Lent, a time where people go crazy due to deprivation of the things they need. In this Hodgins, Booth and Sweets a forced to give up something that they really don't want to: football, conspiracy theories and… being Sweets. Set in 2014
When Cam had came up with the charity jar for Lent, a lot of people had been willing to take part to help the Special Care Baby Unit as a thank you for helping with baby Izzie. It had been 3 weeks. 3 weeks since they had agreed to do this.
Booth had agreed to give up football, which had caused him to miss three games, but he had managed to distract himself by trying to finish the tree house he had promised to build his 2-year-old daughter ages ago but hadn't had the chance to finish it due to work and other stuff. But now there was a very important match coming up and he needed to see it, but being a good Catholic and sticking to his promise to Brennan, Angela, Cam and God, he couldn't watch it. But he was struggling since it listening to the radio counted.
Hodgins agreed to give up conspiracy theories. Bit difficult when you see a case which is riddled with them. He had taken to just working on his bug experiments rather than getting involved in the case. Not that he was religious. It was because the last case that was riddled with conspiracies and Hodgins had jumped at every conspiracy and even performed an experiment that had nearly injured Colin Fisher as a result, just to prove that his theory was correct. But like Booth he was struggling.
Sweets on the other hand… was failing. I fact he was coming close to Fisher (who in turn promised to be positive- only without the foul tea) in the amount of dollars he had given to the charity jar. Booth already had paid $100 at the beginning out of Christian charity and because he felt they deserved the money as it was his daughter they helped and Hodgins had paid $5, because he had failed. Sweets had paid $35 because he couldn't resist sticking his nose in.
"I CANNOT TAKE IT ANYMORE!" Hodgins yelled through the Lab causing some laughter to come from Cam, Brennan and Clark who were on the platform. Hodgins stormed up with a face like thunder and slammed $10 on the table. "I'm sorry but something needs to be said. If this body really is who we think it is… then that means that the Russian Government is out to get us!"
"He's cracked. Absolutely cracked." Cam said.
"I concur, Dr Hodgins, have you lost your pebbles?" Brennan asked.
"It's marbles." Clark said.
"I may as well have considering I had been forced into this thing. I would have given the money anyway without being succumbed to this." Hodgins said.
"Maybe this was a little cruel towards him. In all fairness a lot of us paid before we even agreed to do this." Brennan said.
"It was just more fun this way. Poor Sweets has paid $35 because he cannot keep his flaming nose out." Cam said.
"At least Booth has kept his promise on football. At least the majority of the tree house is finished because I think Booth will have an aneurysm if Katy asks him if it finished one more time." Brennan said.
"Katy cannot be annoying to Booth. She's 'Daddy's Little Princess'." Cam said giving a half smile.
"I know. But sometimes she exhausts him as well." Brennan said. "Look Dr Hodgins, we know that asking you to give up your ridiculous obsessions was a bit much-"
"A bit?" Hodgins asked.
"-but there was no stopping you from pulling out. You just would have had to pay a $50 fine for it." Brennan finished her sentence.
Hodgins pulled out another $40 and put that on top of the $10 he put down earlier and skulked away.
"He took that better than I thought he would." Clark said.
bxbxbxbxbxb
"Booth, I got that meat you like for dinner and- what the hell Booth!" Brennan exclaimed when she saw Booth with Izzie on his lap and Sweets on the couch watching FOOTBALL.
"Um… it's Good Friday?" Booth said. "And this was Monday's game."
"I cannot believe that you broke your promise. You are a catholic. I thought that you had to stop on Easter Sunday." Brennan said.
"It ended yesterday." Booth said with an innocent smile on his face.
"So how much did we raise?" Sweets asked changing the conversation.
"Well, with the $300 we had at the start…$658. Hodgins gave us a last minute boost. And as promised, We all agreed to double the takings so we have $1316." Brennan said with a smile on her face.
"Wow that is great." Booth said standing up and hugging her without crushing the 6-month-old.
"I know. And it is a great way to say thank you to the SCBU at the hospital." she stroked Izzie's cheek and the baby gave a smile in response. "So who's winning?"
"Bears with 5 minutes to go." Sweets said and Booth and Brennan sat down.