Nervousness was not rational. Whatever was gonna happen was gonna happen anyway, being nervous wouldn't change anything. Brennan kept repeating this to herself like a mantra, but it didn't help. She was scared.
She thought about not going. But then, she would have to deal with Booth's questions, Sweets could interpret her absence anyway he'd want to. Even worse, they could talk about her and she'd not be able to defend herself. She had to go.
As she exited the elevator, she spotted Booth, waiting next to Dr. Sweets' door. He was playing with the bottom of his shoe. She sat down next to him, wondering why she had decided to wear a skirt today.
"What've you got there?" she asked, looking at what he was doing.
"Parker's new idea of fun."
She stared at him blankly, waiting for him to explain.
"He thinks putting gum under people's shoes is funny."
She frowned.
"It's a phase," he added, brushing it off with his hand.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because he's six?"
"I was six once..."
"Really?"
"... and I never had that phase."
"I bet you didn't do much at all," he mumbled.
Her voice raised as she got offended.
"I played tricks a lot on Russ!"
Booth just looked at her, his smirk reaching his eyes.
"Fine. Not a lot. But I did. Funny ones, too."
They waited in silence. She looked at her wrist but noticed she wasn't wearing her watch.
"What time is it?" she asked.
"9:07," Booth answered.
Her broad smile made him smile in return.
"What?" he asked.
"Maybe Dr. Sweets forgot about today."
Booth laughed. "Is that excitement I hear in your tone?"
"You've seen me excited before..." she said before she could realize how that would sound like.
She heard him snort but didn't look at him. She continued.
"What do you say we dish?"
"We what?"
"Dish. You know... As in leave. As in not go."
"Ditch, Bones. Ditch."
"You say to-mah-to, I say to-ma-to..."
Booth laughed. "That's not what it means, Bones. Nice try though."
"What do you think? Wanna ditch?" she ignored his last comment, really hoping he'd agree.
He just stared at her. She knew that look. It wasn't a good sign. She sighed.
"You really don't want to go in," he stated. She didn't answer, so he continued. "Would Dr. Brennan have something to hide?"
"What?! No! You're always saying these sessions are stupid. I'm just catching up with you. Aren't you glad I finally agree? Come on. Let's go."
He shook his head. "Oh no. Now I wanna go. Bones' got skeletons in her closet. Me like it."
"I didn't understand a word you just said."
She watched him get up. He went up to the closed door and banged on it. Loudly.
"Sweets! Your favorite patients are here. Open up!"
"Booth!" she shushed him. "Booth!" She pulled on the hem of his jacket.
And Sweets decided to open the door.
"Hey, guys. I was just gathering some things."
Booth turned to his partner. She looked paler than usual. She seemed nervous too, nibbling on her bottom lip like this... He hated when she did that. Because he knew he could never bite on her lip himself. And it looked damn good. He clenched his fists and entered the office.
Booth had to stop looking at her like this. Every once in a while, he'd give her that intense deep look which always increased her heart rate. Stop that right now, Temperance. You're a strong woman, she willed herself. She went in and sat down on her side of the couch.
As Sweets fumbled through a stack of papers, she watched Booth by the corner of her eye and saw he was wiping his gumed shoe on the carpet. She went to roll her eyes at him, but he shot her one of his charming, childlike, sly smile. And she had to hold back a laugh by biting the inside of her cheeks. How does he do that?
"Ok!" Sweets said, clapping his hands once, startling them. "So!" He looked directly at Brennan. "How are you feeling?" he asked. And she died a little inside.
Frozen, no words would come out of her mouth. She could hear them in her head, but they stayed there. She must have looked like a fool. Thankfully, Booth noticed nothing and he's the one who answered.
"We're both fine, Sweets."
We.
"Why don't you tell us what those last issues are so we can finally get on with our lives?" he asked.
We.
Brennan crossed her arms over her chest and tilted her head, waiting. Sweets finally stopped looking at her, to direct his next question to Booth.
"Since Dr. Brennan here has seen you naked, how do you feel?"
Brennan shut her eyes for a millisecond, absorbing the shock, waiting for Booth to chew the young doctor's head off.
"What?" he burst. "I had forgotten about that, thanks for reminding me."
Sweets was having a field day today. He smiled inside as the two partners clearly couldn't look at each other. He suspected Dr. Brennan would make the first eye contact after this.
And she did.
"You've got nothing to be ashamed of, really," she bluntly stated.
Booth choked. "Uhm... thank you?" he mumbled, turning red.
"So you looked?" Sweets pushed her.
Booth cracked up – mostly not to cry- and Brennan's breath got stuck in her throat.
