When he was a kid, Booth lived a summer day just like many other summer days before it. He woke up and his mom made him and his brother pancakes for breakfast, then they hurried down to the vacant lot a couple blocks away to stake their claim before the older boys got there and spent the entire afternoon playing baseball, stopping only for a break when the ice-cream truck would pass by just after one. It was an ordinary day. Even when he and his brother stopped to buy bubble gum on the way home, it was an ordinary day. Even when he stuck an extra wad of gum in his pocket, without paying for it, and was caught and reprimanded and forced to put it back by the cashier, it was an ordinary day.

But it ended up not being so ordinary, because he would always remember this day. He would always remember this day as the day he realized he was never going to break a rule, because there could be harsh consequences. And somehow, he always thought this day played a little something into his eventual place in the FBI. But the day had seemed just like any other at the time.

Years later at the FBI, Booth was assigned to a particularly gruesome and gritty case. A body found at Arlington National Cemetery, the skill smashed into pieces. He'd barely had a chance to read over the case file when Cullen informed him, "Consult Dr. Brennan at the Jeffersonian on this one, Booth."

He immediately protested. "A squint? Is that really necessary?"

Cullen glared at him. "Do you think you're going to get anywhere with a skull that's smashed into a million pieces on your own?" Booth opened his mouth to speak. "Dr. Brennan is Igood/I. She can really help us on this one. I don't care what your personal opinion of her is."

"It's just that after the last case…"

"Consult her," Cullen interrupted, leaving the room.

It wasn't necessarily his personal opinion of her that was the problem - although, he did find her highly hard to tolerate and would much prefer to not have to be bothered with her - but also her personal opinion of him after their last case. He believed that her last words to him had been, "And don't ever ask for my help again." Booth sighed and looked through the case file for a few moments before taking the phone and dialing the Jeffersonian Institute.

"Zach Addy!" an entirely too cheerful voice answered. Booth suddenly remembered the young, gawky assistant.

"Yeah, hi. I'm looking for Dr. Brennan?"

"May I ask who is calling?" Zach asked immediately, as he'd been programmed to do.

"Agent Booth from the Federal –"

"Oh, Agent Booth," Zack interrupted. "Sorry. Dr. Brennan's not available at the moment."

"Well, tell her to give me a call when she can, then, will you?" Booth asked, sighing as he hung up the phone. He had a feeling this was going to be a long case.

When the day passed by without any word from Dr. Brennan herself, Booth tried calling again, only to once again find himself speaking to Zack, who once again said she was unavailable. After three calls like this over two days, Booth was pretty sure he wasn't going to get anywhere and pretty sure that he was getting the run around.

Luckily, he happened to have good contacts in the FBI and was able to find out that Dr. Brennan was in Guatemala. When Zack still wouldn't tell him how he could contact her, Booth called up a friend working homeland security and asked him for a favor.

"Just, detain her at the airport, so I can get to her. Her assistant won't put me through and my boss ordered me to work with her on this case."

"What'd you do to her, man?" Rob snickered. "Her assistant won't even put you through?"

"Will you just please stop her? Check her bags. She probably has some kind of bone or bone tool in there that you can use as an excuse to hold her."

"Alright, man. But you owe me," Rob decided, still chuckling at Booth's predicament.

It had seemed like an ordinary day at the time. A frustrating ordinary day, of course. An ordinary day where he went to work, was handed a case, and spent his day trying to track someone who could help him down – only in this case, it wasn't a suspect or a witness.

When he finally got to Bones at the airport, he was just glad to be a step closer to solving this case, a step closer to catching this murderer. They could solve the case, lock up the bad guy, and she could go back to her lab and he could go back to his office and they could be done with each other again.

It had seemed like an ordinary day at the time. But looking back, it was the beginning of everything that would form the rest of his life.