Title: Couch Time
Chapter: Virgins and Prodigies
Summary: Set in season 5 of Bones, just as they return to working cases together. Sweets calls the pair in for a reassessment.
Dr. Brennan came straight into the psychologist's office, her steps hurried to show that she'd attempted to make up for what she realized was lost time. Perhaps she did consider her time slightly more valuable than that of others, but that didn't mean she was above impressing that fact on everyone else on a regular basis. These were not actions that came naturally to her, but it was easier to make allowances when it came to her partner.
Booth and the good doctor took note of her presence at once, as their conversation halted mid-sentence. She took note that while Sweets instantly moved his eyes to her, Booth turned his attention to the window, where he could stare out onto nothing more than a blue sky. Brushing off cues from the body language she was presented with, she sat down next to her partner.
"Sorry I'm late. I was reviewing a paper that one of my grad students submitted on the nature of carbon dating use on skeletal remains in volcanic areas and the ramifications of the inconsistencies that occur and I lost track of time," she explained.
Booth blinked as he offered a slight frown her way, and Sweets just sat back in his chair and indicated that she should make herself comfortable. "That sounds interesting," Sweets offered.
"It's a well-known issue. That and other types of radiation can skew findings. It's why we have calibration curves," she shrugged in a non-committal fashion. "It's all the young students, who are eager to discover something new—they forget they first have to learn all the accepted knowledge thus far to break through that point."
Sweets glanced to Booth then, as she shrugged off her jacket. "That's an interesting conclusion."
"Don't start, Sweets," Booth argued, as he cut his eyes back to their proctor.
"Are you interested in more reliable methods of dating remains?" Brennan asked Booth, puzzled at why they seemed to be directing such comments toward one another.
"I don't really even know what you're talking about," Booth admitted.
"Did you start the session without me?" she asked, having realized just then that perhaps they were assigning another meaning to her vocalized thoughts.
"We were just shooting the breeze," Sweets assured her.
"But Booth is annoyed with you. He tends to only get that way when you're delving into his personal life without his consent," she insisted.
"It's fine," Booth said. "Let's just start over now that Bones is here."
"Fine by me," Sweets agreed, in a tone that indicated he would back off from whatever they'd discussed in her absence.
"Did he tell you that we figured out that Levi was going to give up music to return to his community?" Brennan asked Sweets.
"I read that in the report," Sweets said with a nod as he crossed one ankle over his knee. "I'm sure his parents were happy to at least have that knowledge."
"It seemed the least we could do," Booth said solemnly.
"If we hadn't gotten involved, they literally would have had nothing personal of his to remember him by. They certainly would have never understood the meaning of those rocks under his bed, if they'd ever noticed them at all," Brennan added. "It seems a shame, to give up so much just for one's religious beliefs."
"Can we not get into the whole religious debate again?" Booth asked with a sigh as he finally turned to meet her eye-to-eye for the first time since she'd arrived. She offered him a tempered pout in response.
"Has that been a sore point between you recently?" Sweets inquired.
"She doesn't respect the fact that I'm Catholic," Booth supplied, "but that's not a new occurrence."
"That's not true, Booth. I do respect the fact that you have faith in your religion," she corrected with enthusiasm.
He frowned again, as her words had confused him. "You do?"
She nodded. "Of course. Just because I don't understand something on a personal level, that doesn't mean I can't see the appeal that millions of other people find in organized religions. It must be… comforting," she supplied after she landed on the proper emotion.
"It is," Booth agreed guardedly.
"Does it bother you that she doesn't agree with your religious views?" Sweets asked Booth.
Booth turned back to Sweets. "What? No. That's what makes this country so great, is the freedoms we're allowed. She's free to not believe in God just as much as I'm free to practice all the holy rites involved in my religion."
"Which, admittedly, isn't exactly in a devout manner," Brennan cut in.
"What's that mean?" Booth asked, still on the defensive despite her grand acknowledgment on his behalf.
"Well," she said with a half-smile, "What is the Pope's ruling on sex before marriage? Surely the Church wouldn't have condoned you having sex at sixteen," she offered. "At least, not in this society, where it is unusual for a sixteen-year-old to be married and engaging in sex as solely a means of reproduction."
"You told Brennan about your first sexual experience?" Sweets inquired, his voice nearly breaking in the process.
Booth glared at him. "In passing. It's not like I made her popcorn and explained it in a play-by-play," he scoffed.
"Did you reciprocate in conveying your first sexual experience to him as well?" Sweets asked Brennan, his eyes still saucer-like as he tried to put the exchange together.
She nodded. "Of course. Booth doesn't like to give out personal information without an even exchange. I informed him I was twenty-two and that it was a choice I was comfortable with."
Sweets eyed her warily. "That sounds quite clinical."
