A/N: Dear loyal fans. Thank you for your patience. The hubby and I apologize for the delay. We have been buried in work, work and more work. We appreciate all the great reviews, the steady stream of new followers (hopefully ever growing) and look forward to getting you the next chapter, hopefully on time!

Since I haven't had time as of late to reach out to you all personally via private mail, I thought I would take the time to acknowledge some of you now.

Firstly, to all of those who reached out to me to reassure and encourage me, letting me know that reviews, hits and page views weren't everything, I thank you. Some of you mentioned that alerts and traffic stats don't always work, and I found this to be true when this last chapter was posted. Thanks to all of you who left a review for chapter 9, I had more reviews on this chapter than any of the previous ones posted. I also only had 145 page hits, as it appears that the site was down again and not tracking hits or visitors for 3 days – go figure.

I'd also like to welcome new followers, and thank those of you who have recently added me to their favorite author, favorite story and subscribed to alerts.

Thanks to the following fans that left reviews for chapter 9: couchpotato565, pampilot67, daisesndaffidols, Megan, hiitsjess, EowynGoldberry, lapl, SheJustDoesn'tKnowItYet, nertooold54, and my-completeness

To: Tamarakv, LJLanham, squintwannabe, TemperTemper, Jane, brokenbones14, Cremant, boothaddict77, Charly23, and Daisy60 – Thank you for your touching words, inspiration, ideas and constructive criticism. Many of you have been my constants, and make writing and posting this story worthwhile for me.

TemperTemper and Boothaddict77 – You always seem to catch the buried treasures or "easter eggs" if you will, that we try to hide in each chapter. So in honor of the upcoming holiday, the hubby and I have loaded this chapter just for you. Let's see if you catch them all.

Next verse same as the first – LOL. This chapter is contains some back story into Booth and Brennan's childhood, as well as some humorous attempts at intimacy. Please share your comments with me, good or bad, so I can learn from my mistakes, by leaving a review. Thanks again for your support and I hope you enjoy this latest installment!

Nobody puts Brennan in the corner

Booth woke up slowly. He looked to his right and found that Brennan was partially draped across his chest, while the rest of her curved against the side of his body. He slid from the bed gently. She didn't stir. She was sleeping better than she had slept since they got underway. He sat on the couch, taking a moment to clear his head. He liked the idea of poking around in the store room with the costumes, it sounded like fun. He didn't know if that would be Brennan's thing, but come on, who doesn't like costumes? He dialed the number for the captain's office.

"Cap'n speaking."

"Good morning, Sir. This is Casey Dunn. I was wondering if we might have a looksee at the storage hold with the theater gear."

"Sure. I don't know what all is down there, but you are welcome to take a look around and vanish for a few hours. I pop down there for a drink now and then, mostly making excuses about paperwork."

"Is there anything off limits?"

"Not at all. I mean, most of it is old. I'd like to sell it off one of these days, but I never quite seem to get around to it. My kids had Halloween out of that room more than once."

"See? You found a purpose for all that stuff after all."

"Right. Well, since we are trying to keep tighter lips about these premises, I'll bring the keys myself."

"Thank you kindly, sir."

He hung up. The keys were dropped off a few minutes later. He wasn't sure if waking Brennan was the best idea. He milled around the room, putting his clothes on and straightening up, in the hopes that the small noises would wake her up a little bit at a time.

She began to stir while Booth was getting ready. She sat up and looked around. She began to dress as well. It was the middle of the day. She walked into the bathroom and began brushing her teeth while he was shaving. The bathroom wasn't big by casual standards, but they made it work, elbows and knees and grins. She pulled her hair back into a pony tail. Booth liked that look. It accentuated the graceful lines of her neck.

Her voice was still husky from sleep. "Are we going to the storage area with all the theater gear?"

"Yeah, I thought we'd go have a look. I called down for the keys earlier."

They made their way toward the front of the ship. The storeroom was beneath the anchor room. It was a large, triangular room with a small hall off to the left hand side. Offices, she guessed, given the size of the storeroom. It smelled a little stale in there, like the doors hadn't been opened in quite some time.

Booth adjusted a vent near the door, and fresh air began to flow slowly. It was cold, but not biting cold.

