Spoilers: Nup!

Disclaimer: Because it's their last night, I decided to have some fun. Hehe. This is probably the second last chapter. So reviews are appreciated! And ideas as to how to end it. I have a few, but I'd like to know what you think.

Author's Note: Um, the Snow White thing? Personal annoyance. The question has been irking me for ages. If anyone has any reasons, feel free!


To Sweets' surprise, Booth leaned over to whisper in Brennan's ear. She nodded solemnly and Booth stood up, moving confidently and purposefully out of the room.

Sweets opened his mouth to stop him, but Brennan cut him off. "He'll just be a minute. I…uh…I think you're questions just put him off a little," she lied. Sweets bought it, probably still too baffled to realize her lie. He just turned to her and nodded dumbly.

After a few minutes of silence, "How did it make you feel, Doctor Brennan?"

"You're very persistent," she replied icily. He shrugged, him smug expression returning.

"I have to be with you two. So. How do you feel hearing Booth say all that?" Suddenly, Brennan grinned at him and he felt something cold on his hand and heard a click. He spun to see a very happy looking Booth fastening a pair of handcuffs to the leg of coffee table he'd been sitting on, making sure to put them in the apex of the brace, so he couldn't slip them off.

The other end was attached to his wrist. Sweets' eyes widened. "Very funny, Agent Booth. Now un-cuff me," he said, sounding shocked, but bored. He looked between Booth and Brennan, who were currently grinning at each other happily. Sweets glared as Booth offered Brennan his hand over Sweets' head.

She smiled and accepted, gliding off the couch gracefully as they made their way into the kitchen.

"Booth! Brennan! Get back here now. Booth, this is not a way to avoid answering questions!" he pleaded. Booth laughed as he heard a bang from the coffee table. Sweets slumped on the coffee table, defeated when Booth and Brennan ignored him. He took one last stab.

"I'm telling Cullen."


Laura giggled as she and Alex spotted Sweets, who now sat dejectedly on the coffee table, his chin in his free palm. Sweets looked up, grateful to hear someone not Booth or Brennan, who had been standing in the kitchen for the past hour discussing God-knows-what while he suffered.

"Agent Cullen, Rice!" he cried. Alex jumped.

"Oh, Doctor Sweets! I didn't see you there!" Laura teased. Sweets smiled acidly, as if threatening her to challenge him, under pain of therapy sessions.

"Can you just undo the cuffs?" he said, as more of a command than a request; as if he weren't cuffed to a coffee table.

"Well, I would, but I don't have my keys. Where on Earth did the cuffs come from?" Alex suddenly wondered. Sweets glared in the direction of the kitchen, still being ignored by Booth and Brennan.

"Say, why don't you ask Booth?"


"One five!"

"Cheat," the rest of the table chorused in unison. Brennan frowned. Booth grinned. He figured he had one shot at a card game that Brennan wouldn't win. He was right. She was terrible at it.

"What? Why do you all just assume-"

"We don't, Bones," Booth soothed, patting her shoulder and turning back to his cards with a grin.

"Then why do you always know? Is there a rule you forgot to teach me?" To her shock, Booth chuckled.

"Yeah, Bones. How to cheat." She smacked him with her elbow; both hands currently too full of cards.

"Shut up."

Alex and Laura just watched the altercation with amusement. Brennan, surprisingly, had not gotten angry. Booth's teasing had seemed to amuse her more than irritate her.

"It's because she-"

"Want me to gag you, too, Sweets?" Booth asked as if he were inquiring as to the weather. Sweets glared from his coffee table. It had been at least two hours now. At least.

"Agent Booth, this is highly unstable behavior! You're asserting your dominant-male status…"

As Sweets continued to ramble, Brennan leaned over to Booth. "I think he has a point, Booth."

"Be quiet, Bones. Don't encourage him!" Booth hissed. Brennan rolled her eyes. "Three kings."

Brennan instantly called 'cheat'. Both smugly flipped over the cards. Three kings.

"Damn straight, Bones. Damn straight," he chuckled. She frowned.

"But two kings have already been played this round! Laura and Alex both played one! Why didn't they call that, too?" she exclaimed. Laura and Alex grinned at each other, then at Brennan.

"Because they were cheating, Bones, and they knew that. If Alex cheated, chances are I could actually have three kings. So he didn't call it. And same goes for Laura," he explained as if she were a child. Brennan thought for a second.

"Then why didn't you call them? You're the one with three of the kings," she stated somewhat grumpily. He frowned. She finally had a point.

"Because, Bones: I don't want to end up with as many cards as you if I'm wrong."


"Why seven?" Brennan suddenly asked.

"Huh?" Booth grunted from his end of the couch, turning his head from the TV to Brennan. "Seven what?"

"Dwarves. Why are there seven?" Brennan looked utterly perplexed and Booth couldn't help but laugh.

"I don't know, Bones. You're the anthropologist," he shrugged. Brennan continued to frown.

"Snow White has nothing to do with anthropology, Booth," she breathed, rolling her eyes. "I've always wondered, actually. When I was little, my brother used to read it to me to get me to sleep…"

She stopped, suddenly remembering herself and the other four people in the room. She looked sheepishly at a smiling Booth. "That's sweet, Bones." He nodded. She blushed.

"But the point is, that I've always wondered why there's seven. And no one seems to know why," she exclaimed. She sounded near hysterics, and Booth laughed again.

"Maybe there is no reason, Bones. Maybe Disney just liked the number seven," he suggested. Brennan scoffed at him.

