12Thanks to the talented and supportive razztaztic for the beta-read and suggestions.
Takes place just after S.8, Ep. 147 "The Method to the Madness"
First Tuesday in November
Compared to the way some of their murder cases have gone, this one had not been particularly challenging. The body had been found on Thursday afternoon by a couple of late season campers in the Appomattox Court House National Park. While the light snow and freezing temperatures had made retrieval of the remains a little more difficult, the weather had also aided in preserving some of the evidence by freezing some impressions into the previously soft ground. By Friday afternoon the squint squad had identified the victim. By Monday Booth had tracked down a suspect, and by Tuesday, just before lunch, he had obtained a confession. Wham, bam, thank you ma'am!
Waiting for the others to join them for a post-case drink, Special Agent Seeley Booth looked at his friend sitting on the next barstool and with raised eyebrows asked, "Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"
"Wha - - - ? What did you just ask me?" Dr. Jack Hodgins looked askance at his friend.
"You've been fiddling with whatever is in your pocket ever since we got here, Hodgins. What's going on?"
"Oh." Jack looked sheepish. "I was out at lunchtime and picked this up for Ange." He pulled a distinctive small blue gift box out of his pocket and snapped it open to show Booth the jeweled item inside.
"Geeze, man, you must have really screwed up!" Booth exclaimed as he looked at the beautiful, and obviously very expensive, piece of jewelry inside. "I noticed the flowers in Angela's office - those were from you, too, weren't they?" he asked as he took in the look of chagrin on Jack's face. "And now jewelry, too? I'm not sure I even want to know what you did this time!" He smirked at his friend's discomfort.
Looking down at the bar, Jack shook his head. "We had a, well . . . I guess you might say that we had a . . . a difference of opinion earlier this week" he stammered.
"A difference of opinion?" Booth looked incredulous. "Hodgins, I saw the size of the bouquet in her office! Now this." He pointed to the jewelry box and barked out a laugh at the worried expression on his friend's face. "I have to say, this looks like more than just a difference of opinion!" Shaking his head, he took a pull off the long neck in his hand.
"Yeah." Jack looked sheepish. "I know. It was over the election," the scientist replied. "I should have learned my lesson four years ago. I can't tell you what that one cost me, man! I don't know, for all that Ange and I do agree about, there are just some areas where I know I shouldn't go. But I did. I went there." Jack shook his head. "I knew I shouldn't be going there. I heard that voice in my head that was telling me I shouldn't go there. You know that vague sense you get sometimes?" he looked over and grimaced at Booth's nod. "And what's worse is that even as the words were coming out of my mouth, even as I voiced my opinion, even then I knew that I was not being any too smart! But it was like I was powerless to stop myself. You know what I mean?" Jack looked over at his friend.
Booth grinned as he watched Jack trying to explain the situation. "Yup. Been there. Done that. Don't want to ever go there again!" Booth laughed, then shrugged and added, "But, history has shown that I probably will."
"But, how could she even think that item on the ballot makes sense, you know the one I'm talking about, right? There's just no way! I can't even figure out how that made it onto the ballot, it is just so obvious that - - - " Jack's eyes widened and he stopped talking when Booth held up his hand. "Wha - - - "
"Don't make the same mistake here, Hodgins," Booth motioned between the two of them. "I'm not a flower kind of guy, and that," he motioned to the jewelry box Jack still held open in his hand, "is not my style. It would not look good on me. Let's just agree to not talk politics, okay? My experience has been that friendships and," he leaned over and said with emphasis, "relationships," he raised his eyebrows and waited for Jack's slight nod, "do much better if we don't talk politics. Sometimes we just need to agree to disagree without being disagreeable."
Jack looked back at his friend, shook his head and with a grimace asked, "Is that what you and Dr. B do? You don't talk politics?"
"Yup." Booth replied, looking straight ahead into the mirror behind the bar. "I may not be as brilliant as some of you squints, but I have learned that there are two things that I don't ask Bones and one of those is how she votes."
Jack nodded his head in agreement, "Yeah, I think you're right." After a short pause he looked over at Booth with a puzzled expression on his face. "You said there were two things you don't ask her. What's the other one?"
Booth took a long drink from the bottle he held in his hand, then looked up and down the bar. He turned his head toward Jack and lowered his voice to a whisper.
"The other one, Jack, is why she calls the shower massage 'Andy'."
A/N: From the first book Brennan wrote, Booth believed that he was the model for Andy Lister . . . . no reason for him to be jealous of the Shower Massage! ;-D
For those of you that may be of a "certain age" you may identify . . . . there are some lines that I hear that just stick with me . . . the closing line to this story is one of those. For those of you who may recognize it, let me just say that not only do I not own Bones, I also never owned Murphy Brown.
I always appreciate reviews. ;-D