Created April 2013 - I don't own these characters as made famous by the TV show, Bones. Love them anyway. All the rest that follows is my feeble attempt to keep time in between broadcasts and Razztaztic, Threesquares, and Covalent Bond postings.

A/N: 12/06/2013. A little Hank Booth is thrown in to this chap. My M & D have recently celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary, and I was treated to a stroll down Memory Lane during a chat with my Pop. Immediately made me think of Pops.

RIP to Nelson Mandela. Sad to lose another presence on the Earth who was focused on making it better. What a privilege to have witnessed his greatness. Thank you, Universe! Out of respect, I've moved the eulogy component out to the next chap.

The Nigel-Murray clan wanted us somber for the funeral, and well they've succeeded.

As I look around the church, I see the faces of all the men that we met last night at the pub. A rainbow of yellow, green and gray complexions.

Not a good look for these pasty white faces.

Clark and Arastoo neither.

I feel, and I'm sure I look like crap. But compared to what I'm seeing among the crowd, I'm in pretty decent shape. Hodgins is definitely in the best condition; he maybe had two full pints and a then a shot with me. He's on Angela Alert in case she goes into labor early, so of course he's fine. Sweets on the other hand – what a mess.

Heh! Victor did a number on him last night because I know that Sweets can hold his own. I've had more than a few boozy nights with him, a lot over my last few months with Hannah, in fact. He's a good drinking buddy, far less annoying drunk than he usually is, and he can keep up with my pace. Not a good as Bones or Hannah can, but good enough.

For a while there, Sweets was the only drinking buddy that I had. After that weekend, for sure.

"For our own good", Bones had essentially demoted me to 'partner' and declined all of my social invitations. She wouldn't go out for drinks unless the other squints were invited, and she'd only eat out with me if we were discussing a fucking case, and if Hannah was in tow.

So fucked up. Discussing ongoing FBI investigations with a reporter present. Girlfriend or not, how stupid was I?

Bones had even begged off on doing interviews and started catching rides with Cam to crime scenes whenever she could. I was in exile. Bones had cut me off.

And it seemed, so had my girlfriend.

Since she had returned from her last trip with the President, Hannah and I had been "off". At the time, I thought she was just pissed and distracted by being on the sidelines when the WikiLeaks story about the Iraqi documents had broken. But now I know better: I had called her in a drunken stupor, confessing my feelings for another woman. A woman that I just told her that I was over.

Stupid insensitive fuck…Asshole!

But I didn't know that then, I just assumed that Hannah was busy doing her thing. So I spent more time working out and playing hockey; more time at the office and gun range… and more time hanging out with Sweets. And it wasn't so bad. I like the kid. Even though he's a nosy P.I.T.A., his heart's in the right place. And I certainly like him more than I like a Hell of a lot of other people. Definitely more than my own brother.

Oddly enough, it's Bones' fault. She may swear up and down about how infuriating Sweets is, but it's Bones who made me give the kid a chance in the first place. And I got used to him.

Like one gets used to an eye twitch.

With Bones shunning me, Hannah working, Wendell busy with school, Cam on "Cloud Paul" and Hodgins on Expectant Father Duty, Sweets officially became "My Boy".

Robin to my Batman.

Cato to my Green Lantern.

Jimmy Olson to my Clark Kent…

…Who am I kidding? I'm Superman.

Heh.

Gilligan to my Skipper.

Hanging out with Sweets was a minefield, for obvious reasons. For years, he was assigned by the FBI to "evaluate and assess" me and Bones. My entire relationship with Sweets is based upon his as-intimate-as-we-let-him-get relationship with me and Bones. Double-edged sword: through Sweets, I had an ally in "softening" up Bones' rough edges a little, getting her to accept that she has emotions and desires just like the rest of us. Flipside though, is that when I was with Hannah, Sweets poked and prodded and challenged me at every turn. Don't think that he ever bought that I really loved Hannah. If I didn't know any better, I'd say that he Jedi-mind tricked me into forcing things with Han. I mean, he gushes on and on about marrying Daisy, taunts me about my own love life… practically dares me not to take a stand with her. And then he backs out of wanting to marry her!?

