A/N: Mad love to adangeli for her beta assistance. You keep us on our toes, lady.
Three days later, surrounded by gasoline fumes and the eerie light of tropical fish tanks, Brennan shot Ken Thompson in the leg. He was packed off to the hospital and, on the advice of counsel, confessed to the murder of Cleo Eller.
Booth was impressed that the entire squint squad attended Cleo's funeral. Not that he would ever tell them that, of course.
The next morning, Booth called Brennan about getting the close-out paperwork done.
"What paperwork?" she asked.
"Oh, that's right," he sneered. "You skipped out on the paperwork part of the Jemma Arrington case. This is the government, Bones. There's always paperwork."
"Skipped out?" she demanded. "I seem to recall being fired, dubiously rehired, and unceremoniously tossed aside once I solved the case for you. And don't call me Bones."
"Yeah, I spared you the pencil-pushing part of the job. You're welcome. But it's not a gift I plan to bestow with any regularity. So let's just get it over with. Between the two of us, we can probably get everything wrapped up by midnight or one."
"Tonight? I can't do tonight."
"Well, I can't do this weekend, and trust me, it's much better to get this out of the way before the next case comes along."
"Booth, I have responsibilities. I can't just stay at work until midnight on a whim. Parker's nanny goes home at six. She has children of her own. Don't you ever think about how your needs might affect others?"
Booth grimaced. Rebecca had delivered a very similar parting shot just a few days ago, mere hours after he moved back in. What was it with women?
Brennan sighed into the phone. "I guess you could come over to my apartment. Parker will be in bed by eight. We can fill out your preposterous paperwork after that."
He knocked on her door later that evening with a big bag of takeout as a conciliatory gesture. He wasn't sure whether she would have eaten yet, and he had no idea what she liked, so he ordered an eclectic mix of Chinese food and figured that would cover it.
The apartment was spacious and quiet, with an interesting tribal-and-Fisher-Price decorating scheme. The kid was asleep, but evidence of him was everywhere: miniature shoes by the front door, brightly-colored silverware on the drain board, a bulky plastic easel in the living room. As they spread out their files at the oversized dining table, Booth inadvertently chose the chair with a booster seat strapped to it.
The hours slipped by as they sorted files, finalized forensic and police reports, and scrawled their names on the "redundant, bureaucratic nonsense," as she put it, required by the FBI and the federal prosecutors. As Booth packed up the files at the end of the marathon evening, Brennan offered him a beer, and he accepted. They toasted the completion of the paperwork and each took a grateful swallow.
Booth set his bottle on the table and leaned forward. Feeling saucy – or maybe just punchy – he said, "So, last year, it wasn't the tequila that was the problem, was it? It was your son. You couldn't bring me back here, and you couldn't stay out all night."
She gave a Mona Lisa smile. "If that helps you sleep better at night."
He chuckled and took another slug of his beer, feeling her eyes on him. Not an unpleasant sensation – like the spicy Kung Pao Chicken, her gaze sent little prickles of heat through his body.
"Who's the woman in your life with baby issues?" she asked, and he gave a little scowl. This wasn't a conversation he'd been looking forward to.
"Partners share things," she teased pointedly.
He tipped his beer bottle toward her in acknowledgment. "My girlfriend."
She let several heartbeats go by. "And what baby issues does she have?"
"Namely, that she wants a baby," he deadpanned, leaving out the bit about the un-taken birth control pills and his continued agony as he waited for her to mention that she'd gotten her period. He wasn't contemplating the other possible announcement she might make.
"You don't want children?" Brennan asked. "It's a biological imperative. All animals are programmed to procreate."
He picked at the label on his beer. "I always figured I'd end up with the Norman Rockwell life eventually – wife, kids, dog, house. Just… not now. I'm not sure she's the woman of my dreams, and I don't want to be stuck with a kid if things don't work out with the mom. You know?" he asked again.
She gave a snort. "Yeah. I know."
"Sorry." He was suddenly terribly embarrassed.
She waved her hand in mild forgiveness. "I didn't plan Parker. And it's very, very hard work sometimes. But he's an amazing little person, and I am fascinated by his physical and mental development. Watching him learn all the things we take for granted. For instance, as a newborn, he had to learn how to hear a sound off to one side of his head and know to look that direction. And watching him learn to put sentences together –" She shook her head. "'More apple, please.' Those were three separate ideas for him once, and now he can string them all together and express a coherent thought. And he's sociable and extremely engaging…"
He was touched, watching her rhapsodize about her son. She was trying to be clinical, but he couldn't help but enjoy her obvious maternal pride.
"How long until he can say the letter L?" Booth asked, hoping that didn't sound rude.
Brennan gave him a puzzled look. "There's no specific developmental milestone for pronunciation."
"I just would have thought that any child of Temperance Brennan's would have perfect language skills, you know, at birth."
"It turns out," she replied with an arched eyebrow and a wry smile, "that one only has so much control over one's offspring."
