Breaking the News (1/?)

Tag for 6X23. Brennan has some big news. How will it be received?

She told Booth first, of course, because that was the hardest thing, and because it seemed right that the father be the first to know.

(Father. She was accustomed to thinking of Booth as a father, but not in this particular context, not for a very long time now.)

Over the time between her discovery and its revelation, Brennan mentally rehearsed a number of scenarios of telling Booth and his possible reaction. As she prided herself on being both thorough and practical, she was careful to consider both positive and negative outcomes. The imagination that had helped lead her thrillers to the bestseller list now lead her thoughts down a number of possible roads, ending sometimes in an old-Hollywood embrace and other times in facing her partner's rejection. She considered appropriate settings for the reveal: over dinner at a quiet, upscale restaurant, at their usual table at the diner, seated on that bench next to the coffee cart down by the Reflecting Pool. She pondered the best way to convey the news: taking his hand in hers and looking deep into his eyes, ducking her head and murmuring it with a secret smile, pointedly refusing her usual beer or glass of wine and waiting for him to make the deductive leap. For a few short days, while she also awaited the birth of Angela's child, she found that she could think of little else.

In the end, though, she did none of these things.

Being present for the arrival of Michael Staccato Vincent Hodgins had moved her and shaken her more profoundly than she could have anticipated, and so it was that in the end, she blurted out her secret on the sidewalk in front of Booth's apartment, on the way back to the place where that secret was conceived on the morning after the terrible night when her house of reason was finally, irrevocably violated. The heartbeat between her words and his reaction felt like a metaphorical eternity.

And then he smiled at her, and the constriction in her throat eased, and the ache in her chest was replaced by spreading warmth, and then she felt herself smiling, too.

"A baby. We're gonna have a baby, Bones!"

"Yes, that's what I just told you," she replied serenely, looping her arm through his and bumping their shoulders together companionably. "I had wanted to tell you in more attractive surroundings than on a street corner, but-after leaving the hospital, I found that I couldn't wait for a better time. Are you disappointed?"

He stopped, swinging her around to face him. "Disappointed? Bones, I'm a lot of things right now, but 'disappointed' definitely isn't one of them. 'Ecstatic,' 'thrilled,' 'petrified'-yeah, but not 'disappointed.'" He searched her face, scrutinizing her wide anxious eyes and the way her earlier smile had faded. "You're OK with this, right? I know neither one of us was planning on something like this, at least not right away, but, you're OK, right?"

"Yes," she assured him, impulsively grasping his hands. "Yes, I-I want this. I find that I am pleased, although it was not my intention for this to happen; I've always prided myself on being very conscientious about contraception-"

"Maybe my swimmers were just too strong for your birth-control mojo," he taunted, waggling his eyebrows. She rolled her eyes with an exaggerated frown.

"I wasn't expecting this, but I find that I don't regret it."

"Yeah, but are you happy about it? You're gonna be a mom, Bones; that's a huge, huge thing. And you and me, you know, this is gonna change things forever. I mean, a baby, you know, a kid, that's something that will always bind us, a connection we'll always share no matter what. That's-that's a big deal. Are you sure you're OK with that?"

Brennan took a half-step back and looked, really looked, at her partner. Strong, cocky, self-assured Seeley Booth at that moment looked none of those things that she knew him to be; his shoulders were hunched, his eyes guarded, his very stance tense and wary, as if poised for flight-or for absorbing a blow. She realized that he was waiting for, possibly even expecting, her rejection, and that realization hurt her deeply and made her launch herself into him, embracing him fiercely, desperate to reassure him.

"Booth, I'm OK with it. I want this-I want you, I want us. I'm-I'm happy," she admitted, with a wondering laugh. "I'm happy, Booth! I'm excited, and terrified, and happy. We're having a baby," she finished, voice and eyes soft.

He smoothed her hair, kissed the top of her head, then turned her and steered her toward his apartment. "A baby," he repeated, wrapped in the secret knowledge that was, for now, theirs alone.

One down. Next up, a visit with Angela.