The next day, Booth made his flight back to DC by about five minutes, and sat staring out the window for most of the time he should have been doing paperwork. It was cold and snowy in Burlington; warmer and wetter in DC, the snow melted and a steady drizzle falling, when he touched down at the Ronald Reagan airport at ten-thirty. From there, he went straight to the Hoover to meet with Werner.
"Have you talked to Sweets?" Werner demanded, before Booth could say word one about the case.
He shook his head. They were in the Deputy Director's office, Booth's suit more rumpled than he liked and the bump on his noggin big enough to make people look twice.
"Uh – no, sir, not since I left for Vermont yesterday. Is there a problem?"
Werner shot him a glare. The man was usually at least reasonable, but it was pretty clear today that something had gotten his shorts in a twist. Booth could only hope that something didn't have anything to do with him.
"I'm just having a hard time getting updates since he started this goddamn evaluation," Werner finally told him. "If there's a problem and it turns out you and Brennan don't pass this thing, I need to be in the loop."
Booth stayed quiet, since he hadn't actually been asked a question. Werner raised his eyebrows impatiently.
"So?"
"Uh – so what, sir?" Booth asked. He wasn't trying to be a smartass – it just turned out that no sleep and two bottles of JD in less than forty-eight hours wasn't quite as easy to shake off as it'd been ten years ago.
"So, is there a problem?"
The agent shook his head too fast to be believed, then got his cool back after a second or two.
"No, sir – not that I'm aware of. The case is going well, and me and Bones are working together the same way we always do."
The Deputy Director didn't look convinced, but he didn't call Booth on it, either. Instead, he changed the subject back to the case – which, it turns out, was kind of a relief. Within twenty minutes, Booth had updated him on where they stood:
Black Ridge was definitely at the root of the bodies they'd found, as far as he was concerned. The parents of the latest two victims would be at the Hoover that afternoon, and Booth would try to find a link to the Ridge and them once he had a chance to spend some time with them. He was trying to track down surviving members of the Black Ridge militia group that'd been stormed back in '78, but so far all he was coming up with were dead ends. Bones was still working on cause of death, and he was due to meet everyone at the Jeffersonian in half an hour to get an update on how they were doing.
When he was done briefing Werner, the Deputy Director was quiet for a long time. Finally, he fixed Booth with sharp eyes, and Booth couldn't decide whether the man was concerned or annoyed. Maybe a little bit of both.
"I just want to make sure you're taking care of yourself in this thing. It's a bitch of a case – believe me, I know that. But you need to take a step back – don't let it eat you, Seeley. There's too much riding on this for you to go down now. Get some sleep – take a couple hours and hit the shooting range or the hot tub, whatever the hell you do to relax. You're the face of the Bureau in this whole nightmare – I need you looking sharp, not half-dead."
Booth nodded and stood. "Yes, sir. It's been a long week – "
"I don't want excuses, Booth," Werner cut him off, an edge to his words now. "Just get yourself together. We'll all be working this weekend, but if you're leading my men you need to look the part."
This time, he didn't bother trying to explain. Obviously, it was pointless – and he was better than cheap excuses, anyway. He just stood arrow straight like he was back in the Rangers, and nodded again.
"Yes, sir. It won't happen again."
He left Werner's office at a fast clip, wanting to put as much distance between him and the Deputy Director as he could before he did something stupid like go back in and tell the old man exactly what he could do with the job and the case and the whole goddamn Bureau.
Instead, he went to the john and splashed cold water on his face. There were circles under his eyes and he hadn't had time to shave before he left Vermont that morning, which meant a greasy looking five o'clock shadow had taken hold. Getting his overnight bag from his office, he went back to the bathroom and shaved himself clean. Changed into a fresh shirt he kept in his office, and a new tie for good measure.
When he was done, he stared at himself in the men's room mirror one more time.
"Pull it together, Seeley," he whispered to himself.
The man staring back at him stood tall. Good looking, athletic, clean shaven. And haunted, in ways Booth was suddenly pretty sure he'd never be able to erase.
He turned his back on the image, grabbed his things, and left the room.
It was time to hit the Jeffersonian.
When he got to the lab, the four kids' skeletons were laid out on tables on the platform, Bones and Wendell working on something over the smallest of the four. Booth swiped his ID card and forced himself not to take the steps two at a time, just to get to Bones faster.
Maybe it should have made him feel better that she didn't look any better than he did, but it didn't. Her hair was in its usual work ponytail, but there were dark circles under her blue eyes and her clothes were just a little rumpled, her face kind of drawn.
Before she could get her emotions under control or let that cool work-mode Bones mask fall, he saw her smile when she caught sight of him – just a flash, a little spark in her eyes that Booth knew he hadn't just imagined. Suddenly, half a dozen things that had seemed unbearable five minutes ago weren't all that bad.
He smiled back at her. "Hey, Bones." Relieved that his voice sounded normal – same old Booth, same old Bones.
Wendell looked at both of them and the idea that everything was normal as pie went out the window. The intern's eyes got a little wide, an uncomfortable smile on his lips while he looked around like he'd just as soon jump out a window than stay in the same room with the two of them.
"Wendell," Booth said, with an even nod.
"Hey, Booth," Wendell said, still looking around for an exit. "Well, I guess I should just, you know, uh…" He went blank for a second, and Bones looked at him like she thought he was nuts.
"I asked if you would bring the samples to Hodgins to run for traces of lead," she finally reminded him.
"Yeah!" Wendell agreed, nodding. "Right, you did – so, that's what I'm gonna do. Now. Good to see you, Booth."
"Yeah, you too." He gave Wendell a nod as the kid was rushing off, then turned to Bones.
"I just came to get the update," he said, in case she was getting ready to freak out that he was there.
She nodded, a flicker of what he thought was maybe disappointment in her eyes.
"Of course," she said. Her voice was cool, but not cold. She went over to a light box and turned it on, and four sets of dental x-rays lit up at once.
Booth went over and stood beside her. Their shoulders touched, and they stayed that way for maybe half a second before she moved. It was a little thing, but it still hurt. She cleared her throat.
"These are the dental films for the four victims. You'll note here – " she moved closer, pointing to a spot on the front teeth of each of the films, "that there's an area where the enamel has been chipped on both the top and the bottom incisors."
