Okay, I decided to split this day up into two chapters (you'll see why in a little while). I'm really sorry about being so late in this update, but this was really difficult to write for some reason.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Assume "Fire and Ice" skating events never happened.

Chapter Three: Christmas Eve (Part One)

Brennan hardly felt the bouncing of the mattress as someone bounded up onto it. Two small hands began shaking her lightly out of a pleasant dream of Christmas past from her childhood. She rolled to move away from whoever was disturbing her, only to fall out, her shoulder connecting solidly with the cold wooden floor.

Parker looked down from the edge of the bed where the anthropologist had taken a tumble. Brennan took most of the blankets with her in the fall, so all he saw was a groaning, moving lump of white. "Dr. Bones? Are you awake?" he asked.

Brennan groaned again and sat up, the blankets covering her head so she looked like a bad sheet-ghost at Halloween. "If I were asleep, I'd still be in that bed." her voice muffled to Parker's ears. "What time is it?"

He looked over at the clock next to the bed, "The big hand is pointing to the two and the little hand is pointing at the four." he replied.

It took a moment for Brennan to clear her fogged mind to decrypt what he'd said. Ten after four? What unworldly reason got him up so early? she thought. "Parker, why are you up so early?"

"Because I couldn't sleep. Daddy was still asleep and I couldn't fall asleep again because Daddy snores so loud. Are you mad at me?" he asked with sad eyes.

She couldn't help but smile at the boy's innocence. Brennan didn't think there was a time in her life when she was as innocent as him. "Nah, that's okay. I can sleep when I'm dead."

"Yay." he said as he tackled the still blanket-covered Brennan in a big bear hug that toppled her over. She struggled to free herself so she could breathe.

"Hang on there, I need coffee before anything in the morning." she told him lightly.

Parker looked up from where his head had been buried in fluffy blankets. "Oh, you're just like Daddy. He says he needs that black stuff early in the morning, too. It doesn't even taste good." Parker while sticking out his tongue and pointing at it.

Brennan chuckled slightly, "Maybe that's why we like it, it tastes so bad we get moving to try to get away from it. You might even like it when you get older." she disentangled herself from the sheet and stood up.

"Don't see it happening, Dr. Bones." he replied cheerily.

She smiled and peeked her head down the hallway. As far as she could tell, there still wasn't a soul up except for the hyper boy and the anthropologist. She made a gesture for Parker to be careful and quite. He replied with a thumbs-up and a smile. Together, they tip-toed down the hall to the stairs. Brennan continued to quietly pad her way down the stairs when she looked down at Parker, who'd sat down at the top and thumped his way down on his backside.

"Why are you doing that?" she whispered.

"It's what I always do when I have to be quiet at Mom's house." he replied as he kept going. She just stood and watched him bump down the rest of the flight on his bum. She laughed internally when he stood up at the bottom of the stairs and stumbled a bit when he walked.

Parker fell face first onto the couch while Brennan went into the kitchen in search of caffeine. She was scooping the coffee into the filter when he came to the room, He looked at her quizzically. "How does it come out black if that stuff is brown?"

She considered telling him, but feared that it would come out in a long scientific speech. Instead, Dr. Temperance Brennan dismissed the boy's inquiries with three simple words that she hadn't used in a long time. "I don't know, Parker."

He did exactly as was expected, shrug his shoulders and walked to the refrigerator. Brennan breathed a sigh of relief when she thought about the explanation she had saved his ears from. Good job, Tempe, just talk like a casual, non-scientific person and maybe you won't look like a freak for the next two days. she reminded herself with the little internal pep-talk.

When the coffee was done, she went back out into the living room where the small child was stretched out on the big couch watching an animated yellow mouse-type animal shoot electrical currents through the red dots on it's cheeks.

"What is that?" Brennan looked at the small cactus figure the electricity hit. She jumped slightly when it moved.

"It's Pokemon, Dr. Bones. Have you ever watched it?" Parker lifted his head to look at her with shock written deep in his eyes.

"No, I don't watch a lot of television." she replied cautiously.

