A/N: This chapter takes a darker turn. I hope you'll stick with me through it. I'm impressed and pleased with all the very insightful messages I've received. They've really made this easier (and more fun) to write. Thank you so much!


Chapter 7: Push Through the Pain

Booth awoke before his alarm went off. Again. He signed as he laid there in bed, just thinking about how wonderful it would be to sleep just another hour more. He'd had trouble sleeping since the doc's had found the bone cancer a month ago, buried in the damaged part of his spine. The pain had made sleeping irregular at best, impossible at worst. The doctors had given him six months if he didn't shift, but right now he was feeling like he had less than 24 hours. It would lessen as he got up and started moving, but in the meantime, everything hurt. To get rid of it, he needed to shift, and shift soon.

Groaning as he dragged himself out of bed, he got ready for his day two hours ahead of schedule. He jogged a circuit around his neighborhood, taking a different route from the day before. His run became more of a pleasure than a torment around mile two, and he felt almost human around mile three. Loosening his muscles helped with the pain, though he imagined Brennan saying in that adorable, science-y way of hers that it was the endorphins and adrenaline from the run that deadened the pain.

Taking his time, he went through his morning routine, showering and dressing in his suit and tie, but slipping on his supportive shoes rather than the shiny, uncomfortable ones. His feet still ached from the trauma they had undergone as a prisoner of war, even though he had 21 shifts under his belt. He slipped on Cocky; he needed all the self-esteem boost he could get when he felt like something that someone scraped of the bottom of their shoe with a stick.

His alarm shrilled on his nightstand, reminding him that he was up too early. Booth turned it off vengefully, slapping it into silence. He decided to get his breakfast at the diner, rather than eat in his silent, echoing apartment. It was early enough that traffic was light and there were only a couple of construction workers at the diner, sitting at the counter. He ordered his high protein breakfast and coffee, then on impulse ordered a large bowl of fruit and a second cuppa joe. He ran it over in his mind, deciding to eat at the Jeffersonian. It was better than sitting in the Hoover like a loser, whilst everyone else rushed in three minutes past the hour.

With his to-go bag in hand, he wandered into the famous Medico-Legal Lab of the Jeffersonian. The security guards greeted him by name, used to the odd hours that he and his partner kept during a case. He nodded to them, friendly enough to show that he appreciated them, but casual enough to show them that he was more dominant than simple security guards. He was startled as he saw the lights on in the Medico-Legal Lab, but shrugged it off until he entered through the sliding glass doors. The smell of antiseptic and decomposition along with a faint hint of, what he called, the dust of history greeted him as he walked into the lab area. The first thing he saw was Brennan standing on the platform, bent over some bones laid out on one of those shiny tables.

"Bones, please don't tell me you worked here all night!" he exclaimed, striding up to the edge of the platform. She had different clothes on under the lab coat than the day before, but that didn't mean anything, she always kept a change of clothes here.

"I just came in, Booth," she said, startled out of her study of the bones. "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to give you some breakfast," he said, covering his half-baked excuse with a charming smile and a bowl of fruit with a large coffee. Her look of suspicion was very cute.

"But you were surprised to see me," she said, logically working it out. "Therefore you weren't here to give me breakfast."

"I was just going to leave it on your desk for you," he blustered. He shook the bowl of fruit a little, feeling the pieces bump against the plastic lid. Slowly, her face softened as she removed her gloves and stepped down from the platform, walking to her office with him in step. She looked gorgeous, as usual. Her dog tags were visible today, lightly clinking against her V-neck shirt. He still hadn't got used to his as it tangled with his St. Christopher's medal, and wondered, did Brennan hate hers and all they stood for too?

"Why are you awake so early?" Brennan asked, taking off her lab coat. She answered her own question in an instant, reading his body the way he read her emotions. "The pain is getting worse."

Her sympathetic voice was almost more than he could bear. "It's fine, Bones. I just wanted to get a jump on this case, that's all," he said, brushing off her concern. They climbed up the stairs to the lounge up top. Brennan microwaved some instant oatmeal, adding in a generous helping of chopped pecans while Booth opened his box containing a huge mound of eggs, several strips of bacon, and a sausage biscuit. When she sat down next to him with her breakfast, he offered her a strip of bacon. She declined gracefully.

