TITLE: Undoing
CHAPTER 22: Excuses to Run
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Since you guys are by far the most wonderful bunch of readers and reviewers I've ever had the pleasure to write for, I'm giving you another chapter. The mass amounts of reviews for my updates have been very inspiring, sweet, humorous, and many other adjectives that I can't think of right now. This chapter definitely won't be as long as the last one -- this gets back to the normal chapter size, I believe, and is sort of a filler and a set-up for things to come. Enjoy :D
"Goin' to the chapel and we're... gonna get ma-a-arried. Goin' to the chapel and we're--"
"Ange."
Angela halted her singing and turned expectant eyes to her best friend, who tilted her head and glared death.
"It's been a week. And, this may be the hormones talking, but if you don't stop singing that song, I'll kill you and hide your body."
Angela giggled. "Point taken, Sweetie. The song stops. What would you like me to sing now? Maybe a little 'I'm Gettin' Married in the Mornin'?" She grinned cheekily. "Or a few bars of 'Wedding Bell Blues'?"
Tempe closed her eyes and sighed, rubbing her temples. "Maybe a measure or two of 'Get Out of My Office'."
Angela grinned and made her way over to her friend, rubbing her back. "Easy, Bren. I'm just teasing you. I have literally been walking on air since you said 'yes' to Booth." She frowned briefly, eyeing the stress hugging her friend's features. "Y'know, since... you're obviously not very elated by your engagement." She sighed. "What gives, honey? Don't you wanna marry Booth?"
"Yes, I do," she replied exhaustedly, rubbing her eyes.
"Is it the baby? I thought everything was okay. Your amnio said so, anyway."
"Yes, everything's fine."
"Then what is it?"
"I just..." Tempe sighed and pulled her hands away from her eyes, visually following Angela as she went to sit on the couch. She met her friend's eyes and narrowed her own just slightly as she asked, "Do you think this is really what Booth wants?"
Angela's eyebrows made a jump toward her hairline. "Brennan, I cannot believe you are even asking me that. After what you saw at his place a week ago, how can you even ask yourself that?" She leaned forward slightly. "I'm saying this harshly because I love you, Bren, but... you need to get it into your thick little skull already that this is what Booth wants. This is all that he wants. You. The baby. A family. Quit trying to find excuses to run."
Angela shook her head and sat back. "Running's useless anyway. Booth would just chase you down and bring you right back. You know that he would."
Tempe smiled ruefully. "Yeah, he would."
"Afternoon, ladies," Hodgins greeted as he entered Brennan's office with Booth not far behind him.
Booth smiled at his fiancee. "Bones..." He made his way over to her and discretely pecked her lips, ignoring the other two. He rubbed her abdomen and smiled down at it. "Baby..." He started to lean toward her stomach to give it a kiss, but she pushed on his forehead.
Tempe's brows flicked upward. "Let's keep the kisses above the neck, or else you'll get the hose again."
Booth mirrored his fiancee's eyebrow quirk. "Yeah alright, Buffalo Bill."
Predictably, she shook her head. "I don't know what that means."
Hodgins rolled his eyes. "For the love of God, Booth, once that baby's born, take the woman to a movie, would you?"
Booth nodded. "I will. Believe me."
Tempe sighed and pushed back from the desk, her chair rolling a few feet backward. She rose to her feet slowly -- to her dismay, she was getting slower and slower everyday -- and made her way toward the door, her hand on her lower back. "Come on, Booth, I have to show you the knife marks on the latest victim."
"Hey, you want me to rub you down later? Uh... your back, I mean?" Booth followed her out.
Hodgins called over his shoulder, "Discuss your icky sex games when you're alone, please!"
Angela smacked his leg as he perched on the arm of the couch. "Knock it off. They're in love."
When she rose to her feet and went to Brennan's desk, sifting through the photographs she'd been summoned to look at, Hodgins allowed himself a chance to stare at the petite brunette. His mind drifted back to a week before, when they'd sought refuge in a closet. "Were we really having a moment?" he blurted.
He watched in amusement as her spine straightened, vertebra by vertebra.
Angela spun on her heel slowly. "Excuse me?"
He took a few steps forward, leaving his perch on the couch. "Last week. In the closet."
She fought the smile, though she knew she was already failing miserably. "What did I tell you then?"
"You said to forget it."
"And what of that?"
Hodgins shrugged and emitted a charming smile. "I've got three doctorates and a photographic memory. Asking me to forget it is asking a bit much."
She rolled her eyes. "Fine. Then, just chalk it up to the darkness and proximity, if you must." She then turned her back on him again and went back to the pictures.
"But was that all it really was?" he pressed, taking another step forward.
Her spine straightened once again, and she spun around, this time leaning on the desk slightly. She narrowed her eyes at the curly-haired entomologist contemplatively, her voice soft as she asked, "Why do you wanna know, Jack?"
He met Angela's eyes and all the lines he typically used to hook women suddenly fell out of his head. "I just... I thought that maybe you... uh..."
"For the last time, Booth, I am not being irrational!"
Brennan stomped into the office with Booth on her heels and effectively drew the squints out of yet another moment. She slammed a file down onto her desk. "YOU'RE being irrational by accusing ME of being irrational!"
Booth made a face. "What?" And as his fiancee once again stalked out of the office, he followed her, his voice trailing off as he got further away. "That was irrational. Bones..."
Angela raised her eyebrows, eyes still following her friends' tracks through the lab, and she sighed. "The trademark one o'clock mood swing. Oh joy."
"ANGELA! Where are those photos? I need you to start the sketches!"
Hodgins started for the door, alarm in his eyes. "I'd better go shut myself in my office before she goes on a rampage."
Angela nodded. "A wise choice."
"But um..." He paused in the doorway and turned to face her, once again losing all ability to speak when he was met with that expectant look in her eyes. He sighed dejectedly, "I'll see ya later," and scurried off to his office.
"See ya," Angela called back, watching his path of retreat in amusement. When he'd disappeared from sight, she let a grin escape, and bit down on her lip softly. "Hmm."
"ANGELA!"
She huffed exasperatedly and grabbed the photos. "Coming, Sweetie!" she called, as sweetly as possible. On her way out, she grabbed a chocolate bar from Brennan's desk. "Just in case," she whispered to herself, and jogged out the door.
TBC
MORE Author's Notes: Angela's little lip-bite and "Hmm" at the end there was a throw-back to the shippiest Hodgela episode thus-far, "The Man in the Morgue." I just love how she does that at the end of the scene, after Hodgins leaves. Very very cute, and I had to include it as an homage to that ep. More to come soon!
