I AM SOOOO SORRY FOR THE LONG WAIT! Things have been crazy for me. I had graduation and my birthday. I've been saying goodbye to some friends. I've been planning for college. Basically, I've started to grow up and it sucks because it makes it very difficult to write. BUT I found time and this update is for all of you who reviewed/alerted/favorited the last chapter because you keep me going! Hugs for all of you. Enjoy the longest chapter yet!
"Parker, please do not run inside!" Brennan disciplined the five year old who was jetting around her apartment pretending to be a spaceman. She realized that while most games Parker invented were different almost all of them ended with him simply running around with his arms out in front of him, spouting off about saving the world. Unfortunately, those games often lead to the demise of a toy or one of her artifacts that would accidentally end up in his way.
It was late Wednesday evening. They had been back in D.C. for over a week now. Parker had been in high spirits ever sense their impromptu trip to visit Russ and the girls. He had been in an especially good mood tonight. After they left the lab, Brennan surprised him by stopping at a movie rental. Secretly, she hoped that a film would subdue him until Booth picked him up because she was about two chapters behind where she should have been on her latest novel. The plan backfired. After dinner and one viewing of a children's movie about talking toys, Parker took on the persona of the main spaceman character and transformed her living room into star command. She had been cleaning up after him ever since.
Just as Brennan bent down to pick up pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, Parker jumped onto the couch. He had a piece of long cardboard taped to his back. From what Brennan gathered they were "wings". "Oh, no! The evil Emperor Zurg just invaded the galaxy! This is a job for a space ranger!" He bounced back off the furniture and scurried to his bedroom before she could remind him that the couch was for sitting not standing.
When Brennan heard yet one other item fall to the floor, she gave up and moved towards her desk. She'd just have to wait until Booth picked up his son to restore her home to its normal level of tidiness. There was a part of her that knew she should tell Parker to clean up the mess. Usually, she would have. However, she and Booth had been hit with a hard case that week. She knew that the only reason her partner even insisted on having Parker stay with him that evening was because he needed to know his child was close by. She also knew how exhausted he would be. So, she decided that sacrificing her apartment for one night to ensure that Parker wouldn't be a hellion for Booth was well worth it.
Once her laptop booted up, she ignore her book document. She wasn't in the mood to have a blinking cursor mock her. Instead she opened her e-mail and found a few new messages.
The one from Russ asked where she had gotten the girl's hairclips. Apparently they had lost them and could only remember that it was a pretty store that was kind of far away. Another was from Angela in which she begged Brennan to accompany her on a spa weekend Hodgins set up for her. The scientist made a mental note to check the dates with Booth before accepting. He might need to leave Parker with her during that time. There was another from a weekly anthropology online journal she subscribed to. She would read that later. The final message caught her attention.
It was from an e-mail address she didn't recognize, but it ended in .edu. She assumed it to be college professor's. She often communicated with many of them in her field.
Brennan read through the wordy message once and sighed. Her hands locked together and she rested her forehead against them. Her guess was correct. Dr. Garret Blake, the current head of the anthropology department at Northwestern University, was requesting her presence to help identify four sets of human remains that were dated to be over 4,000 years old. They had been sent to the school a few days prior and after a general examination, it was decided that she was the best for the job.
Suddenly, she felt very torn. The scientist within her jumped at the chance. She could begin to imagine how significant this find could be. History books would more than likely have to be re-written if she could validate Dr. Blake's initial discoveries. As tempted as accepting was, a side of her that she had recently begun to become more in touch with discouraged it. Booth referred to it as putting her heart into overdrive. What would he do without her? Could he take care of Parker by himself? She shook her head at the thought. Of course he could. He wasn't inept.
"Bones!" Parker called, shuffling towards her from the hallway. Brennan looked up to find a heart broken expression on his face. In his hands were his cardboard wings except now they were bent and partly ripped. "They broke." He pouted.
She lowered her laptop screen and turned her chair towards him. "Would you like to fix them or make new ones?"
He beamed. "I can make new ones?"
"Of course. Go get the box you got used before." She instructed. The five year old darted into the kitchen where an old box rested in the recycle bin.
"Thanks, Bones!" He yelled, running across the living room towards his bedroom.
Brennan paused for a moment before darting from her desk chair. "Parker Booth, don't you dare try to use a pair of scissors by yourself!"
