*Present*
Brennan was sitting at her desk, trying to work on her book, but kept getting distracted by thoughts of Booth. He had been acting weird that day, and hadn't even tried to make her eat lunch. It almost seemed like he was avoiding her. Of course, she had gotten to have lunch with Angela, which wasn't something that had been happening recently, but she was still worried. Something was up with Booth, and it was driving Brennan crazy not knowing. "Tempe," Max said, knocking on her office door. Brennan surfaced from her thoughts, "Oh, hi Dad. What's up?" "Oh, nothing. Just wanted to check up on you. What were you thinking about?" Brennan looked down at her desk and shuffled her papers around while responding, "Oh, nothing in particular. Just a case, you know." "Not Booth?" Max inquired, trying not to smile. "No, of course not. Why would I be thinking of Booth? We're just partners." Brennan stated defensively. *She's a horrible liar* was one of the thoughts running through her fathers head. "Oh, ok then. I just thought since he was kind of avoiding you, you might be concerned about why." Brennan looked at her father, a suspicious look in her eye as the wheels in her mind started turning. "How did you know Booth was avoiding me? Do you know why he's avoiding me?" Max inwardly smirked as his daughter tried to hide the worry and insecurity in her voice as she tried to find out what was up with Booth. "I saw him earlier, he looked like he was thinking really hard. I don't know what's going on, I just deduced that there was something wrong." "Dad, just because both of us appeared to be concerned about something at the same time doesn't mean that it has to do with each other." "Yeah, uh-huh honey, I believe you."
Booth sat at his desk, mulling over possible solutions to his "little problem." He gave a little chuckle as the term "little problem" went through his head, remembering how short Sully is. He quickly grew serious again, as he got back to the reality of the issue. The reality was, he was screwed. He could go against his basic personality, and let someone else take the mission, and feel horrible if the mission fails, or he could stick with his nature and risk either his Bones getting extremely PO'd at him, or he could have to see her back with Sully, which he wasn't sure he could handle. Booth groaned in frustration, leaned forward, and rested his forehead in his palms. *Well, I can't do anything right now, so I might as well get started on my paperwork* Booth sat up and pulled his paperwork toward him with another groan. "I HATE paperwork," Booth grumbled under his breath.