Booth's standing at the stove, flipping pancakes. He turns his head and glances at Brennan, who's sitting at the island perusing an old journal on Forensic Anthropology that she hadn't had a chance to read yet and drinking tea. He looks at Parker, who's in his own little world beside her eating cereal, and then looks at his partner again.
Brennan lifts her eyes above the top edge of the magazine, catching him staring at her. She raises an eyebrow, her smile hidden.
He sees the smile in her clear blue eyes and matches it.
She studies his expression for a couple minutes before he turns back to the stove to finish cooking breakfast. She purses her lips and sets her mug down, then the journal. "You heard me this morning, didn't you?"
He jerks his shoulders and then looks back at her. "What?"
"You did. You heard me."
"I don't know what you're talking about, Bones."
"Yes, you do."
His smile grows into an amused grin, but he stays silent, going back to the pancakes.
"How much did you hear?"
"All of it." He looks at her, noticing the pink rising to her cheeks. "You're bonding with the baby, Bones. No need to be embarrassed about it. Experts say he can hear your voice now. I think it's cute, especially when you use big, squinty words, and tell him stories about his big brother and sister, though I would prefer it if you stopped talking to him about dead bodies. It's kinda creepy."
She blinks. How did he know all that?
"Our shower echoes." He laughs, putting the finished pancakes on a plate.
She swallows. "Oh. It's rude to eavesdrop." She lifts her journal again, resuming where she left off.
"I wasn't eavesdropping. I was just, you know, listening without your knowledge of it."
"That is the very definition of eavesdropping, Booth."
He smiles at her, but sighs, hoping she won't stop talking to their unborn child just because he had heard her. The sound of scurrying little feet interrupts his thoughts, so he grabs the plate of pancakes and sets them in the middle of the island counter.
Christine comes running into the kitchen, slowing to a stop at her father's side. "Mommy! Daddy! Good moooorning!"
Booth smiles and lifts her in the air, letting out a grunt. He gives her a kiss as he lowers her back down to the floor. "Good morning, princess. How did you sleep?"
Christine gives him a thumbs up before bumping his outstretched fist. "Like a baby. Like the baby in mommy's tummy." She walks over to the stools and climbs up. She sits on her knees and touches Brennan's stomach, which is more pronounced in the fitted shirt she's wearing. She lowers her head, pressing her ear against her mother's belly like she does often. She knocks. "Knock, knock, little Alien. It's me. Daddy says you can hear me, so hi and good morning." She kisses Brennan's stomach and sits up again.
Brennan smiles, setting her journal to the side and putting two pancakes on her daughter's plate. "Do you know what today is, Honey?"
"Saturday," Christine says before squeezing an access amount of syrup all over her plate.
Brennan laughs. "Yes, that is correct," she starts, helping her daughter cut up her pancakes into bite-sized pieces. "Today, daddy and I find out if you're going to have a little brother or little sister."
"Oh!" Christine picks up her fork and digs in, while her father pours her a cup of orange juice. "Are you taking requests, mommy?"
"It doesn't work like that, sweetheart."
"So, no?"
Brennan shakes her head. "No, but I still want you to tell me if you're hoping the baby is a boy or a girl."
Christine swallows. "I want a little sister."
"Any particular reason?"
Christine shrugs. "I already have a brother, so I want a sister."
Brennan nods. "I see." She smiles. "Would you be upset if the baby was a boy?"
"I want a sister," Christine states firmly, stabbing her fork into her pancakes.
Brennan sighs, now secretly hoping the baby's a girl. She puts two pancakes on her plate and looks at Booth, who's looking at her too. His eyes are reassuring and she can almost hear him telling her not to worry about it, even though he's not saying anything.
At 10:30, Brennan's sitting on an exam table at the hospital, checking her emails on her phone. They dropped Christine off at Angela and Hodgins' place earlier and Booth had just come back from dropping Parker off upstairs for his PT session.
Booth snatches the phone away from her and slips it into his pocket.
She gasps. "Booth," she grumbles, "I was in the middle of replying to a very important email regarding—."
He cuts her off. "This time is for you and me." He taps on the sign on the back of the door. "Attention: please refrain from the use of cellular—," he starts to read, only to be silenced by something lightly tapping him on the back. He turns around and looks at the floor, seeing a familiar tube of lotion by his feet. "Hey!"
She shrugs, biting back laughter. "Can I have my lotion back?"
"No, I'm keeping this too." He bends down and picks up the tube, putting it in his breast pocket and patting it, looking right at her with a smirk on his face.
She shifts on the leather. "Where is Dr. Greene?"
He takes a step closer to the table. "The nurse said she was running a little behind. She'll be here in a couple minutes. Relax, Bones."
"I'm just anxious," she confesses.
"She'll be fine, Bones. Whether the baby's a boy or a girl, she'll be fine."
"How did you know I was thinking about that?"
"Lucky guess."
She rests her head back and closes her eyes.
He presses a kiss to her forehead and sits on the edge of the exam table.