Parker went into total detail of the show, along with the trading cards, video games, and other miscellaneous stuff that went along with it. Apparently the show had been running for years. Brennan watched it with the boy explaining every little detail along the way, depicting out all of the problems and inconsistencies from it. But she held her tongue and nodded along while trying to understand it. He then began channel-surfing so fast that she could hardly see what it was before he was on to the next one. He finally rested on a channel that showed a town being blown up by bombs and snaggle-toothed ruffians.

"What is this supposed to be?" she muttered to herself.

Parker picked up on the small sound. "It's Pirates of the Caribbean. You can't say you haven't seen it." he smiled that charm smile that appeared to be genetic in the Booth family.

Brennan looked over at him, "Like I said, I don't watch much TV at all." She watched as a young man threw an axe in the back of one of the intruders.

His jaw hit the floor. He apparently couldn't believe that the anthropologist hadn't seen the only PG-13 movie his father had allowed him to watch one night after they'd had enough sugar and built up energy in their system to power a small city. He remembered how he begged Booth to let him see it after he saw the commercial, promising to never use his shaving cream to look like Santa then dropping the can in the toilet ever again. This made his father think and then say okay only if he didn't tell his mother.

Parker got up from the couch and over to a basket behind the armchair. He returned with a very large, very soft plaid blanket. Wrapping it around the doctor, he said, "Get comfy, you've gotta watch this."

Brennan felt an odd sensation as Parker climbed into her lap, mindful of her coffee mug, and snuggled up to her chest. Her heart beat had increased along with pulse. She felt warm despite the fact that she was literally freezing. He had warmed her up with the small gesture of the blanket and his own body heat. It wasn't something that she could explain scientifically, but she attributed the rush of euphoria to a trigger that meant she was deeply fond of him.

Parker brought her up to speed on what had happened so far in the film. About halfway through, Brennan told him a little bit about the Barbary Pirates which had obviously inspired the movie. He was thrilled at the history lesson from her and she felt good giving it. She actually ended up liking the story it told.

Towards the end of it, when Jack Sparrow was about to be hung by the Brits, Booth had thunked down the stairs while holding his head. She could tell that he was dizzy and hadn't gained full use of stamina yet as he leaned against the wall for support.

"Hi Dad." Parker whispered.

"Morning, buddy." Booth mumbled as he went to the kitchen. He hadn't even opened his eyes to look at his son, but wandered into the kitchen to make coffee. Seeing it was already made, he thought that it was on one of those timers so it would go off automatically. Booth poured himself a cup and took a long drink before he cleared his head and walked back out to join his son at whatever he was doing.

He walked back into the living room to find Parker sitting on his partner's lap as they watched Will Turner save Jack Sparrow from being hung. His head rested on Brennan's shoulder as she bit slightly on one of her short nails. There was a sight that Booth never thought that he'd see; Bones actually watching something related to modern media. He chuckled to himself and took a seat next to her.

"How do you like it?" he whispered.

"It's fascinating how they can take a part of history and mold it into a modernized storyline that shows how dangerous pirates could be. It's entertaining." she said unconsciously, eyes still glued to the scene on the box.

Booth thought about what else she would find entertaining. His thoughts drifted to the fact that one night he'd invite her over to his place for Thai food and scary movies. He wondered if she would scare easily. He'd have to do a little digging through his DVD collection at home, but he distinctly remembered having copies of The Shining and Vacancy. With the real life terror that she'd seen all her life, he wondered if it would even faze her.

The movie ended and Parker mumbled that he had to go to the bathroom. Brennan laughed while Booth told him to go and that they didn't need to know that. He laughed slightly too as he watched his son scamper to the other end of the house. He turned and met his partner's eyes, still light from her giggles. Blue held brown for another few seconds before she spoke.

"So, what are your plans for today?" Brennan asked while pulling the blanket around herself, suddenly feeling colder.

"I was thinking about taking Parker and Michael to the ice rink. You wanna come with?" he asked while stretching his arms over his head. Brennan couldn't help but think about how defined and muscular they were.

"Sure, that would be fun." she replied.

Later on when she was getting cleaned up for the day, she wondered what had possessed her to take up Booth's offer to go ice skating. She hadn't gone since she was nine and even then she wasn't any good at it. As Brennan combed through her wet hair, she considered saving herself some embarrassment and tell Booth that she'd rather stay at the house.