Let it be, Seeley. I am not a guinea pig, and Sweets would never be so self-serving as to manipulate a situation in my personal life to force a specific outcome.

And another thing I know for certain, that Little Fucker will probably be pretty smug about me and Bones when he recovers.

Bah! That kind of goading – I can deal with it. As long as Bones is by my side. Or sitting on the side opposite Parker.

I look down at our joined hands. Fifteen fingers entwined as Parker's tiny hand is clasped in between ours.

Ours.

Me and Bones.

For as shitty as I physically feel, I've never felt as contented as I do right now; in the company of the two of the three people I love more than anyone in the world.

Bones takes a deep breath as she stares straight ahead. She will be giving Vincent's eulogy shortly.

The irony of all of this is not lost on me. My partner, the most outspoken atheist that I know, is about to eulogize another atheist in his family's church. I thought that Bones would decline the occasion, citing the absurdity of the family's facilitation of Lutheran funeral traditions given Vincent's blah, blah, blah-bleh…When she wanted to, she could absolutely be the Queen of Jibber Jabber.

But she surprised me – she had wanted to do this.

I guess Pops was right. We're both full of shit.

"Shrimp tells me that he and the reporter lady are Splitsville…"

"Pops…" Booth pleaded.

"Quiet, Son. I'm talking to Temperance right now."

Brennan frowned at both men. "I'm sorry Hank, I don't know what that means."

Hank pursued his lips at the stubborn scientist "Yes you do! The Barbie from Bagram is out of the picture. So I want to know when the two of you are going to come to your senses and make a go of it!"

"Pops!" Booth whined, putting his head in his hands.

Brennan scoffed, amused by Booth's disdain. There were very few people in the world who could make Booth squirm and get away with it, two of whom were in the room.

Max too she thought. No. Perhaps not. Booth would just arrest him.

"Hank, Booth and I have talked, and we both agree that while there is a possibility in the future that both of us will be ready to pursue mutual romantic interests our sustainability is questionable." she sought out Booth's eyes for agreement.

Professionally, we have become very compatible. We also concur that intercourse would be very satisfying…"

"Bones!" Booth hissed.

Hank chuckled while Brennan peered with annoyance at her partner. "Emotionally, however, significant obstacles exist. Booth is recovering from a metaphorically broken heart…" Booth hung his head in exasperated defeat.

Brennan hesitated before she continued. "…and I am limited in my ability to effectively emote, demonstrate vulnerability, and align my values in a way commensurate with Booth's expectations for a sustainable romantic relationship."

Booth's head snapped toward Brennan. "What are you talking about, Bones? Expectations! What expectations?"

Hank shifted back into a more comfortable spot in his chair.

Looks like the fireworks are about to begin.

Brennan hesitantly eyed Booth. "Booth, you are a very religious man! You are spiritual! Y-, you think that burning slips of a hot dog wrapper with dates written on them is like an offering to the Universe to ensure that we will be together. I am not spiritual, I am a scientist... I am an atheist! I don't believe in marriage. You believe in the sanctity of marriage, you want to be married. You broke up with Hannah because she didn't want to marry you."

Her body shrugged off a resigned sigh, tired from defending this position over and over again.

"First order logic dictates that we will not be able to successfully sustain a romantic partnership because our core values are disparate." She searched Booth's face, cataloging each subtle reaction. Biting her lip, her face anguished at her conclusion. "While our intentions are altruistic, I don't foresee how we'd be able to maintain a successful romantic and professional partnership."

And there it was - the core of their mutual pain. Pain that was also evident on Booth's face.

"You're upset with me." She observed quietly.

"No, Bones. I'm just….you're right. We're never going to see eye-to-eye on the really important stuff." He sighed, agreeing. "That's what it always comes down to."

Silence fell over the room.

