AN: So I know I probably shouldn’t be wasting my time writing little one shots like this but I had a few ideas in my mind while I’m waiting for my muse to make a reappearance on my other story. I’m sure it’ll be back as soon as these are out of my mind. I know there are plenty of sets like this out there but I’m partial to these little snippets you creative folks out there think of. Most of these will probably center on B&B but I can’t guarantee what will take my fancy next. If you’ve read my other story, you’ll know that I love Sweets particularly. =D

The Sound of Settling

“Parker, could I have word with you?” A knock on the door accompanied the voice of one particularly nervous Seeley Booth as he slowly opened the door to his sixteen year old son’s room.

“Come on in, Dad,” the boy said, finishing up buttoning a dark grey shirt in front of the mirror attached to the inside of the closet door. He tucked the shirt into a well fitting pair of black pants as his father edged into the room and took a seat on the unmade bed. Wordlessly, the boy held up two choices for a tie.

“That one,” said Booth, confidently pointing to the slightly flashier looking tie.

“Thanks,” he said and began to mess with his collar. A flash of gold caught Booth’s eye as the boy tucked the familiar St. Christopher medal under his shirt before loosely tying the tie over it. For a moment, he reminisced on when Parker was younger and he had first taught his son to tie a tie.

“So, was there something you wanted to talk about, Dad?” Parker prompted him, still messing with the knot, his tongue poking out the corner of his mouth in concentration.

“Yeah, this girl you’re taking to Homecoming …” Booth began.

“Katie,” Parker supplied with the trademark Booth grin appearing on his face as he once again reveled in his good fortunes. “She’s the head cheerleader.”

“Yeah, Katie.” Booth smiled slightly, taking some bit of pride in the fact that his son seemed to be just as popular in high school as he was, having inherited his good looks, charms, and athletic talent. Starting with hockey, his aggressiveness had paid off on the football field as well as he made varsity his sophomore year. He was also intelligent, exceeding the standards and making sure to bring home As on every report card.

Booth cleared his throat, not sure exactly how to jump in to this subject. He knew Parker was a good kid but he also knew what it was like to be in his position. “Listen, Parker, when you take a girl out on a date you have to be … careful,” Booth inwardly grimaced at his poor word choice.

“Dad, we already had that talk. I know how these things work,” he said, laughing slightly.

“Just because you know the mechanics, doesn’t mean you know,” Booth corrected him. “You have to treat girls with respect. You’re better off just waiting.”

Parker looked at the reflection of his father in the mirror with an eyebrow raised. “Yeah, waiting, right,” he said, with a slight roll of his eyes. He was a teenager, by definition he couldn’t take his parents too seriously.

“I’m serious, Parker. I know it’s not the cool thing to do. It wasn’t when I was sixteen but it’ll make things a lot less complicated if you just wait,” Booth continued. The two Booth boys generally had a good relationship, even through the moody teenage years Parker managed to find it in himself to listen to his father.

“Wait ‘til I’m married, right?” he said wryly, now applying gel to his wavy blond hair.

“Well, that’s the general idea,” said Booth with a smile.

“You didn’t,” Parker challenged him, now turning around and folding his arms carefully to watch how his father would take that.

“This isn’t about me,” Booth told him sternly, expecting some sort of retort like that.

“So, this is one of those ‘do as I say not as I do’ sort of things?”

Booth faltered. The kid was smart. No more logic lessons from Bones.

“Yes, that’s exactly what it is,” said a female voice from the doorway. Brennan walked into the room and gave Parker a slight smile. “You look very nice, Parker,” she added, coming to stand next to Booth.

“Thanks, Bones,” Booth muttered, not feeling at all like she had really helped the situation. Parker looked even smugger than before.

“What? That’s what it sounds like. He’s exactly right. You are trying to teach him not to follow your example,” Brennan said with a shrug.

“Sorry, Dad, looks like Bones is siding with the younger, better looking Booth this time,” said Parker, grinning despite himself.

“No, I’m not taking anyone’s side,” Brennan insisted.

“Look, Parker. You don’t want to get a girl pregnant while still in high school. They don’t give scholarships to guys who are already fathers before they even turned eighteen. Hell, you don’t want to get a girl pregnant while not married.”

“Like you did,” Parker challenged again. It was that annoyingly quick brain again, giving him that lip.

Booth chose to ignore it. “Hey, if you knock up a cheerleader, I expect you to man up and do the right thing.”

“You mean marry her. I know, I know.”

“Aren’t they teaching you anything at that youth group I keep making you go to?”

“Plenty,” his son answered dryly.

“You aren’t being very fair towards your father. He’s only trying to lend you the experience of an older generation who has already faced the same sorts of trials you’ll be going through,” Brennan pointed out with a slight frown.

“Exactly,” said Booth, shooting her a grateful look. “I’m trying to tell you to be a respectful gentleman.”

“You and Bones have been living together for how long now? Without being married?” Parker pointed out.

Booth glanced up at her again, silently realizing it would be five years this December that they had been living together. Even longer since they had been together.

“Booth values the institution of marriage and even if I don’t believe in it, I think it is important for him to impress that value upon his son as well. I also don’t think you are taking away the right part of what your father is trying to say. He knows firsthand how difficult it is to be a father out of wedlock. Your mother didn’t have to let you see him and every time the plans changed where he didn’t get to have you for weekend or holiday, he was unbearably grumpy. He’s only wanted to be the best father to you he possibly could,” Brennan explained. She had known her partner for a long time and knew him better than anyone else.