She walked out of the guest bathroom and into the bedroom where she saw a lump moving underneath her already made up sheets. Deciding not to bother whoever had snuck into the bed, she walked past it and into her suitcase to get clothes for the day. Brennan pulled the robe tighter around her knowing that it was a little one in there. She was going to walk back to the bathroom to change when a head popped out at the foot of the bed.

"Hey, Dr. Bones!" Parker whispered excitedly, "my Dad said that you were coming skating with us. I can't wait to go!" he said before rushing down the hallway. Brennan heard a pair of screams that she suspected came from the two cousins playing a game of what she remembered was called 'Hide and Seek'.

After that quick little encounter with Parker, all thoughts of trying to get out of skating had left her mind. She'd dressed in a white t-shirt with a maroon sweater that tied around the waist and jeans. Brennan still felt a slight chill from laying in the snow yesterday.

At about nine thirty, she heard Booth calling her from the foot of the stairs. She grumbled as she pulled her hair back into a ponytail. As soon as that man has an idea in his head, he goes from standing still to light-speed in about one-point-five seconds. she thought a little bitterly as she hobbled to pull her boots on and hop down the stairs.

Booth had the nerve to laugh at her instability. If he thought that was entertaining, he probably couldn't wait to get her on the ice. "You ready, Bones?" he asked.

"Where's everybody else?" she asked.

He thought for a second, "Well, Jared went out with Dad to get the Christmas tree and Christine and Mom went into town for stuff for dinner later, so we are on the child entertainment and lunch committee." he established while Brennan pulled her coat on.

"Come on, Dad!" Parker called from halfway to the SUV. The duo picked up the pace and trotted to the vehicle.

The car ride to the rink was spent by listening to the three men sing "99 Bottles Of Milk On The Wall". Brennan smiled when she saw the jovial look on Booth's face and started humming to their song too quietly to be noticed.

When they arrived at the rink, Parker and Michael were practically bouncing out of their seats. The two boys danced as they waited for Booth to pull out the skates and passed them off for Brennan to carry. She gave him a dirty look as she hauled the bags up over her shoulders.

The rink was dead empty, not a soul to be seen as the Booths took seats on the bleachers. Taking one of the bags from his partner, Booth got the two cousins laced up and sent them out on the ice. He began lacing up his own hockey skates while Brennan watched the boys chase each other with obvious experience.

It wasn't until Booth moved in front of her that she realized that the same thing was expected of her.

"Booth, if you haven't come to the conclusion yet, I don't have skates." she practically smiled.

He returned the sly look, "You're in luck, Bones. I checked with Christine and you two have the same size feet. When I told her, she was all too happy to lend me hers."

Brennan gritted her teeth behind closed lips, but the motion was still visible. Booth's expression turned into a full-fledged grin as he kneeled down in front of her and began removing her boots. He got one skate laced before he looked up at her, arms crossed and looking more like a defiant child than a full-grown woman. Ignoring her, Booth laced up the second skate just a little tighter than would be considered losing circulation. She'd feel it in a couple of hours when there wasn't a whole ton of blood running to her feet.

"Come on, Bones!" He roughly encouraged the good doctor while she clung to the boards for support. "It's not so hard once you get a feel for it."

"Yes, and you already have the feel." Brennan yelled. He was in the middle of the ice, a territory she didn't want to venture to. Out in the middle, there was only one way to go if you messed up. That way was to the cold, frozen block beneath her unsteady feet. No way am I going to leave this nice solid board right here. she thought.

Booth had skated over to her while she had these thoughts. He held his bare hand out to her with the vocalized promise, "I won't let you fall."

She looked down in slight embarrassment, heaved a sigh, and took it. "I trust you."

He smiled as he guided her around the loop a couple of times while expertly dodging his wild son and even wilder nephew. They were seeing who could go the fastest, slide across the ice, and slam into the boards at the opposite end of the rink. Brennan cringed when she heard the smack of body against wood from the other end.

"I thought you had a strong stomach for stuff like that." Booth hobbled along with his partner, still on shaky feet.

"I see bodies after they're dead, Booth, it doesn't mean I have a strong intake to damage being done to a human being." Brennan concentrated as hard as she could to remain upright with as little of Booth's help as possible. "I'm not completely cold. I know that you know that."