Her eyes bellowed with apology. She had observed, first-hand, how the women in his life had continued to disappoint and abandon him. She cared for him too much to be responsible for causing him pain that she knew was inevitable.

His sad eyes locked onto hers. They could be great together. He could see their entire future laid out – love, children, family, and happiness.

He knew.

With every fiber in his body, with every ounce of faith he possessed, this time, he was all in. He had always known all roads led back to her. But the counterweight of what kept them apart was equally as heavy as what drew them to each other. He (as she liked to say) had a highly romanticized view of love and, she was…scared. It had nothing to do with imperviousness. Bones didn't understand love, so she was scared.

For all of the lessons that she had let him teach her through the years, he hadn't yet figured out how to win her over. He wasn't certain that he ever could.

But he was fine with it. He'd resigned himself to be the Tracy to her Hepburn – in love, but living apart. As long as no one else came between them.

But still, the gambler in him also had one last big wager. He'd figure out a way to show her that they were worth the risk.

It was at this point that Hank reminded the pair of his presence. "Ahem. May I say something?"

Both jumped a little, slightly embarrassed that they again had lost themselves in each other to the point that they forgot who else was around, especially Hank. Booth began. "Sure Pops" he solicited softly. Maybe Pops had some words of insight that would help...

"The two of you are full of shit."

Brennan gasped out a chuckle while Booth scolded his father figure. "Pops!" he cried, again apologizing in his head to the Saints for all of the inside-voice expletives that he had just generated ruing the decision he had made to reunite his grandfather and the woman who had his heart.

"Seeley Joseph Booth! Temperance Brennan! You two are spilling-over-the-pot-full-of-crap idiots! Do you know how hard it is to find someone who understands you in this world? Someone who loves you and puts up with all the crap swirling around your head? There is no doubt in my mind that you kids belong together, and there shouldn't be any doubt in yours either."

Booth had nothing to say. He agreed with his grandfather 100%.

"Hank…" Brennan began.

"No interrupting me young lady!" he warned. "You say that you have trouble with emotion and being vulnerable. Well, that's not the Temper Temperance who's been coming to visit me once a month since…"

"Hank!" she cut him off, quipping at him to stop before her confidences with him were broken.

Booth sat, mouth agape at the secret that he had just learned; his grin unrestrained.

Bones had been visiting my Pops!

"Yeah, I know I said I wouldn't tell Seeley about our visits, but you leave me no choice! Sweetheart – you're a pure delight! When you stop being Dr. Science Lady and are just 'Temperance', you're all emotion and vulnerability. Maybe you still feel the need to hide it from by big tough grandson, but you're quite a gal with all of your sass and softness…"

Booth's mouth went further wide with delight as he expressed a soft gasp of glee. Brennan fidgeted as Hank continued to scold her.

"I can still hear your sweet laugh for days after you've visited! You've stolen this old man's heart, and it's just wrong that you think that you don't have enough of it to take care of my boy. Temperance Honey, if you let him, he'd take care of you."

Brennan blushed.

"We do take care of each other, Hank. We're partners. But my heart…" she sighed, searching for a description of the emotions that were so hard for her to describe. "I don't know how to be with someone, Hank. To love openly. Showing affection is difficult for me." She muttered sadly.

"Booth deserves to be loved by someone with an open heart. I'm unable to do that. We are not compatible."

"Nonsense!" Hank snapped. He was just getting started with these two knuckleheads.

The pair obediently took their dressing down as Hank fussed at their romantic stupidity.

From their visits, Hank Booth had grown to know a lot about Temperance's past, even more than his grandson knew.

Hank knew that Tempe had felt abandoned by her family; that this remarkable girl spent years being passed around from family to family – ignored, verbally and physically abused – during a period when nurturing and affection were so crucial. This brave, smart girl was afraid, terrified, of the things that books and life had not taught her.

Yes, she had been well-equipped with confidence in her intelligence and ability. Max and Christine had also endowed her with exceptional survivor skills. But where she had weaknesses, Tempe had learned to defend, deflect and protect herself against exposing her vulnerabilities to others.