Booth thought about it for a second before he finally shook his head. "Sorry, Bones, you're gonna have to spell it out for me. They all have chipped teeth – what's that mean to us?"
She turned the light back off and nodded. "That's not the best method of explanation, anyway." A second of silence passed, while she seemed to be trying to work something out in her head. Finally, she sighed.
"This is ridiculous. Follow me."
He didn't know what, exactly, was ridiculous – but it seemed like it didn't actually have anything to do with him for a change, so he was grateful. They went to Angela's office, where the artist was standing in front of one of her paintings, just staring at it. When she saw the two of them coming in, she set her jaw and crossed her arms over her chest.
"Ange," Bones opened. The way she said it made it sound like they were continuing a conversation Booth hadn't been part of before. One that hadn't gone all that well so far.
"I told you, I'm not going near that thing again. Get Jack to do it. Or Cam. Hell, Booth can do it for all I care."
Booth looked at Bones, hoping for an explanation. "What am I supposed to be doing, exactly?"
Bones sighed. "They can't do it. I can't do it. It's called the Angelator for a reason, Ange – you know how to run it."
"I don't care, Brennan. All right? I showed you – I'm not looking at it again. Fire me, I don't care. You'd probably be doing all of us a favor."
"Angela, you're being illogical – "
The artist's chin was up and her jaw set, but Booth could tell she was about two seconds from losing it. He took a step toward her, and a tear rolled down her cheek.
"Sorry, Ange, but I think I came in about fifteen minutes before the credits on this one. You mind getting me up to speed?"
She kind of laughed and cried at the same time, brushing away a tear. It was just the three of them in the office, the Angelator glowing misty gold in an otherwise semi-dark room. Booth turned to Bones.
"Why don't you go grab Hodgins," he said quietly. "Give us a couple minutes."
Bones actually looked relieved. She was about to say something else about how unreasonable Angela was being, but seemed to think better of it. Instead, she clamped her mouth shut and left without another word.
When they were alone, Booth nodded toward her chair.
"Why don't you have a seat, and tell me what's up."
He expected a fight, but all of a sudden it seemed like all the fight had gone out of her. She slumped to her seat and brushed away her tears.
"I don't know how they do this," she finally said, once she'd gotten her voice. "Or how you do. Maybe that's the better question – you actually have a soul, you don't have some bizarre science brain that cuts the world into perfect little pieces that never actually touch you. How do you do this?"
Booth thought about the question honestly for a while before he answered – Angela was a friend, she at least deserved him to be straight with her. He grabbed a chair and turned it backward, straddling it with his arms resting on the back.
"You mean, how do I talk to the parents of kids younger than Parker, and tell them their son or daughter's never coming home again? Or how do I look at everything that's been done to those kids and still get up and face another day every morning? Or how do I catch the monsters who do what they do, and not get lost in all that crazy darkness myself?"
She kind of laughed when he was done – a dark laugh, not much humor to it. "All of the above, I guess."
He thought some more. Took a deep breath, and let it out. Shrugged. "I do it because somebody has to, or they win. I do it because I have people I love, and if something ever happened to Parker or Bones and I wasn't there, I'd want to know that a team like ours was out there moving heaven and earth to find them. I do it 'cause I'm good at it." He paused, and looked her in the eye. "And so are you."
She didn't say anything for a while, big tears rolling silently down her cheeks.
"We know how they died," she finally managed, choking on the words.
Booth nodded, his heart breaking a little at her pain. "I figured."
A second more passed before she wiped away her tears and took a shaky breath.
"You ready?" he asked.
Another second before she nodded, turning her back on him to fuel up her computer. "I'm ready. But I swear to god, if my baby grows up to be a serial killer because of all this, I'm suing all of you."
He smiled, then leaned over and kissed her cheek before he turned to join the others. While they'd been talking, Bones, Hodgins, Cam, and Sweets had come in and now were standing off to the side, waiting for the Angelator to do its thing.
"Nice work, Seeley," Cam mouthed once he was standing in between her and Bones.
Bones stayed quiet, but he noticed her watching him a couple of times before they got started. Their eyes met, and she gave him a shy smile that widened to a reluctant grin when he bumped her shoulder. She bumped him back, and they stood that way – together but just barely – until the scenario they'd been waiting for began to play out. Once it did, everything else pretty much disappeared.
"All four victims were taken from public places," Cam started them out. "Which means, according to Sweets and the FBI profiles, the perp was probably not someone the kids knew. They were likely lured to a vehicle of some kind, and then…"
A skeleton appeared in the Angelator, floating in the dust and light of the lab. In less than a second, the skeleton grew muscles, then skin, then clothes. Dark hair , glasses, and chubby cheeks.
Izzie Lincoln.
Booth felt himself go cold.
Another figure appeared behind her – an adult, no face and no features, and Booth's chest tightened.
"There are two common threads to the four bodies," Bones picked up. "Aside from them being Caucasian adolescents, of course. All four have damage to their upper and lower incisors, indicating some type of traumatic event significant enough for them to clamp down with sufficient force to damage the enamel and underlying dentition."
"Okay, so we're back to the chipped teeth," Booth interpreted.
"Precisely," Bones agreed. "The second commonality is the RTR insignia, which can be found on the clavicles of three of the victims and the femur of Arnold Billings."
Izzie Lincoln and her attacker had been hovering in mid-air while Bones gave the back story. Now, they came back to life.
"From the evidence we've gathered so far and tissue samples taken from the latest victims, this is the scenario we've posited is the most likely to have transpired."
The figure behind Izzie leaned down and clamped a hand over the little girl's mouth. In his right hand, he held a needle that he jabbed into her neck. A second later, the virtual Izzie started to shake like she was convulsing; the figure held her until she stopped, then traded the needle for some kind of metal thing about the size of a magic marker. Izzie was slumped in her arms when the figure jabbed the weapon deep into her chest.
Halfway through the scenario, Booth got lightheaded, his stomach twisted in a solid knot. He clenched his fists and forced himself to stay steady, eyes straight ahead, 'til the thing played out. When it was done, he turned his back on the holograph and tried to get a hold of himself. It took maybe a milli-second before he realized that wasn't gonna work this time. Moving fast, he left the room and made for the bathroom, practically knocking Wendell on his ass on the way.
