I know, I know, it's been too long, but I promise I have a good excuse! Aside from the usual uni stuff, last week we found out that the bookstore I work at might have to close so I've been pretty depressed about that. It's been in trouble for a while now, so we kind of knew that it was coming, but still, it's never fun to be told that you're going to be out of a job soon - especially one you love. For the first twenty four hours I literally couldn't function, so I did what I'm sure a lot of you guys would do in that situation - watched old episodes of Bones until I couldn't think about anything else! ;)
Chapter 21.
"How did everything go at Dr. Brennan's appointment?" Cam asked when she stopped by to deliver her autopsy report.
Instead of taking his partner back to the lab, Booth had dropped her off at his place with Parker so that she could rest while he went back to the office to finish off some paperwork.
"Great. Apparently I am good at making boys." He hit the play button on his computer again, angling the screen towards her to give her a better view. "Is that not the best looking kid you've ever seen?" he boasted, his face splitting into a broad grin as he watched the grainy footage for what must have been the tenth time in the last hour. "Except for Parker, of course."
"Of course," she agreed with a smile, coming around the desk to stand beside his chair. "Although I'd be a bad mom if I didn't mention Michelle."
"It was amazing," he continued after a moment. "We got to see everything. They even showed us the soles of his feet. Bones was in heaven. She kept asking questions about his metatarsals or whatever, which she says are perfect, just like the rest of him."
"I'm really happy for you, Seeley," Cam told him. "I know how much you wanted this to work out."
"What?" he asked when her smile froze, his own smile sliding for his face.
"Hold it there." He paused the video so that she could examine it more closely. "I would consider asking for a different sonographer next time."
"Why?" He squinted at the screen, trying to figure out what had got her attention. Everything appeared normal to him, but then he wasn't the one with the medical degree.
"Because that is not a boy."
He turned to look at her in surprise. "Wait, are you sure?"
"Positive," she agreed. "Unless your son has a vagina."
"But she saw his thing," he protested. According to Brennan, the odds of their baby being a girl were slightly less than fifty per cent. He wondered if she knew what the odds of it being a hermaphrodite were.
"What she saw was probably just the umbilical cord," Cam explained. "It's an easy mistake to make – especially if you're using a black and white Doppler." She clapped him on the shoulder. "Congratulations, Seeley. It looks like you finally broke the streak."
If what she said was true, then not only would this be his first daughter, but she would be the first girl born into the Booth family in generations. He sobered when he remembered that he and Brennan weren't the only ones under the impression that she was expecting another Booth boy. "What am I gonna tell Parker? He said he wanted to give the baby back to God if it was a girl." His son was a good kid. Wasn't that what he kept telling his partner? He would never actually do anything to hurt the baby… would he?
He could see that Cam was surprised? "Parker? He was there?"
"We thought if he saw it, it might make it more real for him," he explained.
"You know, Bones told me it was a girl," he added thoughtfully. He couldn't wait to see the look on her face when she found out that her instincts might have been right after all.
"She read the sonogram too?"
"No, she said she just had a 'feeling'."
"Dr. Brennan said that?" Cam repeated in a dubious tone."The same woman who refuses to discuss motive during a case?"
"I'll admit, when she told me she wanted a kid, I was sceptical too," he agreed, "but she's changed so much since she got pregnant."
Six months ago, if someone had told him that she would not only allow him to share her bed, but actually invite him into it, he would have said they were crazy, but each day he could see her softening, becoming a little less cynical, a little more open-hearted. Surely it wouldn't be much longer before she realised what everyone else had been telling them for years: that they could be great together, him, her, and their little girl, or boy, or whatever it happened to be.
The living room was empty when Booth let himself into his apartment; he followed the sound of voices into the kitchen, where his son and his partner were sitting at the table, surrounded by jars and bottles and other assorted items, engaged in what appeared to be some kind of experiment. He stood in the doorway for a moment, drinking in the sight of the mother of his second child interacting with his first.
"What's all this?" he asked when he finally moved to join them.
"We're learning about density," Brennan told him. She turned back to Parker with a sly grin. "Should we show him?"
