Disclaimer: I only own the characters not seen in the show...

Summary: Booth calls Bones to help him on a case on a Caribbean cruise ship where he is vacationing…

A/N: I like to write stories about the Caribbean because it is my favorite place in the world, and I like to take Bones out of DC because I feel it allows for more freedom with the characters. Please enjoy and tell me what you think.

(--)

Dr. Temperance Brennan was in a mood. Fortunately for her companions it was not an excessively unpleasant one. She didn't complain about the wind in her hair or the sunlight glaring off her dark sunglasses and she didn't mention anything about the earliness of their trip. For all of this, Mike Pierce was thankful.

He tossed a glance at his partner, Evelyn Keyshaw; both of them had been warned about the woman sitting in their small police launch. Her partner said she had a fiery temper which would probably be directed at them since he was not in the vicinity. Pierce had laughed when he heard this but once he saw the tall, strong brunette with the ice-blue eyes, he realized the man hadn't been joking.

Since the doc had stepped into the boat she had only asked how long they expected the trip to take. Pierce had told her it would be about an hour. After that she hadn't spoken. She actually seemed like she was enjoying herself in the front of the launch. He even thought he caught a faint smile every once in a while.

After a while, the Dr. Brennan reached a hand to her brow, further shading her eyes, she turned to Pierce and Keyshaw and pointed to something on the horizon.

"Is that it?" Dr. Brennan asked.

Pierce grabbed the binoculars from a hook on the side of the boat. He directed them in the direction that Dr. Brennan was pointing. He was impressed, the woman was good. A squint for sure, but a talented one at that.

"I think so, Dr. Brennan," Pierce replied, "we should be there in about twenty minutes."

Brennan turned toward the partners standing behind her and frowned slightly, as if just noticing that there were two of them. Pierce raised an eyebrow at her. Then he realized that she wasn't looking at them, but at the floor of the boat. She was an odd one.

"Have you heard anything about what happened there?" she jabbed a thumb at the slowly growing dot.

Pierce shook his head, "Sorry, we know about as much as you do. We assumed your partner would've filled you in."

"Yeah, you'd think," Brennan replied.

"He said he'd be waiting for you when we arrived," Keyshaw said.

"How thoughtful…" Pierce noted how Brennan's mood seemed to have changed when discussing her partner. He sent an eyebrow raise to Keyshaw before averting his eyes to the ground. Both made a mental note not to mention him again.

(--)

Special Agent Seeley Booth leaned against the railing of the four-star cruise ship. His sunglasses rested on the bridge of his nose as he watched the early-risers pass by him on the way to breakfast and waited for Brennan to get there. A laugh at his side drew his attention to the deck where Parker was sitting with a coloring book and some crayons.

He knelt beside his son and put a hand on the boy's head. He felt bad for rousing Parker so early but when the head of the cruise security had knocked on his door at four-thirty the FBI agent couldn't deny his request for assistance. The problem was: the daycare service didn't open until 7:30 and with a dead body on board, Booth was skeptical about leaving his six-year-old son alone in their stateroom.

So here they were, sitting in the cool Caribbean air, on the deck of the Princess Grace, waiting for Bones to show up and do what she did best. It was only quarter to seven, so Parker would have to stay with them for the time being, assuming she arrived sometime that day.

He didn't mean to be annoyed with her. Actually, to tell the truth, it wasn't her. It was Sully. And that was because at five in the morning it was Sully who answered Bones' cell. Booth gripped the railing as he remembered Sully's voice over the phone, the rustling of sheets and then the tired sound of Bones' voice. By the time she picked up he was fuming. So maybe he'd been a little bit harsher with her than he'd intended and maybe he'd snapped when she asked what the case was, he really didn't mean to be a jerk.

He heard the faint sound of a boat engine in the distance. Head of Security Vincent Hernandez was standing beside him watching for Brennan's launch when he pointed at a small boat approaching. Booth stood up and turned toward the boat. Brennan was standing in the front, a dark grimace on her face. Booth straightened his tie and stepped to the side of the ship as the police launch pulled up next to the ladder.

"Hey Bones!" Booth called down to her. She glared up at him through her sunglasses. Once she reached the top, Booth gave her his charm smile but she didn't reply. Instead she turned to the little boy on the deck. They had met a few times before but the boy surprised Brennan when he threw his arms around her neck.

" Hiya Dr. Bones," Parker said.

"Hi Parker," Brennan smiled, pulling her sunglasses from her nose and nestling them on the child's face, "are you having fun?"

"Yeah, but I'm kinda tired. Daddy got me up real early this morning," Parker explained.