She opens her eyes and pushes her lips together. "Will you be upset if we have a girl?"
"I'm just going to pretend that your hormones are screwing with your head and making you think irrationally because that is the most ridiculous question I've ever heard."
She just glares at him.
He brushes her hair away from her face with his fingers. "I'll humor you anyway, though. No, the answer is no, absolutely not." He lowers his head and kisses her stomach. "Boy or girl, it doesn't matter."
"I believe you."
He lifts his head and smiles at her, closing the gap between their lips. "I love the baby, Bones. Just because I have a feeling that we're having a boy, doesn't mean I'll be unhappy if we have a girl. I have a son and I have a daughter and I love both of them equally."
She smiles. "And Parker?"
"He has his preference, but as long as the baby comes out with ten fingers, ten toes, and all his organs inside his body, it's not gonna matter."
"Gastroschisis."
He scrunches his face. "Gastro—what?"
"Gastroschisis. It's a congenital abdominal wall defect, in which a baby is born with some of its organs outside its body."
He furrows his brows. "That's actually a thing?"
She nods. "Yes." She pauses and after a few minutes of comfortable silence, she blurts out, "Speaking of Parker, he feels like a burden."
He shakes his head. "What?"
"I said—."
"Bones, I heard you. I'm just trying to figure out why he would say something like that and when."
"This morning, after I left our bed, he, uh, I was passing by his room and I noticed that the door was slightly ajar. I looked inside and he wasn't there. I thought it was strange that he wasn't in his room. I was concerned, but when I walked back into the hallway, he was standing there. He had walked to the bathroom by himself. He told me he didn't want to wake us up and proceeded to explain to me why. He said he's tired of feeling like a burden."
"What'd you tell him?"
"I told him he was not a burden and that we loved him." She can't read his expression, so she sighs. "Should I have told him something else?"
He shakes his head. "No, Bones. You said the right thing." He smiles at her, but it quickly fades. "He really said that? He said he feels like a burden?"
She nods. "He's been feeling like this for a while now, I assume, because his reasons were thought out. He was prepared to explain himself."
"What were his reasons?"
"He said that we're putting our lives on hold for him. You haven't been to work since the accident, you haven't left the house since we came home from the hospital other than to take him to physical therapy and when we packed up Rebecca's place, I switched obstetricians, and I scheduled my prenatal appointments around his PT sessions so you could be present for them." She sighs. "I don't know if he heard me this morning. I know he heard me, but I'm not sure if he—."
He touches her cheek with his palm, looking at her directly. "You don't know if you got through to him. You don't know if he believes you."
She nods. "He's been doing so well. His mood has improved and he's made great progress physically. I thought we were passed this, especially after the talk we had with him the day after we visited Rebecca's grave. It feels like we're going backwards rather than forwards." She sighs.
He notices the shift in expression and body language. "What aren't you telling me, Bones?"
She meets his eyes again. "Parker thinks this is his fault because he asked God to make it possible for him to spend more time with us, with you. He blames himself for what happened to Rebecca. I told him it wasn't his fault and that if God existed—."
"Which he does."
She continues as if he hadn't interjected. "He would have found a different way to allow all of us to spend more time together that didn't involve hurting anyone. I stressed that this wasn't his fault, so I hope he believes me."
"Wait, he walked to the bathroom by himself?" He asks, finally registering what she had said earlier.
She nods. "Yes."
"That's great!"
She smiles. "I know."
He can't resist kissing her again.
The door opens then and a tall, slender woman with straight, dusty blonde hair tied up in a bun walks into the room, holding a chart. She clears her throat.
He moves away from Brennan quickly and turns his head towards the extra body in the room. He stands up and swallows. "Oh, hel—lo Dr. Greene. Good morning."
Brennan wipes the corners of her mouth with her thumb and stares at her doctor.
"Yes, it's a very good morning, I see." Dr. Greene laughs. "Sorry to keep you waiting." She pushes her glasses up on the bridge of her nose and sits down on the rolling stool. "Judging by your smile, I take it you're good, Temperance?"
"I'm fine, Dr. Greene, though I've been better, but can we skip the small talk and get on with the appointment?"
"The small talk is part of the appointment."
"She's—."
"Choose your words wisely," Brennan warns.
He swallows. "Never mind."
"How about we do the ultrasound first and then we'll worry about everything else?" Dr. Greene stands up, setting the chart down on the stool. "How's Parker?" She rolls up Brennan's shirt and tucks it under her bra.
"He's doing better," Booth answers.
"That's good." Dr. Greene squeezes the gel onto her patient's slightly round stomach and presses the transducer down in the dollop, moving it and spreading around the gel in the process. "And your little girl? How's Christine?"
Booth smiles. "She's great. She's really excited. She calls the baby a little alien. A couple weeks ago, she asked her Gampa to buy all the big sister books he could find. She's read all of them—twice."
Dr. Greene laughs. "Something tells me she'll be an excellent big sister."
"I don't have any doubts."
