AN: Silly fluffy future fic, in a land where the whole "Zack as a serial killer" monstrosity (and the most recent Jack/Ange breakup) never happened, and happy romantic relationships abound. And, for the record, I totally blame Jack for making me write this.

Disclaimer: If any of these people were mine, stuff like this would have been on the screen.

Love Is in the Air
By Gatekeeper

Brennan stopped, eyes narrowing slightly at the sight of the young man standing just inside of the front door of the lab. The day was giving her enough trouble without having to deal with another bumbling intern, particularly when the identification hanging around his neck meant that he worked in the museum portion of the Jeffersonian and therefore had no reason to be here at all.

She watched him for a moment, attempting to figure out precisely what it was he thought he was doing. His entire purpose seemed to be just standing there, eyes closed and entirely focused on each inhalation and exhalation of the lab's carefully filtered air. "Did you need something?"

The young man's eyes flew open as he jumped, suddenly panicked. "I ... ah ... er ...."

"It's the air," Jack finished for him, looking amused as he came from the direction of Angela's office. Checking on Ange, who was just over five months pregnant and often stole naps in her office during the day, always put him in a good mood. "It seems he has his eye on a redhead named Stacy who volunteers at the coat check."

The young man 's face turned a very definite shade of red as Brennan raised an eyebrow in Jack's direction. "I don't see the connection."

"There's a rumor that the oxygen being pumped through the lab has ... amorous capabilities of some sort," Zack added from the raised area, still bent over the skeleton he had been examining. "I keep asking them what they think the source material is, but no one's been able to provide me with a reasonable explanation."

Brennan's brow furrowed at the ludicrousness of it. "You can't be serious."

Still a very unhealthy shade of red, the young man ducked his head. "Well, someone in restoration said it might be some kind of mold that had been on one of the bodies," he muttered, rubbing a hand along the back of his neck. "But I've never heard of ...."

"That's not what I meant," she snapped, shooting a glare at Jack when she caught him grinning out of the corner of her eye. She didn't care when Booth or Jack joked about something like this, but the entire institution .... "This is a scientific facility, Mr. ...." She quickly scanned his name badge in the interest of precision. "... Porter, and I'm having trouble imagining that anyone intelligent enough to work here would entertain the thought of some sort of 'magical love mold' even for a moment."

"Actually ...."

Surprised, Brennan turned back in Zack's direction. He'd stood up, leaving the skeleton to move closer to the conversation, and had the look on his face that meant that he was considering whether or not to correct someone. "You're going to try and argue for there being some sort of romantic mold in our ventilation system?"

Zack's brow furrowed. "Of course not. There's no mold or fungus with that kind of reported effects."

Jack lifted a finger. "Ah, but the bark of the Ptychopetalum olacoides has been known to increase the human sex drive."

"What little testing has been done in that area has been distinctly unprofessional," Zack responded dismissively. "Besides, bark particles are large enough that they would have been eradicated almost immediately by the purification and ionization processes."

Brennan's whistle, a relatively effective approximation of Booth's, immediately cut off the conversation. "Back to the point," she said firmly, wondering for a moment if this was what it was like for mothers with two children at home. "Please."

Zack held a hand out, palm up. "I was merely going to point out that the Forensic Anthropology lab does have an unusual average for romantic involvement among its members."

"Especially when you factor in that we're all in relationships with each other." Jack added. "On top of that, you could use Sweets and Daisy as proof that the effect is capable of spreading to people who spend only a limited amount of time in the lab." Daisy had been a graduate student who had been assigned to the lab for about a week and a half before she'd realized that forensic anthropology was not the field for her. Even that small window of time, however, had turned out to be more than enough for her and Dr. Sweets.

Brennan's eyes narrowed again. "It's a proven fact that homogeny leads people to choose partners with similar education levels and interests, and the workplace is a natural self-selecting filter."

There was a moment of silence, then the young man hesitantly lifted a hand. "Um, I don't know what that -"

Brennan whipped around to glare at him. "You're not allowed to talk yet."

Jack turned to look at him. "People tend to date their co-workers," he translated, then held his hands up defensively when Brennan shifted her glare to him. "Listen, it's not like I started the rumor. If nothing else, I would have specified the particulate that was causing the unusual effects."

"I didn't accuse you of starting it." Booth would probably see some sort of admission of guilt in Jack's denial, but at the moment she was too annoyed to try and follow it through herself. "But if it's our relationships that are being used as evidence, why are the rumors suddenly starting now? You and Ange have been married for more than a year, and Zack and Cam started dating after the wedding!"

"Yes, but since we were discreet the knowledge that we are involved is just now starting to become widespread." The corner of Zack's mouth curved up a little. "It ... surprises people."

"Also, people just recently heard about you and Booth getting engaged," Jack added. "You used to be pretty public with your views on marriage, and at least *some* of them had to have heard you talk about it before this."

"So that means they need to invent-"

Behind them, the doors to the lab slid open, and as Brennan turned around Booth stopped in midstride. "Whoa. Tell me this isn't case or me related."

Briefly distracted from her frustration, Brennan's eyebrows lifted. "'Me related?'"

"Whatever it is that put that expression on your face." He moved closer, catching sight of the young man who was by this point close to huddling in the corner, and his expression smoothed out in understanding. "Ah. Never mind." He turned back to the three of them. "He didn't touch anything that had to do with a case, did he?"

