A/N: Okay, so, the next chapter was supposed to be about the zoo. But the muses are not cooperating, and I've decided that it's just not meant to be, and I'm moving on. Perhaps I will write it as a oneshot some time in the future. The good news is that almost all of the remaining chapters (7 I think) are complete or mostly complete (writer's block detours). Without further ado... -tc
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Tempe had to suppress the urge to pull Booth's spare key out of her pocket as she reached the apartment door. Idiot. When someone invites you for dinner, you ring the bell. This is not your place. It's not even your key. In 24 hours, this will all be over. Parker will go back to his mother, you'll go back to working 16-hour days, and Booth... Booth... She realized suddenly that the door was open and the agent in question was staring quizzically at her. Forcing a smile, she stepped through the doorway, berating herself. Can't you act normally around him anymore, Brennan? Or at least, normal for you?
Her composure was put to the test once again when Booth stepped forward to take her coat. Under the disturbingly familiar scent of his aftershave was something she didn't recognize, a deeper, musky fragrance that could only be... cologne. Oh God. A date? Parker's words burned in her ears. Brennan was thankful that her partner had headed off to the closet and she had a moment to let her mind settle. Then the child himself rushed in from his bedroom and she found herself relaxing with surprising ease.
Parker reached automatically for a hug and the anthropologist obliged. "We're having spaghetti!" he announced happily.
"Is that a reflection of your taste or your father's culinary abilities?" she asked.
"Both, actually," Booth replied, taking Parker from his partner's arms and hoisting him upside down over his shoulder. "But I suspect you're underestimating me."
"Daddy and I make the noodles together!" Parker cut in, voice muffled against his father's shirt. "Come on, I'll show you how!"
Booth let him wiggle free and drag Brennan toward the kitchen, where she was surprised to find a large pot of sauce simmering on the stove, surrounded by spice jars. A stainless steel manual pasta maker and stoneware container of flour were equally unexpected.
"See, first we're gonna pour the flour out here, and then Daddy smashes the eggs and I get to mix everything together and I don't even have to use a spoon!"
"Impressed?" asked his father, leaning over her shoulder so Brennan caught the scent of his cologne again.
"Yes, actually." It was difficult to admit "I never pictured you as a chef."
"Well, I don't usually take such elaborate measures when it's just me, but I try to do something special with Parker when he's here."
That brought a wave of guilt even as she enjoyed the thought of a domestic Seeley Booth passing on his knowledge to the next generation. "Booth, I still feel awkward about this, I mean, it's your time with your son. If you want me to leave, I would completely under-"
She couldn't decide whether the gesture was becoming endearing or irritating when, for the third time in as many days, his fingers were pressed to her lips. "Okay, Bones, apparently you're not clear on what's going on here tonight. And I've been real nice this week about not ordering you around, since you're doing me a favor with Parker, but I'm getting a little tired of the whole 'please, shut me out of your private life' routine. So you're gonna listen real close, and then you're gonna do exactly as I say. First, you will have a glass of wine. Then, we will make pasta with my son. We will have a pleasant dinner, during which I will be charmingly witty, you will be adorably baffled by contemporary cultural references, and Parker will ask many, many questions about dead bodies. Are we clear?"
This must be what it feels like to be a suspect he's interrogating flashed through her mind as hard brown eyes met her gaze. Booth's voice was low and deep, body intimately close, sending a teeny shock of lust down her spine. Maybe not quite. Tempe sighed. "Wine would be nice."
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More grudging than the admission that Booth's culinary prowess had impressed her would be the realization, later, that the evening had progressed precisely as her partner had outlined. The hands-on pasta-making lesson was full of giggling and microbursts of semolina. Parker's enthusiastic 'help' delayed the finished product by at least twenty minutes. Brennan didn't know whether to laugh or cringe at the thought of how unacceptable she would consider that waste of time in her professional life. Which didn't explain the time she'd spent with Parker at the lab, the morning's excursion to the zoo, or the plans they'd made for the next day. What's happening to my life? she wondered, hiding a grin behind her second glass of wine as Booth and his son attempted to tie the last few strands of pasta into intricate knots. As Parker dropped a double-half-hitch into his open mouth, she thought back to the conversation she'd had with Angela on the way out of the Jeffersonian.
