Thanks to all for your very kind reviews-and to one of my super nice guest reviewers in particular, gracias por tus palabras tan amables; espero te guste este capitulo!
Driving to the hospital with Brennan and his two kids in the car, Booth was feeling great. Relaxed and hopeful, like for once things were going just the way he wanted them to.
That little surprise Bones had waiting for him at home had completely thrown him for a loop in the best possible way. Totally unexpected, the rendezvous was maybe a little more fast and furious than he was used to, but still toe-curling, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants amazing.
Amazing-just like his Bones.
What if a crabby Hank had woken up from his nap immediately after they were done and there wasn't any time for post-sex canoodling. At least they were done-both of them, thank God.
It dawned on Booth a second too late that maybe the Almighty should just be left out of this train of thought entirely, and he made a discreet sign of the cross while Brennan wasn't looking to atone for bringing up those two disparate concepts in the same sentence. Like red pasta sauce and a white dress shirt, sex and religion should probably never, ever mix.
Except for maybe in the Old Testament.
But as to the evening...as soon as she heard fussing in the next room, his wife had put on a bathrobe and rushed out to grab their hungry son, bless her heart. For his part, he was far too beat to move even an inch. How women could go on their merry way right after...well, that, Booth couldn't fathom. Because after he rolled off her, landing with an exhausted, sweaty thud on his side of the bed, he wasn't really in any shape to do much; it honestly felt like he had fifty pound weights strapped to each of his arms and legs.
Sure, he could've gotten up if he absolutely had to, like if their house had suddenly caught on fire or an intruder was hell bent on breaking in through a window, but he was infinitely grateful to his girl for taking on the kiddie burden this time around and giving him those few extra minutes to recover.
So he had plenty of reasons to be feeling at the top of his game right now. Not just because of the blissful carnal moment he'd just shared with his beautiful, uninhibited wife, but because in less than half an hour almost everyone he loved was going to be under his watchful tutelage if only for five minutes.
And because there was no way that this whole DNR nonsense was going to come up ever again after this visit.
"You said Max is meeting us in the parking garage? You positive about that? Because he's not like the most reliable person on the planet, Bones."
"Yes, he promised he would be there. Apparently he's returned from whatever fictitious vacation locale he maintains he was at. He'll go up with us and then he'll bring the kids back home after their brief visit so that we can stay with Hank for the remainder of the hour."
Brennan no longer made any type of effort to believe whatever tepid stories her dad chose to tell her about where he was at or who he was with when he was out of her sight.
He was generally there when it really counted, and while she understood he wasn't exactly the standard bearer for model fatherly behavior, she'd come to accept that what he was was good enough. He simply wasn't a conventional dad and would never be, but she wasn't exactly a conventional daughter, either, so it all worked out. Besides, she didn't require that kind of stability from her father-hadn't for a long time. She only needed his love and support, which he willingly gave.
Everything else, including rock-solid reliability, she could get by simply reaching over to her partner and kissing the daylights out of him.
As he fought the last of the rush-hour traffic, Booth still wore a look of post-coitus contentment on his face that gratified his wife. Brennan was glad that given all that could have gone wrong in the span of a little under twenty minutes in a household with two young children, her pre-dinner scheme had worked out so satisfactorily.
With as little "them" time as they'd had since Hank fell ill, she believed it was vital for her and Booth to reconnect on the most basic of levels whenever and wherever they could. Not so long ago, that 'reconnecting' had included a forgotten storeroom in the Jeffersonian conveniently overlooked by the institution's video surveillance system.
She still needed to thank Angela for the tip.
Booth had initially objected to the romantic overtures taking place in the cramped, dusty room, which he emphasized was located not only within the same building were she worked but where a huge number of dead bodies were stored, but his concerns over propriety and his respect for the wrongfully departed hadn't lasted long. Once her bare, heavy breasts had spilled into his hands and her moist breath began skimming over his Adam's apple, her husband's reticence had pretty much disappeared.
He was modest, but he was also easy.
She liked having sex with Booth, Brennan thought, turning her head away so her husband wouldn't catch her smiling.
Liked it a lot.
Not just because it was a highly pleasurable activity in and of itself, but because of how close she felt to him when they were naked and vulnerable in each other's arms. Even if today that closeness had only lasted for a little under fourteen minutes.
Quickies, Booth called them. Apparently, sexual intercourse which took place in under fifteen minutes was considered a quickie in popular culture.
Well, quickies were certainly better than no quickies. And if any two people could pull one off exceptionally well, it was the two of them, she noted with pride.
"So when did Christine start watching My Little Pony?" Booth asked, turning to Brennan with a suspicious smirk in his eyes.
"I love My Little Pony" their daughter piped up. "I was Twilight Sparkle for Halloween last year."
"When I realized that I couldn't possibly prepare dinner for us, feed our two young children and look at all the materials from Christine's school by myself before leaving for the hospital" Brennan jabbed back, only mildly irked by Booth's self-satisfied, know-it-all look. "The logistics of handling so many chores at once proved to be very challenging, and I was forced to rely on an outside source of distraction for our very active, highly inquisitive daughter. Besides, all her friends watch it" she mumbled under her breath, hoping Booth hadn't caught that final, horrid admission.