"I see," Brennan replied. She stood up and the boy latched onto her free hand. She glanced down at him and smiled before turning her glare back on Booth.

"So where am I going?" Brennan asked, implying Booth to direct her to the body.

"Boiler room," Booth replied. Brennan flinched slightly, "Yeah, it's not pretty."

"What's not pretty?" Parker asked. Brennan looked down at him quickly before glancing at Booth who knelt in front of his son.

"Parker, Bud, Dr. Brennan is here because I needed her help with something," Booth tried to explain.

"Agent Booth," Hernandez interrupted stepping forward, a young woman slightly behind him, "this is Melissa. She works in the children's area Discovery Land." The girl stepped forward.

"Sir, my shift doesn't start for another couple of hours but I'd be happy to watch your son for you while you and your wife work," Melissa, a pretty blonde, said.

"Oh! We're not--no, us…yeah no," Booth explained quickly, motioning between he and Brennan with his hand.

"Oh, I beg your pardon, I assumed," Melissa replied.

"It's fine," Booth waved it off casually, stopping his mind from imagining what it would really be like if he and Bones were married. He shuddered at the thought.

After a moment, Booth noticed that Brennan was looking at him expectantly, as were Hernandez and Melissa. He realized they were waiting for him to reply to Melissa's offer to take care of Parker while he and Bones investigated the body. He shifted his eyes to Temperance quickly before smiling brightly at Melissa.

"That would be helpful." From the corner of his eye, he saw Bones bend down to Parker's side again.

"Parker, your Daddy and I have work we have to do, but how would you like it if you went with Melissa so you wouldn't be bored?" Brennan suggested.

"Okay," Parker nodded and transferred his hand from Temperance's to Melissa's. The blonde gave Tempe a last look before smiling down at Parker and leading him in the opposite direction.

Brennan watched as Melissa took Parker away and felt a pang of guilt that they were just sending him away on his own vacation. But she ignored the feeling and turned back to Booth and the older man standing next to him. The older man stepped forward and, extending his hand, introduced himself as Vincent Hernandez, Head of Security.

"It's a real honor to have you on board. Agent Booth has spoken nothing but good things of you," Hernandez said, a smile plastered on his tan face.

"Thank you," Temperance replied, she noticed the two police officers who had brought her over to the cruise ship on their boat, "these are Officers Pierce and Keyshaw, from the St. Thomas Police Department."

Both Booth and Hernandez shook hands with the pair. Introductions out of the way, Brennan asked to be taken to see the body. On the way to the boiler room, Hernandez explained how one of his maintenance men found it early this morning. He said they immediately called on Booth. Brennan questioned how they knew he was FBI. Booth explained that he had to tell them so he could bring his firearm. Brennan called him paranoid. Booth rolled his eyes.

"This is where we found it," Hernandez pointed to a corpse pulled halfway out of a steaming coal pit. Brennan frowned at the body, analyzing every detail, doing her job.

"What does it look like?" Booth questioned. His notepad had been left at home. Brennan might think him paranoid for bringing his gun but he hadn't really expected to be working a case while on vacation. He was currently writing on one of the complementary message pads from his stateroom.

"Female. Twenty-five to thirty years of age. She was short about 5'4" standing straight up," Brennan stepped forward, "is this thing off?" she asked pointing to the boiler.

"Yes ma'am," a surly maintenance man said. Brennan nodded, but still she approached cautiously. She rolled one of her latex gloves over hand and grabbed her tweezers from the bag at her feet.

"What is it, Bones?" Booth inquired.

"Looks like a tattoo," Brennan replied, "Some sort of Chinese character."

"Do you know what it means?" Booth asked.

"No, but give me your notebook," she ordered. He rolled his eyes again and handed her the pencil and complementary pad. She glanced down at it and frowned before looking back at him.

"Vacation, Bones," he answered. Brennan nodded and turned back to the corpse. She began her amateur sketch of the tattoo that was barely visible on the burned wrist, all the while wishing Angela was there to help her.

"She's certainly a feisty one isn't she?" Hernandez whispered softly to Booth. The agent looked at him and nodded slightly, smiling cheekily as he did so.

(--)

"Dr. Brennan, I don't think you understand, we are on a ship," Captain Gerard Antoine stood nose to nose with the doctor while Booth, Hernandez and the two cops stood scattered around the room.

"Of course I understand, that would explain why there's water on all sides," Brennan snapped back.

"Then let me make it perfectly clear to you," the Captain said, "you cannot take a launch and expect to get to any island with an airport which you can transport the body."

"Captain, with all due respect," Booth snorted behind her and she threw a look of daggers at him before turning her icy glare back on the captain, "the people in DC can better identify the body, find a cause of death and allow Booth to continue his investigation down here."

