"Booth! Are you okay? Let me look at your hand. If you broke it, Coach is going to be so mad," Brennan warned him.
Booth didn't reply. He sat down on the couch and put his hand on Brennan's lap. She looked it over, poked and prodded a little bit, but decided his hand was fine.
"What is he doing here? We haven't seen him in years!" Jared said.
Hank shook his head and looked out the window. Joseph was sitting on the stoop, tending to his broken nose. Hank made his way to the door and was about to open it when Booth stopped him.
"Pops, we don't need to involve Bren in this anymore than we already have. Let him go. Or at least let me take Bren somewhere else and you and Jared can take care of this."
Brennan began to get angry. "I am involved. If you're involved, so am I. I can take care of myself. If he comes after you, or me, I can handle it. You're looking at a product of the Illinois foster system. I can handle whatever he dishes out."
Surprised by her little speech, no one fought her on that matter anymore.
"So what are we going to do? Invite him in for dinner?" Jared asked sarcastically.
"I'm going to go out and ask him what he wants. You three…just…stay here. Seeley, back me up if I need it. Jared, I don't need you going back to school looking like you got mugged," Hank commanded.
Hank walked to the door and opened it.
"Thanks, Bren. You being here right now…Thanks," Booth told her, his eyes following Hank the entire time. Booth stood up and watched out the window. Whatever Hank was saying to his son was muffled. Blood was still gushing from Joseph's nose and Booth admired his handiwork.
Both his father and the man who raised him looked up to see Booth and Brennan staring at them out the window. Joseph handed Hank a newspaper, said something and started to walk off.
Booth made his way to the door. "Pops? What is it?"
Hank walked up and handed him the paper. On the front page was a picture of Booth, hoisting the championship trophy into the air with the headline, Injured star quarterback wins in last seconds.
"He wanted to tell you that he was proud of you. I told him to stay away from you and your brother. He doesn't deserve to talk to either of you. Sober or not," Hank said.
They watched Joseph walk down the sidewalk, blood still dripping from his nose.
"Alright, Pops. It's over. Let's go make sure Jared hasn't made a move on my girl yet," Booth told him, escorting his grandfather into the house.
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"Bren, come on, we gotta get there early!" Booth was pacing in the living room. He had is favorite Flyers jersey on.
"Does the shirt I got you fit?" Hank added.
"Yes, Hank, it's fine. And, Booth, you need to be patient," Brenna said as she emerged from Booth's bedroom.
He shook his head at her and guided her out the door.
They made it to the ice rink an hour and a half early. They got there just at the right time. Taking their seats just behind the Flyers bench, the players came out from the locker rooms and began to warm up. Booth watched them skate around and shoot the puck at their own goaltender, giddy with excitement.
"Booth, why didn't you play hockey in college instead of football? You seem to love it way more," she observed.
"Well, Pops couldn't afford all of the equipment. Getting bigger meant getting bigger pads and skates and paying for leagues constantly and since the school provided the football pads it was easier on Pops financially," he told her.
She nodded, wondering if she would even know him had he played hockey instead of football. Brennan didn't want to think about losing out on the best thing that had ever happened to her.
The stadium filled and the hockey rink was soon surrounded by the orange and black team colors and becoming louder and louder as fans cheered for their team.
Unknown to them, Booth had become a kind of hometown hero in Philadelphia ever since he won the championship game. Brennan noticed people staring, whispering, and pointing at Booth.
"Uh, Booth? People are staring at you," Brennan whispered in his ear. Booth turned around and people began cheering for him instead of the Flyers. He waved to everyone, putting on his mature, big-time football player persona.
She smiled at him, knowing he felt embarrassed whenever he was praised publically for something. He looked back at her, attempting to block out his newly acquired fans.
The game started and Booth had forgotten his embarrassment. Barely two minutes into the game, the Flyers scored and as soon as the puck crossed the goal line, the air horn blew and Brennan jumped out of her skin. She didn't expect the horn, sirens or amount of cheering the fans would do. Booth was jumping, yelling, and pounding on the plexiglass barrier between them and the players' bench.
The first period was ending and Booth's favorite team was winning. There was an intermission and some of the sports networks took that opportunity to interview Booth about his recent victory over Alabama. Brennan shied away from the camera and let Booth have his moment in the spotlight. He was polite to the sportscasters, but always kept glancing to the ice or back to Brennan, attempting to give the subtle hint that he was busy and wasn't in the mood to be interrupted. They all kept the interview relatively short after realizing what he was getting at.