"That's what I said," Booth chimed in. "Isn't that a little long for someone to wait to first have sex? I think I would have exploded if I'd waited that long, religion or not."
"Everyone matures at their own pace, but twenty-two is probably at the other end of the bell curve," Sweets admitted.
"How old were you?" Brennan asked, her feathers slightly ruffled at being labeled a late bloomer.
"Uh," Sweets hedged and shook his head slightly, glancing between the two.
"Come on, Sweets, fair is fair. You know our numbers," Booth chided with an easy smile.
"That is not how therapy works," Sweets argued. "I'm happy to let topics evolve naturally as they occur between the two of you, but I'm not here to put my private life on display. How did you happen upon the topic of virginity? The fact that your victim was Amish?"
"No, it was because Cam was afraid of Michelle engaging in a sexual relationship with her boyfriend," Brennan supplied. "Booth was arguing, rather incorrectly, that she should hold off solely on the basis of her age."
"Excuse me, how was my argument incorrect?" he posed.
"You contradicted yourself," she offered. "You said that she should wait until she was twenty-two, like me, but then you told me that my first time should have been a bundle of hormones and excitement, like yours apparently was," she said in a hasty tone.
"Are you afraid that Dr. Brennan missed out on something by waiting so long?" Sweets asked. It was clear that his words held a double meaning, and Booth felt the nerves at the back of his neck prickle.
"Hey, it's her life, her decision. It had nothing to do with me. I was just offering my opinion, that's all," he managed.
"My first sexual experience was not lacking. Far from it, in fact, I achieved orgasm four times," she offered.
"Four times?" Sweets asked as he once again leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. "Really?"
"What did you do, find some sort of tantric sex guru?" Booth asked.
She blinked at him. "No, he was a professor in Greek mythology at Oxford, during a seminar I was taking on break from my doctorate program."
"That's just wrong, a professor taking advantage of his students," Booth dismissed as if the words tasted bad in his mouth.
"He did not take advantage of me, Booth. I was just as aggressive as he was, and in fact, it was me that instigated the first contact," she explained easily.
"I don't see how this has any bearing on our work relationship," Booth said finally.
"You asked," she said with a shrug. "I just think that being as you were sixteen when you first had sex, it's hypocritical of you to think Michelle should abstain if she feels she's ready to engage in coitus."
"I think that's something that Dr. Saroyan can handle herself," Sweets said with finality.
"On the contrary, she was asking for advice of her colleagues, and I saw her looking at a book that depicted a cartoon penis offering advice for parents of teens while she was in her office. She was hardly keeping it to herself."
"A cartoon penis?" Booth asked, aghast. "See, this is not how men handle these things."
"How should men handle these things?" Sweets posed.
"Directly. If there is a problem, you take care of it," he said with a swipe of his palms smacking together as they moved past the other in space.
"What did you do, Booth?" Brennan asked.
He shifted and cleared his throat. "Nothing. I just had a little talk with Perry. That's all."
"Perry is Michelle's boyfriend? You talked to him?" Sweets reiterated.
"Yes. Teenage boys need to know that there is a man in the lives of their girlfriends, and one who is capable of hurting them in ways that they are desperate to avoid. All I did was introduce myself to him and make it clear that I am willing to be that guy for Michelle."
"Oh, Booth," Brennan sighed.
"What? Don't think your dad would have done the same thing for you if he could have when you were sixteen—or twenty-two, or whenever," he stumbled over his analogy.
"I think my father is not the best example of parenting, although I do know he's willing to go to prison for me, but I believe women should learn how to handle their own affairs."
"Self-sufficiency is fine, but it's not your only defense," Booth assured her.
"I hardly think my father is going to come running every time I'm in need of any real assistance. He's not a superhero; he's a highly dangerous, if not well-meaning, criminal."
"I don't think he was talking solely about your father," Sweets interrupted quietly.
"We're not even talking about me, we were talking about Michelle," she said, her hesitation borne out of the weight of the words that weren't being spoken.
"Of course it was about Michelle," Booth muttered.
"Right. How about we move away from Michelle and back to any issues that might have come up aside from the age at which you lost your virginity," Sweets suggested.
"Good, because that has nothing to do with our ability to work together," Brennan said in a tone that was almost enough to convince one of the two men in the room.
"I won't agree to that completely, but I am willing to put a pin in it for now," Sweets said, extending his fingers and hand in a straight line in her direction.
"The case was fairly straight-forward. The boy was unwilling to give up a possession and got murdered because of it," Brennan acknowledged.
"But it's also weird, because he'd been preparing to go back to the farm and a life in which he wouldn't even be allowed to keep that medal he fought for. He'd have married that girl and they'd work his father's farm and have babies. He'd already broken his own hand to hinder his temptation. It doesn't make any sense," Booth argued.
