A/N:

This is my take on the "Brennan asks Booth for a baby" debate. I don't think Brennan would treat him as a glorified sperm bank—I think that between"Baby in the Bough," "Finger in the Nest" and "Bone that Blew" she knows very well how seriously Booth feels about Parker and parenthood, and I choose to believe she also knows how she feels about Booth—but not the converse. Here's how I think it would spin out—in a definite one-shot.



Suitable Father

Another Saturday night, another no date, Brennan sourly reflected as she sat at her dining room table and flipped through her research materials. Not that the no date thing was anything new-- but she didn't suppose that it mattered at this point as she looked at the papers before her. Like anything else, she'd looked into both mainstream and cutting edge information, read all the applicable journals, and discussed the subject with experts. Now all she had to make a decision. She put her head in her hands, staring morosely at all the information, loathe to make up her mind.

She sighed. Took a sip of red wine. Paged one last time through the three best possibilities her research revealed, then sighed again.

A knock at her door, her partner's characteristic rap, interrupted her reverie, and her head snapped up at the sound. Booth. Dropping by on a Saturday night? Oh, no, she thought to herself, looking at the papers before her.

"Hey! Bones! You gonna let me in there or what?" she heard him call through the door. Her heart both leapt to her throat and sank to the soles of her feet.

"Just a minute!" she called, feeling uncharacteristically incapable of responding to the snap situation. As she stood there trying to decide how to respond to his sudden appearance he'd already used his key to let himself in, hand placed dramatically over his eyes.

"Bo-oones," he called, that damned smile on his face and a bag of what smelled like Thai under his arm, "I'm giving you half a minute to make yourself decent."

"You can look," she said, grabbing all the papers she'd so meticulously organized and shoving them into a disorganized pile. "I'm just doing some ... research," she said, lamely.

He smiled even more widely at her as she finished clearing the table, making way for the Thai. "Well, it's a good thing I stopped by, then, because it's ten o'clock on a Saturday night and you shouldn't be doing research."

"Mmm-hmmm," she said noncommittally, pulling the whole stack into her arms and lugging it away from the table. She carried it into the living room, trying to decide where to put it, then spied a basket where she often kept journals. Dumping the whole in the container, she shoved it under a table, then turned to her home-invading partner.

"Why are you here, Booth?" she asked waspishly. "It is Saturday night, after all."

His smile didn't falter. "Can't a guy just visit his partner?" He started plunking containers out on the table as she automatically moved for her placemats and napkins, Booth's chopsticks and hers-- she wouldn't let him take the disposable ones from the shop, and he always made a big show of hand washing the "manly" chopsticks emblazoned with roosters she'd bought him half as a joke.

"Wine or beer?" she asked as she bent into the fridge, hand automatically reaching even as he said "beer."

Steeling herself, she pasted a smile on her face and turned back to the table, juggling their things. She'd long since stopped bringing out plates-- four years of partnership and bleeding on one another left little room for squeamishness about bodily fluids-- and certainly both had stolen food from the other's hand, just to annoy the other.

"Thanks, Bones," he said, taking the beers and setting them down as she unloaded the placemats, chopsticks and hot sauce. She grabbed the container of spring rolls as well as some sauce, then took the beer after Booth cracked it for her.

She tried to make small talk, asked him about the hockey game he played in two nights prior while she taught her undergraduate seminar, and tried to listen as he discussed his plans for Parker tomorrow-- but her heart wasn't in it. For the first time, she would admit to herself that she was depressed.

Booth noticed when she failed to argue with him about the last bits of the mee krab.

"What's got you so grumpy, Bones?"

She shook her head. She was not going to go into it with her partner, not now, while she still hadn't decided what she was going to do. "Just ... grumpy," she said, hoping he'd leave it at that. She ducked her head back into the container of dumplings as she said "... no particular reason." She didn't like to look at him when she lied.

"Uh-huh," he said, not convinced. She'd been depressed ever since she started this research, and she was tired of it-- but she'd committed to the idea of what she was doing, and Temperance Brennan wasn't a quitter. Booth, thankfully, didn't seem to be in the mood to press her tonight.

Just then, her phone rang, the ringtone she'd assigned to her father. Somewhat alarmed that he would be calling so late, she leapt up, saying "sorry, that's my father, I'd better take that," as she snatched up the phone. Booth just nodded and scrabbled his chopsticks in the pad thai container.