(***)
The next day Booth had managed to leave the Hoover before the time Parker was released from school. He took the opportunity to surprise his son and pick him up. He reacted as expected. The boy jumped into his arms with excitement and waited a whole five minutes into the car ride before asking why Bones hadn't come with him. "Bones says pickin' me up is her favorite time of day." He had said.
The father had been curious as well. He called her from his office and asked her to accompany him, but she turned him down, claiming that she was working on something very important and was actually relieved that she wouldn't have to stop. He later found out that was a lie when he received a phone call from Angela. She told him that Brennan hadn't left to get Parker yet and wanted to make sure that he was. He told her the story about Bones working. The artist informed him that her friend had done nothing but make phones calls and sit staring at her computer for hours.
Booth's worry lasted into the evening. Bones didn't lie. Ever. If she did lie it must have been something huge. From past experience he knew that secrets were usually bad and for Brennan to withhold one practically guaranteed it was about something he wouldn't like. So to find out what was really going on, he insisted that she join him and Parker for dinner.
The three of them sat at the dining table in Booth's apartment enjoying an Italian feast he prepared. Parker slurped a long spaghetti noodle between his puckered lips. "This is really yummy, daddy."
Booth laughed. "I'm glad you like it, bub." He reached over and wiped his sauce covered lips with a napkin. "Just try to get it all in your mouth on the next bite."
Brennan smiled at them before turning all her attention to the child. "Did you have a pleasant day at school?"
Parker nodded. "We did some worksheets with money like pennies and quarters. It was really easy. Then we learned about some presidents like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson." He took a bit of his garlic bread. "Did he name the Jeff'sonian?"
"The Jeffersonian wasn't built when he was alive, but it was named after him." She informed. He nodded and slurped up another bite. "Is that all that happened today? Normally you give me many more details." He'd give her information right down to what his classmates brought for lunch. The stories were practically the same day, but she loved to hear him talk about school with such vigor.
"That cuz I tell you when you pick me up at school. Everything just happened. Now it's nighttime and I forgot some stuff. How come you didn't come with daddy today?"
Booth wanted to pump his fist in the air. Inwardly he was practically shouting "that's my boy" for bringing up the topic he was nervous to address.
Between the eyes of Parker and Booth, Brennan felt like she was in an intense interrogation. "I'm sorry, but I was very busy at work. I thought I'd let daddy surprise you on his own."
Booth wasn't happy that she was continuing to lie, especially to Parker, but he hid his smirk well when his son fired another question at her. "But aren't you always very busy?" The boy countered.
"Yes, but today I was very, very busy." She quickly changed topics. "Looks like you're all done. Why don't you bring plate into the kitchen and then go pick out what book you want to read tonight?"
Parker was distracted by her suggestion. He shifted off his seat and was in his room going through his books within seconds. Booth on the other hand picked up on what she did. Brennan was avoiding eye contact with him. She wouldn't dare look up under his strong gaze. "So are you going to tell me what's going on, or should I get Parker back in here?" She heard him ask.
His voice was calm, slightly teasing even. There wasn't any detection of anger. She finally looked at him. The expression written across his handsome face told her that he wanted an answer. Brennan pushed her plate a few inches away from her. "I received an e-mail from a professor at Northwestern." She began. "He's asked me to come help identify remains that were sent to the university." When Booth didn't reply she added. "They were discovered in a burial site in Israel. They've been dated to be over four thousand years old."
"You want to go." He stated.
"Yes." Brennan answered. A silent pause passed between them. She took a deep breath. "And no." His eyebrows rose. She knew he was going to speak but words started to pour from her mouth before she could stop them. "I know that this find is extraordinary and working with a team of professors that used to teach me would be a once in a lifetime experience, but I predict that going through the proper procedures of authentication just to get to lengthy process of identification will takes weeks possibly. I don't think I can afford to be away from the Jeffersonian for that length of time and I'm very sure that I couldn't be away from Parker either." The last few words shot out of mouth like spitfire. She almost spoke so fast that he couldn't understand her, but all he had to hear was one word: Parker.
Booth heart clenched. This wasn't about how long it would take or being away from work. It was about Parker. She was attached, plain and simple. "You don't want to leave Parker." He restated, slightly smiling at the words.
"No." She confidently replied. "And you and I both know how he'd feel about it."
Booth didn't need to be reminded. He remembered his son's reaction the last time the topic of her traveling was brought up.