There were several rows of boxes, shelves and racks, all neatly spaced. A few items were lying around, but the place seemed to be well organized.

"The captain, he said there are a few valuable items in here, which is why he keeps it mostly locked up. He plans to sell all of this when he can find a buyer, but for now, we can take a look."

Brennan wandered down an aisle, Booth down the one next to it. Although he'd never admit to it, there was a part of him that liked the idea of costumes and dress up. He supposed that his undercover work was a more mature and evolved version of that fondness. He'd never been in theater or anything, but he had dated a couple of theater girls in high school.

On a rack near the end of the row, he found a battered leather biker jacket, which had been nursed and cared for, but had seen better days. It was black, with a zipper up the front. Biker style. He couldn't resist. He pulled it on, and walked around the corner to show Brennan. He pointed his thumbs up, and said "Ayyy".

She nodded like she understood. "Oh the Schvanz right? From Happy Days?"

Booth laughed out loud. "You mean schwantz? No, no. That's a term for a man's privates. The guy in the leather jacket was the Fonz. You know…Arthur Fonzarelli?"

She looked amused, as she often did when she made her pop culture references. He wondered sometimes if it was a test of some sort, to see how people would react to her, this obviously smart woman confused by anything not immediate to her profession.

"I wasn't ever a big fan. I know that Mister Miyagi was in it."

Maybe she wasn't so ignorant after all. She went back to rifling through the costumes. Booth slid the jacket off, but kept it with him. He liked it. He'd grown up with Happy Days reruns, that and the Waltons. Pops loved that show.

Brennan found a platinum blond wig and put it on. She blew Booth a kiss and said, "Happy Birthday Mister President."

He chuckled. She might not know Happy Days, but she knew Marilyn Monroe. Perfect. She danced around in her blond wig. He imagined her in the famous white dress as well. He liked that a little too much. He noticed a door in the small hallway.

"Hey Bones, let's take a look in here. More stuff maybe, who knows."

Like the first door had, it opened with a dry pop. It was an office, a spacious one for what it was. There was a desk against the back wall, shelves overhead everywhere, a battered sofa, and a small TV stand with a VCR. An old VCR, archaic even. It looked like the back end of a 73 Chevy Nova hatchback.

The place was tidy, well kept, like someone dusted more than every now and then. It smelled of cigarettes and old papers. The well beaten couch looked like it had been slept on more than once. For a passing moment, Booth felt like had walked into his grandfather's office, like he was ten again and in a place he wasn't supposed to be in. Pops had caught him in the office a few times, just looking at things. A part of Booth really wanted to entertain his ten year old self and go through the drawers. He smirked at the thought.

The floor was bare, not even tiled. Brennan stood next to him. "There is a solemn nature to this room. It seems like a records keeping area of some kind."

She pulled a book off the overhead book shelf nearest the door. She opened it and ran her fingers over several pages. She didn't know if this room was a part of the tour, but it was what she liked the best so far. A records room is exactly what this place was. She was looking at a manifest written in the summer of fifteen years ago. She reflected quietly that fifteen years ago, she'd have never seen herself here, doing this, with a handsome spy. She really did have to write a book.

A part of this room reminded her of more than one lab she'd been in. It was silent, cool, and clean to the last speck. She could have easily performed a post mortem in here. She started running down a mental check list of the things she'd need to do it. Work hadn't filtered through her mind since she'd been taken, and to think about it, to cast a clinical shade on this little room, was refreshing.

Booth sat down on the couch, his frame in complete recline. Something about this room made him relax. Probably, she thought, it was the distance of it. It was just the two of them and the captain was the only one with any idea they were there. They had privacy, more even than the stateroom afforded. For once, he was relaxed, mellow, and engaged.

"I wonder if there are any movies in here to go with the VCR."

"I don't know. The Captain told me he slips down here for a drink now and then, with the excuse that his paperwork is down here, even thought he does everything on his laptop these days."

Brennan's eyes narrowed. "Do you think he might keep booze down here?" Her face lit up. Booth was not sure if it was the idea of looking around for it, or just having a drink at mid day. He liked both ideas. He started looking behind shelves and in drawers. Whoever the quartermaster had been, he was fastidious to say the very least.