"Disney? It's the Grimm brothers, Booth," she corrected, rolling her eyes. "I always had that one. I liked it better. The Disney version is just dishonest. I don't see why people feel the need to make everything all…fluffy for children-"

"Fluffy?"

"I mean, they're just as much animal as the rest of us. It's censorship, really. Why change the ending of a fairy tale? The end tends to be the 'moral', anyway; and isn't that what all these cartoons are trying to get across?" She took a deep breath and looked imploringly at the other four. Sweets was the only one to speak.

"But, Doctor Brennan, you have to take into account that the 'moral', the punishment in the original story consisted of the wicked stepmother dancing in red hot iron shoes till she dropped dead," he suggested. Booth gawked.

"Geez, Bones! You didn't mention that! It's no wonder they changed it. For kids?!" He whistled through his teeth. Brennan frowned at him.

"But that's the truth. That's how it was originally written. I know I'd be annoyed if they took my books and changed the endings." She had Booth a little stumped on that one.

"It's not the same, Bones."

"What? Of course it is," she challenged. "What's so different about it?"

"Uh…well, you write for adults…" he tried. He really had no answer. Brennan's eyes turned skyward.

"So did the brothers Grimm," she said smugly.

"My point exactly!"

Brennan raised her eyebrow at him. What the hell was he talking about. :Now you're just saying things to confuse me, aren't you?"

"Yup!" he chirped, wrapping an arm across her shoulders. She laughed somewhat disbelievingly at him. Sweets settled back onto the floor, the chairs having been taken up by their usual occupants. Besides, he was still cuffed to the table. Alex had been 'thoughtful' enough to put a plate of food in front of him at dinner.

Booth and Brennan were both silent, lost in thought, until Brennan spoke.

"Why is only one of their names' not an adjective?"


"Ah!" Booth sighed as he stretched his limbs, half across Brennan. She fidgeted under him. "I'm beat. Bed time, I think. Bones?"

"What?" she asked. Booth grinned at her obliviousness.

"Bed. Coming?"

"Oh. Um, yeah. I think I will. We have to get up early tomorrow anyway," she pointed out. Booth frowned in confusion. "We leave tomorrow…"

"Oh. Right. Huh. Forgot. Better make the most of it!" Only Brennan didn't get the innuendo, and Sweets groaned in disgust. Alex and Laura just looked at one another and grinned wickedly.

Booth stood, offering a hand to Brennan which she ignored. He rolled his eyes at her and moved his hand to her back as they left. "Night!"

Alex and Laura replied the same way, turning back to the TV.

"Hey!" Sweets called. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

Booth looked at Brennan, then dug his free hand into his back pocket, picking out the key. He threw it over his head into the lounge room without looking, then made for the stairs, wrapping his arm around Brennan's shoulders as he laughed.


Brennan lay back against her pillows, looking over to Booth who lay with his hands linked behind his head. She laughed quietly. "If Sweets knew…"

"Yeah, well, he probably hasn't gotten himself out of those cuffs yet," Booth laughed.

"That was a little harsh, don't you think?" Brennan winced. Booth looked at her skeptically.

"Were you comfortable with the questions he was asking?" Booth pointed out. Brennan frowned.

"No. But cuffing him to the table? Why did you have your cuffs anyway?" she suddenly realized. Booth flashed his eyebrows in a very lewd gesture.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" he teased. Brennan frowned, missing the joke.

"Yes. I would. That's why I just asked," she stated. He rolled onto his side, head in palm.

"My hilarity is wasted on you…" he sighed, mock-mournful.

"Maybe you're just not funny," she bit. Booth scoffed, as if the idea were completely preposterous.

"No, Bones; I'm funny," he said simply. She rolled her eyes and dragged her blankets onto her, wriggling to get comfortable. Her eyes reopened when Booth laughed. She looked at him quizzically.

"You're cute when you're all wriggly," he laughed, prodding her ribs with a finger. She squirmed out of his reach with a frown, only to land on the floor. Booth laughed as he moved to occupy her spot, spreading-eagling himself across the two mattresses. She sat up, her blankets twisted around her legs, and glared at him. He grinned.

"Move, Booth."

He kept grinning, but this time, he was challenging her. "Not a chance," he stated, enunciating every word.

"I can hurt you, you know."

"I know. Why don't you lay down and do it?" he suggested with a flash of his eyebrows. Brennan continued to glare. "What, are you going to stay there all night?"

"No, I'm going up to my room," she huffed. Booth laughed quietly.

"Se you'd rather sleep with Sweets than with me?!" he cried. "I'm shocked and offended, Bones." He frowned at her. Realizing she was getting nowhere, she sunk down onto the farthest edge of the mattress she could find.

Her attempts were botched, however, when Booth moved to her, and, grabbing her by the waist, pulled her on top of him. He shrugged as she stared at him, taken aback. "You were going to fall off," he offered as means of justification. She quickly regained her wits, and much to Booth's disappointment, pulled herself off him and back onto the other side of the mattress, turning her back.

Booth left her, but didn't lose contact. "Goodnight, Bones," he whispered against her neck, pressing a kiss to her jaw. He heard her laugh.

"You're very persistent."

"Yes I am," he agreed unashamedly. She laughed again, but this time at her own inside joke.

"You have more in common with Sweets than you think, Booth," she told him. He grunted in annoyance before shutting his eyes and ducking his head into her hair. He kissed the back of her neck.

"Would Sweets do this?" he challenged. Despite how much this was affection her, she shrugged and turned slightly to face him, their lips just touching.

"Maybe."

He pulled back, obviosly annoyed by her answer. His eyes narrowed.

"How do you feel about that, Booth?"