FOUR MONTHS EARLIER
Brennan watched Parker play with a set of building blocks while she ended a phone conversation. She recently purchased a few new toys for him to keep at her apartment, the blocks included. "Yes, it's scheduled for 8 a.m. this Thursday. I should arrive around noon Friday. I look forward to it." She ended the call and sat down on the floor next to the boy.
"What at 8 o'clock, Bones?" He curiously asked while carefully stacking blocks higher.
"I have a flight to India." She answered, reaching for one of the blocks to join him.
He stopped playing. "Where's India?"
Brennan stood up and walked over to a globe she had sitting on her bookshelf. She sat back down beside him. "Do you know where we are?" She asked, knowing he'd been learning that in school recently.
"Yup." He turned the sphere and pointed to the middle of the east coast of the United States.
She smiled at his intelligence. "That's right." She rotated the globe 180 degrees and pointed to her destination. "India is right here."
Parker frowned. "All the way cross the 'lantic ocean? That's real far." She proceeded to tell him that it was over 7,000 miles away. "How long are you goin' there?"
"I'm don't know yet."
Parker brown eyes widened at her words. The last time he heard them were when they came from his father's mouth when he told her about his mother disappearing. His mouth parted slightly. The block in his hand dropped to the floor. "NO!" Brennan flinched at scream. "No, no, no, no, NO!" Fat tears started to run down his red cheeks. He flung himself at her. His arms wrapped around her neck and his legs locked around her waist. He wailed into her neck for a few moments. All she could do was was attempt to calm him down. She rubbed his back and whispered soothing words in his ears, but nothing worked. He pulled his head away from her. When she caught sight of his face she almost cried herself. He'd ever looked to upset in all the time she'd known him. "You can't go away, Bones! Please, please, please don't go away. I promise I'll be good and I'll never, never, never cry again, just please don't go away. We can bring back all my toys and I won't ask for nothin' else ever again!" He frantically spout.
Brennan didn't understand his tantrum. "Parker, this isn't about your toys."
"But you wanna go away! You wanna leave me!" He argued and a new round of sobs escaped his mouth. "How come you don't love me anymore, Bones?"
Her eyebrows shot towards the ceiling. How in the world could he even ask such a thing? "I do love you. I always will."
"NO YOU DON'T!" Parker pulled away from her, but he didn't stand. He banged his fists on the floor. "You said that you never leave people you love! If you're leaving that means you don't love me and I made you mad at me." He hit the tower of blocks and they all came crashing down. "I'm sorry I got the blocks! I'll make daddy give them back to the toy store."
"Parker, this isn't about the blocks." She desperately tried to reason with him.
He scooted back closer to her. "Are you still made I broke your vase? Daddy wouldn't let me try to fix it. I even tried to get the pieces from the trach can, but he wouldn't let me!"
Brennan couldn't believe he was bringing that up. It happened weeks ago. He accidentally knocked over the glass sculpture of hers during one of his games. He begged both she and his father to let him fix it, but he didn't understand how badly his fingers would be cut. "I was never mad about the vase."
"Then why are you gunna leave? Did daddy make you mad? I'll tell him to say he's sorry." Parker wiped furiously at his face. It was getting difficult to talk with the amount of tears flowing down it. "Please don't leave, Bones. You can't go away like mommy did."
The realization hit Brennan with force. Reasoning with him wasn't going to solve this. She grabbed his forearms and gently pulled him to her. He allowed it and wrapped himself around her like before. He cried into her shoulder a minute more while she tried to find the words. When she did, she forced him to look at her. "I will never leave you."
"But-" He tried to speak but she stopped him when she placed a hand on both side of his face.
"No buts. I love you with all my heart. That won't ever change. I will NEVER leave you. If you don't want me to go anywhere, I won't go. I will stay right here." The fierceness of her words scared her. In the couple of months she'd been a constant Parker's life she hadn't take the time to truly reflect on how much she cared for him. She knew she loved him, but it was that moment that she realized that the emotion wouldn't ever fade. It wasn't logical. It couldn't be boiled down the brain chemistry. She just knew, deep down, that the love she felt for this child was not temporary.
He took a few shaky breaths. "No India?"
"No India. I promise."
Parker hugged her as tight as he could. Brennan rocked him back and forth. She his cheeks and hair while chanting over and over, "I'll never leave."
Three cheers for fluffy angst! Did you like it? Was is too over the top? Did you totally forget about this story and couldn't care less anymore? Let me know!
BTW: THE NEXT UPDATE WON'T TAKE THIS LONG. I PROMISE.