His voice darkened. "Of course I know that, Bones. I've known that since you told me about your childhood." he thought about her as a child. Brennan, alone and awkward, in the foster system, without having anyone to call as a friend and her throwing herself into her studies.

Booth shook the thoughts from his head as quickly as they had entered. This weekend he had with his family and his best friend wouldn't be tainted by the memories of the wretched past that she'd had. Still, he wondered what would've happened to her had her family been wholesome, together, and…well…not bank robbers and murderers.

The revere was shaken just in time to see his son coming at them at moderate speed. It wasn't so fast that he couldn't have stopped it, but it was fast enough to knock an unskilled, unsuspecting Brennan from her wobbly stance.

He let go of her for all of five seconds while he redirected his son away from her. It seemed five seconds was all it took for Brennan to find herself grumbling in pain on the ice. Booth muttered as he picked her up and tormented her around the giant loop for the next two hours. She didn't fall again.

"Dad, me and Michael are hungry." Parker said while the two of them simultaneously rubbed their stomachs to prove their point.

Booth paused for a second in thought before he turned to Brennan to whisper in her ear. "Do you mind going along to a cheap, kid-friendly, fast-food joint?" he asked, hiding the question behind her head.

She shrugged. "I'm not picky. I've eaten at that diner with you enough."

He smiled at her and told the boys they were going out to eat. After the quick cheer that followed, Booth told them to hop up on the bleachers so he could get them out of their skates. He was too busy taking off the boys skates to realize that Brennan had managed to take off the blades strapped to her feet without help.

Well, at least one of the kids can get their skates off, Booth thought. He threw a rag at her face and told her to make sure they were dry before putting them back in the bag. She felt like a child at being told what to do and how to do it, but for once, Brennan kept her mouth shut and did as was asked of her. She was proud of herself that she only fell once. That was a much smaller number than she'd expected, (she thought she'd be lucky if she didn't break into four digits).

Booth put the skates back in the appropriate bags and carried them out himself. She thought she'd get stuck lugging them out, but he didn't give the slightest indication he wanted help with anything. All Brennan had to do was seat herself in the passenger seat and try unsuccessfully to ease the blood below her ankles again.

"Alright," Booth said as he pulled himself into the driver's seat. "who wants McDonald's?"

Cheers of agreement came from the backseat as the car began rolling into motion. Brennan began to aimlessly flip through radio channels until she heard something semi-familiar. She looked at Booth, who bore the same expression and went backwards through the stations. When she found the right one again, the two of them burst out into uncontrollable fits of laughter.

"What's so funny, Daddy?" Parker asked his father. Brennan only laughed harder as Booth sobered enough to focus and answer his son's question.

"This song, Parker, is called 'Hot Blooded'. Bones and I danced to this song at her apartment a little less than a year after we became friends." Booth tried to explain. Brennan got a grip on her laughter.

"Let's just say that I didn't know that your father was so rhythmically inclined, Parker." she said once her giggles subsided.

"I wanna see that!" Parker jumped up and down in his seat.

"Me too." Michael said.

"Well, maybe someday we'll give a repeat performance." Booth replied.

"Someday?" Brennan asked.

"Never say never, Bones." he said as he pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant with a clown-inspired theme.

There wasn't a huge crowd to get into McDonald's, but there was still a wait. Booth set the boys to work getting ketchup cups, napkins, and their own sodas. He then thought that might've been a bad idea with two sugar-obsessed boys, but Brennan kept an eye on them in case they made a mess. There was one of the plus sides to being an anthropologist, she had the most observant eye Booth had ever seen.

He managed to get the food to the table without the boys jumping on him without looking like cats going after a mouse. She laughed at his look of triumph over the four year olds as he handed her a cup of coffee. Booth felt more victorious in the last day and a half then he had in the rest of his life. He'd gotten Brennan to smile almost ten times in less than thirty-six hours. That, in itself, was a miracle.

Parker and Michael scarfed down their food like starved lumberjacks while the chaperones sipped on hot coffee. The boys wanted to go play on the equipment. Booth granted their request, but said they couldn't stay long. They ran off to their own devices.

