thank you, i've been getting some lovely messages about this story. on with the party…
Brennan's apartment was packed to the gills with people, food, and garishly wrapped birthday presents. Angela had pushed all the furniture back against the walls and dragged the dining room chairs into the living room, but many people still ended up sitting on the floor, balancing their paper plates on their knees and trying to keep their cups of soda from being knocked over by enthusiastic kids. Parker flirted madly with Dr. Goodman's daughters and got into several wrestling matches with his cousins from Peter's side.
Parker only grew wilder as he tore through the huge stack of gifts. Booth couldn't help but notice that the childless adults all brought battery-operated toys that made lots of noise, while the parents in the room brought Parker books and non-electronic toys. Perhaps they knew something he didn't…?
Brennan cut the cake and made sure that the birthday boy got the first slice, a corner piece with lots of frosting. Angela had brought paints and brushes with her, and offered face painting to all who were interested. The children were thrilled. Even Dr. Goodman got into the spirit, and Angela painted an admirable sphinx on his forehead.
"Parker, are you getting tired?" Booth heard Brennan ask over the din of the party. From his spot on the couch, Booth caught a glimpse of his partner, who had a dolphin painted across one elegant cheekbone.
"NO!" Parker insisted, but his glazed, slightly unfocused eyes told a different story.
Booth chuckled and put his hand on Rebecca's knee. "I'm going to get a soda. You want one?"
"Sure," she said, looking slightly uncomfortable. She hadn't left his side all afternoon. "I could come with you," she offered.
"Nah, just relax. Finish my cake." He winked at her and stood up.
Family chaos was nice sometimes, he reflected as he reached for two root beers from the back right side of the fridge. Bones had put out big bottles of Sprite on the counter, but Booth knew where she secretly stashed the good stuff. As he dug past the yogurt in search of his soda, he suddenly realized that he and Brennan were the only ones who knew it was back there. It was strange to be more familiar with her apartment than anyone else at the party, even the father of her son.
Returning to the living room, he paused in the doorway to take in the barely-controlled pandemonium. He couldn't help but smile. For a guy that didn't have a lot of family – at least, family that didn't make him furious – Booth felt oddly at home in this moment. Someone had upended their cake onto the carpet, and Parker's nanny was on all fours, trying to scrub it out. Goodman's girls were playing with the wooden masks that Brennan kept on a bookshelf, and Parker's cousins were helping Brennan stuff wrapping paper into trash bags.
As he watched Brennan move about the party, he couldn't help but feel oddly… spousal toward her. He'd spent countless hours with her, in the field and in her home. He found himself relying on her, both as a work partner and as a friend. She was so damn smart, and driven, and she pushed him to be better than he was. He admired her, he liked her. Sure, she drove him nuts sometimes, but in a way that he understood deep down only drew him closer to her.
It wasn't all cerebral, either, this attraction he felt to her. They'd had plenty of fights over the past months that nearly ended with him backing her into a wall and kissing the hell out of her, and he'd barely managed to keep himself in check. Perhaps that was a calculated decision to not risk giving her the upper hand. Perhaps it was loyalty to Rebecca. Or perhaps he was just a chickenshit coward.
He had the opportunity to exercise this oft-employed self-control again when Brennan looked up at him from across the room. She gave him an open, happy smile, and his traitorous mind suddenly fast-forwarded to an empty apartment with birthday party flotsam everywhere, Parker asleep, and him whooshing her down the hallway for languorous, silly, giggling sex.
Damn. What was it about her that kept him teetering so dangerously on the edge of control? He was reminded of that gut certainty he'd felt the first moment he'd laid eyes on her – She's the one; she's forever. But too much crap had gotten in the way. That sentiment couldn't be right.
He forced himself to smile back at her and focus on the party.
Angela had taken Booth's spot on the sofa, and Booth was grateful to see how hard Angela was working to make his girlfriend feel welcome. Things still weren't right between them after birth-control-gate, and he was touched to see Angela gushing over Rebecca's bracelet and asking about her job. At least someone could make Rebecca feel comfortable.
Booth ambled over and gave one of the root beers to Rebecca. She gave him an odd, searching look as she took it from him. Before she could say anything, though, Angela took both her hands and begged to paint her face. Rebecca flushed a little but shyly agreed.
Amused and content, Booth wandered back to the relative peace of the doorway and leaned against the frame to watch the party. He watched as Ange painted a butterfly across the bridge of Rebecca's nose, with its wings sweeping out across her cheeks. He caught her eye and smiled, raising his soda in a silent toast to her new temporary tattoo. She grinned back at him, the first un-self-conscious smile he'd seen from her in a very long time.
He looked down as Parker practically staggered over to him. The kid looked woozy from sugar overdose, and his hair was matted and sweaty. "Are you having a good birthday, Parks?" Booth asked. Parker nodded mutely.
