Lauwy, GalaxieGurl (thanks!), kareneb, LoveShipper (we'll see), gatewatcher, ZinaR, 554Laura, FaithinBones, mendenbar, conservativegirl, yoshimi0701, RobinAngelena, BonesfanJD, K785, bamboo72498 (lol! You're welcome), LunaVermilion and everyone else reading and following this series of one-shots. Thank you! So I take it that almost everyone of you wanted a follow-up to this chapter and I heard you. I'll work on it when I can.

Since I was mean enough to leave everyone on a cliffy in my other story, I thought I'd quickly put this chapter up. The fluff from this one should keep everyone going till I have time to post the next chapter.

Shrinks

On Monday, Clark dropped by the Booth residence to get some advice from Brennan on an idea for a novel he wanted to start on. His first outing as an author had not been as well-received as he had hoped it would be and he wanted advice before embarking on a second one.

On Tuesday, Daisy came by with Little Seeley. She had needed help on a paper she was writing for the American Journal of Anthropology and was seeking Brennan's advice on certain findings she wanted to include in her write-up.

On Wednesday, Wendell came by for dinner, wanting advice from Booth on how he could improve his hockey game.

A new case came in and Thursday and Friday nights were spent working late.

Saturday was traditionally laundry and housework day. The couple busied themselves with getting the household chores done, even managing to sneak in a quickie in the laundry room while Hank was down for his afternoon nap and Christine was engrossed in cartoons.

Early Sunday morning Booth got dressed in a crisp, dark blue shirt and jeans, ready for church. Brennan was helping get the children ready while Booth was about to prepare breakfast. As he entered the family room he spied a pair of sneakers sticking out from the armrest of the couch. He wasn't overly alarmed. He was sure that he had checked that all the windows and doors were locked the night before. He also reasoned that a robber would not have been stupid enough to break in, then fall asleep on the couch. Unless the robber was drunk or high. Booth knew he didn't have the time to go back to the bedroom for his gun, so he grabbed a baseball bat that he had left leaning against the wall.

Quietly he tiptoed towards the couch.

"What the hell?" He muttered under his breath when he realised who was sleeping there. He dropped the baseball bat on the floor and sat down on the ottoman.

Aubrey had pulled the throw blanket they left on the couch over himself and was snoring softly. Annoyed, Booth shook his partner's shoulder.

"Aubrey. Wake up!"

Startled, Aubrey jerked up, lifting his head and frowning at Booth.

"Why the hell did you break into my house and fall asleep on my couch?!"

Aubrey yawned lazily before sitting up. "I didn't break in Booth. I have a key remember?"

Booth was reminded that with Max gone and after the incident with Kovac, he had given a spare set of keys to Aubrey. In case of emergencies.

"Yeah for emergencies. Was there an emergency last night?"

Aubrey grinned sheepishly. "No."

"Then why'd you end up on my couch?"

"Karen and I had a fight and I was kicked out of my apartment."

Booth rolled his eyes. "How the hell did you get thrown out of your own apartment?"

"Dr Brennan threw you out before. When you gambled."

Booth held out his hand, irritated. "I get the point."

"I was feeling really mad at myself and I needed to talk to someone so I thought of you."

"What am I? Your shrink?"

"It was late and I had the key to your house so I figured I'd come here, see if you were still up. You weren't and I needed a place to crash so… here I am."

Booth sighed. "Look Aubrey, I need to get breakfast going so I can feed Hank and Christine and we can go to church. Maybe you wanna talk to Bones while we're gone."

"No, this is guy stuff." Aubrey shook his head. "Although breakfast does sound appealing. I was hoping to talk to you, man to man."

Booth was about to ask if it could wait till he got home from church but the sad puppy eyes on Aubrey made him relent.

"Okay, spit it out Aubrey. You have five minutes."

"Karen, being the shrink that she is, says that I'm still hung up on Jessica. And that's messing with our relationship."

"Well are you?"

"I don't know. It's like I'm all confused inside. Can you be in love with two women at the same time?"

Booth sighed for the second time in minutes. "Listen Aubrey, I don't know if you know this, but Bones and I, we took a really long time to get to where we are today. You might not believe this but I asked another woman to marry me before."

"You mean Parker's mother?"

"No. I mean yes, I did ask Rebecca to marry me when I found out she was pregnant with Parker, but that was before I met Bones. There was this other woman. Hannah."

