May 12th (End of Sophomore year)
"Maybe we should think about…resigning the lease…" Booth said casually over breakfast.
"Hmm?"
Booth shrugged. "Well the lease will be up by the end of July and if we don't resign, we have to be outta here by then. We gotta sign by June first."
Brennan nodded. Maybe they should. Two years ago, when she first came to campus, she didn't even imagine that she'd be where she was: Almost done with her master's, living in an apartment, and most of all, in love with the university's star quarterback. The weekends he was gone for away games were horrible. She felt lonely in the tiny apartment and she knew Booth was constantly worried about her. He wanted to know she was safe.
"Okay, well, maybe we should think about it," she said.
"So…you'll be done with your master's soon…what's after that?"
Brennan looked up at him. She wasn't sure what he meant but she answered him honestly. "Well, I'll go through commencement with my peers during the winter break and then I'll begin working on my doctoral thesis."
Booth just nodded. "Okay…so what's after that?"
Now she was starting to get confused. Brennan wasn't sure what Booth was trying to do. Since she was having problems reading him, the only thing Brennan could do was tell the truth.
"I haven't really thought that far ahead. I would really like to go to Georgetown for my doctoral work, though. I love their anthropology program. The head of the department seems like he really knows what he's talking about. They have very good upper level cultural anthropology classes there."
Booth face fell. "Oh…that sounds nice. When are you going to go?" he asked quietly.
She could tell he was sad, but he was trying to act indifferent. Brennan was sitting across from him at their little kitchen table built for two. He was trying to occupy himself by separating the marshmallows in his sugary kids' cereal.
"I doubt I'll be going to Georgetown anytime in the near future."
That made Booth look up at her. "Why? If that's where you want to go, and if that's what best for you, you should go."
"Why are you asking me all of this?" she asked him. She could see the heartache in his eyes and he could see the passion and fury in hers. Brennan was confused, and a little scared, as to why he was suddenly asking about her academic future.
"Well…if you're leaving or ever plan to leave, I just want to know. So I can be ready."
"Ready for what?"
He sighed. "Ready so I can go with you. I mean, if you want me too."
Brennan had never been more confused. "So what you're saying is if I decided tomorrow to go finish my master's at Georgetown, you'd quit the football team and go to Georgetown too?"
He nodded. Booth was back to pushing his cereal around again.
"Why would you do that? You can't give up football! It's the reason you're here. Does Georgetown even have a football team?"
Booth only shrugged. He was afraid of pushing her away. He knew he should've approached this subject a little differently but he wanted to know where they, as a couple, were heading.
"You can't leave the team, Booth. They're counting on you. You guys were the national champions two years in a row. And all Adam and Brandon can talk about is doing the same thing again next season."
"I don't want to leave. But if you're not here, then I can't be here. I need you, Bren. I'd follow you anywhere."
Now she had no idea what he was talking about. How did they go from talking about the lease to leaving Northwestern, she wondered.
"Look, Booth, I'm not planning on going to Georgetown. It'd be nice to go there, but I can't really afford it at this point. I mean, we can barely afford this apartment and Hank is helping us. Plus, I'm on academic scholarship here for two more years. I'm trying to get as much done as I can while the university is paying for me."
"Okay," Booth said. He seemed content now. And he was, knowing she wasn't really going anywhere. Sure, she could walk out on him but at least he could find her easily. And in this town, being the national champion two years running could practically get him anything he wanted. He could find her if she left. He was just worried about her heading miles away, to the nation's capital, where he may not be able to locate her.
"Okay? That's it?" Brennan was still confused. She had thought that conversation had gone over well, but his quick change in emotion was troubling to her.
"Yeah. I love you, Bren, and I just needed to know that, for the most part, you aren't just going to up and leave. I just need to know where we're going, where our relationship is going."
"Oh…well, I'd say our relationship is continuing forward and we have a very stable relationship. We communicate on a regular, daily basis, we engage in coitus on an almost daily basis as well and we know how to maintain equal time amongst our education, ourselves and our friends."
He laughed a great big belly laugh and reached across the table to take her hand.
"Bren, you don't have to make us sound like an experiment. All you had to say is our relationship is right where it should be."
He was confusing her again. "But that's what I did say."
Brennan was on her way home from the library when she saw Angela walking toward her.
"Sweetie! Hey! I was just stopped by your place to wish you good luck on your finals but you weren't there."