The evening grew later, and Booth finally hauled himself to his feet. As he walked toward his car, he found himself looking forward to the next evening of paperwork ahead of them. She was a challenge, his Bones was, and he was enjoying their constant jockeying for control.
XXXXXXXX
A week later, Rebecca got her period, and Booth was finally able to take a deep breath. She began making a point of taking her pill during the breakfast they shared each morning, but he could read the quiet sadness in her face each time. It was beginning to get oppressive.
He and Brennan settled into a nice rhythm of takeout and paperwork at the end of a case, always at her place while Parker slept down the hall. After one particularly satisfying arrest, he knocked on her door and heard a thumpthumpthump on the other side of the door.
The first thing he saw when the door opened was a stark naked, three-foot blond pixie boy. The second thing he saw was Brennan with a diaper in her hand and a frustrated expression. She waved Booth in.
"Parker, you remember Mr. Booth. You met him at my lab a few weeks ago."
"Hi," Parker said, grinning with the mischief of a child up past his bedtime.
"Um, hi, Parker." Booth whispered to Brennan, "He doesn't have to call me Mr. Booth, you know."
"Honorific titles engender respect for one's elders," she retorted automatically. "Besides, everyone calls you by your last name."
"That's business-related. Hearing it from a little kid makes me feel really old."
She was too tired to argue. "How about Uncle Seeley?"
"Uh-oh," said Parker, and promptly peed on the floor.
Brennan closed her eyes, and Booth could practically hear her count to ten. When she opened her eyes, men large and small were looking at her with cautious expectation.
"It's fine, Parker. Easy to clean up. Next time, when you feel the need to urinate, we'll use the toilet. That's what big boys do. Uncle Seeley uses the toilet."
Booth recoiled, but Parker's head swiveled and the questioning eyes were now on him.
"Yep," was all Booth could manage.
"Booth, could you put Parker in the bathtub while I clean this up?"
Parker turned and pattered off down the hallway. Booth tossed his jacket and papers onto the sofa and followed, with some trepidation.
Booth ran a bath while Parker chattered about the plastic squirty animals lined up along the edge of the tub. "This one's a wion. This one's an ewephant. This one's a kangaroo. Kangaroos are mar-soo-pee-aws. This one's a rhinoceros. From the Greek 'rhino,' meaning 'nose.'"
"Like rhinoplasty," Booth said, as he hoisted the little guy into the tub. Parker looked amazed. "Rhinoplasty," Booth repeated, as he dunked the plastic rhino under the water and began to squeeze out all the air. "It's when people have plastic surgery on their noses."
Brennan arrived. "Mama, Unca Seewee is very smart!" Parker exclaimed.
His mother smiled, a little condescendingly, and knelt down next to the tub. "Yes, he is," she agreed politely.
Booth squirted Parker in the stomach with the rhino, and Parker squealed with glee. "You're playing with fire," Brennan smirked at Booth. "You'd better take off your watch."
Sure enough, Parker was maniacally filling the kangaroo with water, and Booth zipped off his tie just in time to get pelted in the chest with a tiny stream of warm water. Booth pretended to be shot, and fell back with a wail, clutching at his chest. Parker was thrilled.
"This is supposed to be relaxing time, in preparation for sleeping," Brennan scolded them both. "Not the time to get all wound up."
Booth hooked his forearms over the edge of the tub, and he and Parker played with the bath toys while Brennan gave her son a quick but thorough soaping. This isn't so bad, Booth caught himself thinking. It was nice to get a little lost in the simplicity of Parker's world, where everything was interesting and fun to play with. Of course, Booth hadn't been the one cleaning pee off the floor of the entryway. No, that job had fallen to the fascinating, infuriating, complex woman currently kneeling next to him.
Brennan popped the drain on the tub and Parker stood up to be toweled off. "I can take it from here," she said to Booth.
He gave her a little salute. "G'night, Parks. I hope I'll see you next time I'm over."
"Night-night, Unca Seewee. Can we pway with dinosaurs next time?"
"Sure thing, little man."
Booth wandered back to the front of the apartment and helped himself to a beer from the fridge. He was sorting the nearly-forgotten takeout when he heard a fumbling at the front door. The knob gave a jiggle, and he heard the staccato metallic clicking of a lock being picked.
He drew his weapon just as the front door popped open.
"Get your hands up! FBI!" he shouted, aiming squarely at the heart of a skinny thirty-something guy with Buddy Holly glasses, cargo shorts and a hideous Hawaiian shirt. Not the outfit one usually wears to a home invasion, said a little voice in the back of his head.
They guy went white as a sheet, and dropped the metrosexual shoulder bag he was carrying. "It's okay," the guy gasped, holding his hands in the air. "I have a key!"
"You have a key? Why'd you pick the lock?" Booth demanded.
"I mean, I have a key, but I forgot it," the guy stammered.
"Booth." Brennan's voice was low and sure behind him. "Put the gun down."
Instinctively trusting her – she was his partner, and besides, it was her house – Booth lowered his weapon. Slightly. "Who are you?"
Brennan sighed. "This is Parker's father."