"Dad," she said, walking out of the room and down the hall toward her bedroom. It turned out he was calling last-minute to see if she wanted to go down to see Russ and the girls in the morning-- there was no other urgency. She agreed without hesitation--she could use the distraction. "It will be nice to see them," she said, meaning it. She hadn't seen Russ in a while, Amy's girls were well-mannered, and Hallie's CF was responding nicely to treatment. They exchanged a few details, agreed on a meeting time, and she rang off with a smile-- only to have it falter when she walked back into the living room to see Booth sitting on her couch, the basket of research materials next to him on the cushions-- his hands in the literal cookie jar.

He had a look of shock on his face when she came back into the room. "What ... what's all this ... stuff, Bones?" he asked, gesturing at the papers and laboratory results.

"What it looks like," she responded automatically, suppressing a sigh. "Fertility research, information about various artificial insemination methods, my fertility test results."

He literally gaped at her. "You ... you don't want kids," he stammered.

She supposed it was a surprise, but she still found herself hurt by his reaction. "I changed my mind," she said.

"But ... but ... why? I mean, you're not the maternal type, Bones..." he began.

Her eyes welled, all unwilling. She wasn't even taking fertility hormones yet and she was over-emotional. What a disaster-- what was she going to be like if she actually went through with it? "I just did, alright?" she asked, voice choked as she turned to the table and cleared the now-empty boxes. "And you shouldn't be going through people's possessions," she snapped.

"You're going to have a baby?" he asked, seemingly stuck on the idea.

She responded, her back still to him as she threw things away. "I'm not pregnant yet. I haven't even chosen a conception method, much less a sperm donor. It's far from a sure thing at this point."

"But ... why?" he asked all over again.

She whirled on him, eyes still welling tears. "Is the idea of my being a mother so ridiculous, Booth? Am I so unqualified that you're struck dumb by the very idea? Trust me, it is not a decision I take lightly. But I ... I just want to. I ... Andy ... and Parker's an engaging young boy ... and the children in the science club ... and just ... well, I do."

"Were you planning on telling me?" he asked, sounding hurt.

"Of course," she said. "But as I said, I haven't yet decided if much less how to try to conceive, or what donor genetic material to use."

"Donor genetic material?" he said, incredulously. "Way to kill the romance, Bones."

Her voice cracked as she responded. "What romance? Do you see a sexual partner around here, Booth? I don't. I'm not in a long term relationship, I'm not getting any younger, and I am both financially and professionally secure enough to make accommodations for a child should I decide to conceive after I've finished weighing my options."

He shook his head, looking annoyed. "Bones ... you don't just ... I mean, you can't drop the kid off at day care and go chasing down criminals if there's no one else around to take care of it if something happens to you."

She snarled, his assumptions infuriating her. "Do you think I'm that stupid? Of course I understand that, Booth. Were I to actually be able to conceive and carry to term I would necessarily cut back my time in the field or eliminate it altogether-- whatever was necessary to provide a child with the security it needs. Do you think I'm so reckless as to forget my own experiences, so narrowly focused that I would risk leaving a child alone in the world, especially one I brought into it?"

She wrapped her arms around herself, her voice rising as she continued to yell.

"I'm sorry you think I'd make a poor mother-- I was hoping you would actually agree with my decision, since you've been so adamant that I've been wrong in the past." She wiped angry tears from her face as she glared at him. "But apparently that's not the case."

He stood slowly, the look of shock on his face fading, and a look of concern quickly replacing it. "Bones, no ... just ... it's kind of a shock, that's all. But clearly you've thought a lot about it," he said, walking toward her. "I think you'd make a great mom, I'm just ... kind of surprised ... and I ...." He trailed off, sighing as he stopped to stand in front of her, his expression unreadable in the shadows cast by the low lit lamps in her living room. "Sorry," he mumbled. "But ... single parenthood's not all it's cracked up to be, Bones. Why now?"

She hugged herself tighter. "Like I said. I'm not getting any younger, and I've concluded that with my luck choosing men I'd be better off being a single parent regardless. It would be too disruptive to a child for me to attempt to also find a long-term romantic partner given my track record, and I've come to believe that I am more interested in a child than finding some hypothetical male who would be a suitable father."

He looked shocked all over again. "What? You're going to have a kid and be an old maid?"

She nodded, biting her lip and looking away before turning again and picking up the remaining things on the table. "Don't act so surprised, Booth. You yourself have often pointed out my inability to interact with suitable males in non-professional settings."

"Bones," he said, coming behind her to take her by the elbow and turn her to look at him. "Come on, now. Don't be like that."

