Twenty-one Weeks at Quantico

By: Lesera128

Rated: T

Disclaimer: I own nothing... Obviously. Just playing in someone else's sandbox for a bit.

Summary: When the FBI establishes a pilot program for consultants to receive training at the FBI academy, Brennan and Booth clash over whether she should enroll. AU.

17. T-plus Two Weeks Until Graduation

It had been a difficult time for Booth. As the time until the end of the training and its graduation approached, the more hectic the demands on his schedule had become. It was also particularly annoying that the training kept stopping and starting because of days off required by the holidays. While consecutively, after the fight with Brennan, and her subsequent resignation from the program, approximately 16 training days remained, and seven administrative days between the final trainee day and their planned 'graduation' celebration were planned, it was both too much and not enough time. And, every day it pained him, not seeing Brennan on a regular basis either at work or at home, but particularly during his time at Quantico. It gnawed at him a little bit each time he went to divide the trainees into groups and realized they had an odd number now they the group consisted only of 11 people, instead of the 12 they had been with Brennan.

However, as the days passed, the remaining individual tactical scenarios demanded a large amount of time and he became distracted. His back began to kill him after the third or fourth night he had been relegated to the couch… and so, he started to crash at the Academy more and more, since so many things demanded his time there. Booth still came home each day to shower, clean up, and to spend a short amount of time with the baby. but he didn't have any more time than that to spend on other areas in his life. Nor, it could honestly be said, was he quite ready to do so in the days immediately following the huge fight. Comments had been made both in truth and in anger by both individuals, and the pain remained a bit too fresh for him to deal with so soon after they had been inflicted.

New Years' Eve came and went, and this time, Booth stayed with Jared and Padme as opposed to the apartment. It wasn't like there had been much of any reason to celebrate since Rebecca had Parker for the holiday. Brennan remained very quiet whenever he saw her, in this half-daze that could be described as skittish at best. It was almost as if too much had happened, and she did as normally occurred when emotions became too much for her to handle - she simply shut down and went on autopilot through the tasks that each day required of her. It was Max who conveyed to Booth, when he popped in on New Year's Day that Brennan was pulling a half day at the lab before she would be spending the afternoon out running last minute errands for the baby's party the next day. Booth flushed, mentally chastising himself for realizing that the anniversary of the day Chrissy had been born had approached so quickly, as, in the turmoil of the events, it simply had slipped his mind. Confirming with his father-in-law that the party was still planned to start promptly at 4pm, Booth nodded his thanks and walked into the bedroom to grab a fresh change of clothing.

A few minutes later, he came out of the bathroom from having showered. Booth moved around the room, on autopilot himself as he realized that the shirt he had chosen to wear, a new t-shirt that Parker had given him for Christmas, still had the tags on it. Going over to the nightstand on Brennan's side of the bed, he pulled open the draw because he knew that she usually kept a pair of scissors located there. As soon as he opened the drew, instead of pulling out the green-handled pair of scissors that lay on their side staring back at him, Booth felt his body clench when he saw that a broken picture frame lay on top of the draw's contents. His lips pursed, as he pulled out the frame and picture. It was the same frame that he had given to Brennan containing the picture of her and the baby… and the one that must have been the source of the crash of glass he had heard the day he stormed out of the apartment after their argument. Lightly running his fingers over the picture, he shook his head and sighed.

"We can't start to fix this if you won't even meet me half-way, Bones. It has to start somewhere," Booth murmured softly to no one in particular.

Sighing, he set the frame on the bed as he quickly finished dressing. A short time later, after saying his goodbyes to Max and the baby, frame in hand, he left the apartment to return to the Academy.

The next day, Booth was in the small conference room that he had commandeered as a makeshift office for the training's remaining days. He was swamped in processing the evaluations of those who had completed their tactical scenarios, checking requisition and notification lists for upcoming scenarios, and placing the final touches on those who had yet to even participate in their simulations. In addition to this, he was working off Harding's notes to complete the rough draft of the final exam she had completed before the accident that had resulted in her removal and his painful replacement in the same job. It was here that Assistant Director Diane MacKinnon found him. They chatted for a few moments, before MacKinnon nodded at him with a smile.

"I don't know if you're aware Agent Booth, but AD Cullen and I are very old friends. He wasn't exaggerating your talents when he said how good you are," MacKinnon said with the approval evident in her voice.

"Thank you, ma'am," Booth said politely. "But, I'm just trying to do the job to the best of my ability. That's all."

"So," MacKinnon said, "There's no way I might be able to convince you to accept a transfer out here completely? If there's one thing that you've proven over the last few weeks, it's that you're a damn fine instructor."

