The moment I woke up that morning, I knew something was different from the past few months. "But why?" I muttered to myself. "Why is today so special?"

I knew that I was getting Parker for the weekend, but that wasn't anything special; I had had Parker only the week before, when he was on Christmas vacation.

As if I could count going back to work in two days as being special. I love what I do, but I don't love it that much. If I really enjoyed possibly having to kill people, that would probably be a bit of a problem.

But then I remembered that I had a very good reason to be excited for work.

And her name was Temperance Brennan.

For the past few months, Bones had been in Asia for some scientific… something. But for whatever reason, she had been gone, and I had been stuck working at the office. No cases came up that I was assigned to the whole time she was gone. Although I suppose that's a good thing; nowadays, there's no one else I want to work with on murder investigations.

In any case, I hopped out of bed with a bit more of a spring in my step, hurrying into my bathroom to take my morning shower, which I rushed through to get dressed and over to Rebecca's house.

Nope. I wasn't excited at all.

I had agreed to pick her up at the airport, which I was kind of dreading, since I had to do it with Parker. He always loved being able to see Bones, and I'm pretty sure she loved being able to see him too. There are some things that one just wants to do without one's son, including picking up one's partner from the airport.
Okay, that doesn't honestly sound all that horrible to do with your kid, and if I had anyone else as a partner it would be different. But this was… this was Bones who was coming home.

"Hey Rebecca, is Parker ready yet? I'm kind of…" I glanced down at my watch, then back up at her. "In a rush."

"I think he is. Parker, Daddy's here!" she called into the house.

He came to the door a few seconds later with a backpack over his shoulder for the weekend. "Hey Daddy! What're we gonna do today?"

"Well, first I have to pick Bones up at the airport and take her home. Then I was thinking we'd go to the zoo."

He beamed. "We get to see Bones?"

I smiled to myself and nodded. "Yep. We get to see Bones."

Before I knew it, we were inside the airport where the suitcases from Bones' flight would soon be coming. Parker was obviously feeling very hyper, because he was moving around and generally keeping himself busy. I wasn't quite sure what to do with myself; at first I stood up next to him, looking very dashing in my FBI suit. That felt too awkward though, like I was waiting to arrest somebody, so I sat down, feeling very tense and awkward-looking. Parker came and sat down next to me, and I started talking to him to make myself feel less awkward.

"Are you excited to go back to school on Monday?" I asked, after wracking my brain and coming up with no other topic.

He shrugged. "I s'pose. I'm not upset about it. School's fun!"

I love the age when school is fun. It makes life that much easier. "But you liked the break?"

Smiling, he nodded. "I liked playing in the snow with my friends. We were able to have snowball fights! We can't have those at school."

Probably trying to keep them shielded from violence until a later age.

And here I am killing people if necessary, and solving murders and other such crimes. I suppose I was seriously helping.

Before I could reply, I saw a new mob of people coming in our direction, including-

"Bones!" Parker shouted, running in her direction. I laughed and leaped up, running after him. He pretty much said it all for me.

She looked two things: sleepy, and shocked. The sleepy part was understandable, as she had just come from Asia. She was probably shocked because I had not informed her that Parker would be joining me on this fine day when she finally came home.

Oh, and she kind of looked beautiful too, in spite of these things.

I suppose the saying is right: Absence most definitely does make the heart grow fonder. Much, much fonder…

But she recovered from the shock pretty quickly, and knelt down to hug Parker. "Hey Parker!" she said, grinning. "I wasn't expecting to see you today. I haven't seen you in ages."

He smiled. "I wasn't expecting to see you today either. Daddy surprised me."

When he mentioned me, she looked up and smiled. "Hey Booth." She stood up quickly and moved to hug me as well. I'm not quite sure what I was moving in to do, but I quickly followed her lead when I realized. "I haven't seen you in ages either."

"Just three months." I said, shrugging, as if they hadn't been some of the longest months of my life.

She raised her eyebrows at me. "And you always look at me weirdly when I try to be exact."

I couldn't think of anything to say back, so I rubbed my hands together and said quickly, "Wanna go get some lunch?"

Even though she continued looking at me without saying a word, Parker said he was hungry, which was good enough for me. He ran ahead of us, enough so that he couldn't hear when I finally said quietly, "I missed ya Bones."

"Well, like you said, it was just three months. I'm sure you managed just fine if you threw it off like it sounds like you did."

I stopped walking and looked down at her. "Why so bitter about it? I just said that it was only three months… I haven't seen you for that long before, when I've been swamped at work and such."

"I'm not bitter." She stopped as well and looked straight back at me. Usually, I pride in having a partner who's not afraid to look someone straight in the eye and say what she's thinking. But this time I was on the wrong end of it, and this bugged me. "I just missed… having someone around to get me to stop acting like the scientist that I am for a while, to just let loose a bit."

This made me smile. That was probably as close as I'd be able to get to her saying that she missed me. And that was good enough. "I already said that I missed you, Bones. What else do you want from me?"

She looked over at Parker, who was carefully inspecting a baseball cap with "Washington D.C." on the front. Talk about last minute souvenirs. She then turned back to me, and I was reminded of last Christmas when Caroline put us under mistletoe. She had the same sort of gleam in her eye, and four seconds before she did it I realized what was going to happen.

She only kissed me for a few moments, most likely because Parker was not honestly standing that far away, even if he was paying attention to something completely different. But in those few moments, I could tell that she felt the same way that I had felt for God only knows how long. When she pulled out of it, she and I just looked at each other until Parker came running over. "Daddy, hurry up! I'm hungry."

"Sorry Parker, Bones was kind of slowing me down." She looked at me strangely until I smiled at her and took her hand, so that Parker was pulling both of us along instead of just me.

Yes. Absence most definitely makes the heart grow fonder.