Writing for the Secret Santa exchange is always a challenge and never more so than when your prompts come from one of the best writers in the Bones-fandom and Covalent Bond, along with sleeplessinatlanta, AmandaFriend and sunsetdreamer, are at the top of the list as far as I'm concerned. In my opinion, her A Face on Every Skull ranks with sleepy's Fated and sunsetdreamer's Never Let This Pair of Hands Forget as must-reads for every fan of Bones-fanfiction. (And for my money, AmandaFriend's Paper Locks is the best of the Season 7 hiatus Brennan-on-the-run stories out there.)

Lucky for me, Chem's prompts made it a bit easier. I'm reserving one of them for a multi-chap in the near future but this one . . . Oh, this one is based on my very favorite Bones episode and honestly, my favorite hour of television ever, Santa in the Slush. I can't even say Santa in the Slush without a sigh and a big goofy grin. It's the reason I'll always say "I love Bones," even when I don't. That last scene just . . . guh. It kills me. Every time.

Anyway, the prompt:

"What gifts did Booth and Brennan exchange at the end of 'Santa in the Slush'? Include an unusual gift, humorous bickering about it in front of Sweets and what happens when Sweets learns about it."

Well, okay then. Let's just peek over Sweets' shoulder, shall we? :-D

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"So . . . welcome back." Armed with a professionally polite smile and his usual notepad, Sweets faced his always reluctant patients with relentless optimism. "Happy New Year, by the way. How was your Christmas?"

"Fine."
"Fine."

His eyes sharpened at the curt responses. The pen clicked beneath his thumb as he took more careful notice of their posture.

Three weeks after the therapy sessions began, Sweets replaced the two armchairs originally in his office with a loveseat that forced Booth and Brennan to sit together. They'd never said a word. Occasionally, Booth would spend part of the allotted hour prowling restlessly or perched on the arm of the small sofa but most of the time, they simply sat down without regard to their own - or the other's - personal space.

The jagged scrawl of a note from their last appointment caught Sweets' eye.

. . . . . Knee - DrB
. . . . . Hand - AgB, x2
. . . . . Shoulders - both (either notice?)

There wouldn't be a need to document any casual touches today. Twelve inches of bare cushion separated the partners as effectively as a solid, unseen barrier.

Hmmmm.

The smile was replaced by a look of sympathetic empathy.

"It must have been difficult, Agent Booth, not to spend Christmas with your son. What did you-"

Booth was quick to interrupt. "Yea, that worked out okay after all. I had Parker for Christmas and then I drove him to Vermont to meet up with Rebecca."

"You drove to Vermont? That's a long drive."

"Nine hours." The shrug was brusque. "It was fine. It was fun. We had a good time."

Sweets glanced up from his notes in time to see Booth rest one foot on the opposite knee, and then immediately drop it back to the floor when Brennan's gaze slanted toward his shoe's encroachment into the empty buffer space between them.

Interesting . . .

"How was your trip to Peru, Dr. Brennan?"

"I didn't make the trip. I decided to stay in DC this year so I canceled my participation in the excavation."

Oh, really?

He quickly arranged his features into an expression of detached interest. "It's unusual for you to change your plans at the last minute, isn't it? What brought that about?"

"It seemed important to my father," Brennan answered evenly. "He and my brother are being held in the same facility and since it's the first Christmas the three of us have been together since . . ."

Booth's glance shot toward her when her voice trailed into silence. He had already turned away again when Brennan looked briefly in his direction.

"My father can be very sentimental," she finished abruptly. "But he is my father, after all."

Sweets nodded. "And traditionally the holidays are a special time for families to remember the past and create new memories."

"Yes."

An awkward silence fell while he studied the couple across from him. They sat stiffly, deliberately confining their bodies to the smallest area possible in order to maintain that rigid foot of space that separated them. Brennan's hands were folded quietly in her lap. Booth tapped his fingers together . . . anxiously?

Something must have happened . . .

"So you were both here? Did you see each other over the holidays? Did you exchange gifts?"

The temperature in the room dropped as precipitously as a frigid wind blowing through a broken window.

Whoa . . .

Booth straightened abruptly.

"You know, you might be twelve, Sweets, but me and Bones, we're adults. We don't need to compare the toys Santa brought us, okay?"

Someone's a little defensive. Wonder why?

"The exchange of gifts can be very symbolic, Agent Booth," he said smoothly. "Especially between two people as close as yourself and Dr. Brennan. Gifts can hold subliminal meanings, they can speak for the giver in terms of his or her feelings . . ."

Bingo.

Brennan's chin went up. Her head turned away from Booth - and he noticed. He leaned forward, immediately agitated. His gaze shifted toward her restlessly.

"Or you can just sort of be walking through the mall and see something and think, oh that would be kinda funny, so you just buy it and it's not . . . You don't expect someone to take it personally! It doesn't . . ."

Booth was actively trying to get Brennan's attention now but she stared resolutely at the opposite wall, arms folded across her chest.

"Come on, Bones," he pleaded. "You know there wasn't any of that subliminal mumbo jumbo crap. The kid's probably making this stuff up as he goes along!"

Sweets eyebrows rose high. He ignored the insult to his professionalism.

Dude, what did you do?

"Dr. Brennan? What was your gift to Agent Booth?"