The whole room grew spontaneously quiet just as Peter called out, "Parker, let's play with your new Legos." All eyes turned to the boy, who had been lapping up attention and playing to the crowd all afternoon. But now, he was just too tired. He'd been the center of attention long enough, and he just wanted all these people to go away. He screwed his face into a melodramatic pout and turned away from his father, flinging himself at Booth instead.
For an awful moment, Booth stood frozen with an unhappy child burying his face in his thigh, and everyone in the room staring at him. Peter looked ready to spit daggers. Angela's mouth fell open in a silent guffaw. Rebecca looked fiercely proud, a reaction Booth would have to analyze later.
But the person who made his blood pound was Brennan, who stood at the back of the room with her head tilted, studying him. Measuring. Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly, and he could feel her mental calipers taking stock of how her son fit against him, how he fit into this apartment. Into her life.
Oh, I fit here, came his unbidden thought.
Determined to prove something, he stooped slightly to rub Parker's back. "C'mon, Parks, it's Legos. Legos are awesome. Let's all play." Parker tipped his head up, and Booth gave him a reassuring smile. "Put your feet on my shoe, and hold on tight," Booth instructed, and the boy climbed up onto his leg and held on for dear life. Booth gave an exaggerated groan as he dragged a giggling Parker to the center of the room. They settled on the floor with Peter and began to sort through the brightly-colored bricks.
"There is nothing more painful than stepping on a Lego in your bare feet," Peter's mother cheerfully observed out loud, and the room went tentatively back to normal.
XXXXXXXXX
Later, Booth and Rebecca were stuck in the permanent traffic that clogged the Beltway around Washington. The sun was setting, and was currently at that painful angle that shone directly into Booth's eyes. He fiddled with his sunglasses and the sun visor, but nothing helped.
"You are good with Parker," Rebecca said, breaking into his thoughts.
Booth shrugged and gave a lopsided smile. "He's an easy kid. I'm like an uncle – I get to do fun stuff with him, but I don't have to deal with any of the crap. That's all Bones' problem."
"What kind of fun stuff?" she asked. He missed her puzzled tone.
"You know, play with toys, read books, bathtime. I was thinking about getting him a water pistol, but Bones -"
"I didn't realize all those late nights of paperwork happened at Dr. Brennan's apartment," Rebecca said stiffly. Her sharp tone contrasted freakishly with the whimsical butterfly still painted across her nose.
Booth cringed. He hadn't exactly meant to lie, but he had kind of neglected to specify where he was when the paperwork was being done. If she thought he was in his office, he'd been careful not to disabuse her of that notion.
He played it cool. "She has to be home by six to let the nanny go home. It's just more convenient to do it at her place. Sometimes, when I get there, the kid's already asleep, but sometimes he's awake. So I play with him."
"Are you ready to have a baby?" she asked bluntly.
Ughhhhhh. "I don't know, Rebecca," he sighed, scratching an eyebrow.
"God DAMMIT, Seeley," she exploded. "I want to get married. I want to have kids. I am thirty-one years old. You can be all Tony Randall and spawn babies until the day you die, but I am on a deadline here. We have known each other for three years, been together for two. And it's been fun, don't get me wrong, but it is time to shit or get off the pot."
"How romantic," he snarled at her. "I'm so glad to hear you liken our relationship to taking a crap."
"How much longer is it going to take? How much more time could you possibly need? Are you waiting until you get to know me a little better?" She took a deep breath. "We're not kids any more. Am I the one, Seeley? Are we going to spend the rest of our lives together? If you're still not sure after all this time, then the answer has to be no, right?"
"I'm not sure," he whispered. She deflated, crumpling back against her seat and beginning to cry. "Rebecca, I'm sorry…"
"Save it," she hissed. She reached up to wipe her tears away and looked at the blue paint that came away on her fingertips. "Fuck," she muttered. "I must look like such a fool."
"No, you don't," he said softly, reaching for her hand. She gave a snort and looked away, but she let him twine his fingers in hers.
Traffic and time crawled along. Rebecca finally withdrew her hand from his and began to speak, in a clear, calm voice.
"You can have the apartment, if you want it. It's too far away from my office, anyway. I'll stay with my sister until I find a new place. Once I get settled, I'll come back and take some of the furniture."
"The apartment's too big for one person. I'll move out, too." His voice sounded bizarrely hollow, even to himself.
"The landlord needs thirty days' notice to terminate the lease," she reminded him simply, and he was chilled to discover that he didn't have anything else to say to her.
As the car crept forward in silence, Booth began to think about the episode of Iron Chef he'd seen a few weeks ago. One of the chefs had butchered a lamb, on camera. The animal was already dead and skinned, of course, but Booth had been mesmerized as the chef carved it up into edible bits. The sharp blade of the knife sliced effortlessly through tender pink meat, as if it were cutting something no tougher than Jell-O. The chef worked fast, scraping meat away from the tiny ribs to reveal a gleaming white bone at the end of every chop.