"No," Zack answered matter-of-factly. "He was just interested in our air supply."

Booth stared at him for a second, brow furrowed, then turned to Brennan. "That sounded as creepy and confusing as I thought it did, right?"

Brennan sighed. "Apparently, there's a rumor going around the Jeffersonian that there's something in the lab's ventilation system that increases the likelihood of romantic attachments for anyone who breathes it in." She gestured dismissively at the intern. "He came by hoping to experience the effects."

Booth grinned. "Seriously?"

Recognizing the glint of mischief in his eyes, Brennan narrowed hers at him. "Don't you dare encourage this, Booth."

His grin widened. "Oh, I don't need to." He leaned over, planting a quick kiss on her cheek. "It's love, baby," he murmured, lifting his hand in a circular gesture that encompassed the entire Jeffersonian. "You can't stop it."

Before she could respond he turned, heading for the intern, and Brennan made an exasperated noise and followed him. Jack watching this with a grin of his own, turned to Zack. "I'm wondering if I should wake up Angie. She's not going to be happy that she missed this much entertainment."

"True." Zack thought about this for a moment. "But if you wake her up before she's ready, there's also a chance that you'll end up with an extremely crabby wife."

Jack considered this, then nodded. "That is an excellent point."

"Right now, I would be more worried about an extremely crabby boss." At the sound of the aforementioned boss's voice, both men turned to see Cam standing at the top of the stairs. "Why is no one working?"

"We were distracted." Zack pointed at Booth, who had an arm flung around the intern's shoulders as he talked to him. Brennan was arguing on the intern's other side, and the wide-eyed young man was looking back and forth between the two of them with an expression of ever-increasing confusion. "It seems that word of our air's supposed special abilities has spread to the museum wing."

Cam rolled her eyes. "Lovely. We should start charging admission." Still, she came down the stairs to stand beside Zack as Booth, Bones and the intern came close enough to be able to make out what Booth was saying.

"... you hear me?"

The intern shook his head. "No."

Brennan, who had been about to argue with Booth again, stopped and narrowed her eyes at the intern. "How did you ever meet the requirements to be accepted for internship?"

Booth held up a hand. "Don't be too hard on him. Stupidity is kind of natural for guys at this age." He stopped the young man, turning him around to face Brennan. "She is a squint." He then turned him around so he could see the group at the bottom of the stairs. "Those guys over there are squints. They have lab coats, use big words, and really enjoy spending time with things like spores and microscopes."

The young man looked at them all carefully for a moment, then turned back to Booth. "And the air in here only works on squints?"

"No, because it worked on me, and I am most definitely not a squint." Booth inclined his head over to Brennan. "She's with me."

The intern's eyes widened. "Really? But she's ..." He glanced over at Brennan's expression and immediately swallowed the rest of the sentence, just quick enough to make the snickers from the group next to the stairs perfectly audible.

Booth smothered his grin. "See, what the air really has is squint pheromones - makes non-squints go crazy for all the big words." He stepped back. "If you're in here long enough, it's possible to get excited just at the sight of a lab coat."

The intern's eyes widened even further as he looked back and forth between Brennan, Zack, and Jack, then swallowed. Cam, deciding to interject a little maturity into the proceedings, lifted her chin. "If you leave now, I won't mention any of this to your supervisor."

They all watched the intern leave at almost a dead run, then Brennan turned to Booth. "Please tell me you don't believe any of that ridiculousness you just spouted," she told him, careful to keep any amusement out of her voice as she folded her arms back across her chest. She wasn't ready to encourage him just yet.

He held his hands out in a 'what can I do?' gesture. "What can I say? Lab coats really do it for me."

"If that were true," Zack interjected, "then you'd be in a constant state of-"

"And with that disturbing visual, we should all get back to the jobs we're actually being paid for," Cam announced, gesturing Zack and Jack back up the stairs. As they headed up, she and Zack linked their fingers together. "Though, for the record, I agree with Booth's theory."

Zack shook his head even as he curled his fingers around Cam's. "Completely illogical."

Jack laughed. "But good for us, wouldn't you say?"

Booth watched them go, still grinning as he turned back to Brennan. "C'mon, you can't really be mad. I took care of the kid for you, and with any luck the second rumor will help take care of the first."

Brennan stared for a minute at the light dancing in his eyes, as warm as the wedding ring hanging on the chain around her neck. However it had happened that they'd found each other, she was grateful for it. "You'd better hope your little rumor doesn't have any actual basis in fact, though."

"Why?" He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "We've all already been infected."

She quirked an eyebrow. "If these squint pheromones of yours have genetically inheritable components, we'll have to start worrying about the effects."

"Okay ...." He stopped suddenly, brow lowering as he studied her, and she was careful to stay perfectly still and let him look. When his eyes widened, she could no longer keep the corners of her mouth from curving upward.

At that, his entire face lit. "Bones?" he whispered. "Are you ...."

"Six weeks." She grinned. "How do you think Parker will react to a younger brother or sister?"

Though Jack later insisted otherwise, Booth's resulting whoop of joy was not actually heard throughout the entire Jeffersonian. The brand new set of rumors that cropped up when Dr. Brennan started to show, however, left institution-wide bets springing up on Dr. Saroyan for the entire rest of the year.