At this, Booth smiled slightly. "That's only because the majority of my tasks have been related to tactical and munitions field training, ma'am. That's kinda my specialty, you see. I'm afraid if I had done this job from the start, like Agent Harding did, you'd think differently about me. I'm horrible in the classroom. I always have been."

"You know," MacKinnon said, "We don't just train FBI agent trainees here… there are other… more… specialized groups that always need good instructors. HRT, for example…."

"The Hostage Rescue Team?" Booth said.

MacKinnon nodded. "Who, as I am sure you know, have a tremendous number of young men and women whose training is focused on marksmanship and long-distance—"

"Snipers," Booth said with a small chuckle. "Yes, ma'am. I did know that."

"And, even with a position training for HRT, there's still nothing I could do to get you out here on a permanent basis?" MacKinnon said. "If there is, tell me… and short of a promotion to a Deputy Director slot, we can probably make it happen," she laughed.

Slowly, Booth shook his head. "While I appreciate the offer, ma'am… and I've enjoyed my time here more than I thought I would, particularly when I'm teaching in the field… I really only took this job over for Agent Harding for one reason."

"Because of Dr. Brennan?" MacKinnon said.

Booth nodded. "She's my partner."

"Who left two and a half weeks ago," MacKinnon observed. "When she resigned, you could have walked. No one would have blamed you since she was the whole reason Sam told me you came here. So, my question is, why didn't you?"

"Because… I made a commitment, and I honor my duties, and, as I said, while I'm flattered by your offer, I'm afraid, right now, at this point in my career… I'm happy where I am," Booth said.

Nodding, MacKinnon said, "Well, honestly, after talking to Sam, I expected as much. But, I had to try, you know?"

"Yes, ma'am," Booth nodded.

MacKinnon rose to leave. She stopped just short of the door and said, "Agent Booth?"

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Whenever you find that you're no longer happy where you're at in Major Crimes in DC… I hope you'll remember my offer. It still stands," MacKinnon said, looking over her shoulder.

With a smile, Booth nodded and watched her go.

A while later, Booth continued to work and suddenly was, much to his annoyance, interrupted, when his cell phone went off. Looking down with a frown, he saw a text message had been received.

Text Message Received from Jared: Bro, where are you? The party started half an hour ago, and Chrissy wants her cake. It's made of pudding! Hurry!

Looking up at the clock, Booth cursed, realizing he had lost track of time. Shaking his head, he hastily gathered his belongings, texting Jared that he was en route.

By the time that Booth arrived at the apartment, the birthday girl had already blown at her candle (with the help of her brother Parker), consumed a tremendous amount of cake, judging by the amount of frosting that was at the edge of her lips, and was dozing off as, again, Parker helped unwrap the birthday presents for her. The entire Booth and Brennan clans were present. Rebecca sat next to Jared and Padme, who had brought Hank down from the retirement community for the visit. Russ and Amy were watching the girls looking stealthily at Parker as he began to rip package after package open, and Max was watching his daughter hold the baby as Booth barreled in through the front door carrying a large stuffed dolphin with a gold ribbon around its neck.

Everyone stopped and looked up at his sudden appearance, and a nervous and uncomfortable silence descended over the room. At last, it was the baby who broke the silence herself as she saw Booth, screeched in glee, and began trying to squirm loose from Brennan's grasp. Setting the baby down on the rug, she watched with a keen eye as Chrissy immediately began to crawl towards Booth, and then disappeared into the kitchen for another plate and fork for his piece of cake.

Hank frowned, and seemed to be the first one to speak when no one else would as he barked, "You're late, Shrimp!"

Smiling, Booth adopted as casual an attitude at he could as he nodded and said, "Yeah, and I'm so sorry about that. There was a problem at the Academy."

Chrissy had almost propelled herself across the rug and was headed onto the wooden floors, picking up speed as she went. She was dressed in a very cute purple dress, stripped socks adorning her feet, and a beautiful hand-stitched hat that said 'Birthday Girl' embroidered on it in lieu of the normal pointed birthday cones that everyone else wore. Booth guessed it was probably the work of Padme's grandmother, who was a fantastic seamstress.

He nodded at Parker and tossing the dolphin at his son, he said, "Hey, bub, catch."

Parker looked at his father with a small smile and caught the dolphin in his hands.

Reaching down, he grabbed Chrissy from the floor and spun her in a wide circle. She squealed in delight and immediately began shaking her head as she chanted, "No! No! No! No!"

Several people laughed at this, and Booth looked at her in stunned confusion. "What did you just say, Tadpole?" She smiled back at him, and he looked to the rest of the group. "Did you guys just hear that? She… s-she talked?"