"It's so weird that you don't eat meat," he commented, crunching happily. "I mean, what do you do when you shift? Eat grass?"

"No, I only eat what I hunt. It's much healthier that way. I just don't eat overly processed foods like bacon," she explained, not for the first time.

"It's still weird. I mean, we're carnivores. You'd think you'd eat meat no matter what form you were in." His mouth was full of eggs as he talked, but Brennan ignored him and continued eating her fruit and oatmeal. "So, did you find anything on the bones you got up bright and early to look at?" he asked.

"Yes," she answered, swallowing the last grape from the bowl before continuing. "I assume that Cam told you about the bite marks on the forearms." At his nod, she went on, "I examined them, and the dimensions match a lupine shapeshifter."

Booth grimaced and explained, "We're running the mold through the SSDU, but even Angela's magic database scanner isn't speeding up the process much because they've just recently started to go digital with this and the records are a mess."

"Why does everything have to be magic with you, Booth?" she asked teasingly. Booth smiled and bumped her shoulder with his.

"Why does everything have to be science with you, Bones?" he shot back. They shared a sweet, teasing smile. Booth inhaled the unique scent of deep green jungle with cool pools of water that defined her. She always smelled like she had just come from stalking game in a lush forest, even when she had been dealing with dead things all day. That smell drew him in and haunted his dreams more times than he could count. While she could go on all day about pheromones and ideal candidates to sire progeny, he knew—deep down knew—it was that old black magic that had him in its spell.

The spell was broken by voices floating up from the entrance. They both looked down at whoever was at the lab before they absolutely had to be. Daisy walked in, followed closely by Sweets. Booth could tell that they were arguing, and it was clear to him that Sweets was losing.

"You can take the day off, you know," Sweets said, trailing behind his mate. "I know that Dr. Saroyan would authorize a personal day."

"Lance, I'm fine," she shot back, moving into the Ookie room to retrieve her grey lab coat. Booth and Brennan watched the tops of their heads, not wanting to eavesdrop, but also not wanting to get involved in an argument between them. By mutual consent they threw away their empty breakfast containers and quickly washed up. The running water obscured Sweets' and Daisy's voices as Brennan washed her bowl and spoon, setting them out to dry.

"Dr. Brennan is my thesis professor, as well as the best forensic anthropologist in the world, Lance. Do you think I would jeopardize my internship for a day off in the middle of a big case? No," Daisy said harshly. Her voice sounded so different from her usual spirit, it was hollow.

Booth stood awkwardly away from the edge of the catwalk, hoping that he could remain oblivious if he didn't see them and they didn't see him. Brennan had a different idea. After everything was put away, she walked downstairs, not looking behind her to see if Booth was following. Which left Booth no choice but to follow. Trust Brennan to take the least tactful way out of this mess.

"I'm just saying that you can take it easy for one day. Give yourself time to…" Sweets trailed off when he saw Brennan and Booth on the stairs.

"Dr. Brennan!" Daisy gasped. She turned her face away from the partners quickly, but not before they saw. Daisy's normally cheerful face was white and strained, and her left eye was swollen and turning a nasty shade of reddish-purple. Sweets looked roughed up as well. His pouty red lips were puffy and scabbed, his jaw holding a bruise to match Daisy's black eye.

"What happened?" Booth asked sternly. His gut clenched as the sight of Daisy looking so ashamed. It brought back the memories of his father throwing hurtful words at him, followed by his fists; the bruises that didn't fade in time for the junior prom. He remembered the feel of his grandfather's old pistol as he thought about ending his life. He hoped that it wasn't what he thought it was, but he didn't let that hope get in the way of his search for the truth.

"It's nothing, Agent Booth," Daisy said, gathering her pride and tossing the words with an arrogant tilt of her head. She had used a body wash with a slight perfume to cover her scent, but Brennan and Booth still smelled the bitter odor of her fear. Booth watched his partner out of the corner of his eye and saw that she was as distressed at the young couple's injuries as he was. He wondered if she had ever gone to school with only mediocre excuses to cover a black eye or bruised face.