"I thought we already knew how she died? They found her in the boiler, didn't they, Hernandez?" the man nodded in response, "then what do you need, Dr. Brennan?"

"I need to identify the body!" Brennan said with exasperation.

"Hernandez, search guests and staff, find out who's missing," Antoine said. Hernandez nodded and stepped out of the cabin.

"Well, perhaps you'll let Booth do his job, since you are preventing me from doing mine," Brennan said coolly. The captain gave her a look.

"Dr. Brennan, we are a highly rated cruise line, and I refuse to allow you to instill a panic by openly removing a body from the inner holds of this ship."

"Captain, don't you think people are gonna figure it out soon enough? I think it'll create less of a panic if people are told about it."

"Dr. Brennan, I allowed Agent Booth to bring you here because I assumed he needed your help. He did. I did not ask you to be here. So excuse me if I ignore your advice."

Brennan shook her head in disgust and threw her arms above her head. With a frustrated huff, she turned on her heel and stalked back to Booth's side. He gave her a sympathetic smile but she was staring straight ahead. Apparently her anger was deep-seeded this morning. Booth yawned. He realized he'd barely gotten enough sleep the previous night. He'd been up late, pacing, finding that sleep escaped him because he was worrying. He worried that Brennan would be thrown a case, get herself into trouble, as usual, and not be able to get herself out of it.

It was stupid, he knew. Temperance was a strong woman. She could take care of herself, and she made that known to everyone, especially him. Still, he liked knowing that she did in fact need him sometimes, even if it was just when she was up against immeasurable circumstances of danger and death. He grinned at the scientist standing beside him. She was even more gorgeous when she was mad.

The captain had begun talking with his First Mate when a faint knock on the cabin door attracted his attention. Hernandez stepped inside he wore a worried look on his face. Booth and Brennan frowned as they saw a hysterical woman standing outside the cabin. She was dressed in a nightie and sheer silk bathrobe.

"Sir, there's something you should hear," Hernandez jabbed his thumb over his shoulder at the woman who several cruise employees seemed to be trying to calm down.

"Bring her in," Antoine said.

Hernandez nodded again, turned and beckoned the girl inside. She looked completely frazzled. Her hair was matted, her mascara was running down her cheeks and her face was red and splotchy. She was a mess. Booth immediately stepped forward, placing a comforting hand on her forearm.

"Miss, what's wrong? Did something happen to you?" Booth questioned softly.

The woman looked up, "Me? No. Oh, god. What am I going to do? I was supposed to watch her! What was I supposed to do? I have to work too, you know! I can't believe this."

"Miss, please calm down, why don't you start by telling me your name…" Booth suggested.

"My name? My name is Penny, Penny Persons."

"Okay, Miss Persons, you said you were supposed to watch her? Who were you referring to?"

"Izzy, I was supposed to watch Izzy!" Penny said, grabbing onto Booth's arm.

"Who's Izzy? Your sister?"

"No, she's Regina's little girl!"

" Regina, Regina who?"

"Um, Daly, Regina Daly."

"So, Izzy Daly is missing?"

"Yes! Don't you understand? I thought Regina had he but then I heard what happened and I freaked out."

"What happened?" Brennan stepped forward, interest peaking her voice.

"Yeah, about that body in the boiler..." Penny looked between Booth and Brennan.

"How did you hear about that?" Antoine asked, anger lacing his voice.

"That's not important; you think the body belongs to Regina Daly?" Booth asked, "How did you gather that?"

"Somebody said something about a Chinese tattoo. Regina has one."

"Well, Miss Persons, a lot of people have Chinese tattoos," Brennan said softly.

"Not on their wrist. Regina's was on her wrist. It meant tranquility. It was to remind her of Izzy, because that what she brought. Look, you have to find Izzy. I'm afraid someone took her!"

"Miss Persons, you're gonna have to start from the beginning. Please, tell us everything you remember," Booth pulled out his note pad and pencil and pulled Penny to the side.

Brennan stepped over to the captain, "Congratulations, now we have a missing child on our hands."

"You'll move the body when we reach San Juan in three days."

"You better hope no one else dies before then." Brennan gave him a last look before turning on her heel and stalking out of the cabin, needing fresh air to calm her nerves. She didn't want Booth to see but she was frightened. They were on a ship with a murderer and no escape. She gazed down into the vast ocean below her…an endless darkness that she could already feel swallowing her whole without mercy. She shivered and turned away from the railing. A sign for the galley caught her attention. She realized she hadn't eaten anything since the night before and her stomach was aching from lack of food. With a little effort she straightened and headed in the direction of breakfast.

(--)

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