A/N: Week three of this thing was a pretty fun prompt all about nicknames and what everyone's (specifically Booth's) nickname is. The first part is set Season 2 and the second is set season 10.

Enjoy!

"Okay," Booth starts, pushing his way into Brennan's apartment the second she opens the door wide enough to get a leg inside. "I wasn't gonna do this. I mean it's really none of your damn business. But partners tell each other things, right?"

He's pacing around her living room now, and all Brennan can do is stare at him completely confused.

"What are you talking about?" she finally asks after his third trip back from her bookcase.

"That thing you were talking about with Angela in your office earlier. About nicknames."

"Why would you be so anxious to talk to me about your nickname? It pays little into our partnership. Unless it is embarrassing, in which case I'm certain it would be quite humorous." she smiles and starts to laugh.

"You know what, I was right. It's none of your damn business."

When he starts to leave, Brennan stops him. "Come on. You said it yourself 'partners tell each other things.' You can trust me. I promise to control my laughter."

"I don't know," he starts, still not sure if he should divulge his secret.

"I have beer." At the mention of drinks, Booth stays and follows Brennan into her kitchen.

He's halfway through his second bottle when he musters up the balls to start talking. "Okay. So you know how on sports teams the give each other nicknames like 'Tulo' or 'Sid the Kid'?"

"Yes. I don't understand how that connects to you."

"Well, I'm just saying it's a guy thing. A locker room thing. We joke and give each other horrible names."

"Okay. I think I'm with you."

"And me and Sully were at Quantico together. He was in the class after mine, but we all kind of knew each other. And-"

Brennan could tell how anxious and scared telling this story made Booth feel. So she changed the subject.

"Russ used to call me Jojo."

"What?" Booth asks, confused and stunned.

"My nickname. When we were kids, Russ called me Jojo. I assume it was because my name was Joy and he was a young child at the time. But even after we ran away and had to change our identities, he'd call me it. I remember waking up in the middle of the night with a nightmare. It was storming outside and the thunder and lightning was right on top of our house. I remember Russ coming into my room, crawling into bed with me and hugging me. He rubbed my hair and said 'It's okay, Jojo. It's just a storm'. He stayed with me until I fell asleep and the storm passed. When I woke up the next morning, he was gone. And over breakfast that next morning, he smiles at me and passed over the cereal, and that was it. We never talked about it ever again."

"Wow," Booth sighs, amazed at his partner and the layer of her onion she just peeled back. "I- thank you, Bones."

"You're welcome," she nods, standing. She collects their empty bottles and as she moves to throw them away, Booth starts again.

"They called me 'Two-Fry'. They guys. They called me 'Two-Fry'." He doesn't see her stop in her tracks; though she doesn't turn and look at him, afraid he'll clam up again if she does. "I was the best shot in my class and everyone knew it. I was always clean and accurate. A sharpshooter. I was like an outlaw in the Wild West; a bandit. And all bandits have cool names, right? I mean you've seen those old western movies. All those villains are so tough and amazing shots and have really epic names. So 'Two-Fry' was my cowboy name."

"That's no so bad of a nickname," Brennan starts, dropping the bottles into the trash. "Better than 'Shorty' or 'Stiff' or 'Dick'."

He laughs, relaxing a bit. "Yeah, you're right. It's better than 'Shoes' too."

Brennan gasps at the memory. "Hey! We had just met! I didn't know much about nicknames."

"I know. It just makes me laugh," he grins.

"Can we just forget that ever happened?"

"Nope. Never. It's stuck up here forever," he says, tapping on his head.

Brennan rolls her eyes and leans against the counter. "You want another drink?"

"Nah," Booth says, standing. "It's late. I should probably go."

"Oh. Okay, yeah," Brennan says, going to the door.

"Thanks for listening, Bones, I really appreciate it."

Brennan shrugs. "Partners tell each other things."

"Yeah, they do. I'll see you tomorrow, Bones."

"See you tomorrow," she echoes, watching him walk down the hallway before closing the door.

[] []

She finds him in their closet, standing on a chair. He's rummaging through a box on the top shelf, dust bunnies are stuck in his curls.

"What are you doing?"

He jumps at her voice and turns to look at her. "Oh. Hey. I'm looking for your old yearbooks."

