Booth pressed a hand to his forehead and groaned in frustration. Four days of interviewing, with Bones tagging faithfully behind, and no leads. He glared at the pie on his plate as though it was somehow responsible for his lack of success.

The sound of Bones' cell phone going off in her bag brought his attention back to the forensic anthropologist sitting across from him. She had been quiet all week, back to her evasive act – if you asked her, she'd say nothing was wrong. It was driving him nuts.

"Brennan. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah. Silicate particulates, got it. Yeah, I'll tell Booth."

"Good news?" he asked hopefully.

"Not very conclusive, I'm afraid. Hodgins thinks the bodies were transported in a late-model Ford, based on the carpet fibers found on the clothing."

"That's not particularly helpful," said Booth, discouraged.

"I should get back to the lab, maybe there's more I can find," said Bones. "I could work up a profile of where they lived based on the composition of their bones."

"Fine, do it. I'll drop you off. And then go home, okay? You've been working triple over-time on this case, plus the bones in limbo."

"There's a lot to do," said Bones neutrally, but her eyes looked swollen, as though she hadn't been getting a lot of sleep. Booth sighed. He was familiar with the condition.

"I'm gonna make a call to Organized Crime, see if they can give us an inside guy to talk to."

"And then you're going to go home, too right?" asked Bones skeptically.

"You bet." Booth offered his 'charm smile,' but as he had noticed recently, Bones was immune.

They left the diner, Booth realizing too late that he had not even tried to tempt her into trying a bite of the pie.

...

"Look, I don't even know what you're talking about, okay!"

"I'd guess I'm talking about the conviction that ends your parole," said Booth, holding up a bag full of white powder. He had collared an informant that had been referred to him by the Organized Crime Division of the FBI, and he wasn't about to let him go without getting some useful information.

"Listen, man, I could get killed just for talking to you," the twitchy man complained, tugging on his too-tight collar as he tried to avoid Booth's well-honed interrogation stare.

"Or you could get off on what seems like a pretty slam-dunk drug conviction," Booth suggested, holding the evidence he'd lifted from the informant's car. "What do you think of that option?"

"Fine, man, fine. All I've heard is, there's some people, say, in the market of pharmaceuticals, for example, that might be paying a lot of attention to your investigation. Like, an unusual amount of attention."

"So what are you saying, that this is connected to a drug ring?" asked Booth skeptically. "The murder of two children?"

"I'm just telling you what I hear on the street," muttered the snitch.

"I don't need a rumor, my friend, I need a name." Booth shook the baggie in a silent threat.

"These guys have ears everywhere," the snitch insisted; "you think they don't know what they're doing? You think they won't know if you talk to me?'

"I'm FBI, I think you're pretty safe," said Booth.

"No way."

Booth rolled his eyes. "I promise, just between the two of us."

"Yeah, until you make a phone call."

"What? What did you say?"

"Nothing, I didn't say anything! I can't tell you anything more than I already have, seriously."

"I need a name," Booth insisted. "Just give me a name."

When the other man offered him one, Booth cursed viciously and sprinted back to the car.

...

Bones had been trying to write the last few chapters of her new book, in which Kathy and Andy caught the murderer and indulged in the inevitable sexual gratification demanded by her readers (this time, set in a kitchen) but instead she found herself writing paragraphs about Kathy after Andy's death:

Once Andy was gone, Kathy stopped seeing color. Food didn't taste good anymore. She became tone-deaf and music on the radio sounded off-key. She developed a rash and wondered if it was an allergy to sunlight. She couldn't shake an unnatural fixation on her fingernails. When people asked how she was feeling, Kathy didn't know what to say. She didn't feel anything at all: not happy, not sad. Just blank. When Kathy tried to look at human remains, she saw, not Andy, but herself as a skeleton on the table. Brittle and dry, fleshless, turning slowly to dust.

These chapters were hideous. Nobody wanted to read something depressing like that; fiction was supposed to be about escape, about diversion. And Andy wasn't supposed to die anyway - they solved the case and moved on, just like any other time.

Bones deleted these paragraphs as soon as she wrote them. She had started dodging her agent's calls, waiting for the inspiration to write the chapter that she needed.

Luckily, a knock on the door distracted her from the blank page on her computer screen. She could see Booth's face through the peephole, and he didn't look pleased.

...

"That's what I thought. The cell phone's been tapped, Bones," said Booth, dropping it in two pieces on the bed.

He was still contemplating his options as he guided his car through the downtown traffic, heading back towards his apartment. How had they gotten close enough to the Jeffersonian – close enough to him – to get bug Bones' cell phone?

The easiest way to tap a phone was to switch it – wire an identical model and then switch the SIM card. It wasn't hard if the phone in question was fairly new (most people wouldn't be able to tell one phone from the other) but Bones' phone was three years old.

How many people in DC were buying an outdated phone these days?

"Well, you could do a computer search," said Booth to himself. "Or just give it up for tonight, and get some sleep."

He was tired; he should go home. But that would put them another step behind these creeps, who murdered little children, who haunted his partner's dreams. With a sigh, he steered his SUV into a U-turn and headed back to the office.

The red blinking light of his answering machine greeted him when he got there.

...

Pots and pans clattered in the sink as Kathy pushed herself suddenly up against him, tugging his head down impatiently so she could reach his mouth, reach that smirk that taunted her all week long. Finally she would wipe it off of his face, preferably with her tongue. He let out a quiet oof of surprise as his back hit the countertop, his arms coming up automatically to her waist. Kathy, maybe we should talk about this he started to say, but she was tired of talking, tired of waiting, her hands were shaking, she wanted a drink, she wanted his mouth on hers. She wanted him, needed him, couldn't think about anything else. Finally, she thought - it was the word that was pulsing in her head, steady as a beat. Finally.

...

Booth was cursing under his breath as he took the stairs three at a time. Stupid Bones, stupid mobsters, stupid Booth. How could he have missed that particular, mulish look that she got when she was plotting something? He was supposed to know her better than that. Who the hell else was going to protect her from herself?

He heard the distant popping of gunfire before he got halfway up the stairs, and suddenly he was sprinting, holding his breath and praying that he would get there in time, that he would not be too late. He had gotten her before his so-called partner had fed her to the dogs, gotten to her before she had run out of oxygen in a buried car. Please God, let him get there on time again. Just one more time, just this time, and he would never ask for anything again.

()()()()()

Well, dear readers, the next (final) chapter involves violence, death, and a scene between our two main characters in a kitchen.