"Aha," he said triumphantly. "I knew you'd cave in to peer pressure eventually."
"The program happens to foment laudable moral values, such as camaraderie and empathy, Booth" she argued. "Its central premise is the idea that 'friendship is magic,' which you should find extremely appealing given your intrinsic love of fantasy. While I feel the program reinforces a number of antiquated female stereotypes, those drawbacks still don't make it objectionable enough for me to keep Christine from watching it. I'm confident that as her mother, the example which I, a rational person who generally eschews frivolity of any type, will be setting for her at home will more than counteract any negative gender-based messages she receives from a single television show."
"I love you mommy" Christine chirped, awed into a state of reverence by her mother's formidable vocabulary.
"I love you too, Christine," Brennan replied in a far less formal tone.
Booth watched the exchange in silence, a mischievous spark flaring up in his dark eyes.
"You couldn't resist giving in to her when she asked, could you?"
"No more than Dr. Freeman could resist you when you batted your eyelashes at her" she retorted.
Touché.
They both chuckled, and Brennan sat back in her seat, growing introspective as the hospital came into view.
"Booth, whatever gave you the idea of asking whether we could bring the kids along to see Hank? You already knew the hospital's strict policy on children in the ICU" she said, giving him a sidelong glance. "It was highly implausible they would grant your request."
His face immediately lost some of its former openness.
"Nothing. Why?" he asked, suddenly sounding tense and even a bit hostile. "Can't a guy take his kids see their great-grandfather at the hospital? Christine misses him, don't you muffin?" he finished, avoiding what he knew was at the heart of his wife's question.
He looked in the rearview mirror and saw his daughter's toothy grin.
"Don't ya, sugar bear?"
"I miss Pops a lot. I want to see him. He's still really sick, isn't he, daddy?"
"Yeah, sugar. But he's getting better every day, and when he sees you and your little brother, he's going to feel even better. As soon as he gets out of the hospital, I'm bringing him by the house and we can blow out candles and eat your birthday cake all over again. You'd like that right?"
"Yeah! More cake!"
Sensing her excitement, Hank squealed along with his sister.
"He'll love 'My Little Pony'" Booth said, winking at Brennan.
"You realize that you can't promise her any of that, Booth" Brennan warned in a low voice, careful not to let their daughter hear.
Christine was so much like Booth, so willing to believe and to trust and to have an almost too open of a heart. And just like her dad, so easily bruised when things she dreamt about didn't come true, like the real horse she'd expected from Santa Claus the previous Christmas. Brennan wanted more than anything for their child to retain that innocence and hopeful spirit forever, but she knew that life would inevitably end up scouring some if not most of that sense of wonder and of endless possibilities away. Just like one day she'd probably make fun of the syrupy sweet and overly optimistic television show she now loved.
She hated raining on Booth's parade, metaphorically speaking, but she also didn't want either her husband or her daughter to get so caught up in their own enthusiasm over Hanks' apparent improvement that it hurt them even more if the ailing man's journey took him out of their reach.
As much as it pained her to bring the festive tone of the evening down a notch, Brennan felt it was her moral duty as someone who loved them both to infuse a sense of reality into their rose-colored view of the world; to remind her partner in particular that nothing about his grandfather's recovery was set in stone.
"Don't-don't do that, Bones" Booth begged almost tearfully, boring his eyes into hers as they pulled into the hospital's parking garage. "Just let me enjoy tonight, okay? I really need this."
Brennan caught the hint of overwhelming sadness which lately was never far from her mate's voice.
"Okay," she agreed quietly.
Once Booth pulled into a spot and turned off the car's ignition, she reached out and touched his forearm to get his attention.
"I'm sorry, Booth. I shouldn't have voiced my opinion without taking into account the negative impact it might have had on you first. I'm used to speaking my mind at work, where candor is an absolute necessity, but I've come to realize that kind of behavior isn't always socially appropriate once I leave the lab. I didn't mean to upset you-I was only trying to help keep you grounded."
"No-don't ever hold anything back-not from me. You're perfect the way you are. And a lot of times I need to hear the stuff, even if I don't want to. Just not tonight, though. Please? Let me believe everything's going to turn out fine."
He looked so heart-rendingly forlorn, it made Brennan wish she could take back each and every one of those earlier cautionary words.
"Everything is fine" she said, forcing herself to smile. "Tonight, everything is perfect."
The superficial sense of ease that had buoyed the couple earlier returned slowly, albeit a little more subdued, and Booth laced his fingers through his wife's, silently thanking her for her support.
"Speaking about everything being fine, look who's here already" Booth remarked, as Max walked towards their car with his habitual shuffle. "Wonder what souvenir he got the kids off ebay this time?"
They both laughed openly at Max's mystery-shrouded ways and with that inside joke-which left Christine asking her parents "what? Why are you laughing?" about a dozen times in a row-the unorthodox celebration at Washington General's ICU got underway.