But those lessons that she had not learned, lessons of the heart. It was her handicap. And without someone who gave a damn to take notice, the awkward, introverted, socially immature teen solidified her protective shell, and the only understanding of love and affection that she garnered was drawn solely from books.

Biology and chemistry books.

It was this realization that had convinced Henry Booth that the lady scientist was perfect for his number one grandson. The horrors of Seeley's childhood too had been scarring, leaving Hank's grandson with an overdeveloped hero complex and a desperate desire to be loved.

Who better to heal Shrimp's demons than a good, pure heart that blindly overflowed with love?

A ring of Booth's phone interrupted Hank's tirade. While Booth collected details on a radical honesty support group tied to the murder victim in their latest case, Hank took the opportunity to make one last plea.

"Sweetheart." He started. "I want you to pay attention to my words, you hear me?" Brennan nodded, leaning in to listen.

"Shrimp's grandmother and I were complete opposites." He confessed. "I'm from a – well, you know my family's history, and she was this lovely Italian girl – quiet, sweet, so polite, very religious. That's where Shrimp gets it from, you know. The spirituality, not the quietness" He smirked.

"Here I was this gangly, flirty soldier, a few years younger than her. She didn't give me the time of day for ages! Then we caught up with each other at a party, she was tipsy on a half a glass of wine, so I lucked out. She agreed to dance with me – Glen Miller's Moonlight Serenade – what a song! She put her hand in mine. I held her to me as close as she'd let me, and right at that moment, I knew." His eyes sparkled with tears of sweet memories.

Brennan blushed, surprised by her own flashback of an unplanned dance with her partner at her high school reunion.

Hank beamed. "It wasn't easy though. We fussed like cats and dogs. Polar opposites we were, but it didn't matter. She had my heart. There was no one in the world better to spend my time with, and though she'd never admit it, she felt the same way."

His eyes softened as he remembered a more difficult time. "My son and Seeley's mother were very compatible, the way you say." He warned. "And you know how that turned out." He sat up. "When you come and see me next month, I want you to have completed a homework assignment, for me okay?"

"You're not a teacher, Hank."

"Oh yes I am!" he boasted with a chuckle. "You bring me proof, Dr. Brennan! You and Shrimp spend all of your time together these days, so you bring back to me specific examples of how you don't fulfill that crazy theory that you have about who he should be with. I'm positive that you'll find that more than any other girl in the world, being with you makes him happy!" he winked.

Brennan shook her head thoughtfully, dubious, but agreeing to the challenge. "Hank, you forget that I hurt Booth once." Always concerned about all of the Booth men's capacity at recall, she explained further. "He wanted to 'give us a shot', and I hurt him when I turned him down." she stood up to kiss him farewell.

Hank grinned at his fidgety, departing guest.

"Exactly!"

I can feel Bones' hand slip from mine and Parker's. I watch her as she moves towards the altar.

Her steps are slow and deliberate. I can tell she's counting her steps. At times when she's nervous or overwhelmed, she likes to roll numbers around in her head. She says that she enjoys the dependability of numbers and of math – "the language shared by all" – as she likes to say.

Heh!

Thinking back, I made her nervous all the time. She had been blurting numbers to me for years, but vividly I remember the first time she exposed her number coping mechanism to me. I had taken Bones out for Hop Li's after she had been dumped by two guys in the same week. She wanted Thai, but since I was buying, Hop Li's it was.

Taking her home that night, we elected to take the Metro. The both of us had had a little too much sake with dinner and the fresh air did us good. She slipped her arm in mine, and leaned into me the entire walk home. I was in heaven.

She was breathtaking that night.

Well, she was breathtaking all the time, but in those days I rarely got to see Bones all gussied up...in Date Mode. She was wearing this satiny black dress that exposed all this creamy white goodness to me. I couldn't help but groan in the restaurant when a tiny errant drop of plum sauce hit the full of her left breast. I can still remember biting my lips, contemplating what would be hotter – risking a broken hand by reaching out to remove the sauce myself or watching her wipe it off with her finger.