"It's a Pack matter," Sweets growled quietly. Booth felt the hopelessness radiating off Sweets and the young psychologist's eyes were not quite lifted high enough to meet Booth's. "You wouldn't understand."

"Just because I'm not a part of a Pack doesn't mean I wouldn't understand," Booth said, stepping forward to tower over the hunched Sweets. Sweets' scent let Booth know that he was intimidated, but he held his ground reluctantly.

"You aren't a wolf like us," he countered, still not meeting either Booth or Brennan's eyes. His entire body was tensed, ready to run away at the first hint of danger. "We were born this way and we have to live this way. You weren't. So just leave it be."

"You are an intelligent young man, Dr. Sweets," Brennan said. Booth was glad that she finally snapped out of her memories and entered the conversation. "And you know that it doesn't matter whether or not you were born this way. You must see that abuse is wrong. Even a soft science like psychology recognizes that."

"Don't insult him right now, Bones," Booth whispered to Brennan. She meant well, but, man was she as tactless as ever.

"I'm not insulting him. I'm merely pointing out the faults of his chosen profession," Brennan whispered back.

"I'm just saying that you should think about what you say to a victim of abuse before you just spout off whatever you want," he said, still in the whisper that everyone heard.

"We're assuming that they are victims of abuse. Maybe they got into a bar fight," Brennan mused. She turned to Sweets and Daisy and asked, "Did you engage in physical altercation at a bar?"

"Jeez, Bones," Booth whined, "It's obvious that they didn't get into a bar fight. I mean, can you see Sweets in a bar fight?"

"I'll assume that question was rhetorical," she responded.

"Hey!" Sweets protested, "That's worse than not answering!"

The partner's side argument partially diffused the tension. It was so typically "them" that Daisy had time to gain her composure and Sweets slowly straightened from his hunched, tense position. Sweets met Booth's eyes cautiously.

"We'd appreciate it if you didn't make a big deal out of this," Sweets requested.

"I don't like to see my colleagues hurt," Brennan confessed. Booth saw that shrink-y look in Sweets' eye at Brennan's admission. He knew that it was going to bite them later in their counseling sessions, but he was still proud of her for saying it.

"If someone in the Pack is messing with you…" Booth began.

"Cesar decided to hand out punishments and rewards last night," Daisy said, raising her chin so she could look them in the eye. Eye contact was fraught with meaning within the structure of a Pack. Although Booth and Brennan didn't care to involve themselves within that structure, they appreciated the effort it took for Daisy and Sweets, who were both submissive wolves, to make eye contact with two alphas. Daisy went on, "I arrived at the meeting late and the Alpha couldn't let my disrespect to the Pack pass. Lance stood up for me." Her manner when she talked about her mate was soft and adoring and Sweets smiled shyly at her proud tone, displaying his busted lip. Despite the annoyance that he could be capable of, Booth was proud of the kid for what he did, too.

"I still don't believe that physical abuse is the way to punish an offender, especially for something as trivial as arriving late," Brennan said angrily.

"Is there another Pack you could transfer to?" Booth asked pragmatically.

"Neither of us have any family in the area," Sweets said quietly. Daisy rubbed his arm lightly in comfort, knowing that he missed his foster parents very much. "If the Families won't take us in, we have to join the larger DC Pack for protection. Otherwise we'll be on our own."

"We're not like you," Daisy said, looking back and forth between the agent and her mentor. "It's part of who we are, as much as we hate it sometimes. We couldn't survive without the protection of a pack."

"And the Pack reigns supreme," Booth said in a sarcastic manner.

"I understand you've had your disagreements with the DC Pack," Sweets said, "But it's not all bad. They've helped us through some tough spots. I would never have made it through school if not for the Pack."

"And I would never have survived my first shift," Daisy chimed in, "I was only 14 and I didn't have any family to guide me through. I would have never survived until my fifteenth birthday without the Pack."

"I understand that you feel loyal to the Pack, but you shouldn't feel bad about wanting a better life," Booth argued.

