Chapter II

Agent Seeley Booth, FBI, walked through his living room, drinking a coke and thinking about a case.

And that was almost all.

He spun around as his parental spidey senses drew his attention inexorably towards the dark figure standing very, very still behind his personal armchair. There was a long moment, and neither blinked.

"Patience."

"Yes, Daddy?" Patience looked up at him with the most innocent eyes ever to hide a secret.

"Patience, do you have something in your mouth?"

"Yes, Daddy." A direct confession! And yet, the chocolate brown eyes might actually pull this off. Booth summoned his willpower.

"Patience, what do you have in your mouth?"

"'Bolus?"

"'Bol-…What?"

"Bolus." She replied patiently, "'A wound mass of somefing, espethially of chewed food in the mouth or awimentary canal-"

"Yeah, I get it." He stared at her very hard. "Bones! Your kid."

"What?" Temperance leaned out of her home office. "No, five minutes ago she was your kid."

"Yeah, well," Booth shrugged, still keeping the tiny perpetrator in his sights. "That was then…"

There was an audible sigh and the sound of something being not slammed on the table. A moment later the very dangerous sight of an interrupted Temperance Brennan-Booth stormed into the scene of the crime.

"What is it?" She asked Booth, just a little bit accusingly

"Hey, it's not me. Your kid has something in her mouth and she isn't telling me what."

"Well did you ask her?"

"Well, yeah, I did, but…" he crossed his arms defensively, "It's complicated."

Temperance didn't roll her eyes. But it was an effort.

"Patience?" she knelt in front of the little girl "Patience what have you got in your mouth?"

"A bolus." She repeated, just as patiently as if she hadn't already had to explain this to Daddy.

"Yes, but what kind of bolus?"

Patience looked thoughtful and edgy.

"Yummy bolus?"

Her mother frowned for a moment.

"Booth! Your kid."

"What?" he nearly choked on his soda, "No, I just handed her over to you, she's your kid!"

"Well that was before she started putting scientific terms together with 'yummy', so now she's your kid."

"How does that make her my kid?"

"Well, I never say yummy."

"Well I never say… whatever."

"But you sometimes combine words in similarly inapt ways. Do you know anyone else who would say something like 'yummy bolus'?"

"Well, Zach… might." He shrugged defensively.

"That's not the same."

"Why not?"

"Because Zach wasn't party to Patience's conception!"

"Damn, Bones, please don't ever make me think of that again."

"Sorry."

There was a brief interlude of silent communion, concluded with a kiss.

"Maybe she's our kid?" murmered Booth, and Bones just smiled and nodded.

But when they turned around, Patience was sitting in her room, reading a golden book, finishing an apple.