"Well, I... I... didn't look. I saw. That's completely..."
Booth shook his head.
"Nah, nah. You looked. I saw you look."
"That's not..."
"Guys!"
"Fine! I take it back," Brennan said.
"What?" Booth asked.
"You should be ashamed."
"No, no, no, no no. You can't take it back now. You almost said I should be proud."
Brennan gasped. "I said that so you wouldn't feel bad that I looked at your member."
She noticed him wincing at her last words. That's how she knew he would not pick up on the fact she had admitted she had looked.
"I.. you... wha..."
It gave her the strength to go on.
"Do you really wanna spend the next hour discussing your penis? Is that the issue?" she asked him. Nailed on the head. He shut up and turned back to Sweets who asked him,
"Are you ok?"
"I'm fine."
He was sulking.
"Are you mad at me now?" she asked him.
"Well, how would you feel if we talked about your breasts?"
Normally, she'd have said something like 'I wouldn't care. It'd be like talking about my arms or my feet.' But something in the way his voice had said the words 'your breasts' made her shiver. And the way his eye had trailed down her bust... She hadn't expected that. He usually used the terms "female parts". She was stunned, that's all. She capitulated and turned back to Sweets.
Brennan put her elbow on the arm of the sofa and rested her chin on her hand. If she prayed, she'd pray for this hour to be done with. But she didn't. So she waited.
The psychologist talked first.
"I think agent Booth feels..."
Booth groad at the word.
"... that he's shared more with you than he wanted to. And to make things right, I suggest you..."
"I'm not showing him my breasts!" she interjected.
Booth looked from Sweets to Brennan to Sweets. Was he really gonna make her show him her... Oh, dear God. What's going on here?
"No, Dr. Brennan. I think you should share a secret with him. A secret you've told no one else."
Booth settled down and nodded, agreeing. Brennan pondered. Clearly, Sweets was not talking about the topic of their private session. She had told Angela and the psychologist. She wracked her brain to find something... She couldn't.
"I can't think of anything," she said.
"You think about it. You'll find something," Sweets said. "But right now, I have something for you."
"A gift? Oh, Sweets, you shouldn't have," Booth said.
Brennan was still wondering what secret she could tell Booth. So she didn't notice Sweets was pulling two files out of a pile. Booth sat up straighter.
"What's that?" he asked.
Brennan snapped out of her head.
"That's a little exercise, if you will, that I like to call The Truth is Out There."
Booth chuckled.
"That explains a lot about you, Sweets!" He turned to his partner. "He's a X-Files shipper."
"You ship sex files?" she asked, lost. "What's that mean?"
Booth laughed even louder. Mind in the gutter, much?
"Not sex files. The X-Files. The TV show. Mulder and Scully."
Those names sounded familiar to her.
"Do I have to watch this show? I think you've mentioned those names before."
"Ask Hodgins. He probably have the dvds somewhere."
"Why? What's it about?" Brennan asked.
Booth said, "Aliens. Conspiracies..."
But Sweets said, "FBI guy, female doctor, partners fighting crime and falling in love."
The silence that set in, even Brennan would have qualified it as 'heavy'. Even though you can't weight silence.
"Remember the questionnaire you took when you first started therapy?" Sweets finally said.
Oh. My. God.
"I'm giving them back to you."
Sweets handed them their own questionnaire.
"I want you to..."
"Destroy them?" Booth mumbled.
"No."
"Frame them?" he suggested.
"Are they graded?" Brennan said to make Booth laugh.
"Good one!" he said, high fiving her. She loved making him laugh.
Sweets shut up and waited for them to do the same. Brennan opened her questionnaire. That was a long time ago. She didn't even remember what she had written.
"I want you, as a last assignment, to share your answers with the other."
Booth hugged the file tightly on his chest.
"You can't make us to that," he refused. "That's personal."
"And that's exactly why you should share."
Brennan silently followed her partner out of the office, down to the elevator.
"You know," Booth said, "he would never know if we shared or not. We don't have to..."
Curiosity probably was a sin. But she wasn't catholic.
"Does agent Booth have a body in his dresser?"
Booth frowned, repeated the words to himself, then his clear laugh filled the elevator. She smiled.
"What?"
"Skeletons in the closet. Not body in a..."
"Oh."
He handed her his questionnaire. She gave him hers. She opened the file she had in her hand, ready to start reading.
"Not right now!" he said.
She looked at him.
"You don't want to be there when I read it?"
"Oh, I want to be there. I don't even remember what that thing was about. It should be fun. Let's go to the diner."
She shrugged. She could wait a few minutes.
It should be fun... Yes. Indeed, it should.