TITLE: Undoing
CHAPTER TEN: Fifty-Fifty
"Appointment for Temperance Brennan," Booth told the receptionist while he watched his partner scuttle off to use the bathroom once again. He signed them in and headed for the waiting room, keeping his eye on the bathrooms. When he saw her emerge, he sent her his charm smile, and she glared while she made her way over to him.
"Alright, that's the last time I drink an entire cup of tea in fifteen minutes," she sighed, lowering herself into the chair at Booth's left.
He grinned. "Isn't it normal for you to be going to the bathroom a lot right now? Because your uterus is kinda sitting on your bladder?" The widened eyes she sent his way caused him to chuckle, and he voiced her unasked question. "Angela picked up a book for me."
"She's picking up pregnancy manuals for everybody now?" she asked rhetorically, a chuckle escaping. "Next thing you know, she'll have books picked out for Goodman and Zack and Hodgins so everybody knows how to deal with me."
"Do they know about this?" he asked, picking up a copy of Highlights and delving right in to the word-find.
Tempe made a face briefly at his choice of waiting room reading material, which he couldn't see her do, before she shook her head. "Not yet. From what Angela's said, there can be a lot of complications in the first trimester, so it's best to wait until I'm in my second."
"Good idea."
"But obviously if I start to show soon, I'll have to tell them. I mean, Goodman's my boss, and Zack and Hodgins aren't stupid."
"What are you going to tell them?" He set the magazine down, spine up, in his lap, and turned his full attention on her.
"That I'm... pregnant?" She raised an eyebrow. "Why? Is there something else I should be telling them?"
"Won't there be some question as to who the father is?"
"Well, that's none of their business, and I don't see any of them asking anyway. Zack and Hodgins probably could make an educated guess. Or they could ask Angela."
Both partners looked up as Tempe's name was called and they rose, Booth settling his hand on the small of her back as he guided her inside.
"Alright, Temperance, I'll have you lie back and pull your shirt up," the doctor instructed, and turned on what looked to Booth and Tempe like a computer monitor.
"Why?" Tempe asked, wary of the instruction to pull her shirt up, but still lying back as she was told.
Booth too, was looking to the doctor for an answer as he stood beside the examination table. The doctor smiled at both of them. "I'm going to be doing an ultrasound to make sure that everything is okay with the baby. We'll also be listening to the baby's heartbeat today. Now if you'll pull your shirt up for me, Temperance, we can begin."
Tempe now did as she was told without question, hiking the shirt up to just under her bra line. She jumped as the doctor squirted a clear jelly onto her stomach, and Booth flinched in response. When she noticed this, she looked up at him and gave a slight, reassuring smile, trying not to chuckle at the look in his eyes.
This man, her tough-guy-cop partner, former army sniper, looked absolutely terrified at what was going on. "Booth, relax," she reminded him.
He cleared his throat and glanced away. "Sorry."
Both partners watched, then, as the doctor began to move a wand over her stomach, gliding it this way and that, while keeping an eye on the monitor. "Okay, everything is looking good. The baby appears to be healthy, developing at the right pace..."
Tempe tilted her head as she pointed to the monitor suddenly and asked, "What is that?"
"That?" The doctor pointed to a small, peanut-shaped gray object, and smiled as Booth, too, leaned in and squinted his eyes to see it. "That is your baby."
Booth raised his eyebrows. "That's it? Shouldn't it be, y'know... a little more baby-shaped?"
The doctor grinned at Tempe. "I take it this is his first time attending a sonogram."
While Booth looked away, suddenly embarrassed, Tempe nodded her own response. "Yes."
"No problem. I can explain as we go along. Agent Booth, what you're seeing is a still-developing embryo. The ears, eyes, and nose on the face of the child are just starting to appear." She pointed to the screen. "If you squint, you can see the beginning of the baby's legs and feet, and you might just barely be able to make out some fingers. Those will be starting to develop now, too."
Tempe shifted to the side when Booth stepped right up to the monitor, blocking her view. She couldn't see his face, but smiled when she heard his awed, "Wow."
The doctor chuckled. "Now we'll do an ultrasound."
