Author's Notes:

I apologize for this being so late. I have a lot going on right now. Updates are likely going to stay sparse for a couple weeks, until mid-July. Then I should be able to update just about every day!

I'm getting questions/comments about how long I intend to take this, and I WILL go all the way to the birth. Potentially a little longer, depending upon how I feel when I get there.

Brennan ran her fingers along the victim's femur. The peculiar etched texture perplexed her. Of all the bones, this was the only one to exhibit this quality, and she had no idea what it meant. They had ID and cause of death, but they had as of yet been unable to determine the killer. She knew that if only she could extract the information this femur withheld, maybe they would be able to solve the murder. Her fingers caught in the notch of the lower extremity. Everything seemed normal, aside from the texture, but there was something, ever so slightly out of her grasp. She could feel it as she waited for the bone to, as Angela termed, "speak" to her.

However, it was getting late. Brennan was tired, verging on exhausted. Normally, working late on a Friday evening would be nothing, but tonight, in comparison to normal productivity, she might as well have been brain dead. She continued rolling the femur about in her hands, making no additional observations, no additional conclusions. There was something else there, but her mind was clouded with exhaustion and hunger and a twinge of nausea she had worked very hard to avoid by eating every three hours.

The femur stopped turning. She felt it relinquished from her grasp. Brennan wondered what was happening and realized with a start that her eyes were closed. Had she fallen asleep? How long had she been here? She opened them to see Booth sliding the femur back onto the examination table.

"No, I… I almost had it." Brennan stuttered in her half-woken state. She felt a pair of large hands lift her own and remove her gloves. Next, he was behind her, arms under her own, unbuttoning her labcoat. "Booth, I can—"

"You've really got to start answering your phone. I mean, I was worried. I called Angela, who talked to Hodgins, who said you were still here when he left."

"I am sorry." She decided she liked the feeling of his hands unbuttoning her coat enough to not worry about what any late-night lab lurkers might think. He lingered perhaps a second longer than necessary on the buttons nearest her navel, then the coat was unbuttoned and he gently slipped her arms out of it.

He took her hand. "Time to go home, Temperance." With that, Brennan felt his other arm wrap around her, just beneath her arms, guiding her out of the room.

"I'm hungry."

"I've got Thai food in the car."

Booth handed her a carton of fried rice and a fork as soon as she got into the SUV. He took her admission of her hunger to indicate a fierce need to eat – Brennan didn't complain, extreme circumstances excepting. Even more worrisome, she was looking a little pale. "Eat this. Now. You don't look good."

He was pleased, upon getting into the driver's side seat, to see her sticking a forkful of rice into her mouth. As he turned the key in the ignition, "How long has it been since you last ate?"

"I… don't know," she said between bites, "I think I lost track of time. I had a snack at two?"

He glanced at the digital clock on the dashboard. Seven fifteen. "You told me you were eating something every three hours."

"I lost track of time."

"You need to be more careful."

She was silent. Booth heard her fork scratch the side of the carton as he exited the parking lot.

"Where are we going?" She asked.

"Where do you want to go?"

"You said we were going home."

"We are."

"Mine or yours?"

Oh, how Booth wished he could have replied "ours." "Wherever you want to go, Bones. We can both spend the night at yours, or at mine, or I can drop you off at yours with some of this food. Totally up to you."

"Yours." The response was immediate. Booth liked that.

Brennan's pallor and energy improved dramatically after eating, Booth was relieved to find. Naturally, he would have carried her up to his apartment in a heartbeat, but the toll on his back would have been steep. Her steps as they made their way from the SUV were slower than usual, but her eyes were alert and her grip on his arm reassuringly tight.

Now in his home, Brennan took a bathroom break while Booth surrendered the Thai food to his coffee table and plopped himself on his couch. He reached into the bag, pulled out mi krop for himself, the tofu phat thai for Brennan, and the eggrolls for both of them. As he took a huge bite out of one of the eggrolls, Brennan emerged from the bathroom.

She looked significantly better. She appeared to have washed her face and taken her makeup off. Her hair was down, shoes and jacket discarded somewhere, revealing a low-cut red tee, black slacks, and cute little socked feet. Booth loved how comfortable she was in his home. He patted the couch beside him. "C'mon, I got you phat thai." He smiled as she sat next to him, practically on top of him, grabbed the container before her, propped her socked feet up on his coffee table, leaned back, and dug in.

They shared a few minutes of silent dining before Brennan inexplicably placed her carton on the coffee table, groaned, and rolled onto Booth's lap. Her head hung over his thigh by a few inches, so she pulled one of his cushions to rest underneath her.

"What, Bones?" Booth began with a grin. "You want some of my mi krop?" Before she could answer, Booth had a forkful of noodles in her mouth.

She swallowed. "Mmm, no, not really."

"Oh. What about more fried rice?" He reached into the bag to retrieve the final carton, only to find that the bag fell over due to lack of weight keeping it upright. He retrieved the carton, which was empty. "You ate the entire carton on the way here?" He asked in disbelief. This was a pretty big carton. They usually fought over the stuff, so he always bought extra.

Brennan just smiled and brought arms up so that her hands rested under her head, causing the hem of her red t-shirt to inch up her belly.

Booth's eye caught the flash of pale skin and he playfully rubbed his hand against it. "You must be extra full." He went to tug on the upper hem of the slacks but quickly realized he couldn't even get his finger between the waistband and her skin. His brow furrowed in concern. "Bones, can you breathe?"

"Of course I can breathe. My pants stop well below the level of my diaphragm."

"Can the baby breathe?"

"It is only a fetus, Booth, and no, of course it can't breathe. My body is currently supplying the fetus with all the nutrients it requires to develop. It has no need to breathe on its own when I breathe for it."

Booth shook his head at her literal interpretation. "I don't think you should wear pants this tight." He squeezed the top button of her slacks, feeling her muscles tighten as she winced, and undid them. As the button gave way, her belly pushed outward to unzip the zipper halfway down the rise. Booth ran a concerned finger along the red line left by the upper hem.

"Booth, I have gained four pounds. Consequently, my pants do not fit as comfortably as they once did. I will soon have to purchase looser clothing."

Booth wasn't really listening. He laid his hand over the slight bulge just beneath her navel. "Bones…" he began, somewhat in disbelief, aware that his voice was nearly a whisper, "I think you're showing."

Brennan unzipped her pants all the way and placed her hand atop Booth's. "That's just fat." She slid their hands an inch or so lower. "My uterus is actually right here."

Booth smiled, the tips of his mouth twitching. He didn't care how Brennan dismissed his assertion: she was showing. Maybe he had to look extra-hard to find it, but now that he knew this little bump existed, the miracle seemed more concrete than ever. He looked to her face now, resting on his pillow, brown hair splayed about, framing her angular features. There was a rosiness in her cheeks and a toothless grin on her lips. Her eyes sparkled a particularly bright shade of blue, the yellow around her inner irises having nearly disappeared into dilated pupils. She was glowing. She was happy.

"You're beautiful." Their lips met, and Booth took the opportunity to prove just how beautiful she was.