he held back a pained groan. "Never mind." he wheezed out.

Booth's eyebrows rose at this weird boy, but he made no comment, instead reaching down to take his and Brennan's backpacks, placing them on either of his shoulders, earning a look from Brennan. "What?" he asked, wondering what he'd done wrong already.

"I can carry my own back, pack, you know." Brennan said, crossing her arms over her chest.

"I know," Booth said, "But then, you'd be struggling with your new uniform and the books and stuff. I'm just trying to help out a little." He shot her another charming smile, which Brennan reluctantly accepted.

"Fine." she sighed. "But this is the first and last time you do that for me, and it's only because I have other things to carry."

Booth nodded, like, 'Of course!' before gaining a smirk from Brennan as she began to walk towards the exit, her friends trailing behind her.

Angela looked at Jack and handed him her backpack, before jogging a little to catch up with Brennan, putting her arm around her waist, as Brennan did the same, Jack and Booth trailing behind them with their bags, while Jack shot Booth a look that said, 'Gee, thanks!' and Booth just grinned, willing to follow Brennan anywhere she lead, even after just meeting her.

I thought this was sort of how things SHOULD have gone when they were teenagers, don't you? Please REVIEW!