Disclaimer: Refer to previous chapters
Every single one of Michael's muscles had frozen like he had been sprayed with liquid nitrogen the minute Charlie had called him Daddy. Fiona thought he looked quite similar to the way he had when she had tossed him a large chunk of C4 explosive with a detonator half way wired in to it.
Fiona recognized that he was doing what he had always done when he needed to absorb large sections of news or new information. His muscles hadn't jerked or tightened. They had merely frozen in place. Michael had also wiped his face clean of any emotion so that no one could tell what his response to the information was.
Everyone had gone silent to watch Michael's reaction and Gibbs had to admit that he was impressed with the total lack of shown reaction. There hadn't even been a lag before the mask had slipped over his facial featured. The transition had been automatic and seamless.
Fiona decided to help Michael out of the awkward situation. She leaned forward and pried Charlie out of Michael's frozen fingers. Fi had been the middle child of seven and she knew the right way to take care of children if they were still at the age were they slept over half the time.
Charlie opened his eyes and stretched to look up at her. "Well aren't you a handsome little boy." she cooed. "You won't remember me but I'm your Aunty Fiona. You met me when your daddy came down to visit."
Fiona looked up at Michael who looked like his brain had been put on overdrive.
He was already thinking through a lot and the image of Fi comfortably holding his nephew was monopolizing a lot of his mental state. He kicked the pace on his mental hard drive another notch and managed to recover enough to relax his muscles one at a time. He slipped behind Fiona and Charlie and tucked his arms easily around both of them. His brain was still working away. He had no clue how or if he would be able to pull of parenting.
Fiona leaned back against Michael and closed her eyes happily.
Bones had been watching the little group from her spot on the balcony beside Booth. She could see Cam, Angela, Hodgins, and Wendell watching them too from the ground level. Temperance Brennan had never been that lovey dove when it came to family scenes, but she had to admit that the sight of a man who occasionally looked like he had been carved out of an ice block looking so warmly at a woman and a baby definently touched her.
Booth seemed to e able to read her thoughts. "It's weird isn't it?" he commented as he followed her gaze.
"What's strange?"
He shrugged, "Well the fact that the little boy down their just became an orphan in the eye's of the federal government, and yet he's probably never been better taken care of." he said.
"It is sweet I suppose." she agreed. "The child shows a very similar facial bone structure to Mr. Westen. What was the relationship between them? You never told me."
"The kid is Michael's nephew." Booth informed her.
Bones nodded and went back to watching the group down below. She noticed that Sam Axe and Jesse Porter had slipped discretely to the edges of the scene. They had both taken up guard positions watching the exits and lab workers. She also noticed that while Michael now had one arm around Fiona while one hand fiddled idly with a rather large combat knife.
Bones frowned, "Should he have such a large knife in such close proximity to a young child?" she asked in confusion.
"Nah, he knows what he's doing. Besides that a military issue combat knife he's probably been trained to use one of those since he was 18." Booth said without concern.
"Are you sure?" Bones asked with concern.
Booth smiled and pulled a large combat knife from his pocket. He twirled it easily through his fingers for a moment before flipping it shut to demonstrate his point. "See? Charlie will be fine, he's got four trained killers looking out for him."
"Those to things are not sinonymous." Bones informed him. "Safe with trained killers, it's an oxymoron."
Booth shrugged. "Your safe with me." he pointed out.
Bones smiled at him. "Yes I feel very safe with you Booth." Their was a silence for a moment before Bones remembered something and frowned. "Why did you stop me from asking about Michael's hands in the interrogation? I wanted to know were all of the breaks came from."
Booth looked away. "I stopped you from asking because I recognize that type of fracture." he broke off until Bones looked at him questioningly. "It's called boxers break. It comes from punching someone too hard without knowing the military way to make a fist."
Bones was confused again. "But Michael's file says that he is highly trained in hand-to-hand combat. He would know how to punch correctly."
A/N: Review for me! I'll do more with the plot in the next few chapters!
Booth sighed, "I think the breaks happened before he got trained Bones. When he was a little kid." He rubbed his hands together slightly.
Bones caught the movement and examined his hands. She had noticed the remodeling but had never compared it to anything else before. Now she realized how the breaks were similar to the remodeling in Michael's. She knew that Booth had had a childhood that involved fighting. "Booth?" she asked.
"Just drop it for now Bones okay?" he said. His voice was tired and slightly strained, and so Bones let the subject go for the time being.
They were silent for a few more minutes until they heard the doors open. The minute they had, the weapons of every one on Michael's team were pointing at the intruder. The intruder turned out to be a now extremely terrified Sweets.
"Who the hell are you?" Michael asked. His automatic was still pointing at Sweets's heart.
"That is Lance Sweets." Booth told him as he walked down to the ground level of the lab. "He's a psychologist with the bureau. He's here to give you all your psych evaluations before we work together."