After one sportscaster ended her interview, he asked, "I'm sorry, but would you mind taking a picture of me and my girl?" He took out a disposable camera from his pocket and grabbed Brennan by the waist, pulling her closer to him. She tried to protest but he told her to pipe down and smile. The sportscaster snapped one quickly, shoved the camera back in his hand and took off.
"We weren't ready yet!" he shouted at her, but she was too far away to hear over the fans beginning to cheer as the second period started.
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The game ended and the Flyers won, making Booth the happiest he had been since the night of the title game. They took the disposable camera to a twenty-four hour drugstore to get it developed. Luckily, someone was still working the photo station and the pictures would be ready to pick up in an hour.
So they drove around, passing time, laughing and joking.
"I don't wanna go back to school!" Brennan suddenly said.
Booth looked surprised at this. "Are you sick or something? You love school."
"I'm just having so much fun here. I like Philadelphia. It's nice. Better than Burtonsville."
"Burtonsville?"
"Where I went to high school. I hated it there."
Booth decided not to push the subject. They slowly made their way back to the drugstore and picked up the pictures.
Brennan pulled them out of their sleeve once back in the car and flicked through them.
"Booth, there's pictures on here from Miami," she told him.
"Yeah, Pops only took a few pictures at the game so I just took it to the hockey game to finish it off. Maybe there are some pictures we can put in your frame."
She looked through them carefully. They were just pictures of her and Booth after the game. There was one of them hugging, one of them kissing and another one of them from the day on the beach when Booth dragged Brennan into the water. The rest were random pictures Booth had taken at the Flyers game.
Since the camera was just a disposable and not a high quality one, most of the pictures he took of the players on the ice were blurry. There were a few decent pictures of the players on the bench and only one of the both of them. The sportscaster couldn't have cared less when taking the picture. The background was fuzzy and the couple wasn't even looking at the camera. They were staring at each other, faces just inches apart.
"Hey," Booth said, looking away from the road for a split second, "I like that picture. That one's going in your frame."
"Well, it kind of has to," she reasoned, "you already labeled one of the slots for a Flyers game."
They arrived back to Pops' house and had issues deciding which picture to put in the slot Booth had previously labeled for the title game. Brennan let Booth decide and he chose the picture of them hugging in the middle of the field.
"Now, you just have to come back for a Phillies game. You will come for a baseball game, right?" he clarified.
"Of course," she answered.
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Brennan and Booth made it back to their dorms two days before the next semester was supposed to start back up again. When they both arrived to Brennan's room, Maggie was in the process of packing things up.
"Maggie? What's going on?" Brennan asked her roommate.
"Oh, Temperance, I'm so glad your back. Okay, I'm moving down the hall to live with my bestie! I don't hate you, I promise. It's just that Sarah and I were supposed to room together in the first place but the housing department messed up. Don't worry, we'll still be friends," she told Brennan with an enthusiastic smile.
Brennan just nodded and she and Booth began to unpack her things. Maggie told her that a transfer girl would be moving in later that night. After Booth and Brennan put everything away in her room, they made their way over to Booth's room to begin unpacking his things. They then took the rental car back to the company and took a cab back to Brennan's residence hall.
When they walked in, there were boxes scattered everywhere. They weren't Maggie's boxes; Maggie had finished moving out as Brennan finished unpacking from her trip to Philadelphia.
She looked around. There was an easel with a blank canvas perched on it. Containers full of paints and brushes were stacked everywhere.
Art student, Brennan thought, Hope she's not too odd.
"Whoa," Booth said upon seeing all of the boxes, "I hope there's enough room for all of her stuff. It's not like these rooms are huge or anything."
Brennan just nodded.
"Hi!" They heard a voice from the door.
Brennan and Booth turned around to see a tall, brunette girl standing in the doorway.
"I'm your new roommate. I'm Angela."
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A/N: Hey everyone, I am SO sorry for not being able to update sooner. My laptop has been on the fritz and I had to move out of my dorm which was a debacle in itself. Things are going to be pretty hectic for me in the next few days so I'll write and post when I can. Hope you guys like this chapter. Let me know what you think!
