Thanks for the reviews. I was a nervous about posting the last chapter - I wanted it to be realistic and not contrived - so I'm glad everyone liked it.
Chapter 38.
"I think we should buy a house." Brennan was lounging on her side, nursing C.C. in bed.
Booth lay opposite them, supporting their daughter with one hand on her back, his middle finger running the length of her delicate spine. "You're serious?" he asked her. "Just like that, you wanna buy a house?" Whatever happened to taking things slow this time?
"We're already committed to raising a child together," she pointed out. "It's only logical that we share a domicile."
"Don't get me wrong, I think living together is a great idea," he agreed, "but why a house? Why not just move into one of our apartments until C.C. gets older?"
"You said it yourself – there's barely enough room for the three of us, let alone four of us."
"Four? Bones, I know you were in grad school before you lost your virginity, but didn't anyone ever tell you that you can't get pregnant from making out?" he teased her. That was something they'd been doing a lot of, since they couldn't actually have sex.
She screwed her face up in confusion. "What? That doesn't even make sense, Booth. There's no sperm in saliva and even if there was, how would…?" She broke into a grin when she realised that he was just messing with her. "You're being ironic."
"You got me," he agreed. "I think we've established that you need—" He covered their daughter's dainty ears to prevent her from hearing the word a second time "— sperm to have a baby."
"Do adolescents really believe that?" she asked curiously. "That it's possible to become pregnant from non-penetrative sexual acts?"
He was glad that he'd had the foresight to shield C.C.'s ears. He didn't want her getting any ideas. "My first girlfriend did," he admitted. "We were twelve."
She shook her head with a smile. "You were quite the lothario when you were a boy."
"I still am," he told her, raising her eyebrows suggestively.
Either his powers were fading or she was too distracted to fall prey to his charms. "I was talking about Parker," she explained in a serious voice. "I assume that you would like for him to spend more time with us now that we are attempting to form a family unit?"
"Not attempting, Bones," he corrected her. He had no intention of leaving her or C.C. ever again. "We're already a family. But you're right, I would like Parker to be a part of that, if that's still okay with you?"
"Of course," she agreed. "Parker will always be welcome in our home."
He kissed her gently."Have I ever told you how much I love you?"
"Once or twice."
He kissed her again before getting up to retrieve the morning paper.
When he came back, Brennan had finished feeding C.C. and was playing with her, talking to her in a soft voice.
He climbed back into bed with them, settling back against the headboard with the property section spread open across his lap."There're a couple of three bedrooms in Arlington for around four hundred. We could drive out there and take a look in the New Year."
"Perhaps we should expand the search to include houses with four and five bedrooms?" Brennan suggested, placing C.C. back inside her crib.
"Five bedrooms?" he repeated. "You really think we're gonna have two guests at the same time? Maybe at Christmas…" Slowly it dawned on him. "You want another baby!"
She didn't make eye contact with him, studying the property listings intently instead.
"You do!" he insisted. "Come on, admit it, Bones. Now that you've seen how perfectly the first one turned out, you wanna make more."
"Not right away," she protested.
"Aha! So you're not gonna deny it?"
"I'm only thinking of Celia. Studies show that children can benefit from having siblings close in age."
He smiled. "You want another baby," he repeated in a softer tone, poking her affectionately in the ribs.
"Don't you?" she asked seriously. "You're always telling me what a blessing children are."
They were still adjusting to life as a threesome, soon to be foursome. He wasn't ready to add to that any time soon. "Not right at this moment, but a year from now? Definitely." He glanced over at their daughter, snoring softly in her crib on Brennan's other side. "If he or she is as beautiful as C.C., I might even want two." He would take as many as she was prepared to give him, whether that was two or three or just their one perfect daughter.
"Two?" She sounded slightly incredulous. "Shouldn't we wait until Celia is sleeping through the night before we discuss procreating in multiples?"
"You're the one who started this conversation by suggesting we buy a house with spare bedrooms," he reminded her.
"Angela says that the correct way to conceive a child is to 'get naked together and devour each other in a passionate frenzy'," she told him, her blue eyes sparkling. "I would very much like to try that next time."
He laughed. "Me too, Bones," he agreed, kissing her. "Me too."
On Christmas Eve, Booth sat on the bed with C.C. propped against his stomach, watching a towel-clad Brennan deliberate over the contents of her closet. He was already dressed for dinner and so was their daughter; him in a navy button down shirt and jeans, and her in a white dress with a red velvet top: another gift from her "favourite" Aunt Angela.
"I'll get it," he told Brennan when the doorbell rang. He stood up, taking their daughter with him. "Let's go see who's at the door."
Sure enough, it was Max. He looked from the baby, back up to Booth's face. "Something you wanna tell me, Booth?"
Booth lifted her up so that Max could see her better. "Max, I would like you to meet Celia Christine Brennan-Booth. Your granddaughter."
"Booth, huh?" Max repeated in a quizzical tone.
Booth gazed down at his daughter and smiled."Yeah."