Booth hung his arm off the back of Brennan's chair and sighed. "Makes you really think, doesn't it?"

She sighed, he was the one person who could read her like an opened book. "Parker's really a great kid. You have a really nice family, Booth."

"Thanks, Bones. I like to think so, too."

Brennan nodded absentmindedly. Her thoughts were obviously elsewhere. Booth considered the fact that there was only a number of places that those thoughts could drift to at a time like this.

"You wonder what would've happened if you'd had a regular, everyday family, don't you?" he asked directly.

Her head shot to attention. "There isn't a way to change the past."

"Yeah, but doesn't the thought ever float through that elephant-sized brain of yours?"

She picked at a nail as she thought about her answer. "It used to. I thought about what might've happened if Russ hadn't left or if my parents weren't criminals. Then I think about who I'd be if they stayed, maybe I'd be in-tune socially." she watched Parker crawl out the bottom of the slide.

Booth picked up on her minute trace of despair in her voice. He rubbed her shoulder soothingly, trying to quell the tension he felt built up there. He wished that he could take away the pain he saw in her eyes when she thought about her childhood. There were only a handful of times when Booth had felt completely helpless. Some were when his comrades were killed in battle, but the others were when Brennan was hurt.

"Hey," he whispered, "I think that you turned out just fine."

She laughed, "Coming from you, it doesn't mean a whole ton."

"Bones, I've always admired you. You have a gift with the whole science thing. You're a little different from everyone else, but that's good. People would give up any number of their social skills to have your brains." Booth reassured her.

Brennan sat there in a partial state of shock. She was certain that Booth thought she was a complete…Angela told her the phrase was 'freak-show'. He always seemed to enjoy poking fun at her less than adequate ways of communicating with other people. Now, here he was, trying to make her feel better about her abnormalities.

She smiled, "Thanks, Booth." she patted the hand that rubbed her shoulder.

"That wasn't what I thought you were thinking about, though." he said slyly after a minute.

"What did you think I was thinking about?" she asked.

Booth grinned before he replied, "Children."

Brennan's mouth opened, as if she were go to speak, then closed it again as she put his intention together. "Like I said, Parker's a really great kid, but I don't think that I'm going to have any children of my own."

His smile only grew wider, "You know what I say, Bones, never say never. Come on, guys. We gotta go." he called to the boys.

They audibly showed their disagreement, but reluctantly returned to the table Booth and Brennan were chatting at to retrieve their jackets. Parker asked them what they had been talking about. Booth replied by saying it was just "boring adult stuff". He seemed to accept the answer and let it drop.

The ride back to the house was filled with the sounds of Parker and Michael playing with their Happy Meal toys. Brennan felt like continuing the deep sleep she was woken from that morning. Booth seemed to pick up on her 'too relaxed' state and turned up the volume on the radio. She knew he was being kind and she tried hard to stay awake. Brennan already had the feeling that his mother didn't believe that the two of them weren't completely platonic friends. She realized that Booth having to carry her unconsciously sleeping body across the entryway wouldn't really set the feeling at ease.

They pulled up in front of the house at about one o'clock. The boys ran into the snow-banks, shouting that they were going to stay outside for a little longer. The pair looked at each other, shrugged, and headed in for the house.

"Hey, Ma! We're home!" Booth shouted as he and Brennan shook out of their coats.

What happened next could only be described as weird. Amelia, James, Jared, and Christine were all standing in a row watching the duo's entrance from a distance with giant smiles on their faces. Booth tried to move past the entryway, but was halted by his mother shaking her finger at him.

"What's up? What gives?" he asked the grinning idiots he was forced to call family.

"'What gives?' Look up, Sherlock." Jared taunted.

Brennan and Booth looked up together, each wearing similar expressions of fear.

"Uh oh." her head slowly made it's way to level and looked squarely at Booth.

"Mistletoe." he replied.

***

Dun, dun, dun...the plot thickens. This is also assuming that "Santa in the Slush" never happened either. I change a lot of crap once I get going. Next chapter will go a lot faster, I promise it will be up in less than a week. But, to get it up that fast, I'm going to need a little incentive.

Please, I'm begging you, click that green button and review?