"And this was while you were partners with Dr Brennan?"

"Yeah. Back then, I wanted to get together with Bones but she wasn't ready. For some stupid reason, I got it in my head that I couldn't wait for her and had to move on. I think we were trying to escape each other, so I went back to the Rangers and they sent me to Afghanistan. I came back with a girlfriend. Hannah. I thought I was happily in love with her. She was even friends with Bones."

"Wow really? I can't picture you with anyone other than Dr Brennan."

Booth chuckled, shaking his head. "I can't either. Thinking back now, I was still madly in love with Bones, when I thought I was in love with Hannah. And then Bones decided she wanted to be with me but I was still with Hannah, so told her I couldn't be with her."

"That's messed up."

"I was messed up. I guess I wanted to be a gentleman. I couldn't dump Hannah for Bones cause that's just not me. I tried to convince myself I was making the right choice by asking Hannah to marry me."

"That does not make any sense at all."

"It made perfect sense to me at the time. Thank God, Hannah rejected my proposal. I think she knew deep down inside I was still in love with Bones."

"So you're trying to tell me that Jessica is to me like Dr Brennan is to you?"

"No. That's for you to figure out. You asked me if it was possible to love two women at the same time. I think it is possible to be truly in love with one woman but kid yourself into thinking you're in love with another. I just don't want you to make the same mistake I did."

"I'm not gonna ask Karen to marry me if that's what you're saying."

"I'm saying you gotta ask yourself who you really wanna be with. Who you can imagine spending the rest of your life with. Who you feel like, without her, your life would have no meaning, like you can't even breathe."

Hearing voices approaching Booth glanced up just as Brennan entered the room, Hank on her hip and Christine behind her. He smiled dreamily at his wife. "I know I'd feel like that if I didn't have Bones."

"Uncle Aubrey!" Christine's voice pierced the air, pulling her father out of his reverie. The little girl ran towards them, giving Aubrey a hug.

"Agent Aubrey. What are you doing here?" Hank squirmed in his mother's arms. Brennan set him on his feet and he joined his sister in hugging their favorite uncle.

"Oh I um – "

"I gave him a spare set of keys to our house remember?" Booth explained.

"Something wrong at your apartment?"

"Something like that." Aubrey replied.

"Well you're welcome here anytime."

"Thank you Dr Brennan."

"Yeah just don't come sneaking in and raiding my fridge." Booth stood up, holding out his hand to Christine.

"Who wants pancakes?"

"I do." Aubrey stood smiling.

"Me too." Christine piped, taking her father's hand.

"Okay but we gotta be quick. We can't be late for church."

…

At noon, after church, Booth and his two children met Brennan for lunch at the diner. A Sunday afternoon family ritual. With Hank and Christine busy with their meals, Brennan reached across the table to take Booth's hand.

"After you left, Aubrey told me the reason why he came by last night."

"Yeah?"

"Yes. He told me you gave him some invaluable advice."

"Didn't want him to make the same mistakes I did."

Brennan smiled, reminded again of what a good man her husband was.

"You know what?" Booth said, a twinkle in his eye.

"What?"

"This week, other than the days we were workin' late, we had someone over every night. Someone who needed our advice."

"You're right."

"You know, we're getting pretty good at this."

"This?"

"Yeah this shrinky business. You know people coming to us with their problems and we help them out. Isn't that what shrinks do? Maybe we should change jobs huh?"

Brennan laughed, "Psychology is a soft science Booth."

"Yeah but you gotta admit, they won't come to us if they didn't think we could help them."

"You have a point."

"Right?"

"I concede you're right. But maybe because we have more life experiences to share. We are also the best in our fields. It would be natural that others want to learn from the best."

"Aww c'mon Bones. Admit it, we would make pretty good shrinks."

"Not because we're experts in psychology."

"We could be." Booth turned to clean a ketchup smear on Hank's cheek before continuing. "Sweets would be proud."

Brennan laughed, picking up a fry from Booth's plate and popping it into her mouth. She thought their late friend would be but kept the thought to herself. Booth might've been right after all.

Just wanted to qualify, I'm not partial to Aubrey being with Jessica or Karen. I like Aubrey for sure, but I'm okay if, in our little Bones universe that is continuing on in fan fic land, he ends up with either one of them.