39Hello! I'm back after a loooong hiatus. Real Life is a pain, takes up so much time... ;)
So once again I've been inspired by (a) an upcoming episode (Finale anyone?) and (b) having just had a holiday.
No major spoilers, just my take on what I'd like to see happen. Unlikely but you never know.
Dr. Lance Sweets stared at his favourite patients with a hint of concern. Usually they approached their undercover assignments with gusto, but this time there was tangible trepidation on both their faces. They glanced at each other, then looked away quickly as each caught the other's eyes, both a little surprised at the mutual reaction.
"Are you OK Agent Booth? Doctor Brennan?"
There was a long pause.
What Sweets didn't know about was a conversation of a few months earlier, just hours after he'd helped them whilst they were stuck in that elevator, whilst he was wearing a dead man's woolly jumper. That thought freaked him out a little.
For the partners though, the clarity of that conversation returned to them in the same moment:
A conversation conducted on a wintery night.
A conversation conducted on stadium bench seating.
A conversation conducted in dimmed lighting, with the flicker of a candle and the magic of a spell.
A conversation that had reframed their relationship.
With a date.
A date they had both written.
A date that, despite Brennan not knowing what Booth had written, and Booth, despite his peeking, unable to discern exactly what Brennan had written, was the same day, on the same month, on the same year.
"Love, happiness... and life... and fate." Booth had said.
Fate.
Something Booth believed in.
Something Brennan didn't.
Yet, this date had been chosen by them both.
A date that was looming very close on the horizon.
A date that would quite possibly roll around during the course of this undercover case.
They both knew of the ramifications - to their partnership, to their relationship and to everything they knew.
Brennan blinked at Booth's voice uttering that sentence, tumbling through her brain, for the thousandth time in those last few months and cleared her head to return to reality.
"I'm fine."
Booth took her cue. He forced a smile and straightened himself up.
"Me too. Bring it on Sweets, whatcha got for us?"
Sweets was unconvinced but decided to let this pass for the moment. He would have other opportunities to get to the bottom of that small, but he was sure, significant, non-verbal exchange he had just witnessed.
Sweets clapped his hands and smiled.
"So, how do you both feel about Bowling?"
"Bowling?" Brennan raised her eyebrow for a moment, then allowed her super-brain to launch into action. "The British Anthropologist Petrie discovered a primitive form of bowling during the discovery of the grave of an Egyptian boy from around 3200 BC. The Germans also discovered a form of bowling in evidence from 200 BC and the English have documentary proof for the more modern version of the game dating from 1366, when Edward the Third passed a law to ban his troops to play so they would focus on their archery practice. Interestingly, in English legislation, there is a law making all fathers with boys over the age of seven practice their archery for two hours every weekend; this law has never been repealed."
Booth chuckled. Brennan shot him a slight glare.
"What Bones is saying is that she would love to go on an undercover assignment where we have to go bowling whilst solving whatever nefarious crime has been committed. The question is, why haven't I seen any paperwork on this already?"
"Sorry Agent Booth, this one came in from the Montana office a couple of days ago. A set of bones was found behind the back office of a bowling alley in Billings. The body was still wearing clothing often worn by club bowlers. They've already sent the evidence -" Sweets looked at Brennan reassuringly, "- carefully back to the Jeffersonian for your team to take a look. The local agents have a list of suspects from the owner of the alley, which I've been asked to profile, in the meantime Hacker's requested you two go out there, blend into the community for a couple of weeks and try and work out who committed this crime, get a motive, all the usual. I'll keep you updated with my profiles and anything else you need."
"But what about the owner of the alley?" asked Booth. "Surely they'd be a prime suspect?"
"New owner for about six months, new in town. The old guy died aged eighty-five, last Fall. Initial indications from the local office suggest that the body is a sizeable male over eighteen, decomposition is at least a year old, and the old guy would have had trouble lugging a body anywhere seeing as he was walking with a zimmer. Even if he'd committed the crime before he died, he'd have had help."
Sweets whizzed his chair from the middle of the room back to his desk in a way that perpetuated the myth of his being twelve; grinning at the enjoyment of the short ride, then whizzed back again with a pile of paperwork.
"Here's all the background for you to read on the plane over. We've rented you an apartment. Oh, and I nearly forgot something really important. Costumes."
"Costumes?" Brennan and Booth exclaimed in unison.
"Hey, you guys love costumes! I read about that case you had in Vegas; and remember that case a couple of years ago? How could we forget Boris and Natasha, or was it Buck and Wanda Moosejaw..." Sweets winked at them and smiled nostalgically. He'd been pleased at the assistance he'd been able to provide and it had also given him opportunity to witness some classic Booth and Brennan unresolved sexual tension.
"Anyway..." Sweets brought himself to the present. "I had the cover team make these up for you especially."
Sweets whizzed his chair back to his desk again and this time, from a drawer, pulled out two shrink-wrapped bowling shirts. He whizzed back to the middle of the room again.
"Go on, open them!" he encouraged.
Brennan methodically pulled her wrapping apart round the edge whilst Booth just tore his open from the centre. Sweets smiled to himself. Even in something so simple, the brain and the heart; he noted.
Brennan held her shirt aloft to examine it, just as she would a bone. It was a two-tone blue with red trim. Then she noted the writing, also in red, embroidered just a shade to the left of centre, right in front of where her heart would be. She looked at Booth nervously, who was regarding his almost identical shirt, except his writing was different.
Embroidered on the shirts were the names Roxy and Tony.
This whole situation had suddenly intensified another notch.