While she prepared the next step, Tempe and Booth shared a look. Booth raised his eyebrows at her, dropping his voice to a whisper. "Still don't want to have a baby after seeing that?"
She tilted her head. "Booth... it's not as simple as--"
Both of them paused as a sound began to reverberate in the room, an odd sort of thumping that sounded somewhat like the galloping of a horse. When Tempe saw Booth look around the room for the source of the noise, she couldn't help the smile that spread across her face. "Booth..."
He looked to the doctor. "What is that?"
"That? That's the baby's heartbeat, Agent Booth."
Booth exhaled a smile of awe, looking to his partner. She smiled back, fighting the tears that were coming oddly fast, at seeing the look on his face. The doctor watched both of their reactions a moment before turning off the monitors and rising from her stool. "I'm going to go make a copy of the sonogram for you to keep, Temperance. I'll be right back to prescribe some prenatal vitamins for you, then."
She nodded. "Thank you, doctor."
When they were alone, Booth spun to face his partner. "Okay. Bones, you cannot possibly tell me that, after seeing what you saw, and hearing what you heard, that you would not want this baby. I mean... come on!"
"Booth, as I tried to say before, it's not as simple as just..." She finished cleaning off her abdomen and slowly sat up, pulling her shirt back into place as she shrugged. "Wanting it or not wanting it."
"Then what is it?"
"I don't want to discuss it."
He sighed. "I just... I can't believe that you aren't the least bit excited about this, now. Nervous, even. Just give me an emotion, Bones! I'll take just about anything at this point." He stepped up to her and slid his hands over her abdomen, not stepping back when she looked to him in surprise. "See this, Bones?" He rubbed her stomach. "This is an amazing thing. This is you and me. Okay? Us."
Booth looked down at where his hands covered her and she followed his gaze. "This is us, fifty-fifty. Everything I've ever been through, everything you've ever been through... everything we've ever been through together... it's all in there. Don't you find that amazing?"
Tempe sighed, searching his face through her lashes.
She never answered him, and could tell this frustrated him just a bit. The car ride back to the lab was silent, and Booth had quite the grip on the steering wheel the entire way. She finally broke the silence with a sigh through her nose. "You're mad at me."
"I'm not mad," he immediately insisted.
"You're annoyed."
"Not annoyed, either, Bones, but if you keep it up I will be."
She shook her head and looked out the passenger side window. "What do you want me to say, Booth? Do you want me to lie and say that it's the most miraculous thing I've ever experienced? Do you want me to say that I'm so thrilled I want to run out and start buying... booties and bibs and blankets?"
"Oh my."
Tempe looked to him sharply. "I am familiar with that pop-culture reference, though it was made at a completely inappropriate time."
"I'm sorry."
They pulled into the parking lot at the Jeffersonian's Medico-Legal Lab and Booth threw the car in park, unbuckling his belt and turning to face her as a signal that he wanted to continue the conversation. "Bones, I just... I just want to know what's holding you back on this." His head was lowered, and she couldn't tell what his eyes were focused on as he asked, almost timidly, "Is it me?"
"What?"
Booth looked up and met her eyes then, his expression solemn. "Is it me, Temperance. Are you not wanting this because I'm the... the baby's--"
"No, Booth. It's not because it's you, and you should know that after what we've been through. And before anything ever happened between you and I, you were well aware that I do not want to have children."
"There has to be a reason that you don't."
"Why?"
He chuckled mirthlessly. "Because, you can't just not want children for the sake of not wanting children. There has to be an underlying reason why you're resistant to the idea."
"No, there doesn't have to be. And I'm exiting the car, now, Booth." She began to open the door.
Booth grabbed her left wrist, holding her gaze when she looked to him in surprise. "Sooner or later you're going to have to tell me why you don't want this. And sooner or later, you're going to have accept the fact that this is going to happen. Whether you want it or not, this baby is coming, Temperance. And the sooner you resolve whatever issues you have with this, the sooner we can work on giving this baby the kind of life it deserves."
Tempe swallowed, hard, at the look in his eyes, and extracted her wrist from his strong grip before climbing out of the SUV and slamming the door, heading back into the lab.
TBC