"Well, thank you but I don't have finals like yours. I'm a graduate student. I only have papers due. The only things I'm working on besides grading papers are my research and thesis. But I wish you luck on your finals."
Angela smiled. "Thanks, Sweetie. Hey, I'm meeting Jack down at Jake's Pub for dinner. Do you wanna come?"
"No, thanks, Ange. I really do need to grade these papers by tomorrow. Tell Jack I say hi, though."
"Will do. See you later, Bren!"
The friends parted ways and Brennan arrived at her apartment soon after. It was dark in the apartment, meaning Booth was still at spring practice. She sat at the small kitchen table, reading over her students' papers and taking a red pen to everything she found wrong.
"Hey, babe!" Booth called as he walked in the door. He dropped his duffel bag full of gym clothes and went to see what she was working on. He stared at the papers covered in red.
"Wow," he commented, "your students aren't doing so hot."
Brennan grimaced. "They should know by now how kerf marks are made and how to determine the height of an individual from a tibia. This is insanely frustrating."
Booth sat down across from her. "Bren, you're teaching Introduction to Forensic Anthropology. You can't expected them to know everything. They're only freshmen."
"Booth, some of these students are in their fifth year of their undergraduate education. They should know how to research and write papers by now. This work is not conducive to a college environment.
He smiled at her. "Not everyone is a genius like you, babe. Not everyone can be almost done with a master's degree by the end of their second year of college."
Brennan rolled her eyes. "That's because I go above and beyond the average student. I'm taking several more semester hours than you are and teaching two classes."
He walked to her and kissed her on the cheek, letting his lips linger as he pulled back.
"So what exactly are we doing this summer?" Booth whispered.
Brennan didn't respond and focused on grading those papers. Booth followed her with his eyes as he moved around the kitchen making popcorn.
"Bren! Hello? I'm asking you something here!" he shouted playfully.
She finally looked up at him. Brennan was annoyed. "Booth, I'm trying to get these papers done by morning. Can we please talk about the summer later?"
Booth shook his head. "Now, please." He yawned and stretched his arms. Tossing the bowl of popcorn on some of her students' papers, Booth sat across from her. Brennan quickly gathered the papers to keep from getting the insane amounts of butter Booth had added from getting on the papers she had already corrected.
Brennan gave up and put the papers away. She sat back in her chair and stared him down. "So why are you demanding to talk about summer? You shouldn't even be thinking about your break until after finals are over."
Booth shoved a fist full of popcorn in mouth and said, "I wanna know what we're doing. We need a vacation. You need a vacation. You work and study non-stop, Bren! We should go somewhere warm…with a beach. Florida! Or maybe Cali! Oh, come on, Bren! Road trip! We always have fun on road trips!"
She shook her head. "I have wasted too much time. I really should've worked last summer. I could be done with my master's by now, you know. I would like to get a least half of my doctoral research completed before you graduate. Plus, I don't take classes over winter break so I can go watch you play football. That is a vacation enough for me."
Booth knew she was trying to be nice and it was always hard for him to be upset with her. But he wanted to spend time with her without constantly talking about her Homo rhodesiensis research.
"Maybe you and the guys from the team could take a trip," she suggested.
"I'm not leaving you in Chicago all by yourself. Plus, I'd be really bored without you. I don't want to go on a vacation without you, babe, please. Let's just go somewhere."
"No." She picked up her papers and moved into the bedroom, spreading out the papers in an organized fashion. She began to correct a fresh paper again as he followed her.
Booth knew it would be a hard fought battle but he was determined to at least get her thinking about the possibility of a vacation.
"Aren't there places you'd like to travel to? Someplace far away that you want to visit before you die?" he prompted. "What do you want from life?" Booth gave her the vague question as an afterthought. They had never really talked about their life after college and Booth had recently found the urge to know if her life after her four years at NU included him, something he desperately hoped for. He knew he had found her, he had found the one for him but she hardly ever talked about anything but school. Booth needed to know what she wanted, if anything, after their college career at Northwestern was over.
"What exactly do you mean?" It caught Brennan's attention and she made room in her pile of papers for Booth to sit and talk.
"Besides anthropology and your education, is there anything else that would bring great meaning to your life?" he hoped there was more than just her favorite school subject but Booth doubted it. He was worried he wasn't good enough to have at least a small role in her life. He looked at her and waited, almost impatiently, for her to answer.
"Well, I would like to travel to the important areas around the globe that important anthropological discoveries have been made, but I could assume that would fall under the broader category of schooling."
