-1The Evenstar

Temperance had never taken much notice of her birthdays, until Angela started at the Jeffersonian the only person to notice her birthday had been Zach and celebrating another lonely year with her infatuated grad student didn't seem ethical, or much like fun. However it had been the best part of two years since she began to tolerate Seeley Booth and although her birthday last year had involved tracking down a murderous prostitute in Los Angeles, she was sure that this year was going to be different, Russ was coming over for the weekend.

Angela had dragged her out to the movies for the last couple of years, making sure that she knew at least a little pop culture and asking her over for DVDs and ice-cream every time a relationship ended, which was so often that Temperance was inclined to believe Angela used it as an excuse to spend some time with her that didn't involve dead people. For Angela it was most likely escapism, watching elves, men, dwarves, wizards and talking trees run all over a made up continent for the sake of a single piece of jewellery that could end the world was in no way realistic. For Temperance it brought back memories of a fourteen year old girl curled up in her bed, long after her father had turned out her light, reading by torchlight and imagining the beautiful Lady Arwen and the heroic Aragorn, the loyalty of the fellowship and the struggle against impossible odds to save their world. Intellectually she knew that it was all romantic nonsense, the genre wasn't called fantasy for nothing, but looking back on her idealised early childhood and remembering how her imagination used to move her, affect her emotionally more than anyone ever knew, only made her realise that she had closed off her emotions even from her imagination.

Watching the characters mourn for the loss of one of their own and realising that while she should be able to empathise, being part of a team that had been shot at, blown up, abducted and held hostage two hundred feet underwater, should be able to summon feelings appropriate to losing a friend, when shefound she couldn't, it made her sadder than she thought it would. Not only was she protected from being hurt in her ivory tower of empirical scientific inquiry, she was prevented from reaching out, safe but separate.

Seeing the look on her friend's face Angela misinterpreted it as being caused by the movie and filed it away for later use, which happened to be only a few days later.

"So Angela, Bones' birthday, what are you getting her?"

"I have the perfect gift already wrapped."

"And that would be?"

"A picture of her and Russ done in charcoal and professionally framed and some jade green silk pyjamas from Victoria's Secret."

"Parker is better at drawing than I am and Bones would kill me if I bought her anything from Victoria's Secret."

"So if you didn't think she'd kill you, you'd buy her lingerie? Interesting."

"What is everyone else getting her?" Angela stopped putting data into her mainframe and smiled at her friend who was trying and failing to be cool.

"Booth, sweetie, why don't you just ask me what I think she'll like?" Booth sighed and put the pen that he'd been fiddling with back in his pocket.

"That would mean admitting to not having bought Bones anything and having no clue what she likes. I mean, I could get her a book but is there any book she'd be interested in that she hasn't already bought?"

"Ugh, Zach is buying her a book. Why don't you get her something pretty? She's still a woman under that lab coat you know."

"Pretty… jewellery's an option."

"There you go." Booth frowned at her tone, it was too reminiscent of Zach's 'that's a workable idea'.

"I've gotta go do some shopping."

"Why don't I give you a hand with that?"

"Sure grab your coat." Angela looked up from the computer that was displaying the Google homepage.

"Grab a seat Seeley. We'll find the perfect gift for Bren before she finishes her lunch."

"She stopped to eat today?"

"I know, it's a late Christmas miracle." Angela typed something into the search engine and got a list of possible sites. "Here, this one is in DC, that means cheaper packaging and it'll here quicker."

"If it's in DC why can't we go to the store?"

"You really are a Luddite aren't you."

"Hey!" Angela shushed him like he was Parker's age.

"Nenya, oh this is beautiful. She'd love it."

"A ring, that's a little… I mean it could be misconstrued and she'd be getting bits of corpses in it."

"Ok we're not there yet, maybe next year."

"Sorry what was that?" Angela smiled to herself happy at least that she was shopping with Booth for jewellery for Brennan.

"Nothing, nothing. So do you see anything you like?" Booth looked at the screen and pointed at a necklace that he thought was very pretty.

"That's kinda nice. I guess." Managing to keep the excited squeal to herself that Booth had picked the Evenstar as a gift for her friend Angela voiced her approval and asked for his credit card.

"Don't worry sweetie, Zach's the one with the photographic memory."

"I'll bear that in mind." Angela sent the payment and the site displayed a thank you message, squinting at the description of the necklace he'd just bough Booth's brows came together.

"Does that say 'Lord of the Rings'? I knew Bones was a squint but I didn't think she was a D&D geek."

"Those films are full of men, strong men, heroes even, fighting and riding horses and declaring undying love to elves."

"I get it. You made her watch it."

"And she liked it. So there. Run along now Seeley. Thank me later… with gifts." Booth smiled his goodbye and made his way out passing Bones' office and finding her with her feet up on her sofa, sandwich in one hand and 'Return of the King' in the other.

"So this is what you really do when I'm not here."

"Booth I… I'm on my lunch, meaning I'm entitled to do what I want to with my time for the next…" She checked her watch. "Seven and a half minutes… approximately. Unless we have a case that is, do we have a case?"

"No I was in the neighbourhood and I just dropped in to say hey."

"Now who's missing whom?"

"Alright Bones you got me, you're the love of my life and any moment when I'm not with you is torture. Happy now?"

"No, just confused. What did you want?" Booth sighed and came into the room properly.

"What are you doing next Saturday around half six?"

"I'm busy with Russ it's my…"

"Only I have Parker over and I have to take him back at five which always sucks so I thought we could grab some food after and you could not understand a word I say."

"…Birthday."

"Sorry what?"

"Next Saturday is my birthday, you know that."

"Your birthday? Huh. Guess that one slipped past me. Anyway, gotta run. See you Bones." Booth walked out of the lab glad he listened to Angela's advice.

"He forgot my birthday?" Bones sat in silence for about a minute and a half. "I don't care. I don't even know when he birthday is!" Her break was up so she didn't even have Tolkien's evocative description to comfort her.

"I can't believe he forgot my birthday. Rat. Bastard."