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Chapter 4
Bones felt… rested. Yes, she still felt like she'd been running through half a continent with a secret, clandestine baby that she had received without a set of instructions—she would've even settled for a pamphlet. She could write about child-rearing customs in at least a hundred different societies, but she had absolutely no clue when it came to the real thing.
Glancing towards the window, she realized it was high morning already. It wasn't until she glanced to the spot where the bassinet had been that she began to panic. "Booth!" She shouted, throwing the covers off her lower body, her mind kicking into overdrive. Bones had been prepared to find a nightmarishly scene in the living room of the suite, but instead she found Booth looking at her from the couch, as BBC played on the TV. And Hannah—Hannah was seemingly asleep on his chest. Sorry, she mouthed to her partner as he sat up, moving the baby to the bassinet that was now next to the couch.
"Didn't mean to scare you, but she started fussing around three last night, so I brought her out here," he explained, looking upset at having scared her.
She shook her head to calm him, "It's okay," she replied breathlessly.
"Of course you brought her out here." It was an irrational fear, because obviously if anyone had come for her, they wouldn't have just left her guardian alone, asleep on the bed. "I am sorry I overreacted."
Booth smiled at her reassuringly, in a way that suggested he understood what she was going through, but she had no idea how that was possible. No one could know what she was going through, because there was just no way people would continuously bring children into the world and then live in constant fear for their safety. It was—it was stupid, counter-productive and could not be healthy. Even if they didn't have some shadow group chasing them, there were still wars, disease, serial killers, famine… it was all overwhelming.
She met Booth's eyes carefully, holding his curious and inquisitive gaze for a long time before moving her eyes to the small work area he had setup. Her pictures and reports were all laid out on the main table; there would be time to look at those again, but right now she just wanted a glass of water.
The suite had a full-size refrigerator, completely stocked. Next to it, she saw the now familiar can of formula amid a small mess. Glancing up unassumingly at her partner, he shrugged and stuck his hands down his pockets.
"Sorry, making formula at three in the morning is always messy, especially if the instructions are in another language… and I still have no idea what an mL is, although I am sure I learned it at some point in school. My measurements might have been a little off, but I got no complaints for the starving eating machine." He jabbed a thumb in Hannah's direction.
Brennan smiled as she swept the formula remnants to the floor with one hand, reaching for a glass from the counter with the other. "It's a milliliter, or one-thousandth of a liter," she explained.
"And that's why you have the bigger brain," Booth joked, moving towards the table of evidence.
"Actually, our brains are relatively the same size, but I get your point and I thank you for your compliment."
His full-blown smile was more refreshing than the cold water she was drinking, and she finally moved to join him at the table. He had arranged everything in a sort of a timeline so far, except for the big pile at the top of unsorted items. At the very end of the desk was her laptop, with the genealogic tree of the Royal Family loaded. A tourism pamphlet had a list of possible suspects written in his careless handwriting.
She started to silently re-organize his mini-timeline, hoping that it would help him try to get a better idea of what she had been through.
He watched her, hovering at times but mostly reading the stuff she would add to the timeline. When she was done, he was still a few days behind her, and she just sat down and watched his face as more and more pieces of the puzzle merged together. When he was finally done, he glanced down at her, fear in his features. "Okay, I get most of what happened, Bones – now how are we going to get this child out of this whole mess?"