Chapter 50: Relatively Speaking
"Talk?" Booth spluttered, feeling suddenly foolish that he was on one knee.
"Yes," she replied in her precise manner. "There are some extenuating circumstances that you are not yet cognizant of and it would be irresponsible of me to accept without first talking with you about them."
He breathed a small sigh of relief that it at least sounded like she wasn't going to turn him down flat. Rising to his feet, he set the ring box on the beside table.
"So," he smiled nervously, tongue darting in and out of its own accord, "a talk?"
"It's not a negative thing," she took his hand as if to reassure him, then frowned. "At least I don't think you'll think it is."
"You know I don't care, right?" he asked earnestly. "Whatever – whatever you have to tell me it doesn't change the fact that I want to marry you."
She smiled and shook her head teasingly, "You can't know that until I tell you what it is."
"Are you gonna sit there and tell me what I can and can't know or are you gonna tell me already?" he teased back, poking her lightly in the arm.
"Fine," she smirked, then nodded to her left. "Do you see that monitor?" He nodded and she went on, "Go over there and turn the volume knob up."
He raised an eyebrow but rose to follow her instructions, "Which one's the volume? There are a million knobs on this thing."
"There are not," she rolled her eyes. "It's the one all the way on your right."
"This one?" he jabbed a finger at the knob he thought she was talking about and was slightly pleased with himself when she nodded.
As he turned it, a steady whooshing noise filled the small room and he watched the most tender smile he'd ever seen blossom on Brennan's face. Slowly, so as not to break the spell she'd fallen under he walked back to her side and sat down beside her as she made room for him. Still unsure what is was she wanted to talk about he reached out to cup her face, but she intercepted him, meshing her fingers with his and bringing them to rest gently on her stomach.
He studied her as her eyes flicked from their joined hands, to his face, and then back again, obviously unsure how to proceed from there. "Are you okay, Bones?" concern filled his voice as he looked over at the monitor, "Your heart's beating a mile a minute."
"A normal adult heart rate is between 60 and 100 beats per minute," she suddenly found her voice.
"Okay," he stretched the word out, wondering what had sparked the impromptu science lesson, but smiling as she continued on the tangent.
"-that's almost twice what mine is," she was saying.
He nodded but the look she was giving him implied he'd missed some vital clue as to what she was talking about somewhere along the way.
"It is, however, a very healthy rate for an eight week old fetus," her grin stretched from ear to ear as she met his eyes and looked down once more to where their hands rested.
The pieces of the puzzle suddenly clicked in Booth's mind and he could've sworn his own heart stopped as he whispered, "You mean..."
She nodded deliberately and released his fingers from her grip, leaving them to lay flat on her stomach. There was a slight bump of static out of the speakers at the contact before the whooshing resumed.
"Whoa," he managed, voice filled with awe as he let the news sink in.
"Horse," she let out a very un-Brennan-like giggle, followed by a self-satisfied smile at her joke.
His fingers trailed softly along the hospital gown, letting the knowledge of what lay beneath sink in fully. "So you're okay? The baby's okay?" a sudden fear gripped him that something may have gone wrong after all she'd been through.
"I'm fine," she raised a hand to brush at his days-old stubble. "The baby's fine."
"Baby," he repeated the word, marveling at the thought.
"Yes," that tender smile he'd seen earlier was back and it made his heart well with more love for her than he'd ever thought possible. Her chin tilted, "Now do you see why I wished to talk with you before responding to your proposal?"
"This is pretty big news," he admitted, tracing a circle around her belly with his finger before smiling up at her. "Doesn't change my question, though. Well," he thought for a moment, "maybe it does a little."
Turning away from a slightly stunned Brennan, he took the box off the nightstand and pried the lid open carefully once more and cleared his throat, "Bones, you and I have been through just about everything together. Good times, bad times, and even a few really great times. Through it all you've been there for me, Bones-"
"You said all of this before, Booth," she shook her head, slightly confused. "Why are you saying it again?"
"So what I want to know," he smiled, continuing as if she'd said nothing, "is will you join my family?"
"Your family?" she breathed.
He nodded, "I mean, that's what marriage is, right? A family? You, and me, and Parker, and this new little one," he laid his free hand on her stomach, "I think we'd make an amazing family together, don't you?"
Her head bobbed up and down, eyes welling up with unshed tears. To his surprise she slid her left hand up, proffering it to him and without a moment's hesitation he captured it and slid the ring on. It fit perfectly.
"She said yes," he bent down and spoke into her bellybutton. "Hey," he straightened up, shrugging his shoulders at the woman who was fixing him with a very dubious look, "this affects him too, you know?"