Booth grinned at the vote of confidence and said, “Thanks, Bones.”

Parker looked placated with his for now as he watched his father and the woman who was practically his step mother exchange googly eyes. “Alright, alright, enough of that. Where are my shoes?” he finally interrupted them.

“I think I saw them by the front door,” said Brennan, leading the way through what had been her apartment and was now their apartment, hers and the little family she had managed to slide into. She smiled as Booth had a few last minute arguments with his son.

“Dad, can I take your car?”

“No.”

“But it has the sirens and lights.”

“Exactly. You can take your car. That’s what we got it for, remember?” said Booth, cuffing him over the side of the head.

Parker grumbled something about beat up second hand cars not looking so great for a date with a football star.

“Hey, I had to take my dates in a ’52 Ford pickup with rusty paint. Be thankful you have a set of wheels,” Booth told him shortly.

This was one of those things about raising a teenager that Brennan had yet to understand. She had been more than willing to buy Parker a new, moderately priced car that would surely give him a status boost among his peers at school. After all, her most recent book had given her a fair amount of profit so buying a car for the boy she thought was as close to her own son as she could get was more than appropriate. But Booth had insisted that every teenager needed to be humbled by owning some beat up old clunker until they could afford a better car on their own.

“Wait, Angela asked me to take pictures. She also wants pictures with your date so you’ll have to take some when you go pick her up,” said Brennan, now looking for her digital camera. She wasn’t exactly sure what was so important about getting pictures of Parker’s first real date but she knew that it was a motherly sort of thing to do.

“Booth, get out of the way,” she told her partner, now holding up the camera she had just located in a desk drawer. “Okay, smile, Parker.”

The similarities between Parker and his father were even more striking as the boy adopted the ever famous charm smile. “Okay, Booth, now stand next to him,” she ordered after snapping several photos. “What? I have very strict instructions from Angela. Now go stand next to your son,” she added when Booth raised an eyebrow at her bossiness.

When both of them smiled, it nearly took her breath away and she somehow managed to take the picture by focusing on the camera screen instead of the real thing. They traded places and Booth took the final picture.

“Have a good time. Call us if you’re going to be later than two,” Booth said, clapping a hand on his shoulder and leading him to the front door. He glanced over his shoulder at Brennan, who was busy putting her camera away, then pressed a small, square packet into his son’s hand, muttering, “Keep that in your wallet. I’m not giving you permission to do anything … just … don’t be stupid …”

Parker smirked slightly then said, “We’ll probably all go to the diner after the dance.”

Booth gave him a look that clearly said ‘I’m not that stupid’ and gave him a shove towards the door. “Get out of here, kid. Go have fun. Don’t try to drive home if you’ve been drinking. Call and I’ll come get you.”

“Yeah, cause I’m really going to call my dad who’s a cop to come pick me up if I’ve been drinking with a bunch of other underage drinkers. That’ll really make me the life of the party,” said the teenager cheekily as he ducked out the door. “Bye!” he called as he shut the door.

Booth sat down heavily on the couch next to Brennan, closing his eyes for a moment.

“He’ll be fine, Booth,” said Brennan, muting the TV for a moment. She was watching a documentary on the large flat screen Booth had insisted they purchase if he was going to move in with her years ago.

Booth simply grunted in reply and Brennan took that as a cue to continue watching her show. It was a documentary about penguins, one that she had seen before but still found fascinating.

“We should get married,” Brennan said suddenly.

Booth blinked, not sure if he had heard her correctly. Did she just suggest they get married? “Really?” he asked her. Damn. If he had known she had changed her mind about the archaic institution, he’d have asked ages ago. He had known for years he was completely committed to her.

“Yes,” she replied as though she had simply suggested they start buying a different brand of dishwasher soap.

“So, what brought this on?” he asked curiously.

“I was just thinking about how you’ve given up so much for me. And tonight, I realized how much you still value being married. Past evidence suggests that we are both fully committed to each other and that a legal union would be a logical and simple course of action,” she explained with a thoughtful look on her face. “And I know it would make you happy.”

“Marrying you would make me happy,” he admitted with a smile. “But I don’t want you to do it just because it would make me happy.”

“Making you happy makes me happy.” She hesitated then asked uncertainly, “So, will you marry me?”

“I think that one is supposed to be my line,” Booth said with a chuckle. “But yes, I will marry you. Did you want to go down to city hall tomorrow? I’m good friends with a justice of the peace who could get us in pretty quick.”

“No, let’s have it in a church. I know you’re Catholic and being married in a church is important to you.”

He could have kissed her. So he did. “I love you,” he said, with another wide grin.

She shrugged. “You’re the only one I would have ever even considered marrying,” she admitted. “But I want to keep my last name.”

Booth couldn’t really argue with that. As many times as he had dreamed of her becoming Mrs. Seeley Booth, the sound of settling their future in the realest sense possible was the best thing he could have heard all evening.

Especially since his son called much later that evening, grudgingly asking for a ride home.

AN: I know Parker kind of seems like a brat but, he is a teenager. Anyway, hope you enjoyed this bit of fluff! Have a wonderful day!