"Why not?" she said, not bothering to mask the bitterness she felt. "There simply isn't some special someone out there for everyone, Booth, no matter what you think-- and it doesn't change my desire for a child, for someone to pass on the things I ... love ... to. There's no reason to wait, and many reasons not to-- I become less fertile each year, and the next two to three years will be the end of my peak fertility range. The process of fertilization and conception under any of the possible methods can be lengthy, with no guarantee of success."

She rued the emotionality that was making her say all these things she could normally filter.

As usual, he was standing right in her space, the smell and bulk and warmth of him invading her senses. She wished the damnable man didn't present the living, breathing example of all the things she didn't have. She swallowed, berating herself for being too weak to make him let go-- even when she was facing making a decision that couldn't involve him, she wanted him involved.

Frowning, he said, "So you're just going to look through some sperm donor catalogue until you find something you like and order it up? And then pump yourself full of hormones and blow wads of cash with no guarantee that you'll even get pregnant?"

"Basically," she sighed, wondering why he was having such a hard time with it all, and then realizing. "Don't worry, Booth. I shall endeavor to hire a fully-qualified forensic anthropologist to replace Zack so that in the event I am able to conceive neither you nor the Bureau would be inconvenienced by my taking a maternity leave or sabbatical. I wouldn't leave you in the lurch."

Booth rubbed his hand over his hair, staring at her. "No... that's not ... it's just ... why've you got to do everything the hard way, Bones? I mean, look, it's great you want to have a kid, and really, I do think you'd make a great mom, but you're making a big decision, and all this medical-science-y stuff about getting pregnant is a big investment." He started to say something, his face shifting, then decided against it.

She stepped back a pace as he finished speaking. "So you're telling me you don't think I should do it?" She hated how wounded she sounded.

"No," he said, blowing a breath out through his lips and looking increasingly agitated as he reached forward again and grabbed her arm to prevent her from backing further away. "I'm just saying maybe you should think some more about trying the old fashioned way before you go in, in vitro guns blazing." His eyes were dark and concerned as he said it, as if he were deeply worried about her making a mistake-- as if she wasn't well aware of the problems.

"With whom should I try?" she said, snapping. "I'm single, if you haven't noted it already. And I'm hardly going to attempt to conceive a child with any male that might come along. Physically strong, intellectually superior, emotionally stable and ideally well-structured and attractive males who make suitable fathers are not thick on the ground, Booth, much less ones I would find myself attracted to enough to attempt to conceive with-- the only 'sperm donor' I know who meets those criteria would be you, and we both know damned well that's not going to happen-- and in any event you're assuming I would be willing to conceive naturally with someone who would not be there long-term for the child."

A deep silence fell as she heard the words leave her mouth. Her mouth dry, she looked at him, the dawning realization of why she'd been so reluctant to commit to one of the medical processes she'd been researching now abundantly clear-- she'd long been stifling her attraction and feelings for him, but had never dared consciously think what it might mean to conceive a child with him. Sex, making love, whatever he called it—she imagined that all the time. It was the thoughts of long term involvement she buried.

The emergence of her suppressed desire that Booth father her child, assist her with raising it, 'try it the old fashioned way,' as he described it-- well, yet again this evening she'd reacted without a filter in place between her brain and her mouth. She would never have consciously asked her partner for what she'd just said-- they were friends, he already had a child and responsibilities to him with all the additional complications of not being married, and in any event there was that line of his. Which she'd just obliterated-- completely.

"I ... I ..." she said, speechless, staring at him. "That didn't ... I didn't ..." she stammered. He looked flabbergasted as her own jaw worked, no sound coming out. She looked down at his hand on her arm, his hold on her like an anchor as she began to shut down at the realization that she'd just ruined ... everything. When he let go, as he inevitably would after such a remark, she would drown.

"I ... I wouldn't ask that of you," she finally mumbled, looking anywhere but at him. His hand still held her arm, and she startled a bit when his other hand came to her chin, tugging until she looked at him.

Something shifted in his expression-- his shocked look of earlier, his concerned look from not long before, his agitation all yielded to something—that something she'd seen before and willed herself not to think about, because he'd never said anything about whatever it meant-- she expected she probably had something akin to the same look on her face. Interest. Confusion. Attraction. Complete terror. His liquid brown eyes darkened, the planes of his face seeming even more sculpted in the shadows cast by the light. He inhaled deeply and spoke.

"You can't assume you know the answer if you don't ask, Bones," he said, his voice husky.

She swallowed, her mouth turned to sawdust. His eyes shaded even deeper, his hand on her chin shaking slightly.

"Booth ... would you father a child with me?"