Seeing that Brennan was still absent, he looked from Parker to Jared to Max. "You guys that heard, right? I didn't just hallucinate that she... talked?"

At last, Parker walked up and blew a raspberry at the baby. She giggled, and he smiled before he looked up at his father and said, "She's been doing that non-stop for about the past week… *constantly*. If she's awake, that's all she does… yell 'no' and giggle."

"A week?" Booth asked, incredulously. He looked to Max and said, "A week, really?"

Max nodded. "Yeah, kid. She was at the store with Tempe and Parker picking out stuff for the part, and it kinda just happened."

Feeling like he had been kicked in the stomach at having be unaware that something so important had occurred and A.) he had missed it and B.) he hadn't known about it for a week, Booth swallowed quickly, and plastering a smile on his face, he bounced the baby again. "Well. if your first word was 'no'… that's not really a surprise, Tadpole… but, I must insist… your second word has to be 'dada', got it?"

Looking at him, Chrissy shook her head repeatedly and merrily sang, "No! No! No! No!"

A couple of hours later, Brennan refused to sit down and remained on patrol between the kitchen and the family room, gathering used glasses, plates, silverware, and discarded hats and wrapping paper and ribbons and other pieces of trash. She seemed to be on autopilot, with her head bowed and a nervous intensity driving her motions. The baby was passed out on a blanket in front of Booth… and, one by one, the family had eventually began to clear out with the hope they could remain neutral and avoid having to take sides.

The tension pulsating between Booth and Brennan was palpable. Jared and Padme were the first to make their excuses, saying they needed to start on the long drive back to drop Hank off at the retirement home. Rebecca quickly followed their example and told Parker to gather his belongings. Realizing how tired that Emma and Hayley were, Amy and Russ soon indicated their impending departures, and actually managed to leave even before Rebecca and Parker. Booth watched the visitors disperse, thanking Rebecca for bringing Parker and giving his son a kiss and hug before they left. But, when he saw Max made no move to leave… and that Brennan was standing unusually close to her father, although she kept looking at him as if she expected him to say something, and thus confused him. Finally, with an audience present, he wasn't sure what to say about their private affairs, and so he kissed the baby goodbye, looked at Brennan for a long moment in silence, and then turned to leave himself. For a moment, he thought he heard the beginnings of her voice call out, but no word came, and so he thought he must have imagined it as he opened the front door to leave.

As soon as he was gone, Brennan's open mouth didn't finish calling out to Booth as she had tried to do before he left. Instead, she exhaled a deep rattling breath that seemed to portend another crying jag. Max saw her composure begin to crack as she settled down next to wear the baby was passed out on the couch.

"How you doing, baby?"

Brennan looked up at him. "Honestly, I thought when he finally got here, I didn't know whether to be anxious or relieved. I was very, very close to losing it in from of everyone. That's why I had to spend twenty minutes in the kitchen trying not to cry, and then I had to keep moving for the rest of the time. If I was doing something, I couldn't start to cry. He didn't even say hello to me... and, the one time we ended up in the kitchen alone together, he just turned around and walked straight back out. I thought he might say something, but he didn't. Nothing."

"Did you?"

Brennan shook her head. "I tried. Three times. But... I couldn't."

"Well, all things considered," Max said. "It was a nice party, Tempe. The cake was great, the baby had fun. We have some great photos of you and Chrissy, well, Chrissy with everyone… even Booth."

"And there is at least one shot of me and Booth and Chrissy smiling… even if the photo is a horrible lie," Brennan said. "I made Jared take a couple shots… because, I don't her to one day be looking back of the photos of her first birthday and wonder why her parents didn't love her enough to take a single photo together on her special day."

"Oh, Tempe," Max said.

Brennan waved him off. "It's okay. I just… I don't know what happening to… to us. It's like these past couple of weeks, I knew he was pissed off at me, but I never thought he would be late to Chrissy's party. Despite what's going on between us, I never thought he'd do something like that… try to hurt me by hurting her?"

"Maybe," Max said, trying to play devil's advocate, "Maybe he really was held up at Quantico, Tempe."

Brennan shrugged. "Maybe… I don't know. If you had asked me a month ago if I thought if Booth would ever be capable of something like this, I'd say, no... definitely not. And, maybe it was just an accident, and he got held up… but I don't know. We've gotten over things before, but this… I don't… this is different. I just guess I'm starting to feel like I'm losing him… *really* losing him this time. And, I don't even know what the first step is to take to make it better."