After he'd lost pretty much everything he'd had in his system for the past week, he straightened up, flushed, and left the stall.
Bones was waiting for him at the sink, her eyes wide. A little scared.
"Bones, this is the men's room – you're not supposed to be in here."
"You've never vomited before when we've gone over the details of a case," she said, straight off. Apparently, she wasn't too concerned with the whole men's room thing.
Booth rinsed his mouth out and splashed a little cold water on his face. "Yeah, well… I've never had a case like this."
"We've solved the murders of children before," she insisted. "We've had cases that you found emotionally difficult. Are you sick?"
She came closer and he let her feel his forehead, not because he thought he might have a fever but because, all of a sudden, he'd never needed anything so much as he needed to feel her hands on him.
"You're not warm," she told him. The wrinkle was back in her forehead. They stood face to face, not quite touching, and he still felt queasy but that was slowly fading. "Is it because Angela used the Lincoln girl in the scenario? The other day when we were discussing the case with Sweets, you called her by her first name. Sweets thinks you've established an emotional connection – "
"I haven't," Booth cut her off. "I'm all right, okay, Bones? Just let it go."
Another flash of hurt in her eyes, and he realized he'd managed to screw up yet again. She took a step back. "Are you all right to finish the briefing?" she asked, back to cool once more.
He wanted to say no. Wanted to apologize, to give her… something, because he knew she kept putting herself out there and all he did was shut her down. Instead, he just nodded.
"Yeah – I'm fine. Just give me a sec and I'll be right there."
When he got back to Angela's office, everybody was a little too quiet. He knew he should make some kind of joke, but all of a sudden there didn't seem like all that many things left in the world to laugh at.
"Sorry – bad clams," he finally quipped. "So, would somebody mind explaining what the hell we just saw?"
He caught Angela's eye and half-expected her to say 'I told you so,' but it seemed he wasn't the only one who'd run out of jokes. Cam was the one who finally picked up where they'd left off.
"The branding weapon isn't exact – it must be homemade, because we've looked everywhere and we can't find anything on the market that matches our criteria. Based on the size of the insignia and the force with which it was jammed into the bone, it should be just about that size."
"So, what about the needle? What the hell did this guy give them?" Booth asked. He wasn't sure he wanted the answer.
They all looked at Bones, who Booth figured should have her King of the Lab smile going. Mostly, though, she just looked tired.
"Drugs," she explained. "We were able to get enough tissue samples from the last two victims to run the necessary tests. There were traces of embutramide, choroquine, and lidocaine in both samples."
Booth shook his head to indicate that he didn't have a fucking clue what she was talking about.
"It's a combination of drugs known as Tributame – commonly used to euthanize livestock like horses and cattle," she explained.
He jotted down a couple of notes, buying himself some time while he thought this over. "So, how easy is it to get your hands on that stuff?"
"Not easy at all," Cam answered. "They're controlled substances, typically only available to veterinarians."
"Whether this individual was a veterinarian or simply someone who obtained the drugs illegally, he knew very little about human physiology," Bones added. Booth didn't say anything, waiting for her to go on.
"Whoever did this used enough to kill a small horse, and never took into account the differences between the cardio-voracic system of an equine versus that of a human."
"And that's why we saw the convulsions?" Booth asked, writing more notes.
"The drugs are designed to first put the animal to sleep, and then induce cardiac arrest. The fatal components of the cocktail far outweighed those meant to serve as anesthetic, however, and cardiac arrest was so severe that it caused a grand mal seizure prior to death."
"And that caused the chipped teeth," Booth finished for her. She nodded, arms crossed over her chest and her eyes lowered.
Everybody went quiet for a long while after that. Finally, Booth looked at Sweets, who'd been silent pretty much since he arrived.
"So, what does this do to your theory that this nut job didn't want the kids to suffer?"
The psychologist thought for a few seconds before he shook his head, giving a little bit of a shrug.
"I believe this further validates that theory. The whole idea of putting an animal to sleep is meant to be an act of mercy – not that he views killing the children as merciful, necessarily. But I still think this is about the cause, not about the kids who've died."
Booth nodded again. Sick as it sounded, he was pretty sure Sweets was right – this wasn't about torture, somebody getting off on the pain of others. This was about sending a message.
"Okay, so we've got the when, what, why, and the how. Sweets, I need you to give me the who – given what we know now, you think you can work up a complete profile by tonight? Say seven o'clock?"
Sweets nodded. "I can do that. First, though, I wanted to speak with you and Dr. Brennan about – "
Booth started shaking his head before the kid had so much as gotten the sentence out. "Not today. You can tell Werner we were too busy with the case – we'll meet with you on Monday."
He caught Bones's eye and she gave him kind of a sad smile. "Monday's better," she agreed.
It seemed like Sweets had been expecting to be shot down, because all he did was nod. "Right – I'll just put Werner off another couple of days. No big deal. It's not like my career's riding on it or anything…"
"Great," Booth said, choosing to ignore the psychologist's sarcasm. He clapped his hands together to try and get a little movement in the room. "So, that's settled. We're going in the right direction here. I've got a meeting with the parents of the two girls in twenty minutes, and then I've got something else I've gotta do this afternoon. So…" he thought for a second. "That leaves us with the where. Any clue on the location of the dumping ground?"
Hodgins stepped up. "There's kind of a problem with that."
"Yeah, of course there is," Booth said dryly. "No gimmes on this thing, huh?"
Hodgins shook his head. His beard was looking a little scraggly, his hair mountain-man wild. Just like everyone else, he looked beat. Apparently, nobody was gonna get out of this case without paying a price.
"Apparently not," Hodgins agreed. "I've analyzed the particulates on all four victims…"
"And?" Booth pressed.
"And they're all different," the squint said, frustration bleeding through. "I can tell you the general area where each of them was buried, but it's not the same place."
"So there are four different gravesites?" Sweets asked, shaking his head. "You're certain?"
Hodgins rolled his eyes. "No, I'm just puttin' it out there to hear myself talk. Jesus, Sweets… Yeah, I'm sure. Four different gravesites, and they're not even close to each other."
Sweets wrote something down, then turned his attention back to Hodgins. "Could I get a copy of your findings? And Dr Brennan, if I could have your conclusions as to cause of death and mode of attack, that would be helpful in assisting me with the profile, as well."