She thought for a moment longer, and with a smile she added, "Italy. And Ireland. I've always wanted to go to those two countries. The pictures always make it look so beautiful. Greece, too. And perhaps Australia. I'm not too picky when it comes to traveling to places I've never been before. I'm still excited every time we go to Philadelphia. Our New York trip with Ange and Jack was quite delightful as well."
Booth smiled. He was happy to know there were other places she wanted to go that she didn't automatically associate with death and old skeletons.
"So what else? Like…what's your dream job?"
She shrugged. "Being a professor would suffice, assuming that I would still be doing research."
Booth nodded. "Okay…well how about…finding your mom and dad? Ever think about that?"
"All the time," she confessed. "I just don't remember anything about them that would help us find them. Mom was a bookkeeper and dad was a teacher. Matt and Christine. It's not like there was anything extraordinary about them. They were normal people until they left just like that. It's not like they were cops who had enemies."
"Well, it's a start. Maybe…we could try looking for them. I'll help you look if you want but I don't want to fight like we did about my mom. You think about it. Decide if you want to look for them; I mean really think about it. We could look into finding Russ again too. We have an even better idea of where to look for him! Hollywood, right? Trying to score some odd jobs around movie sets or something?"
Brennan nodded and smiled at him. She couldn't believe she was even thinking about looking for mom and dad. It almost scared her. But she couldn't decide right then if she didn't want to because she was scared of what she'd find, or because she was too mad at them for leaving.
"Why are you asking me all of this?"
Booth kissed her quickly, not wanting to get distracted. "I just want to know every tiny, insignificant detail about you, what you think, and what you want," he told her
She made a few marks on the paper in her and shoved the rest aside, moving to lie down next to him. Booth was on his back and she cuddled up to his side, resting her head on his chest.
Brennan started absentmindedly playing with his Saint Sebastian medal and asked, "So what else do you want to know?"
He didn't answer right away. Booth thought hard about his next question. "When you leave NU, where do you want to go?"
"Haven't thought that far ahead yet. I have a few ideas but without a PhD, I'm not the first candidate for the jobs."
"Tell me."
"Well, there's just basic museum jobs. The Field Museum in Chicago would be nice and I really like the anthropology program at Arizona State. The professors down there seem quite knowledgeable. I like the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Remember when we went there? And the Jeffersonian in D.C. has a quite extensive collection of members of the Hominidae family and their subcategories. I'm not sure yet though."
"So…" As much as Booth wanted to know about her career path, he found the subject boring and very far over his head. He really did care about where she went after college but she tended to talk to him like she would to a professor when the subject of anthropology came up. What he really wanted to know was about their life, their future together.
"I don't really know what to think about my future anymore. I didn't think I was going to fall in love with someone. I didn't think anyone would really love me the way you do. I had plans. And they all involved me being alone. I never expected to have someone like you in my life. But now that I do, everything's changing. Instead of trips to Nepal and India for research, I'm thinking of kids and getting married, things normal people think of," Brennan blurted out. She blushed and buried her face in his chest.
"Why do you say it like that?"
"I don't know what you're saying…"
"Like you're not normal. You're acting like thinking of the future isn't normal. Wanting to get married and have kids is natural. I think about it all the time," Booth told her.
"You do?"
Uh oh, he thought. This could go either really well or really bad. Booth had finally gotten to where he wanted. He wanted to know if Brennan wanted the same thing he did: a family, something neither of them really had.
"Uh…well, yeah. I mean, not necessarily soon but eventually, I want to get married and have kids."
She didn't respond. Booth couldn't see her face but he was worried about pushing things too far. Though they had been together for almost two years, they were each other's best friends and Booth knew long ago she was the only one for him.
"I think I do too."
He sat up quickly, forcing Brennan off his chest. Booth turned to look at her as she lay back down. Booth knew Pops would think two years together was a little short to be proposing but now that's all he could think about. Rings, white dresses, and black tuxedos were running through his mind like crazy.
Booth noticed Bren was grinning wildly and her face was redder than a red delicious apple.
Booth lowered himself on top of her gently and kissed her deeply. It drove her crazy when he did that. She took his face in her hands and kissed him back even harder. She lost control and tore off his shirt.
"Bren, what about those papers?" he said, running his hands up her shirt.
"Screw 'em," Brennan mumbled and worked on pulling off his belt buckle.
A/N: Sorry, this took a little longer than I thought. I wanted to get their talk just right. Let me know what you guys think! Your feedback is always appreciated!
