One Week Earlier:

Special Agent Seeley Booth was theoretically good at finding people, but he was having no luck finding his own partner. He made a face at the phone in his hand as it went to voice mail for the third time, and hung up without leaving a message.

He left the office and walked out to his car, an uncharacteristic scowl on his face. So his pet squint wasn't answering the phone: he'd go talk to her in person.

As he drove the car – ominously silent without Bones' demands to drive or constant flow of scientific chatter – Booth tried to figure out how he could get through to her. He knew she was upset about Zach, but why was she taking it out on him?

When her mother's remains had surfaced, she hadn't shut him out like this: she had turned to him, eaten his Chinese food late at night, talked to him about the case, let him give her a guy hug. She had opened up when her father was on trial, and when she thought her brother was dead. But now she was avoiding him like the plague and he couldn't figure it out.

She wasn't in her lab.

He searched the Jeffersonian with increasing impatience: she was not in Angela's office, not at any of the gleaming metal tables, not in the lounge downstairs, where day-old coffee was fermenting in the pot.

Finally he stopped a guard and inquired.

"Oh, sure, Dr. Brennan," the old man nodded. "Saw her go into the storage room this morning. Never saw her come out."

Success! There she was, frowning into one of the boxes from the shelf. "You know, when someone calls you, it's polite to answer your phone."

"I'm busy, Booth," said Bones patiently, pulling a grotesquely grinning skull out of the box.

"Oh c'mon, with what? With these bones in limbo? No offense, Bones, but I don't think this is really a priority."

"My mother's body was recovered from this room," said Bones, without emotion. "Until everything here is put back into order, someone else's children will be waiting to find their parents."

"Bones." Booth put his hand over hers, stopping her from reaching into the box to extract the scapulae. What could he say to her? "You know, Zach didn't do this to hurt you."

"I know that, Booth. Zach was under the influence of a psychopath. But that doesn't change the fact that these people's families are counting on me to identify these remains." Pulling away from his hand with evident relief, Bones took out the bones and began laying them out neatly on the table.

"You know, Bones, I'm getting the sense that you're mad at me here," said Booth, trying to make her look up at him again, trying to hold her gaze. But she kept her eyes averted to the lab table. "But we have a case, I've been calling you."

"I can send Clark Edison out with you," said Bones distractedly.

"That the new squint?" Booth perked up his ears. When Zach was in Iraq Bones had refused to replace him for months. Had she found a new assistant so quickly?

"He's quite competent. I'll tell him to meet you outside by your car." The dismissal could not have been more obvious, but Booth stood his ground.

"Ah, sorry there Bones but I've got orders straight from Cullen that it's got to be you. There's a mob connection to the case, which is why it got bounced to the FBI and Cullen wants the best."

"Edison is almost as good as I am," said Bones blandly. Booth frowned; it wasn't like her to be modest.

"Well almost isn't good enough," he said, taking her elbow and tugging on it. "So get your coat, c'mon, let's go."

Bones put two of the skeleton's vertebrae, which she had been examining critically, into position, sliding them with the tip of her finger, until they were perfect. "Fine," she said, not sounding the least bit excited.

The half-assembled skeleton seemed to be sneering at him as Booth steered his partner out of the lab. He shuddered.

...

"See, this is great, Bones, you and me, back on the streets!"

She was staring resolutely out the window. "I don't know why you want me to come into the field," she said. "All I'm going to do is tell you to ship the body back to the Jeffersonian."

"Cullen says there's something strange about the skeleton," said Booth, trying to spark her interest in the case. "Maybe you'll be able to tell us something from seeing the site."

"Where was the body found?"

"An empty lot that's known as a local dumping grounds. Probably mob-related."

"Mm-hmm."

"Bones, you think maybe you could look at me when I talk to you?"

"Sorry." Bones brought her eyes up to his and Booth immediately wished she hadn't. She looked straight through him, as if he were an insect on a pin. Just as quickly, her eyes skirted away, back to the window.

"I get it, Bones, I do," said Booth, trying to shake the feeling that he had just been categorized. "Zach was like a son to you."

"Zach and I aren't related, Booth," said Brennan, flatly. "Unless you are suggesting that, by becoming a criminal behind my back, he was in some way similar to the rest of my family."

Booth flinched; Brennan met his gaze with eyes as unrevealing as the surface of a mirror.

"C'mon, Bones, talk to me," said Booth, turning the wheel to guide his SUV into the parking lot behind the crime season. He shut off the car. "What's going on up there?" as he spoke, he tapped on her forehead, and Brennan recoiled as though she'd been struck.

"Hey, woah, easy there!" he exclaimed.

"We should go look at the body right away," she said, ducking quickly out the other side of the car.

...

"So whatcha got?" asked Booth, leaning over her shoulder and peering down into the pit. Usually she hated it when he did this, and would insist that he back up, give her space. Instead she ignored him, staring fixedly at the slender shape of a humerus that was visible through the soil.

"Victim is male, young, maybe 15-20," she recited robotically, reaching with a gloved hand to brush away some of the dirt that obscured the bone. "Healthy at time of death, buried in the past year."

"Man, I hate cases with kids, said Booth, kicking the ground.

"This was an adolescent," Bones corrected automatically.

Bones had cleared away the soil to reveal the rest of the body, which lay contorted, in the supine position.

"You want the remains moved back to the Jeffersonian?"

"Yes, and the soil around him; Hodgins can tell us more about age of the site."

"Can you give me anything more on time of death?"

"Hmm." She considered. "Looking more closely, I'd say it's recent. Last six weeks, at least. The leg is decomposed to the bone as a consequence of exposure, but the rest of the body is largely intact." To demonstrate, Bones cleared the soil around the skeleton's face, and Booth saw that she was right; there was still skin and hair clinging to the remains.