Both Bones and Hodgins nodded. Booth stayed quiet for a few seconds, trying to figure out what the hell this latest information meant. Four victims, kidnapped in their hometowns in Kentucky, Vermont, Wyoming, and Virginia. Euthanized, then branded, then buried.
Then dug up and dumped in three different state parks right around DC.
"Hodgins, I want you to get me just as close as you can to those four dumpsites. Bones, you think you and Angela could work on pulling together some kind of physical description of this guy based on the damage we've seen to the kids?"
Bones thought about it for a couple seconds. "I suppose if we look at the angle of entry and depth of the insignia, we might be able to determine height and weight. More than that is unlikely, however."
"That's more than we've got right now – sounds good." He checked his watch. "It's quarter past two now. So, we all meet back here with dinner at seven, and we'll go over everybody's findings then."
At two-thirty, Booth met with the parents of Riley White and Penny Farber. It went about as well as could be expected given the reason for the meeting – a lot of tears, some yelling, empty threats, accusations of incompetence within the Bureau. Booth stayed quiet and let everybody wind themselves down, then finally managed to ask his questions.
The fathers of both girls had a strong link to Black Ridge. Scott Farber's old man was another one of the guys who'd stormed the Ridge; after some digging, Jacob White – who'd spent his whole life in Wyoming – remembered a second cousin who, he thought, might have been the doctor on the scene when the pregnant woman died after the firefight. Farber's old man had been killed in a hunting accident fifteen years ago; White had no clue where his second cousin might be.
Neither men knew any large-animal veterinarians with a grudge, though.
The meeting was over by three-thirty, but Booth asked both families to stay in the area for the weekend, in case he had more questions.
When he left the Hoover, the sun was shining and it was warmer than it had been in a couple of weeks – one of those freak winter days in DC that felt more like April than December. Booth didn't exactly have time to soak in the rays, though. Much as he wanted to forget TJ existed, he'd made the guy a promise.
Which is how he found himself bound for the Ritz-Carlton, hoping to catch Senator Woolrich on her way back from her latest round of senate meetings. Hopefully from there, he'd be able to get whatever it was he needed to convince TJ to get on a goddamn plane and go back where he came from.
The Senator was in the hotel lobby on her way up to her room when Booth got there. Two guards flanked her – private security, well trained by the look of them. She wore a lavender pants suit, her dyed hair piled high above a heavily made-up face. It didn't take more than a second before she'd recognized him.
"Agent Booth!" She stepped away from the guards, a flash of impatience on her face when they followed her. Booth got the feeling suddenly that the extra security might not have been her idea.
"Senator Woolrich," he gave her the old charm smile. "I heard you were in town."
"And here I am." After another couple of seconds of a silent battle of wills between Woolrich and her bodyguards, Booth dug out his ID and flashed it at the men.
"Special Agent Seeley Booth. I just have a couple questions."
"Go on now," the woman shooed the guards away with a flick of her wrist, linking her arm through Booth's. "I'm safe as houses right here. You boys go entertain yourselves for a few minutes."
Once they were out of earshot, Booth quirked an eyebrow at her. She smiled, understanding his silent question without hesitation.
"I'm dating somebody new, and the poor boy suffers from some paranoid delusions about just how important he actually is."
This was the part where Booth was supposed to ask who the new boyfriend was, but he didn't really give a rat's ass. He followed her up to her hotel room, then waited until she'd fixed them both a drink and they were sitting on over-stuffed hotel furniture before he dropped the old friends routine.
"You remember Alan Wright?"
She looked surprised. "TJ's father? Of course. Such a tragic story."
"I was wondering if you remember anything about what was going on back then. You were married to Phillip Taylor when Alan was killed, weren't you?"
And just like that, happy hour was over. The Senator set her drink down on the coffee table. Her face went cold.
"Have you been talking to TJ?"
Booth nodded. Played the part like a pro, letting a little annoyance show on his face. "Yeah – he's been bugging Temperance about this whole thing. Frankly, I'm not crazy about the way he looks at my girlfriend, so I made a deal with him."
"You talk to me, and he leaves town?" she guessed.
"You got it," he said.
The words did the trick; like that, the coolness disappeared. The Senator picked up her drink and settled back in on the couch. Scooted a little closer to Booth, but he pretended not to notice.
"You know, I couldn't quite believe your Dr Brennan was dating a man like you when we met back in Oregon. She seems far too cerebral for a man of your ilk."
"You mean too smart for a guy like me," he interpreted. Then shrugged. "Yeah, maybe she is. But, we do okay all the same. Or we did, until TJ hit town."
The Senator looked him up and down, taking another sip of her drink. She had a martini; Booth had accepted a Coke from the mini-bar, but turned down anything stronger.
"So, what can I do to help?" she finally asked.
Booth didn't wait for her to change her mind. "What can you tell me about Jeanine and Alan Wright? I mean, I know it was a long time ago, but something like that's bound to stick in your mind. It had to be pretty shocking at the time."
Woolrich took a couple seconds to think that over, before she shook her head. "Not terribly, as a matter of fact. Alan was a genius – I mean, the genuine article, the way your Dr. Brennan is a genius. Others said his first novel was a fluke; that he would never again write something so beautiful, so well-received."
She'd gotten kind of a distant, dreamy look to her when she talked about Alan Wright. Booth didn't press her on it, but he also didn't miss the change.
"But you didn't believe that," he prompted.
She shook her head, still lost in the memory. "Not in the least. Alan had the potential to make a great contribution to American literature – far beyond that first novel."
"So, what happened? I mean… It was what, ten years between that first novel and the time he died. I know I'm no writer, but that seems like plenty of time to write the next Great American novel, right?"
It got quiet in the room. They were on one of the top floors, traffic muted somewhere down below. Sirens and bells and the dusky haze of early evening just outside the window. Woolrich looked at him like he was no better than a caveman – which had of course kind of been the point. He didn't let it bother him.
"Ten years might be sufficient for lesser men, but Alan had some formidable obstacles."
Booth took a sip of his Coke. Bided his time. "And was Jeanine one of those obstacles?"