Brennan nodded. "True. But that's part of what he was experiencing, during his Rumspringa. Though I'm not sure that any of the kids we saw who were supposed to be contemplating their future in the Amish community was partaking in any approved activity in the least. Levi was the only one that seemed to be pursuing a more noble pursuit, and look where that got him," Brennan added.
"I thought you said you hated conjecture," Booth said with a half-hearted laugh.
"I do."
"Then how can you assume that just because his talent for the piano was above average, it was greater than his faith in his religion?" Booth asked.
"I realize that it would be difficult to give up a way of life that was so engrained in him, but not everyone shows that kind of promise. He was clearly a prodigy," Brennan stated her view.
"Just because it made him special, that doesn't mean that he felt it was a gift. To him, it was probably more like a curse," Booth informed her.
"I realize that, but I find that way of thinking unbelievably narrow-minded."
"I feel that we're circling back to the religion argument," Sweets interjected after watching the volley of words between the two.
"It's because we are," Booth agreed, his agitation showing through.
"I'm willing to agree to disagree. It doesn't bother me at all," Brennan acquiesced.
Booth appeared none-too-calm about the idea. "Fine."
"Don't do that," Sweets discouraged. "Remember, this is a safe space. Say whatever is on your mind. It's imperative."
Booth gave a heavy sigh and glanced over at his partner. "It bothers me, and I know it shouldn't. It's not written that we have to agree on anything, it doesn't make our ability to work together any less, but I don't know. Sometimes it feels like you understand me better than anyone else, and yet other times it's like we don't even share the same language. Does that make sense?"
"Perfect sense," Sweets offered.
"I wasn't talking to you," Booth cut him off, as if he were more than a third-wheel than a helpful mediator.
"No, I get that. It's probably worse, now, since you're still getting back to feeling like yourself," she offered. "I don't mean to hinder your progress, Booth. I want to help, if I can."
He dropped his hands into his lap and clasped them. "You do. And the thing about you is that you don't mince words. Like with my belt buckle. You said it was just me. It's not your fault that I'm having trouble remembering just who that is these days."
"This is excellent," Sweets said with full approval. "This is exactly why we're engaging in these sessions."
"I still think it's unnecessary. Booth would have been drawn to his belt buckle on his own, given time. It happened before, and it's only natural, as he's essentially the same person he always was, that he would make the same choice again," Brennan pointed out.
"Ah, but we as humans are capable of learning from past mistakes, even if our subconscious is hiding them from us. On some level, he has to work out if what he'd always done in the past was working for him as he approaches even familiar things after his brain surgery. The mind is a complicated network of associations that are deeper than most people can imagine," Sweets explained.
She turned to Booth and rolled her eyes. "Don't listen to him. There was nothing wrong with you before you had brain surgery, other than the tumor. You liked your life."
He smiled. "I know."
"You two are highly co-dependent and evasive. I'm putting that in my report," Sweets said with a furrowed brow.
"But that won't mean that they'll split up our team, right?" Booth inquired.
Sweets sighed. "I doubt they'd separate the two of you for any reason at this point, given your success rate. But I do have the authority to continue these sessions, and it's my professional opinion that they're helping, so you'll just have to live with it for the time being."
Brennan narrowed her gaze at Sweets. "Does that mean I can get back to reviewing my graduate students' dissertations?"
"Far be it from me to keep you from your work," Sweets held up his hands in surrender. "You're fleeing as well, I assume?" he posed to Booth.
Booth hesitated and sat back. "Nah. I mean, I'm here, and I don't have anything pressing to work on. Parker's with his mom until next week, so I'll stay and finish the session."
Brennan paused and put her hand on the space on the couch between their hips. "Should I stay? I mean, I can, if you want."
"No. You go, you're busy; you have a whole other side to your work, outside our partnership. Go read about carbon hydrating or whatever that was."
"Carbon dating, Booth, it's a means of determining how old the remains we discover are," she explained.
"Right. See, that's got to be more fascinating than sitting here, listening to Sweets tell me that the fact that none of the cereal I had in my house tastes good to me anymore."
She stood up. "That's because I threw out the expired items in your pantry and restocked it with healthier choices when I was waiting for you to get out of surgery," she informed him.
A moment of realization washed over him and he shook his head. "How did you get into my place?"
She smiled. "Your keys were in your pants' pocket. It's not like I picked your pocket while you were still wearing them," she said with a grin.
"Is this one of those moments where you feel she knows you better than anyone else or that you don't speak the same language?" Sweets asked, watching the two of them with earnest.
"Maybe that's the problem," Booth answered honestly. "I'm not even sure I could tell you."
Brennan pursed her lips thoughtfully. "I'll see you later?"
Booth nodded. "Yeah. Later, Bones."
She took her leave then, leaving the room just as she'd found it, with the two men searching out further analysis of problems she was not yet privy to.