What had been frolicking and fun-loving was now reduced to a filleted carcass, hunks of raw meat and gleaming entrails. It was all over so quickly, so bloodlessly. Booth mourned the ease with which he and Rebecca came apart. Love should be messy.
He pulled the car up to the curb in front of their building, but made no move to turn it off. "I'm just gonna… go get a drink or something," he said, staring out the windshield.
"Sure," she murmured. "I'll probably be gone when you get back." She popped her door open and climbed out. She turned back, leaning down to speak with him, clutching at the front of her dress so her breasts wouldn't be exposed. "Good night. And… thanks."
He gave her an incredulous stare, his brows coming together and his mouth dropping open. She rolled her eyes and slammed the door before he could speak. He did not wait to make sure she got in the front door.
XXXXX
But Booth didn't feel like sitting alone at a bar. He'd just nurse a scotch and watch close-captioned TV to kill time while his girlfriend – ex-girlfriend – packed a suitcase and went to her sister's.
He didn't want to be alone. He wanted somebody to talk to. Somebody who would let him avoid talking about the obvious. He'd talk about hockey instead, and tell terrible jokes and pretend that his home, uncomfortable as it was, wasn't being cleaved in two as he spoke. He'd…
Compartmentalize.
An hour later, he lifted a hand to knock on Brennan's apartment door. She opened it and looked at him with surprise.
"Did you forget something? I did find a pair of somebody's sunglasses -"
"No, no. I'm sorry, I should have called first. I just… wondered if you needed any help cleaning up."
"Oh…" She looked momentarily confused. "Angela and Jennifer helped me put the furniture back, and the plates and cups were all disposable. So I'm in pretty good shape."
"Yeah, okay." He ran a hand through his hair and took a step back. "Sorry to bother you, then."
"Do you want to take some of the leftovers?" Her voice stopped his retreat, and he looked up into her crystalline eyes. "There's so much food. Parker and I will never be able to eat it all." She opened the door wider in invitation.
He stepped across the threshold, suddenly hating himself. Why was he here? What was he looking for? She headed to the kitchen, drawing him along with her casual, "Would you like another slice of cake?"
The counters were covered with trays of barbequed chicken breasts, coleslaw, cold ravioli, and dinner rolls. He accepted the proffered slice of sticky sweet birthday cake, leaning one hip against the counter. He licked his fork carefully clean after each bite. She puttered around the kitchen, screwing lids back on two-liter bottles and consolidating the mess.
"Thanks for coming today," she said. "Parker really loved having you here."
"Did he?" Booth asked, his voice low. Brennan quirked an eyebrow at him and nodded. "It was a nice party."
"I think he had a good time," she said, her voice a little uneven.
"Of course he did," Booth replied. When she didn't respond, he asked, "Everything okay?"
She sighed and turned her back to him as she spooned coleslaw into a Tupperware container. "I had an unpleasant conversation with Peter this afternoon," she admitted. "He wanted to set up an evening when he could come over and spend the night, and…" She made a frustrated noise in the back of her throat.
He slid his half-slice of cake onto the counter and stepped behind her. "One of your sex dates?" he growled, indignant without any right to be.
She turned, her eyes flashing. "Judge not, lest ye be judged," she snapped, hitting him where it hurt. "It works for me. At least, it used to work for me." Suddenly, she couldn't quite meet his eye. "I have no problem turning Peter down when I'm not in the mood, when there's an absence of the biological need for sex. But today, it was more than that. I was actually repulsed by the idea of sleeping with him. That's never happened before. We've always been sexually compatible."
He ducked his head a bit, forcing her to look him in the face. "Something's different," she whispered.
A warm glow bloomed in his heart, his head, his gut, all at once. In that moment – one of utter domesticity, pressing her against the kitchen counter – everything in the universe seemed to align. His soul was perfectly peaceful. Content. Fulfilled.
"I know," he whispered. "I knew, right from the beginning."
He hovered there, a split second, before leaning in and kissing her. Her lips were soft and supple, and he tilted his head and leaned her back into the countertop. Firecrackers went off in his belly as her arms wound around his neck and she kissed him back for all she was worth.
It was every bit as spectacular as that tequila-soaked kiss in the rain, way back when. He teased her lips apart and stroked her tongue with his own. She quivered against him, her breasts rubbing deliciously against his chest.
He heard a little squeak that, in the dizziness of his desire, he could not and did not try to place. He was hungry for her – ravenous. Carnal heat licked at his fingers, his tongue, and god knows, at his cock.
"Mama?"
Suddenly, her hands were at his chest, shoving him backwards. He blinked, sputtered. Gasping, he whirled to find a bug-eyed little Parker staring at him. "Hey, Parks," he offered weakly, struggling to control his breathing.
Brennan wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and came up looking composed. "Parker, you ought to be in bed," she said evenly. "And you," she turned to Booth, "Should probably go."