For a second, he thought she wouldn't answer. She looked at him, studying him like maybe she was getting the idea that he wasn't quite so dumb as he was playing. If she suspected anything, she apparently decided to ignore it. Her face got hard – downright ugly. Booth thought of Caleb, the man who'd been Bones's teaching aid back in Oregon. Having a mother like Senator Woolrich was bound to mess a guy up in ways Booth didn't even want to think about.
"Jeanine Wright was common trash, through and through."
Booth raised an eyebrow. Took another sip, but didn't say a word. Sure enough, the Senator wasn't done yet.
"Jeanine was a waitress at one of the dives not far from campus – Alan was a professor at Oregon State at the time. Fifteen years her senior. She got pregnant within a month of their first meeting." Woolrich looked at him pointedly. "I never even believed TJ was Alan's son – but of course Alan refused to listen to me. For a writer, he had an absurd sense of propriety."
"He married her."
Booth found himself more drawn into the story, thinking about the uppity professor trying to do right by a struggling waitress he barely knew. More than that, though, drawn into just how Rebecca Woolrich fit into the puzzle. Based on the way she was acting, it was clear she had way more than a bit part in this whole thing.
Woolrich drained her glass and got up to pour another, turning her back on Booth.
"He married her. They moved into the home Alan's mother left him when they passed – a gorgeous estate not far from where Phillip and I were living. Six months later, she had TJ. Alan stopped writing. Started drinking, with much more than a casual interest." She'd said all this with her back to Booth, fixing her martini. Now, she turned around and took a drink, leaning against the hotel bar. "Life went on."
Booth wondered whether that was actually true.
"There were problems with the marriage, then?"
The Senator kind of snorted at that. "What marriage? The whole thing was a sham from the start. Alan loved Jeanine and he adored TJ, but he knew the entire situation was doomed. In fact," she lowered her voice a little, like someone might be listening, "he was getting ready to leave her."
And like that, Booth knew.
"He was gonna leave her for you."
Woolrich kind of faltered at that. Straightened up a little, blinking fast before she recovered. Booth watched while she tried to decide how to spin this, before she finally nodded, her eyes dead even with his. Her jaw was set, almost like she was challenging him to push her.
"Yes. Phillip and I had been married nearly five years, but things weren't going well." She took another drink, got a bitter little smile on her lips. "All those 'hunting' trips out to the wilds of Washington are hard on a marriage. Jeanine was busy trying to convince everyone she was the model wife and she and Alan the perfect couple. Alan needed someone who could understand the kind of pressure he was under."
"And you could."
She raised her chin a little. "My father was Benton Woolrich."
When Booth didn't show any sign that the name meant anything – which, honestly, it didn't, Woolrich sighed.
"He wrote 'Chronicles of a Future Farmer.' One of the most highly lauded novels on the resurgence of American transcendentalism in the twentieth century."
"Ah," Booth said. "So, you know what it's like to be around a misunderstood genius."
"Certainly more than Jeanine ever did."
Booth hesitated, then decided it was time to cut to the chase. "Do you think Mrs. Wright could've found out about what was going on between you and her husband? And maybe that's what pushed her over the edge?"
Another couple of seconds passed, before the Senator finally nodded. "That has always been my theory, yes."
Something in her eyes when she said it caught Booth. Maybe somebody else wouldn't have noticed, but he'd been dealing with liars for a long, long time. Senator Woolrich was good at it, but it didn't change the fact: She wasn't telling him something. And by the look in her eye, it was something big.
Instead of pushing her on it, which he figured would just make her clam up, Booth decided to let the thing drop for now.
"Well, that makes a little more sense than it did before." He paused, trying to decide whether he wanted to open the next can of worms or not. Finally, he decided what the hell. In for a penny, in for… whatever the hell else came after that.
"Listen, what can you tell me about TJ? Does he seem like a pretty, you know, stable guy?"
Woolrich actually laughed at that one, looking relieved at the change in subject. "Hardly. He was sweet enough as a boy – when he was little, he spent most weekends with Phillip and I, trying to get away from Jeanine and Alan's rages and turmoil."
Booth could only imagine what TJ's home life must've been like to make the Senator and her serial killer husband look like Ozzie and Harriet.
"So, things changed after his dad died?"
"Five years on the run with your murderous mother would understandably leave an impression," Woolrich said dryly. "Of course, he went straight into foster care once Jeanine was imprisoned. Phillip wanted us to take the boy, but I put an end to that fantasy right away."
"And now?" Booth asked. "How would you say his, ah, mental health is these days?"
She thought about it for a second too long, and Booth realized that he was being played. He had no clue what the Senator's game might be, but there was definitely something going on that he wasn't getting.
"Frankly, if I were you, I'd be concerned. From what I've seen and what Caleb and Doug have shared with me, his moods are erratic. His writing has suffered. He's clearly unhealthily obsessed with whatever happened between his parents – which I can understand, I suppose. But he has also developed quite an obsession with your partner."
Booth looked at her, letting her think he'd taken her at her word. "You think he's dangerous?"
Another snort, another drink. Woolrich was getting uglier by the minute, and it didn't have anything to do with her looks.
"Look at what he comes from. As I said, I don't believe for a moment he was actually Alan's child, so who knows what kind of degenerate fathered him. And Jeanine… Well, we know what she was. If I were you, I would get TJ as far from Washington as I could, and I'd do so immediately."
Booth made a show of thinking about this before he set his Coke down on the bar and got ready to go. He was almost to the door before he turned, like he'd just thought of one more question.
"Just one more thing, if you don't mind."
"Of course not. What is it?" Now that their heart-to-heart was over, Woolrich seemed to realize she'd maybe spilled more than she'd meant to. She crossed her arms over her chest, her words as cold as iced steel.
Booth played it cool. "Nothing big. Just a name that came up – a doctor Everett Langford. That ring any bells for you?"
A shadow crossed her face – there for an instant, then vanished a second later. But there all the same.
"Everett Langford," she repeated. Made a big show of thinking it over before she shook her head. "No, I'm sorry. It doesn't ring a bell."
Booth nodded, shrugging it off. "Yeah, I figured probably not, but it never hurts to ask. He was the one who did Wright's autopsy, and it seemed like there were a few things he overlooked when he was doing the reports. Thanks very much for your time, Senator. I really appreciate it."
Before he could high tail it out of the room, Woolrich had a change of heart.