Brennan proved to be the better booze hound. Under the desk there was a case of blended Irish whiskey, from the Cooley distillery in County Louth. It's brand name was Feckin Irish Whiskey. Bones smiled and handed Booth a bottle. She tried out her terrible Irish accent again.

"I got yer feckin' Irish whiskey roit here."

Now that was goddamn funny. He laughed out loud, a broad smile painted across his face.

"That was good Bones. Great, in fact. We might make a bonny lass out of you yet."

"My name isn't Bonnie, its Temperance."

He shook his head. Rome wasn't built in a day, and the pretty scientist wasn't coming out of her shell all at once either.

Booth checked the wires on the old TV. Everything seemed to be in working order. The TV cabinet that it stood on was filled with VHS movies. Booth's mouth curled up at the corner, remembering simpler times, just him and Jared renting movies on a weekend afternoon. Pops would be down at his VA chapter, or maybe visiting the neighbor Miss Johnston. Miss Johnston was a widow, and Pops would tell them that he was going to her place to help her with some crocheting.

Evidently, the widow Johnston did all her crocheting on Saturday afternoons. He and Jared would get lunch out and then either go to the movies or rent them. It was their brother time.

"Booth?"

Her voice jostled his focus into the here and now. Brennan had found a stack of small paper cups inside a file cabinet. Although Booth suspected that all that booze belonged to the captain, his letting them into the storeroom had more or less purchased their silence about it. He'd remind Brennan later, not a word.

Brennan grabbed the bottle she had handed Booth, and poured two shots into the paper cups. She handed one to him. He took the cup and held it out for a toast, which she tapped with mock ceremony. Booth exclaimed, "Na zdorovye!"

Brennan asked, "What are we now, Russian?"

Booth replied, "Oh is that what that is?" He knew damn well what it was; he spent his first six months of the CIA stationed in Vladivostok, but he wanted to see if he could get a chuckle out of Brennan. She didn't respond, so he decided to let it go and move on to another topic.

"I found some movies, Bones. If you like eighties movies, we are set!"

The quartermaster had a mix of comedies and action movies, a few that Booth had never heard of, and a few well known movies from the era. There were movies all the way up to the mid nineties. There was even a movie in the VCR.

He didn't know what it was until he plugged everything in. He recognized the music immediately. Oh how he hated this movie.

"I love this movie!"

Perfect. Marvelous. Remember that bear, Seeley.

"I'm not watching Dirty Dancing, Bones."

Her smile was reassured with something behind it, something he couldn't quite put a finger on.

"Agent Booth, in the last two weeks I have been kidnapped, tortured, treated in unspeakable ways, lost virtually all contact with the world I know, and been chased across backwater where the hell Ireland. You can watch Dirty Dancing. You will watch Dirty Dancing. Am I understood?"

Her tone was informal, sweet, kidding even, but she presented a damn good case. One rewind and another shot of Feckin later, they were watching Dirty Dancing. His mother had loved this movie. The summer it came out, she took both he and Jared for repeated showings. When the movie hit the dollar theater, she went nuts. He seemed to recall that it was the first movie she owned on tape. Everything else was just a rental.

Strange as it was, the moment in time became strikingly normal. Hunted by Irish mobsters, probably going to lose his license to kill, trapped on the open sea, and here he was sitting on his ass on an old sofa, watching a movie with a pretty girl. He reflected that this was probably one of the more surreal moments of his life, this mixture of the fantastic and the mundane. He got himself ready for the chorus of Hungry Eyes. He and Jared got so familiar with the damn movie they would play with the lyrics and sing them when their mom wasn't listening. The Time of my Life became The Crime of my Life, and some of the stuff they came up with originated in the one place that teenage boys around the world depended on for their humor…the toilet.

He found himself softly humming the chorus of Hungry Eyes. Even poor Pops had been taken to one of the many, many showings of Dirty Dancing, and he commented that he thought this song was actually the best on the soundtrack. Jared was making fun of one of Booth's girlfriends one day and asked him if she had hungry eyes. In a moment of candor he had responded, she had hungry thighs. Before long, he and Jared had developed their next parody which as they grew older was simply called fuck me eyes. Booth was mumbling the lyrics softly before he realized that Brennan was looking at him. "And who precisely has fuck me eyes?" He felt like a complete idiot. Sometimes even the suave spy didn't know what to say.