When he returned his attention to Max, Brennan's father was grinning. "Thank God. I was afraid she would've sent you packing by now," he confessed, and Booth felt a pang of guilt at how close his words were to the truth. Fortunately, he'd come to his senses. "I thought Tempe said she wasn't due until February?"
"She was," Booth agreed, "but try telling C.C. that."
"C.C.?"
"The baby. Celia Christine. C.C.," he explained. In all honesty, her real name made him slightly uncomfortable, mostly because he still wasn't sure that he deserved it. It wasn't what he would have chosen, but he wasn't about to reject the gesture by asking Brennan to change it. "That's what I've been calling her. Bones hates it."
"Tempe never liked any of the nicknames Chris and I gave her either. I'm surprised she lets you get away with calling her 'Bones'," Max told him with a smirk. "But you know what? I like it. It's cute. May I?" He held his arms out for the baby and after only a brief moment of hesitation Booth handed her over. "Hello, C.C. I'm your grandpa. You know, you look just like your mama when she was a baby. Those big blue eyes and all that reddish hair…"
"Not you too, Dad," Brennan complained, emerging from the bedroom in a high waisted dress that Booth recognised from early on in her pregnancy. "Her name is Celia."
"So I've heard." Max returned the baby to Booth so that he could embrace his daughter, pecking her cheek before stepping back to take her in. "You look great, honey. Are you sure you just had a baby?"
She frowned. "Where else would Celia have come from?"
"I don't know, maybe the stork brought her," Max joked.
Brennan's frown deepened. "Why would a stork abduct a human infant and then deliver it to my apartment?"
Max exchanged an amused look with Booth, who just shrugged. He was used to his girlfriend's literal mindedness. "Nevermind. What's for dinner?"
"Thai food," Brennan admitted. "I was going to cook a turkey but Celia is very demanding."
"Couldn't Booth take care of her?" Max asked, disappointed. "He is her father."
"She prefers my breasts," Brennan explained.
"So you decided to breastfeed? Good for you. Your mother breastfed both you and Russ, you know."
"Yes, I know," she agreed. "Mom told me."
"Can we stop saying the word 'breast'?" Booth complained. He was okay with the breastfeeding thing, but not okay enough to have this conversation with her dad.
"Booth is uncomfortable discussing anything to do with the reproductive system in front of company," Brennan explained, "although he does seem to enjoy watching me feed Celia."
Booth cringed inwardly as Max shifted his attention back to him. "Really, Booth?" he asked, cocking one eyebrow at him. "You like looking at my baby naked?"
If he said 'no', then he ran the risk or offending his girlfriend and maybe her father too. He'd never forgotten the way he asked him if the reason he wasn't sleeping with his daughter was because she wasn't attractive enough for him. And if he said 'yes', well, he wouldn't be the first person Max had killed. It was definitely a lose-lose situation. "You really want me to answer that?"he asked helplessly.
"Of course not," Max assured him. "I just like watching you squirm." He nodded at C.C. "You'll understand one day."
Booth shot him a disgruntled look.
"So, Booth, are you living here now?" Max asked, looking around the apartment as if searching for something to confirm his suspicions. "You seemed pretty at home before when you opened to door."
"Temporarily."He glanced over at Brennan to gauge her response. He wasn't sure if she wanted to make the announcement now or wait until they'd actually found a new place.
"Booth and I are buying a house in which to cohabitate," she chimed in, solving the dilemma for him.
"So you are together?" Max said, glancing from one to the other. "I didn't wanna ask, in case… Everything is so complicated with you two."
Tell me about it, Booth thought. He was glad that those days seemed to be over and that they were finally on the same page.
"We've decided that we would like to raise Celia as a couple, as indicated by her combined surname," Brennan agreed. "We've also discussed the possibility of providing her with siblings in the future, although the final number is still yet to be determined."
"Well that is wonderful news," Max told them, breaking into a grin. He turned to Booth. "Does this mean you're planning to make an honest woman out of my daughter?"
"A little help here, Bones," Booth muttered. It wasn't like he hadn't tried.
"Booth has expressed his desire to get married as soon as possible, however I would like to wait," Brennan told her father.
"Just don't wait too long," he advised her. "Marrying your mom was the best thing I ever did – apart from having you kids, of course."
"Wait?" Booth repeated, still stuck on what she'd said, forcing himself to appear calm in case he'd misunderstood her. "You mean you're actually thinking about it?"
"Marriage may be an antiquated ritual, but as an anthropologist, I can see the logic in it," she agreed. "Marriage provides a sense of security, not just for the couple, but for their offspring as well." She shrugged, flashing him a diffident smile. "Besides, for the first time in my life, I find that I no longer have any inclination to be with anyone else."
Booth could have kissed her right then, but they weren't alone. "Bones, you just made me the happiest man on Earth," he told her.
"You can't possibly know that," she insisted.
"Fine, you just made me the happiest person in this room," he tried again.
Her smile grew until it mirrored his. "I doubt that."
There will probably only be one more chapter after this (Parker) and then maybe a short epilogue to bring it to an even 40.