"Langford – of course, now I remember." Her face got dark, and Booth had the feeling that, for the first time since he'd started the interview, she was being straight with him. "Agent Booth, I don't want to tell you how to do your job," which was just the kind of thing somebody said just before they told him how to do his job, "but did it ever occur to you that if something was left out of those autopsy reports, it was left out for a reason?"
"Falsifying an official report – "
"- is a serious offense," she finished for him. "And so if it was done – and I'm not saying it was – it stands to reason that it was done for a reason. Perhaps a reason that would be better left in the past."
Woolrich's security detail bullied their way back into the room before Booth could try to figure out what the hell this last bit of information might mean. He left the Senator with his card and strict instructions to call him if she remembered anything else, but he was pretty sure he wouldn't be hearing from her again unless he tracked her down himself.
From the Ritz, Booth went straight to the dive motel TJ and Jamie were staying at. He wasn't entirely sure why TJ Wright – who'd supposedly just signed this huge book deal and was the hottest shit in Oregon these days – was staying in a crappy motel in one of the worst parts of DC, but he just added that to the long list of things he'd probably never understand about the artsy set.
TJ answered his phone on the first ring, and met Booth at the door of his motel room five minutes later.
"Did you talk to her?" he asked, before Booth had even gotten through the door.
The hotel room was littered with empties and pizza boxes, a pile of board games on a cheap card table in the corner. Apparently, Jamie'd been as good as her word when she said she'd keep an eye on her buddy.
Booth did kind of a double take when he saw TJ standing there, his nose misshapen and his left eye swollen shut.
"Jesus," he said, though he hadn't meant to say it out loud.
Jamie walked in from the other room and went straight to TJ, putting an arm around him easily.
"You should see the other guy," she joked, then smiled. "Oh, wait," she said dryly.
Booth touched the fading bruise on his own temple, but TJ just rolled his eyes.
"Spare me. Sure, you lock up bad guys and fight like a stevedore and look like someone who punches a time clock at the Hall of Justice, but I'll bet dollars to donuts you can't finish a whole conversation without ending at least one sentence with a preposition."
He smiled a little, and Booth relaxed. Shrugged. "Yeah, well you got me there. So…"
TJ held out his hand, and Booth shook it. The writer had a solid grip without trying too hard, and even though his face was about six different shades of purple, Booth could tell he was doing better than he'd been the other night.
Thanks mostly to the pretty blonde with her arm around his waist, Booth was willing to bet.
"Take a seat," TJ said, nodding to the table. A game of Scrabble was in progress. Booth sat in a folding metal chair, studying the board; he didn't recognize about half the words on it.
"So, you talked to her," TJ said. He grabbed a beer from the kitchenette fridge, then held one up for Booth, who shook his head. There honestly wasn't anything he would've liked more than a cold one about then, but he had a feeling that one wasn't gonna be close to enough tonight.
"Still working," he said by way of explanation, in case one was required.
Jamie shrugged as she cracked open an over-large can of Guinness. "So are we. See, that's the beauty of being writers."
"Amen to that," TJ said, and knocked his bottle against her can. They both sat down – TJ in another folding chair, Jamie on the edge of the bed just a couple feet away.
"So…" TJ prompted for the third time. The humor fell away. He was trying hard – maybe for Jamie's sake or maybe just to save a scrap of dignity for himself, but he was obviously still invested.
Booth nodded. "I talked to her." He thought for a second, wishing he'd just called in the news. So far, he still hadn't made sense of exactly what Woolrich had told him. What little he could tell TJ about the conversation was hardly worth a sit-down.
He shrugged. "Look, I'm sorry, but she didn't have a lot to say about the whole thing. It wasn't all that enlightening."
TJ's face fell. He slumped back in his chair. For a second, Booth caught the way Jamie was watching her friend, and stored the information for future reference. If she'd been sent by the girlfriend to keep tabs, the girlfriend probably would've been smarter to go with somebody else for the job.
"She's lying," TJ said, quiet now.
"Teej," Jamie said, before Booth could say a word. "It was almost twenty-five years ago. Maybe she just doesn't remember."
Booth thought of all Rebecca Woolrich had actually said. Not remembering was hardly the problem. If he kept his mouth shut, though, he could get TJ on a plane that night and get back to trying to patch things up with Bones. Maybe there was something to the theory that Phil Taylor had been behind Alan Wright's murder, but what the hell did that matter now? Taylor was dead. Both TJ's parents were dead.
He looked at TJ, sitting there fiddling with the letters on the Scrabble board. Thought of Bones, and how it had eaten her alive trying to find out the truth about her folks.
He sighed. "What do you remember about that night?" he asked TJ.
The man looked surprised at the question, a flicker of hope crossing his face. "Not a lot," he confessed. "I keep having these dreams that scramble the memories, too, so that doesn't help a whole hell of a lot."
"But you were there when shots were fired."
He nodded without hesitating.
"And who was in the house with you?"
"I'd been alone with my Dad – he was in the study. Drinking – not writing, though he was supposed to be finishing a chapter or something, I think. I was watching TV downstairs when my Mom showed up early. Someone tried to repossess the car – I remember that part. She was pissed."
The writer kept his eyes focused on the table, like he was seeing the whole thing play out.
"And then?" Booth prompted, when TJ got quiet.
A couple seconds passed, before the writer shook his head in frustration. "I went upstairs – I wasn't supposed to be up so late, so I was pretending I was asleep."
"And what'd you hear? When did the gun go off?"
TJ sat there a full minute more, thinking so hard Booth was sure steam would start coming out of his ears. Finally, he pushed his beer away and groaned in frustration.
"I don't remember. I remember hearing them fight; I remember my mom coming to get me…"
Booth stayed quiet for a few seconds, trying to convince himself that he was totally justified telling TJ there was no case; he should just go back to Portland and get on with his life. He just couldn't shake the feeling that there might be something there.
Finally, he stood up. "Get dressed – you're coming with me."
TJ looked at Jamie, who looked back at Booth. "You're not gonna take him somewhere to get rid of him, are you? I know you FBI types."
Booth just rolled his eyes. "You too – both of you get cleaned up, I've got an idea."
Sweets was in his office when Booth showed up, his head bowed over a notebook and about six bulky textbooks spread around him. His back was turned to the door, and he didn't even look up when Booth knocked on the door, and finally held up a hand the third time Booth said his name.