"I don't get it, Ange," she sighed, taking her jacket out of a cabinet that was papered with drawings in Parker's unsteady hand. "I only really met this kid two days ago. And I still have the same job and the same apartment, and I'm still me, and somehow it's like everything has changed. I was so sure, I'm so good at being sure about things, and now I'm not sure about anything. I can't stop thinking about my parents, and what it was like to lose them, and what it must have been like for them to... when they knew... if they knew they couldn't come back to Russ and me. And it just doesn't seem fair that this is all happening now, that Parker could just turn my world upside down, when I could keep-" She stopped, Dora the Explorer cup halfway to her bag.
"Come on, sweetie, you can say it." Angela put a comforting arm around her friend and leaned her head on Tempe's shoulder. "You kept Booth from turning your life upside down. That's what you think, isn't it?" Brennan nodded.
Angela took her best friend's face in her hands. "Bren, I know you don't like me interfering, and I know you really don't want to hear any more of my theories about you and your hunky FBI agent. So I'm gonna say this once and then I promise I'll let it be. Seeley Booth has already changed your life. For better or for worse, the day he stepped into the lab, he brought something in that you can never get rid of. The Brennan who never went out for a drink after work? Who never left work? Who didn't trust her instincts? Didn't trust anyone else to take care of her? You know I love you, hon, I always have. But personally, professionally, you are a better person than you were before you met him. Can you honestly deny that you've changed?"
A small voice. "No."
"And can you honestly say that you want that woman back?"
"No."
"Alright, then."
"Ange... what do I do?"
The artist smiled. "That's up to you. But I think that when the time is right, you'll know."
Temperance wrapped her friend in a rare hug. "Thank you, Angela."
"My pleasure. And one more thing, Bren?"
"Yes?"
"Not to get all chick-flick on you, but maybe he's turned your world right side up."
Speaking of 'right side up', Brennan was dragged back to the present by Parker's hysterical shrieks of laughter as his father hoisted him up by the ankles.
"Help me, Dr. Bones, help me help me!" Parker squealed. Brennan performed a cursory situational analysis, drawing on three advanced degrees. The child was clearly not in any physical danger, but there was an inexplicable tug in her stomach at hearing him call out to her for aid. Although the devilish grin on his father's face was quite irresistible as well...
A memory surfaced gradually. Her mother at the kitchen counter making coffee, Tempe and her chemistry set at the table, Russ's squeals and their father's booming laughter drifting in from the living room - "Mommy, Mommy, save me!" And her mother...
Before the thought was completely formed, her hands were in front of her eyes. "Parker, is that you?" Brennan feigned confusion. "I can't find you anywhere?"
Wild giggling told her that her instincts had been correct. "Dr. Bones, I'm right here! Daddy's got me!"
She kept up the charade, turning her head exaggeratedly. "I can't see you, Parker, where did you go? Booth, have you seen Parker?"
The FBI agent was finding it difficult to maintain a serious tone in the face of his son's obvious pleasure and his own glee at the way Dr. Brennan had thrown herself so completely into the game. He wasn't sure he'd ever seen her this... goofy. He'd seen so much this week that he'd never known was beneath the polished, professional exterior. Maybe not known, but... hoped. The tenderness when they'd danced the previous evening, the joy in her eyes when she saw Parker... and that was the kicker. Because he'd told himself all along that there was no point in considering any kind of long-term scenario with the beautiful, stubborn forensic anthropologist because she flat-out refused to consider the possibility of having children. And sure, he'd delighted in teasing her about it, poking at her, pitting his own stubborn will against hers – that was their thing. But frankly, Booth wasn't sure he was ready to confront the possibility that the deal-breaking issue was off the table. Plus, she was wearing her mother's earrings and had left her hair loose and curly, and he was only human after all... Earth to Seeley. Deal with this later. First things first...
"Parker who? Oh, that Parker. Nope, haven't seen him. Anyway, I need to get this subject into the interrogation room for a little bubble bath torture. Would you like to supervise the proceedings?"
She laughed and removed her hands. "No, you go ahead. I'll take care of the dishes."
"Thanks," he replied, and hauled a still-giggling Parker down the hallway, trying not to think about how easily they'd settled into the domestic routine.
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A/N: This chapter is dedicated to (although they will never read it) my mommy, who makes amazing marinara sauce from scratch, and my Uncle Fred, who taught me (and all of my cousins) to make pasta from scratch when I visited him in DC.
Lastly... OMG TONIGHT'S EPISODE WAS SO GOOD! Hodgela like wo, fluff, UST... I feel like the writers were channeling my energy. "Jesus is not a zombie." ROFLMAO. Erm, that is all.