"Why?"

"To see if they call you by your real name." He moves on to the next box and comes up triumphant. "Ah ha! Here they are!" He pulls out four thick books, each with a different design on the cover. He steps off the chair and leaves the closet. "Alright, let's see what we got here." He sits down on their bed, pulling the book onto his lap.

"You're not gonna find it in there," Angela says, sitting next to him. "Even in high school, I didn't go by my real name."

"What? Why?" He asks, bewildered.

"You heard it! It's horrible! Would you wanna go through the jungle of high school with that name?"

"No, I guess not."

"Aw, you're disappointed!" she sighs. "You actually thought my real name would be plastered all over those yearbooks, didn't you?"

"Yeah, I did," he pouts. Angela smiles and kisses his cheek. "You can still look if you want. There's a lot of horrible 90's looks in there. Even a few from yours truly. Here, start with this one." She hands him one of the books in the middle of the pile. The cover was filled with multicolored fireworks and written in the bottom corner, in neat cursive was 'Patapsco High School 1993-94'

Together they slowly flip through the book, past pages for the football team and marching band. Angela stops them on certain pages, pointing out old friends or favorite teachers.

On one page showing students eating lunch in the cafeteria, Angeal points to one girl sitting at a table, laughing with friends "That's me," she says.

"Oh my god! Babe! Look at you!" Jack exclaims. "You were so cute! And rocking those crimped pigtails."

"Don't laugh! I was a freshman! I didn't know the meaning of style yet."

"Alright, let me see your picture," he insists.

"Alright," she takes the book and flips past huge chunks of pages until she finds the one she wants. Angela folds it back halfway, keeping it secret. She laughs and looks at her husband before revealing her freshman year school photo.

"Oh my god!" Jack says, taking the book back. There she was, right between Kathleen Garvey, and Mateo Gomez, the same wide smile he's come to know and love well; the pigtails from the previous picture replaced with stick straight, side-parted hair held back with a single flower clip. The picture was in black and white, so he couldn't see what color her shirt was. And underneath it, was her name.

"Wait a minute. Who is 'Lucy'?" Hodgins asks, looking to his wife.

"I am. That's what I went by in middle and high school."

"How do you get 'Lucy' from Pookie Noodlin?"

"It didn't start out that way. My mom called me 'Pepper' all the time when I was a little kid. That 'Annie' movie had come out, you know the one with Carol Burnett, and apparently, I was a pretty sassy and feisty little kid, just like Pepper, so the name stuck. And that's what I went by all through Elementary school."

"Okay, I can see that. But where did 'Lucy' come from?"

"Well, in seventh grade I developed this love for the Peanuts, you know Charlie Brown, and one of the girls in there is named Lucy. And I kind of thought of her as the grown-up version of Pepper. So I changed my name. And everyone knew me as 'Lucy'.

"Okay."

"'Okay'? That's it?"

"Yup; that's it."

"Okay," Angela says, rolling her eyes and knocking into Hodgins' shoulder. "Here's another one of me," she says, flipping to the page featuring the softball teams. She points to the Junior Varsity team and to the girl in the back row.

"Still the tallest, I see," Hodgins smirks.

"Shut up," she retorts. "This was only my fourth year playing softball, so I only made JV, but it was so much fun."

"What number were you?"

"Um, for JV, I was 44 and on Varsity, I was 23."

"And you played the same position the entire time?"

"No, I alternated between second base, shortstop, and right field. It just depended on the year," she shrugs.

She closes the yearbook and pulls out another, this one from her sophomore year.

"What're you doing?" Michael Vincent asks, standing in his parent's bedroom doorway.

"Looking at old yearbooks. Come look at what momma looked like in high school," Hodgins says, beckoning their son in.

Michael scampers inside and onto his parent's bed, wriggling himself into his mom's lap. Once everyone is settled, Angela flips through the book, showing her son what school was like 'back in the day'.

"Whoa! Momma! Is that you?" Michael exclaims, pointing at Angela's picture.

"Uh-huh," Angela hums. "Crazy, right?"

"You look the same."

"Aw, thank you," Angela says, kissing her son and hugging him close. "You think I look the same here, check this out," she starts, closing the yearbook and grabbing another.

They spend the rest of the night flipping through yearbooks and reliving memories.