Or even better yet – watch her wipe it off, and then feed it to me.

Groan!

Church, Seeley. You're at a funeral!

Focus.

Bones looks thin. I know the past week has been hard on her. Hell, the past few months have been hard. Seeing her look so fragile right now, I just want to go up there and hold her hand, just to remind her that I'll always be there for her.

She's locked eyes with me. She's fine.

I can feel my eyes widen as if to smile, to encourage her. I watch her chin jut up, pushing her bottom lip up in what I know is a gesture of appreciation. She knows I'm here. She's fine for now, but if she needs me, I'm here.

Hangover be damned.

...Four forty-seven!

That's what the number was that night.

Feeling "sake cocky", I walked Bones into her apartment that night, all the while wondering if it was going to be the night that we abandoned all of our flirting and bullshit "surrogate relationship" that Sweets had implied. My heart was racing with the fantasy. Wondering if this was going to be the night that she accepted that I was that guy, the one that I had explained to her earlier. The one that she was meant to spend the rest of her life with.

I had crowded her back up into her front door. I had loved doing that. Pushing up so close onto her – but not touching – but close enough that we can both feel the heat emanating from each other's bodies. And then, just breathe her in.

You know, in hindsight, it never occurred to me that she never pushed me away.

That night I was all sorts of inappropriate. Instead of talking to her eye-to-eye, I was whispering in her right ear. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched the rhythmic heave of her chest as the warmth of my breath kissed her delicate neck. Vividly, I remembered softly brushing her ear with my lips, and then allowing my nose to barely trace the outline from the back of her jaw to her chin.

I looked up on her parted lips. Sweet, wet. So close.

Damn, she bit her lip. So hot.

Licking my own lips, I let my eyes settle in on hers, and when I looked back up into her eyes I saw the yearning approval between her heavy-lidded blinks. She wanted to kiss me. Even though we had closed that door years back, none of it mattered in that moment.

We were about to cross that line.

Her lips were quivering. Watching them, I realized that she was mouthing something.

And then she blurted. "Four forty seven!"

Huh?

"What?" I huffed, getting even more agitated by her hands now pushing me away.

"The area code for international calls to the UK, Booth. 'Four forty seven'". She turned to put the key in the door. "Inspector Pritchard contacted me earlier this afternoon. I know her number, but I've been trying to recall the calling code for the UK." She explained looking back at me while she pushed the door open, desperate for as much distance from me as possible.

"Thank you for walking me up, Booth. I don't know the nature of her call. You're welcome to stay, but I may be speaking with her for a while." She squirmed.

Sigh! I took it as a sign, divine intervention. The woman I wanted to be with is about to call the last woman that I slept with.

It was time to go.

...The world is funny that way. Strange coincidences and all. Here we were, two years later – in the UK, area code 447 – finally together.

Huh.

And here Bones was again, in another black dress. This one, of course, was a tad more conservative than that night. But she still looked beautiful.

In a black dress, standing in front of an audience full of Brits, speaking about the loss of yet another student.

And here I am again, struggling to keep my head up as she speaks because I was out too late last night.

Some things never change.

But not us. Not this time.

Before all of this mess with Vincent and Broadsky, Pops had told me that I need to woo Bones a little. Do the things that she liked to do. Let her drive once in a while. Tease her, surprise her. Make her laugh. Laugh at her jokes, horrible though they were.

Stuff that I was already doing, I had told him, to which he replied that I needed to get serious about it and get my head out of my ass. Heh, he treats me just like Max, sometimes.

Shit, Max.

Sigh! I need to talk to Bones about us and telling the Old Rhino. I really do want to time to woo her a little more before he starts to pressure us.

This time, things are going to be different.

We're going for a different outcome.

A/N #2 (and totally random): took me a few times to figure out that when Booth calls Max an 'Old Rhino' in Shot in the Dark, that it's a play on Ryan O'Neal's name. But then again, it took me years to "get" the clever hint re: the Village People's songs, so there ya go!