I daresay it is once again time to say that I do not own any of these characters no matter how much I wish I did.
My friends, while I am not a review whore, nor one who holds stories hostage, it is undeniable that I have had a minimum of reviews recently. This makes me so sad... :( I could use the feedback and the emotional boost. Cheer up a writer today--review!
Thanks...
It was only later, after the case was solved, that he realized what she had said and what it meant.
"Only one other person knew about Brainy Smurf. It was my mother."
Putting the pieces together, he swore at himself. For the captain of a varsity team to be involved, Bones could not have been a freshman; while varsity wasn't just juniors and seniors, it was unheard of for a sophomore to be captain. And damn few upperclassmen like that ever considered being involved with freshmen. He himself wouldn't have, no matter how advanced she was, no matter how many of his classes she might have shared.
And for all of that to fall into place, it would have to have been the winter of her sophomore year. In other words, the same year her parents left.
The same month her parents left, to be exact.
And a small incident that would have eventually faded into insignificance became magnified. No wonder she hated the holiday.
He groaned, lightly hitting his head against the steering wheel. On the surface, it had been funny. But it was Bones, and he should have realized the minute she started referring to Christmas that it was going to be uncomfortable for her at the very least. And then he upset her by laughing, despite his promise that he wouldn't. He couldn't blame her for being mad at him.
There were stories he could tell her to put them back in balance, he supposed, but somehow the memories dredged up by talking to the victim's father were not the right ones. Painful, but not humiliating in the same sense, not to mention they revealed the…wrong things. Things he'd rather not think about, wasn't ready to talk about, hadn't talked about in years. Which was why he had been telling her about the girls instead. Of course those had fallen flat because, while embarrassing enough at the time, they were simply funny now.
Though he thought he might have finally found the right story to tell her. Hopefully, she would understand what he was getting at. Hard enough just saying it, without having to explain. Sweets would probably say that was the point.
Making a sudden decision, he turned the SUV and headed for the mall. There was a shop nearby that sold retro and nostalgia items, and he thought they had a bin of Smurf figurines.
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He hadn't been wrong; in fact the bin was larger than he remembered and he impatiently pawed through, looking for that glimpse of yellow hair that meant Smurfette.
As he looked, he wondered exactly what it had been about Smurfette that Bones had been drawn to; or if it was just that it--she--was the sole female character among them.
He couldn't believe how many variations he was finding--Smurfs holding cakes, gifts, scissors, flowers; an astronaut, the top guy in red, a clown (he dropped that one as though it were on fire)… But no Smurfette. He sighed as he checked his watch. He was due to meet Bones for dinner in less than an hour. He really wanted to do this for her, even if she didn't accept his story.
He closed his eyes and plunged his hand in, pulling one more out. Looking down, his mouth quirked.
Brainy Smurf.
"It was a Brainy Smurf." He could still hear her cool, matter-of-fact voice.
He turned the figure over in his fingers, thinking. If he remembered the cartoon from when he watched it as a boy…Brainy was a know-it-all pain in the neck who usually meant well but was often misunderstood. There was more, he was sure, and not so complimentary, but still better than being the token female character, who rarely had an active role and could be selfish--not much like Bones.
Oh yeah, he could work with that.
Whistling softly, he took Brainy to the register, already planning his speech. Looks and more… No. You have your looks and a whole lot more… Yeah, that's the right note….
I'm aware that after I stopped watching the little blue monsters, they added more female characters. But I (and Booth) would have watched the earliest episodes.