"Just one more moment, Agent Booth," he said, writing like a crazy man. When he was finished, he turned around and did a double take when he saw that Booth wasn't alone.
"TJ," Sweets said. He got up and met everybody at the door, looking confused and a little uneasy. "Agent Booth, I don't recall you mentioning – "
"That's 'cause I didn't," Booth interrupted. "I know you're in the middle of the case, but I wanted to see if you could take a little time out for something. It shouldn't take long."
TJ and Jamie still looked clueless, but the words had been enough to get Sweets's curiosity going.
"Of course," he said, which is pretty much what Booth had bargained in. "Come in." He looked at Jamie, then at Booth.
"I don't believe I've met – "
"Jamie Crankshaw, Lance Sweets. Jamie's another writer from Oregon," Booth said quickly, practically shoving everybody into the office. "Sweets is the FBI shrink."
"Wow," Jamie said, looking around at the half dozen diplomas on the wall. "Impressive – you don't look old enough to shave, let alone – "
"He's a genius," Booth interrupted again, because Sweets was kind of blushing and doing that stuttering thing he did around good looking women. "It's not that big a deal," he continued, before Sweets could get a word in edgewise.
That settled, Booth waited until everyone had taken a seat and he was still standing before he finally told them what he was thinking. It wasn't that he was trying to be dramatic or something – he was just pretty sure Sweets would have shot him down in a second if he'd done it any other way.
"You know how TJ's old man died, right?" Booth asked Sweets, not bothering with subtlety.
Sweets nodded seriously, and Booth was impressed that he didn't get squirly at the question.
"I'm aware of the circumstances, yes," the psychologist said.
"Great. So – TJ asked Bones and me to check into the whole thing, in case something got missed. So far, all we've got is dead ends."
TJ and Jamie were sitting together on the chairs he and Bones sat in whenever Sweets got the chance to torture them. TJ looked uneasy, Jamie curious. Sweets clueless.
"I'm sorry, but I'm not certain how I can help. I suppose I could look at the – "
"I want you to hypnotize him," Booth interrupted, finally cutting to the chase.
The whole room went quiet for a few seconds before Sweets shook his head. "You want me to what? That's not something I just do like some, some… party trick. It takes time, and silence, and preparation. Do you know how much training was required – "
Booth sighed. "Yeah, Sweets, I know – that's why I didn't just try it myself out in the truck. Come on. I've seen you do it before. Just do that thing you do, ask him a few questions, and we can see if there's something we've been missing up 'til now. You can do this – I know you can."
"No – no way. I'm sorry, but I'm not comfortable with this. I still have a profile to complete for the case we're actually working on, so… You'll just have to ask someone else. There's no way."
"TJ, I want you to make yourself comfortable. Close your eyes."
Sweets had turned down the lights in his office. Booth and Jamie sat on one side of the room, TJ and Sweets on the other. After some debate – and a little threatening, bribery, and maybe some blackmail – Sweets had finally agreed to work his magic on TJ. For his part, the writer seemed ready to do anything short of buying the psychologist a boat if he'd do his thing, so there was no trouble talking him into it.
The writer sat back in his seat, closed his eyes like Sweets said. Counted back from ten, and Booth found himself feeling a little edgy about what would happen next. He'd seen this done before, of course, but it still freaked him out – never quite sure whether the person going under would suddenly be a little kid or a chicken or… something.
TJ just sounded normal, though.
"Are you in your old home now?" Sweets asked.
TJ nodded.
"Remember," Sweets said, his voice calm and easy, "you're watching this as a spectator, not as a participant. Everything that you see happening is in the past. Nothing about what you see can hurt the person sitting here today. Now, can you tell me what you see?"
A little bit of a pause, before TJ answered. "I'm in the living room watching Simon & Simon."
Booth leaned in to Jamie. "I used to love that show," he whispered.
Sweets shot him a look, and he shut up. "Okay, very good. Now, can you tell me what happens next?"
"I hear a car – Mom's home. I get up – stash my Coke. Run up the stairs. Mom's pissed."
Jamie was watching the whole thing, literally sitting on the edge of her seat. There was another second of silence before Sweets pushed TJ again.
"How can you tell your mother is angry?"
"I'm in my room, but I can hear her yelling when she comes through the door. Somebody tried to take her car – they're gonna fight about money again. Mom's coming up the stairs. I want to go out, and distract her."
His words were coming out faster now. Booth could tell, even from where he was sitting, that the man was getting wound up. Jamie started to say something, but Booth stopped her by touching her arm. She bit her lip, and stayed still.
"TJ," Sweets said calmly, "I want you to take a breath. Remember – this is all in the past. Just tell me what you see. None of it can touch you now."
TJ slowed down a little, his breathing returning to normal. Sweets continued.
"That's good – you're doing great. Now, can you tell me what happens next?"
"I go out to the stairs – shit," he said all of a sudden. Jamie sat up straighter, but Sweets held up a hand to silence her.
"What, TJ? What are you seeing?" His voice was still even. Booth had to admit to a grudging respect whenever he saw Sweets in action.
"I forgot to turn off the TV. I've gotta get to it before Dad finds out I was up. He'll kill me."
Booth recognized the panic on the man's face for what it was: the terror of a little kid who'd had his ass kicked by his old man more than once. Interesting that the Senator had left that part out.
"Okay," Sweets nodded. "It's okay. Your mother is home. The TV is on. Can you tell me what happens next?"
TJ shook his head, like he was trying to wade through the memory.
"That's all right," Sweets said quickly. "Let's back up a little, and focus on one thing at a time. Where are you?"
"I'm on the stairs," TJ said immediately.
Sweets nodded his approval. "Good. And where is your mother?"
TJ paused, his forehead furrowed in concentration. "Dad's office."
"Can you hear them?" Sweets asked.
"Not anymore. The door's open. I hear – " he stopped. Froze.
"You hear what, TJ?" the psychologist prompted.
He looked haunted all of a sudden. No matter what Sweets said, somewhere along the line TJ had stopped being a spectator in all this. He was there.
"I hear Mom scream. Twice. I was headed downstairs for the TV, but I change direction on the stairs. I have to help her."
He went quiet for a second.