"Shallow grave, decomposition is fairly rapid," said Bones clinically.

"It's going to rain," said Booth, staring up at the sky. "We should probably pack it up."

Bones stepped back to let the techs extract the skeleton. The earth seemed to cling to the remains, reluctant to give them up; then the body came away, the weeds and soil crumbling back. The clothing was still visible in tattered shards; a t-shirt, now grey, heavily stained.

When the remains were lying on a plastic sheet, Bones leaned closer to the body, putting her face horrifically close to the empty chest cavity. She frowned and then squatted back down next to the hole.

"Problems, Bones?"

"My initial guess is that the victim was killed when his neck was broken," said Bones. "But that typically doesn't include a lot of blood. But the stains on his shirt . . . looks like a lot of blood to me."

"So, what exactly are you looking for?"

Bones leaned down to comb through the dirt at the bottom of the hole. "Another body."

Booth squinted doubtfully at the overcast sky. "Better move fast," he warned, but Bones had already found what she was looking for. In the soil beneath the first body, she was uncovering the outline of a small, clenched fist.

When the second body was revealed even Booth could tell that the bones were small and delicate-looking. The figure that they suggested was something barely half-grown.

"Victim is female," said Bones neutrally, "probably between 8 and 10 years old at time of death." The rain started to fall as everyone at the scene scrambled to protect the remains.

"Damnit," said Booth.

...

The Jeffersonian was dark except for the light of Dr. Brennan's office, which was low and soothing. Bones was sitting at her desk in her stockings, having tossed her shoes to the side. She sighed into the phone. "This is Doctor Temperance Brennan of the Jeffersonian," she said, feeling as though it must be the tenth time she had repeated it. "I'm trying to reach Dr. Anthony Villers. It's regarding Dr. Zachary Addy."

"Please hold," said the voice at the other end of the line. Letting her head drop back against the chair, Bones prepared to start the inquiry all over again.

"This is Dr. Villers," said an unfamiliar voice, abruptly.

Bones felt an unexpected flash of hope. "Tony, this is Temperance Brenan." She knew Dr. Villers, the senior psychologist at Zach's hospital, from a series of forensic conferences.

"Temperance, good to hear from you. I assume this is in reference to Mr. Addy."

"Well, yes it is. I was actually wondering, that is, I was hoping I might be able to schedule a visit with Dr. Addy?"

There was a sigh. "Dr. Brennan, I'm going to talk to you as a colleague," said the voice. "I don't see Mr. Addy being ready for visitors in the foreseeable future."

"Can I ask you – could you tell me something about his status?" This was an inappropriate question; there were issues of confidentiality, she knew, but it was late at night, two professionals talking, and she knew rules could be broken.

"Obviously I can't give you a lot of specifics," said the other man, reluctance evident in his voice. There was a long pause. "But between the two of us, my current diagnosis will be schizophrenia."

"But – excuse me, but that doesn't make any sense," Bones stammered. "Dr. Addy hasn't experienced any of the symptoms, he is perfectly able to distinguish reality from fantasy. . ."

"Well, he's 26 years old," said the psychologist. "Which is within the peak age of onset for men. It wouldn't be surprising to see it only just starting to emerge now. But there are clear signs. His affect is flat, emotionless, and he seems to suffer from a lack of volition - meaning that he doesn't feel that he makes his own decisions, but feels that other people make them for him. He's socially immature. And he's began to experience hallucinations."

"When?" asked Bones sharply. "I've never seen him experience those symptoms."

"They've become rapidly apparent in the past few weeks," replied the other man. "He is rarely able to communicate effectively, and he struggles with everyday tasks, like driving or eating regular meals."

"You don't understand," said Bones. "You're comparing Zach to a normal person, but the truth is that he's not a normal person. He's highly intelligent - he's . . . he's very special."

"Dr. Brennan, that's true of almost all my patients. Now, I've started Zach on antipsychotic medication and we'll see how he adjusts to them within a few weeks."

"And you believe – you believe that this will help him," said Bones.

"There's no way to know, Dr. Brennan," said the doctor gently. "We don't really know what causes schizophrenia."

"You don't even know that schizophrenia exists," Bones shot back. "There's no test for it, no diagnosis, except that you say he has it."

The doctor was used to dealing with people far more argumentative than Dr. Brennan. "Nonetheless, that's my conclusion," he said.

"But – but Dr. Addy is not psychotic," Bones protested. She felt that the more times she used his title, the more that the psychologist would remember who they were talking about. "He was influenced by a terrible man, that's the psychopath, he was traumatized by his time in Iraq, but he's not a psychopath himself!"

"Of course he's not a psychopath," said Doctor Villers consolingly. "But he's still experiencing symptoms of schizophrenia, and until those relent, I cannot allow him to see visitors."

So there it was. "Can I write him a note?"

"I suppose that would be alright. If you address it to me, I'll see that he gets it."

"Thank you. Thank you for speaking with me," said Bones, feeling a familiar headache welling up between her eyes. "And if you could please call me," she added, "call me the moment I can come and visit him – "

"Certainly," said the doctor kindly.

After they had disconnected, Bones took a ball-point pen out of her purse and began to write on a page of notebook paper.

Zach, don't be afraid, your friends all love you. I will come and visit you as soon as I can. We all care about you and want –

Here she stopped. What could she write? That they wanted him to get better? That would imply that she believed he was sick. That they wanted him to come home? There was no guarantee that he would ever come home.

We all care about you and want to help you.

Love, Doctor Brennan.

To others it would probably seem strange sign a note like this, but she knew that Zach always thought of her as Dr. Brennan, so that's how she signed it.

As she closed up her office and walked out to her car, she had to wipe her eyes continuously, or she would not have been able to see where she was going.