"Oh, I'm sorry Bones. I didn't realize I was mumbling the lyrics out loud. When I was younger my mother was obsessed with this movie and took me and my brother with her to every matinee showing she could find one summer. The only way Jared and I could maintain our sanity was by making fun of the movie including rewriting the lyrics to the soundtrack. When I heard the tune just now, it brought those memories back, full throttle. To be honest, I'm not sure if I truly hate this movie, or if I just really miss my mom."

Brennan asked, "What happened to your mother?"

Booth hunched his shoulders as though this was an old question. His response was practiced. "I don't know. She just vanished one day. No calls, no letters, no nothing."

Hearing those words Brennan felt her heart sink. She knew the same feeling. "What do you think happened to her?"

"For many years I nursed a suspicion that my old man had something to do with it. As I got older I realized that he's a lot of things, but a killer he isn't. Jared thinks she joined a convent somewhere. What about you Bones, what about your parents?"

She realized that she was going to give Booth the same pat response that he had given her, a response that she gave every time she was asked this question. Instead she decided to tell him the truth. "I was fifteen and it was a couple of weeks before Christmas. I came home from school one day and they were gone. Every day I told myself that they were going to return, but each day I was disappointed all over again. On Christmas morning I awoke to the smell of freshly baked Danish Kringle, my mother's recipe, and freshly brewed coffee. I thought for sure that my parents were back, so I eagerly grabbed my slippers and robe and ran down the stairs to greet them. Only, when I went downstairs, they weren't there. Russ had made mom's recipe and found the Christmas gifts they had stowed in the closet for us, and placed them under the tree. He was trying to give me a decent Christmas despite everything that happened. I was so hurt and upset; I told Russ that I didn't want his breakfast or his pathetic attempt to distract me from the fact that Mom and Dad were gone. Looking back in retrospect, I guess in my own way, I was rebelling and had told Russ that he wasn't enough family for me. Not long after that, around New Year's Day, he left too, and within a week, I found myself a ward of the state."

Brennan stopped speaking and returned her attention to the movie. Booth had listened to her very intently. But as the movie progressed he grew more and more restless and began bouncing his knee up and down, so much so that Brennan shot him an irritated look.

"Would you like to watch another movie Booth?"

"Jesus H. Christ yes."

Brennan's eyes became doe-like for a moment and she said "There is no historical data that suggests Jesus even had a middle name or that it began with the letter H."

"It's nicer than saying Christ on a crutch. Hey, I think I saw a copy of Kindergarten Cop in the cabinet."

"I don't see the practicality in hiring a kindergartner as a police officer. Besides that violates many child labor laws."

Booth gave her a look like she was from another planet. "Too literal?"

"Yes, just a bit. It's a movie Bones, I'm gonna make a safe bet that you've never seen it before. It was shot in the same town as The Goonies if that makes it anymore relevant."

She replied noncommittally, "That sounds interesting. Can we watch Dirty Dancing again?"

Booth smiled at her casually and then reached over and tickled her ribs. She snickered not having been tickled in quite some time.

She tried to tickle him back and before long they were play wrestling on the couch. She straddled him while his hands settled on her hips. She touched his face and he looked into his eyes uncertain of his next move. She leaned forward and their lips met, tentatively at first, searching for an invisible answer. They broke apart looked at each other briefly and then came together again, this time, less hesitantly. Booth gently bit Brennan's bottom lip and then soothed it with his tongue. Her lips parted and their tongues met. The kiss became deeper, more needful than either of them had felt in a long time. He ran his hands down the length of her back, his fingers gently pulling the material out from the waistband of her jeans. His hands made contact with her bare skin. She pulled him closer to her, her breasts pressed firmly against his chest as she began shifting her weight so that she could feel his arousal. The motion elicited a moan from his lips. She deepened the kiss further, her tongue explored his mouth wanting to learn him, memorize him. The last thought that entered Booth's mind was that this was the best viewing of Dirty Dancing ever.