"There is no 'better life' for us without the Pack," Sweets said forcefully. "Wolves are not meant to be alone. We have to have a pack around us, or we're not complete." He still looked scared and unsure, but Booth and Brennan's attitude and staunch support was easing the hopelessness out of his face. His bitter scent had eased as well, letting the partners relax a little. The submissive wolves' fear triggered all of the two alphas' protective instincts.

"We would have to move out of DC to find a pack to take us in," Daisy said, and her glance around was enough to tell Booth how devastated she felt at the thought of leaving this place.

"Well, maybe we could open an investigation…" Booth suggested doubtfully, but Sweets cut him off before he could go any further.

"That would just make things worse," he said, shaking his head. "The Alpha is under a lot of pressure from the government right now. There's this dude from Shifter Affairs that's waiting for him to step out of line legally. The Alpha keeps to the letter of the law, and has a team of lawyers ready to back him up. If you open an FBI investigation, we could be the ones charged with challenging his authority. I can't take him on in a trial by combat." Sweets looked nervous just thinking the idea.

A challenge to the authority of someone who was higher in the Pack might result in some type of fight for dominance. Traditionally the fight for dominance has been physical, but there were precedents for financial wars or even contests in different categories. However, the fight for Alpha of a Pack was always a physical fight in animal form to surrender or to the death. Many times the challenging alpha shifter wouldn't surrender, even at the point of death, and the current Alpha was forced to kill the upstart shifter to secure his or her position. It was legal according to the Shapeshifter Laws of 1997, upheld by Wright v. United States. If the Alpha could prove in a court of law that Sweets and Daisy were challenging his authority with the intention of seizing control of the Pack, he could literally get away with murder.

Daisy shuddered, clutching her mate's arm for comfort. Her eyes went helplessly to Booth and then Brennan. "Don't worry," Booth reassured her, "We won't do anything to cause you trouble with your Alpha."

"Although he might respond to reason if I spoke with him," Brennan said musingly.

"Trust me, Bones," Booth said, chuckling a little, "You're the last person who he would respond to reasonably."

"What does that mean?" she asked angrily. "I am a very rational person, and I would be able to argue logically with anyone. Do you doubt my logic?" Booth realized that what he meant hadn't come out of his mouth with the same effect he wanted. While trying to pay her a compliment about how she affected male shapeshifters, he had unwittingly hit Brennan where it hurt the most—her precious logic. Brennan turned on him, almost forgetting the interested couple in front of them. Booth glanced at Sweets, as the other male in the room, but he seemed amused and not inclined to help out another guy.

"Bones, I just meant that Cesar Delgado wouldn't respond rationally to you, no matter how persuasive you were," he said, tap dancing around saying the true reasons. "Just let it go, Bones."

"Why? Why wouldn't an Alpha respond to me rationally if I explained my reasoning clearly and concisely?" she asked. Booth sighed. Of course Brennan wouldn't let it drop. But Booth gained a reprieve when the door to the lab slid open and Hodgins walked through. Daisy gave a little squeak and ran off to start her day before Hodgins saw her.

"Hey," Hodgins said, checking his watch, "Am I late and don't know it?" he joked. Booth wasn't in the mood, but he smiled tightly at the bug man. Brennan squinched up her face adorably in confusion.

"Of course not, Dr. Hodgins. We simply arrived early for various reasons. Do you need my expertise on something?" Brennan said, watching as Hodgins looked back and forth between the three standing there, trying to figure out the subtext. When he saw Sweets he gave a low, admiring whistle.

"What happened to you, man? Did Angela's dad get a hold of you?" he said, looking impressed at Sweets' split lip and bruised jaw.

"Something like that," Sweets deflected. He nodded to the two partners and then to Hodgins. "I'd better go. Tell Daisy I'm picking her up for lunch." He left in a hurry, the doors sliding closed behind him.

"I'd better get to work too," Booth said, angling his head toward the door. "You know, do some investigating."

He left, giving a little wave to Brennan as he followed Sweets' path out the door. As Booth disappeared through the door, Brennan turned and climbed the stairs to the platform to look at the bones again. Hodgins was left standing confused in the middle of the lab.

"Whoa, did everyone just leave because of me?"


A/N: I'd still love to hear from you!