For a moment, he thought she was going to refuse to answer. Finally, she gave a little sniff and let her hands fall back to her lap.

"A hockey stick. It was signed by the members of the team who won this year's bowl."

Booth slumped low in his seat and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Cup, not bowl. They won the Stanley Cup, Bones."

"Yes, well, I knew it was a dish."

Sweets couldn't hide his own surprise.

"You gave Agent Booth a hockey stick signed by the members of the Anaheim Ducks? That's awesome!"

Brennan shrugged off his exaggerated praise.

"It was nothing, really. A charity auction. The money went to a good cause so actually, I just made a donation to the Children s Inn at NIH. The hockey stick was incidental."

"I'm sure Agent Booth doesn't think it was incidental," Sweets pointed out. "You used your knowledge of his love of sports and found a gift that had meaning to him, one that could become a treasured keepsake. Years from now, when he looks at that stick he'll think of you."

Brennan cleared her throat with a small cough and picked at a nonexistent speck of lint on the knee of her navy trousers. "It was for charity," she said again.

Uh huh. Keep telling yourself that . . .

Sweets turned his attention to Booth.

"And what was your gift to Dr. Brennan?"

"He gave me a book."

The surprising answer came from Brennan. Sweets looked from one to the other suspiciously. Booth's shoulders were hunched, one elbow bent on the arm of the loveseat, his forehead resting in the palm of his hand.

All this over a book?

"Oh. Well, books are fine gifts. Given the importance you place on education and intellectual growth-"

"It was How to Win Friends and Influence People," she finished impassively.

Shock held Sweets silent for a moment. His attention flew back to Booth.

Oh no, you didn't.

For a moment, he was afraid the unconscious exclamation had been spoken out loud.

"Apparently, Booth considers me unlikeable and in need of advice on forming friendships-"

Despite Brennan's obvious attempt to maintain a dispassionate tone, a trace of hurt feelings shaded her words. Booth reacted instinctively. He turned to face her, one knee brushing against hers, shattering the boundaries of the rigid space they'd kept between them.

"No," he said emphatically. His eyes burned into hers with an intensity that refused to let her look away. "No. No. That's not true and you know it. I just thought . . . You know, sometimes you can be a little . . . You called the Monsignor 'Steve!'"

"At his request!"

His presence completely forgotten, Sweets' pen flew across the page of his notepad as the discussion across from him continued.

. . . . . AgB body language protective, grasping DrB hand. Amends? Shield?
. . . . . DrB exaggerated response to unintentional (?) slight. Because source AgB?

"Look, you've said yourself that your people skills are, well, they're not exactly . . ."

"I have friends," Brennan insisted. "Perhaps my circle isn't as wide as yours but-"

"Bones, you know that's not what I-"

"Angela is very dear to me and I know she feels affection for me as well. After our experience buried underground, I also consider Dr. Hodgins a friend and not merely a fellow scientist-"

"It was stupid, okay?" Booth's raised voice finally quietened her. "The book, it was a stupid idea. You are fine, just the way you are. If people don't bother to get to know you, if they can't see who you really are, then that's their problem. Right? Bones? Bones?"

He still held her hand. Sweets watched him squeeze his fingers around hers and jotted down another note.

"The tree was the real present anyway, not the stupid book. The tree was what I really wanted to give you."

His pen froze on the page.

Tree? What tree?

Brennan shook her head. "How could you have planned that in advance? The time was changed. I didn't decide to stay until the last minute."

"I knew you'd stay."

Watching Brennan soften under the influence of Booth's smile, Sweets suddenly felt like an intruder in his own office.

"You know, I ran my battery down keeping that tree lit the whole time you guys were in the trailer. One of the security guards had to give me a jump before I could go home."

"I'm sorry."

Booth shook his head. "It was worth it. I know how you feel about Christmas and I . . . I just wanted this one to be different."

Sweets interrupted them with a throat-clearing rasp.

"I'm sorry, could we go back a little? What was that about a tree?"

They immediately closed ranks and faced him with the somewhat mocking, superior attitude that characterized their usual sessions. The space between their bodies had been halved.

"Nothing." A taunting smile accompanied Booth's curt rejection.

"I really think we should talk about-"

"I don't."

Two phones rang almost simultaneously. Neither agent nor anthropologist bothered to look at them as they immediately got to their feet.

Even knowing it was in vain, Sweets made one last attempt.

"Okay, obviously now is a bad time but we can discuss the tree in our next session-"

"No."

Booth opened the office door and with a hand on Brennan's elbow, allowed her through first.

Sweets stood up.

"I would like to -"

"Not going to happen."

The door closed behind them with a definitive snap.

A heavy, irritated sigh escaped as Sweets sank into his chair again. After a moment's contemplation, he flipped through the many pages of notes taken during the sessions with the difficult pair.

His head lifted with a random thought.

"This would make a great book. Sublimating intense attraction under the guise of a professional partnership. How far would they go to keep it hidden, from themselves and from each other. What would cause it to come out into the open."

He looked toward the closed door.

"Hmmm. I need a way to measure Dr. Brennan's response to Booth . . ."

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At the risk of speaking ill of the dead, I'm still a bit perturbed at Sweets' manipulation of B&B in The Pain in the Heart. But, that's another tale for another time.

Thanks for the great prompt, Covalent Bond! It was a pleasure writing for you!

Thanks for reading!