A couple of days later, Booth called an early recess to the day's activities. He needed to be able to get back into DC and to the Jeffersonian before he knew Brennan would have left for the day. He had contemplated trying to catch her at the apartment, but he couldn't take a chance that Max and/or the baby would be there, and he didn't want an audience for what he hoped would be a very private conversation. So, he figured that the best way to start rebuilding burned bridges between them was to chose someplace where he could say what he needed to say, give her what he had to give her, and leave her in peace with the opportunity to think about what he had said.

It was 4:45pm by the time Booth got there, and, except for the small parcel that he carried under his arm, he didn't look all that different from how he did if he would have been coming to the lab to meet Brennan to discuss a case. Entering the lab, he nodded once at the security guard on duty, glanced at the platform, but saw only a couple of lab techs working diligently at their tasks. He saw the light on in Angela's office while Cam's autopsy room was dark. Moving to the back of the lab, he turned a corner, and saw the light was still on in Brennan's office.

Quietly, he walked forward and saw the door was open. Brennan sat hunched over her desk, typing away furiously on her keyboard. She didn't notice him at first, but Booth gave a couple of shark raps on the door frame to get her attention.

Looking up, he saw a quick glimpse of panic and something else he couldn't quite identify wash over her face before Booth saw the mask go into place.

"Booth," she said in a very, very careful tone.

"Hey, Bones. Got a minute?" he smiled, also careful to keep his tone as natural sounding as possible.

Her lips frowned for a moment before she nodded and said, "Of course, please come in."

Nodding, Booth came in and shut the door behind them. He cautiously approached the desk. As soon as the door was shut, her demeanor changed. She was not hostile… but formal, almost too formal. And, then Booth finally got it… the formality. It was masking something. Brennan, for some reason, was afraid. Of him. Very afraid.

"How can I help you?" she said simply, still using the formal tones normal to her behavior in the lab.

"I wanted to apologize," he said quietly, in a very informal and personal tone. "I'm sorry for being late to the party… and for not helping you with the planning and prep like I promised I would. That wasn't fair after I told you I would help, and for that, I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Brennan said, obviously not expecting what he shared with her. "I know you've been busy."

"No, it's not," Booth said. "I'm also sorry for embarrassing you at the party, in front of our family… when you worked so hard on it, and I know it was important to you, and, I-I just…I… but, it wasn't intentional, Bones. I really just did lose track of time. But, even still… I'm sorry"

Brennan swallowed once and nodded, "Well, I wasn't really embarrassed by your late arrival at the party. I'm also sure that Christine, as the birthday girl, is really the only one who might be able to take offense. However, despite the fact that she is too young to have actually conceptualized how your tardiness might be taken as offensive to herself, if it would make you feel better, on her behalf, I accept your apology."

"Bones—" Booth said quietly.

Looking up at him, she nodded. "Yes?"

"I'm really trying here…."

At that, she bit her lip and nodded slightly. Her tone lost some of its abrasive formality as his wife's voice came back into the picture as she said, "I know. I know you are. But, I don't know what to do next."

"You should have told me, you know? Last week? About the baby?" Booth said lightly.

Brennan's eyes narrowed in confusion. "I'm not certain—"

"Her first word, Bones," Booth said gently. "She said her first word, and I missed it… and I-I… I'm her father. But, everyone else in the family knew before I did… and, I…a week? She's been talking for a week, and I didn't even know."

Immediately, Brennan flushed. She shook her head as she said, "I'm sorry. I didn't even think… I-I would have… I didn't do it on purpose… just with the party and everything… I didn't think."

Booth was quiet for a moment, looking away from her, before he said, "You know… there was a part of me… that thought… maybe… it was your way of trying to get back at me, you know… for things?"

Brennan's head snapped up in his, shivers going down her back as she realized that the very same behavior she had accused Booth of to her father on the day of the party, he had suspected her of doing the very same thing.

She sighed as she said, "I would never do that, Booth. I wouldn't use our daughter to hurt you."

He was quiet for a moment before he said, "I-I… I don't want to interrupt you. I just… I just wanted to tell you what I told you… and give you this."

Reaching out, he extended the parcel he had been carrying. It was covered in brown paper and tied with white string. Brennan looked at him curiously. "Is it for Chrissy, because I can give it to her tonight, or... there's really no reason why you shouldn't just come home and bring it yourself—"

"No," Booth said. He turned to leave, but stopped with his hand on the office's door as he nodded at her once before he said softly, "It's for you."

And with that, he was gone too quickly for her to even say his name.

Again, her curiosity reared its head, and Brennan hastily pulled the string loose and pulled back the paper. She felt a cry catch in her throat as she pulled the paper back to reveal… the frame Booth had given her with the baby's photo in it… repaired… with new glass… and polished until it gleamed… whole once more.

-TBC-