He nodded enthusiastically. "This is honey," he explained, tapping the bottom of the jar closest to him, "this is water, and this is oil. The honey is the thickest, then the water, then the oil." He picked a penny up off the table and dropped it into the jar. "The penny sinks down to the honey, because it's the heaviest, but when I put a grape in—" He placed one in the jar to demonstrate "—it only goes down to the water because it's lighter than the honey, but heavier then the oil." Next, he added a bottle cork. "The cork is the lightest so it floats." When he was finished, he looked to Brennan for approval. Did I get that right? his eager expression asked.
"Excellent work, Parker," she praised him and he beamed at her, pleased with the compliment. "I couldn't have put it better myself."
"Wow," was all Booth could think to say, though it wasn't the science experiment that had him in awe. "Great job, bub," he told his son, mussing his unruly blonde curls affectionately. He caught Brennan's eye and they exchanged grins. "I think that's enough homework for now though. Why don't you go play in your room until dinner?" he suggested. He wasn't sure that he was ready for him to hear what Cam said yet; he felt like they should at least wait until after the next sonogram to be sure.
"Can we order pizza?"
"Sure. If that's okay with Bones?"
"Pizza sounds fine," she agreed.
With that, he slid out of his chair and scurried off.
"You spoil him," Brennan told him with a wry smile as soon as his son was out of earshot, standing to empty the jars into the sink.
He shrugged out of his jacket, rolling up his sleeves so that he could help her clean up. "Not intentionally," he assured her. "It's just what happens when you only get to see your kid ever other weekend." He didn't like to spend the little time he had with him arguing, so he tried to save it for when it was something really important.
She rinsed the honey out of the jar carefully while she thought this over. "I promise that I'll be fairer to you when the time comes to discuss custody," she said quietly, turning off the tap and placing it upside down on the sink. "I would never interfere with you spending time with our child."
"Damn straight," he agreed, trying to keep the conversation light-hearted to avoid getting emotional. "I'll be at your place so often both of you will be sick of me."
"I could never get sick of you, Booth," she corrected him, "and I don't think this baby could either. He's going to love you, just like Parker."
He bit back a smile at her use of the word 'he'. "How about you come sit down with me?" he said, determined to set the record straight. "There's something I wanna tell you."
Immediately, her expression changed to one of concern. "Is something wrong?"
"No, this is actually good news. At least I hope it is."
He took her hand and led her over to the couch, waiting until they were both settled, facing each other, to tell her his story. "Cam came by my office today.
"How is that newsworthy?" she insisted, her nose wrinkling in confusion.
"I'm getting to that part," he assured her, refusing to let her rush him. "Cam came by my office," he repeated, ignoring her impatient look, "so I showed her the sonogram, and she said that he is actually a she."
Her hand drifted to her belly, caressing it absently as she processed this. "You mean she said the baby is a girl?" she asked.
"Yeah. You were right, Bones. Looks like you might get your daughter after all."
"Cam is not an obstetrician or a sonographer," she argued stubbornly. "She's not really qualified to make those kinds of judgements."
"No, but I trust her," he admitted. She was as good at her job as his partner was hers. "If she says it's a girl, then I believe her."
"She really thinks it's a girl?" she repeated, staring down at the spot where her hand rested, then back up at him, in wonderment. "You too?"
"Yeah. I do."
A slow smile spread over her face as this sunk in, but moments later, it was replaced by a frown. "Are you disappointed?" she asked as an apparent afterthought.
That wasn't the reaction he was expecting. "Disappointed? Why would you think that?" he asked her.
"You said it felt like a boy," she reminded him. "And you're always referring to it as male. Would you be very disappointed if it wasn't?"
He hated the way she was looking at him, like she was afraid that she'd let him down him somehow, or worse, like she thought that he might change his mind about wanting to be involved now, even though she of all people had to know how irrational that was. If anyone was responsible for the baby being or not being a boy, it was him. He was the one who'd produced the deciding gene. "Honestly? I already have a son. If the baby does turn out to be a girl, then all that means is that I'll have one of each."
I'm surprised at how many of you guessed where I was going with that! Based on your responses to the last chapter, I know that some of you are going to be unhappy with me, but it seems like whichever gender I choose, people are going to be disappointed.