Talk About the Future and Put Each Other In It

Booth glanced up from his reclined position on Bones' office couch, cracking only one eye to see who it was. "Heya, Bones." He mumbled, closing his eye once more.

"Hello Booth." She muttered distractedly. "Please make yourself comfortable." She added sarcastically, and he smirked to himself, impressed with how far her sarcasm had come after five years of his unwavering influence. Listening to her pull out her desk chair and put her stuff down, he allowed himself to be lulled back into his previous dozing state. "Do we have a case?" She asked, startling him as his socked-feet were suddenly shoved roughly off of the end of the couch.

"Hey." He grumbled, opening his eyes and waiting for her to sit down at the end of the couch before slinging his legs back over her lap, much to her obvious chagrin. "No." He told her, closing his eyes again and adjusting the throw pillow under his head. "I came to see if you wanted to have lunch, but now I just want to finish my nap." He told her, crossing his arms over his eyes to block the overhead light she'd turned on.

"I just ate." She told him, sounding somewhat distracted, as she shuffled some papers.

"You didn't invite your partner to lunch?" He muttered, feigning offence. "Didn't even bring me back a doggy bag." He continued his sleepy grumbling without looking up at her.

"I had a meeting with my publishers. They bought me lunch and gave me another chapter revision." She muttered. He secretly loved it when she got some damn offended that they would even DARE to tell her anything about her books was less than perfect just the way she'd written it. He could hear the disdain oozing in her tone.

"You know bones, Bones. Your publisher knows books." He reminded her as he felt her stack of papers rest on the makeshift lap desk of his legs across her thighs, her pen tapping absently against his shin bone. "A little to the left, Sugar." He teased when the rhythmic tapping continued for several seconds.

"Huh?" She asked, and he risked peeking an eye at her. Her confused face was priceless and her pen hung, poised loosely between her fingers above his leg.

"If you're going to give me a little shiatsu, Bones, at least focus on somewhere that hurts." He told her with a chuckle, wiggling his toes emphatically, but she didn't seem at all amused.

"Sorry." She muttered, refocusing on her bundle of papers. "My publisher wants me to make more changes than I'm comfortable with." She informed him, sounding just as petulant as she always did when she was given a revision she didn't like.

So cute. He mused to himself. "So tell your publisher to shove it where the sun don't shine." He offered with a grin.

"Tromsø?" She asked, raising a questioning brow at him. He wasn't even going to ask what the hell that meant. "I can't tell her to shove it as you so eloquently put it. She just gave me a very large advance. I feel compelled to do whatever she asks." She groused, and he had to work to hide his amusement. Temperance Brennan was probably the only person in the world who would complain about getting a fat cheque.

"Look, Bones, stick to your guns. It's your book. If they didn't think you were a big asset, they wouldn't be throwing big advances at you left and right." He pointed out to her, and she seemed to accept this, pursing her lips and nodding. "So how big of an advance was it?" He asked, waggling his eyebrows at her and trying not to draw attention to the fact that she'd been absently stroking her thumb nail up and down the arch of his foot.

"Seven figures." She told him reluctantly, remaining vague, as usual. Someday he'd find out just how much his partner was worth.

"You could do a lot with seven figures, Bones!" he told her excitedly. "I saw a chalet for sale just outside of the city, waterfront property, 6 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, indoor and outdoor pools, a private dock WITH a boat." he was telling her, and he didn't care if she was listening or not because he was already picturing it. "We could go out there on weekends and go fishing, waterskiing, inner tubing... The whole Squint Squad could come out too. There'd be enough room for 'em all. There are even hiking trails in the woods that surround the property. We could build a treehouse in the woods!" he told her excitedly.

"We're far too busy to purchase a property of that size and maintenance demand, Booth." she told, halting her massaging fingers on his foot to pick up her pen and scratch out a line on the pages in front of her. "We usually work most weekends. It would be a lot to close the property down if we were called away for a case while there." His face fell, and as if she'd had some sixth sense, she looked over at him sympathetically. "Perhaps when we retire."

"By then we'll be too old to enjoy it." he grumbled, crossing his arms over his eyes again in a show of his own petulance.

She laughed, and he lifted his arms just a crack to peek under them at her as she gripped his foot more firmly, pressing into his knotted arch. "I believe you're already too old, if the state of your skeleton is any indication." she told him as her strokes became more firm and deliberate.

"So what you're saying is we should throw in the towel now and retire to that villa on the water." he teased, enjoying the sound of her throaty laughter, glad that she wasn't so grumpy anymore.