There was a soft knock on the door before Brennan could correct him about not knowing the gender and the pair looked up to find a nurse gently peeking her head in.
"It's safe," Booth assured her with a smile, not moving from his perch on the bed.
The nurse, whose name-tag read, "Janice," smiled slyly but said nothing as she maneuvered around Booth and the bed, checking Brennan's vitals. She needn't have worried about intruding on the couple's privacy as they sat, transfixed on one another as if she didn't even exist. Booth's hand alternated from resting on his fiancee's stomach to her left hand, his fingers gently twisting the ring back and forth. Brennan, meanwhile, contemplated the feelings of fullness and satisfaction she'd been experiencing at the prospect of being a mother.
"Is everything okay?" he asked the nurse somewhat anxiously when she reached the baby's heart monitor.
Janice nodded with a wide grin, "That's one strong baby you've got there, Daddy. Now," she was suddenly all business, "we've got us some girl stuff to do so why don't you scoot along for a little bit?"
Booth and Brennan looked like that was the last thing either of them wanted to do, but the nurse who'd valiantly stood watch over Brennan that night held her ground and eventually succeeded in persuading Booth that Brennan would be perfectly safe. She even promised that if he was a good boy, she'd wheel in the ultrasound machine when he came back. The prospect of seeing the new little life was enough to shoo him out the door and up to his oldest child's room.
B&B&B&B&B&B&B
"She's fine," Booth said for what felt like the thousandth time that morning.
There'd been a squint convention in full swing when he'd entered Parker's room and the questions had been raining on him ever since. He was honestly surprised they hadn't all been kicked out yet for the noise they were generating and he suspected they were being cut a good deal of slack after everything that had gone down the night before.
It took everything in Booth not to spill the beans about the baby, but he and Brennan hadn't discussed how they were going to handle doling out that bit of trivia. Not that anyone would've suspected anything the way the squints were talking all over each other, while Jared, Pops, and Parker talked sports, and Becca, Padme, and Drew discussed the school system in DC. Booth thought he caught a gleam in Max's eye, but the old con-man hid it so fast, Booth wasn't sure he hadn't imagined it.
"She's fine," this time it was Max who spoke the words to Booth, coming up from behind and slapping the younger man on the shoulder.
Booth nodded and muttered low enough for only Max to hear, "Vladov's still out there. Security tapes caught him leaving and no one's seen anything else since."
"Tapes?" Max murmured back. "And they've got nothing?"
"Nothing," Booth shook his head discreetly, plastering on a smile as Angela and Hodgins walked by.
He could've sworn he heard Max say, "Good," but before he could pursue that line of questioning, Cam called him over to talk about the case. Fixing the old man with a look that told him they weren't done by a long shot, Booth strolled casually over and chatted with Cam. The Canadians, it seemed, got a hit off the DNA on the bottle Parker had brought back from the car. They'd matched it to a man with known ties to Vladov, and while they hadn't found him yet, they were confident they would shortly.
Hodgins jumped in, explaining that the hospital had set him up in a lab downstairs to go over the particulates they'd recovered from Parker's clothes. Given the split jurisdiction in the case, he'd be working with a Canadian scientist, but according to Hodgins the two men had hit it off just fine. Just when Booth thought he'd worked himself free of squints, Angela materialized out of nowhere with a sketchpad full of drawings she'd taken both of the farmhouse and of the people Parker had seen during his captivity. She assured Booth that the little boy hadn't been traumatized one bit and had actually enjoyed retelling his adventures.
Around lunchtime, Jared announced that it was time to hunt up some food and give Parker a chance to rest, while Angela decided that she and the other women needed to go on a shopping spree for Brennan so that she'd have clothes to wear home. Booth waved them all off, assuring Becca that he had things well under control for the time being.
"Uh uh," he clothes-lined Max as the other man tried to sneak out. "You stay here."
"I thought I'd go see Tempe," Max protested.
"You can," Booth promised, "after I get some answers."
Max pinched his lips together, eyes narrowing slightly, but said nothing.
"What do you know?" Booth pressed, keeping his voice low.
"She's fine," was all Max would divulge.
"Right," Booth tapped his foot, "I'm sure that's real comforting and all but what does it mean?" He caught the tic in Max's jaw and kept on, "What have you done, Max? Any little clue would be helpful now."
"Hey Dad!" Parker called from the bed, tossing something up in the air and then catching it. "Did you see this awesome coin Mr. Max gave me? It's got Christopher Columbus on it and everything!"