Dr. Greene nods and presses a couple buttons on the machine, turning the screen around to herself. "Ah. There you are, little one. You like to hide, don't you?" She smiles at the fuzzy picture, calculating some measurements and examining the fetus carefully, before swiveling the screen around. "Everything looks good. Height and weight are well within the norms for 19 weeks gestation. The baby is measuring a little above average, actually."
"Ha. You hear that, Bones? Our kid is already an overachiever."
Dr. Greene smiles and points. "The head is here and that's its little fist."
Brennan turns her head and looks at the screen.
Booth's smile grows into a giddy grin and he blinks. "Look, Bones."
Brennan nods, unable to take her eyes off the poorly pixilated moving picture.
Dr. Greene clears her throat. "Do you want to know the sex?"
They both nod, too captivated by their unborn child to answer verbally.
Dr. Greene turns the screen again after another minute. "Does Christine want a little sister or little brother?"
"A little sister," Booth's quick to reply.
"And your boy? What's Parker want?"
"A little brother. He's always wanted a brother."
Dr. Greene repositions the probe. "Come on, little one. Come on." She nods. "There we go. He's not shy. He just needed some poking and prodding." She smiles.
"He?" Brennan questions.
Dr. Greene nods, turning screen. "Congratulations. You're having a little boy."
Booth stares, reaching out to "tickle" the baby. "Hey there, little guy." He pauses. "Look, Bones. Look at our little guy."
Brennan nods, focusing on the baby's head.
Booth laughs. "Hey, he's waving to us." His smile gets even bigger, as if that's even possible. "He's perfect, Bones." He pauses, reaching for Brennan's hand. "Look at him." He blinks back tears and clears his throat. He can't turn away. Everything they've been through in the past four months seems to disappear as he continues to stare at his unborn son on the ultrasound machine.
Dr. Greene smiles at the happy couple. "I'll come back in a few minutes." She leaves the room, giving them some privacy.
Booth sits on the edge of the table and tucks her hair behind her ear, his pinky brushing against her temple, getting her attention.
She looks at him. "What are we going to tell Christine?"
"You let me take care of that." He leans over, pressing his lips against hers softly. He puts his hand on her stomach, forgetting that it's still covered in gel. He groans, twists his mouth, and rolls his eyes at the sound of her exuberant laughter. "It's not funny, Bones." He wipes his hand off on the edge of the exam table, his face still contorted in disgust.
"You have to admit that it's a little funny, Booth. The gel is a harmless mixture of propylene glycol and water."
"Whatever the hell it is, it's still sticky and gross."
She laughs again, shaking her head. They're interrupted by her phone ringing in Booth's pocket. "Give me my phone, please. It's Angela."
"What? Are you psychic now?"
"Angela reprogrammed my phone. That's her ringtone."
"She can wait. This is our moment."
"But Booth." She pouts, tilting her head slightly. "It's my phone. I pay the bill. Give it to me. It could be about Christine." She holds out her hand, one eyebrow raised.
He grunts and fishes her phone out of his pocket. "Fine. Here."
She scans the text message quickly and sends a reply.
"What'd she want?"
"I told her that we were finding out the sex of the baby today, so she asked if we found out yet and if yes, is the baby a boy or a girl." She looks down again when the phone chimes. "I don't know what this means. I think she might have sent this to me by accident."
"Let me see." Booth snatches the phone from her again, glancing at the message, which is only a bunch of letters and exclamation marks. "I think this is Angela's way of telling you that she's excited that we're having a boy or she's drunk."
"Booth, she's four months pregnant."
"Pretend drunk, then."
"That's not a real thing." She nods. "Oh, you were joking."
"Bingo."
Her phone rings again and she's almost afraid to open the message. She looks up at Booth. "Angela wants to take me shopping this afternoon."
"For baby stuff?"
She shrugs. "It's a good possibility. Would you like to come with us?"
He shakes his head. "Uh, no. Shopping for baby stuff with two pregnant women? No thanks, I'll pass, Bones. I'd rather sit in a four hour lecture on Ancient Egypt than subject myself to that torture."
"You accompanied me shopping when I was pregnant with Christine. You seemed to enjoy that very much, more than I had expected you to."
"I'll gladly go shopping with you, Bones, but your best friend, no offense, gets a little crazy cakes when she's excited. Then you add in a mess of pregnancy hormones. No, just no." He laughs, kissing her cheek.
"Crazy cakes?"
The door opens and Dr. Greene walks in again. "Am I interrupting something?"
They shake their heads.
"Good. Let's finish this appointment, so you two can get out of here and celebrate."
"That sounds like a great idea," Brennan agrees, eager to leave.
Booth stands up and stands by Brennan's side as the doctor examines her and asks her questions. He's not paying attention to anything Dr. Greene is saying or anything his wife is saying, for that matter. He's thinking about his baby boy, already conjuring up a list of things he wants to do with him that he missed out on with Parker.
I got a little carried away with this chapter, but I hope you liked it.
Next up: Angela and Brennan go shopping