Brennan
It's hot when she gets there, but that soon blends into sickly humidity that threatens to get into her head and destroy her focus. She doesn't let the climate do that. She's here for a reason, and despite the minimal amount of resources available to them, she's able to work efficiently. Working on the dig site, she's seen species of animals she's never seen before, and has seen… Humans have always been creatures of evolution. But here, right now, she feels the phenomenon of adaptation more acutely. She's adapted, to live without him. She's always had a high learning curve.
One month in, her hair is cut to a severe bob, matching the one she sees on Daisy, on the rare occasions she lets herself near the woman. She dreams of things she knows she cannot get, not so isolated. Her thoughts find themselves drifting towards the food of a place only a few countries away. They drift off towards cemeteries and funerals of people whose only connection to her was their bones. She tries to remember, what it feels like, to be Bones. And the memories sit there, behind the haze of insects and saltwater. She tries to remember.
Booth
The wind was cold on his face, but he had learned to ignore that long ago. Men were stationed all around him. Middle of the winter in Afghanistan, a wave of cold weather threatening to break his men, but he won't let that happen. It's strikingly different from the blazing heat they had worked in during the summer, but they've adapted. Several successful missions under his belt and Sergeant Major Seeley Booth is the same as ever. Trying not to think about everything he'd given up to go back to this. Because this seems to be all he's good for.
The illusion of being a good FBI Agent has passed, the illusion of ever having been near good enough for her has left him. This is what he is, what he's always been. A killer. He doesn't know how far it goes back, but he knows it started with John Wilkes Booth, passed on to his military father in the Vietnam War, and now lives in him. Born to do this, to protect his country. Nothing more. He's a machine, a man-made machine, to take out the enemy and protect civilians. There will be casualties. He refuses to feel pain.