"And now what can you hear, TJ? Do you hear your parents' voices?"
TJ shook his head. He was crying a little. Booth could tell Sweets was about to pull him out, but the agent shook his head. They were too close.
"I don't hear anything. Nobody's saying any – " he flinched, twice.
"TJ?" Sweets prompted.
"There's a noise – two loud bangs. Like a gun, or fireworks. I run up the stairs to Dad's office to help Mom. She's crying. Dad's head is on his typewriter – I can see blood. It's everywhere." He was breathing too fast, his hands so tight on the armrest his knuckles had gone white.
"Pull him out, damn it," Jamie whispered hoarsely. She was crying. Booth nodded to Sweets.
"Okay – TJ, listen to me. I want you to take a breath. Walk out of that room and close the door." His voice was so soothing, even Booth felt himself start to calm down. "Have you done that?"
TJ nodded silently.
"Good. That scene you just saw is behind you. You're a grown man now. I'm going to count to three, and you're going to wake up. When you do, you'll remember everything you saw, but you're also going to feel peace and distance. Ready?"
Sweets brought TJ out. The writer just sat there for a couple of minutes, wiping at his eyes and trying to get himself back to normal. Finally, he took a shaky breath.
"So, I guess that solves it," he said weakly, talking mostly to Jamie. "They were right. My mother really did kill him."
Despite what TJ thought he'd just seen, though, Booth was suddenly positive things weren't nearly so cut and dry.
Instead of telling TJ what he was thinking, Booth made damned sure he and Jamie made good on the promise to get the hell out of his town that night. He left Sweets to finish his profile of the Black Ridge killer, grabbed a sandwich he didn't really feel like eating, and tried to get his mind back on the actual investigation he was supposed to be leading.
He was dying to talk to Bones. She was good at listening to his theories, adding things that made sense and shooting down anything that was too much of a leap. Finally at six-thirty, he couldn't take it anymore. Hoping for a few minutes alone with Bones before the meeting, he headed for the Jeffersonian.
He was on his way to her office when Angela came out of nowhere, barring his way with her hands crossed over her chest.
"She's not here."
Booth made a face. "What do you mean, she's not here? We've got a meeting in ten minutes – she's gotta be here. Where the hell is she?"
A single name crossed his mind. TJ wouldn't actually be on the plane yet – he and Jamie were on the red-eye that night. Like she'd read his thoughts, Angela took a quick step over and cuffed him on the side of the head.
"Ow! What the hell was that for?"
"For being a moron. I'm sorry – you know I love you like the incredibly hot brother-in-law I never had, but Booth…" she leveled a gaze at him, "you've gotta knock this shit off. Brennan's at Jack's, trying to get some space from you. Because you've suddenly gone from Seeley Booth, man among men, to Seeley Booth – noncommunicative, insecure douche bag."
He paused for a second, rubbing at the spot where Angela had hit him. "She's really not coming?"
"She's really not," Angela confirmed.
He stood there for another second, dazed. For maybe the first time, it occurred to him that this really could be it: he'd really blown it. He'd lost her. Angela's face changed, the toughness fading once she read him. She started to reach out, but he shut her down. Stood straighter, took a step back.
"Come on – we've got a briefing. I don't want to be late."
Just before he turned on his heel, he saw the look of surprise cross Angela's face. That look turned to annoyance in short order.
"Okay, see," she yelled after him as he was walking away, "that's an excellent example of the Booth I was hoping not to see."
He ignored her, and kept right on walking.
The briefing, it turned out, was anything but brief. Sweets had a twenty-page profile that he went over point by friggin' point before Booth finally held up a hand, scribbling like mad with the other.
"Sweets! Can we just please hit the highlights here?"
The psychologist looked hurt.
"Not that I don't appreciate you being thorough," Booth said, by way of an apology. He was definitely gonna kick the ass of the next person who said he couldn't be diplomatic. "It's just… I need to go to my guys with this in an hour, and I've gotta have some clue what the hell I'm talking about."
Sweets nodded. They were in the Jeffersonian conference room – Angela, Hodgins, Wendell, Vincent Murray-Nigel (or whatever the hell his name was), Cam, and Sweets. But not Bones.
"Of course," Sweets said. "We are looking for a white male, mid- to late- forties who was either a member of the Black Ridge community or had close ties there. Despite how far apart these murders took place, I do believe the same individual killed all four children. He is likely a family man himself, with children of his own. Happily married. While he may have done the killing himself, I suspect he was aided by a network of like-minded individuals with ties to the Ridge."
"And what about the link to the drugs?" Booth asked. "Is this guy a veterinarian or a jockey or… what?"
Sweets frowned, which Booth took to mean the question had been bugging him, too.
"If you'll recall Dr. Brennan's initial assertion, she stated that whoever had administered the lethal dose to these children knew very little about human physiology. Though I don't know it for a fact, it is my belief that a trained veterinarian would have at least rudimentary knowledge of the differences between human and equine or bovine chemistry."
"Great," said Booth, pushing his notebook away as he sat back in his chair. He ran his hand through his hair in frustration. "A guy with kids and ties to the Ridge, with access to the drugs but not a vet himself."
"Brennan and the bone boys came up with something, too," Angela volunteered.
Booth looked at her expectantly, still stung that Bones wasn't there. Angela checked her notes, making a face.
"You know she would have been here if she thought we really – "
"I'm here," came a familiar voice from the doorway. Booth turned, and did his damnedest to hold back his grin.
Bones hurried in, her lab coat half buttoned, pulling her hair back in a ponytail as she moved.
"I apologize for being late. I thought…"
Booth waited. She shook her head.
"My role in this is done – the bodies have been identified, and we know cause of death. But…" she bit her lip, and Booth realized she was mostly saying this for Sweets's benefit. So at least she still cared how the evaluation turned out. "But of course we're a team, and thus it would be unprofessional if I didn't attend the meeting personally."
"We're glad you're here, sweetie," Angela said. She kicked Booth under the table so hard with her pointy goddamn shoe that he felt it in his teeth. "Aren't we, Booth?"
"Ow! Jesus, Angela." He looked at Bones, and for a second everybody else disappeared. Swallowed hard, and nodded. "Yeah, we are."
She smiled, more sad than pleased, and looked down at her notes. Booth cleared his throat and fought to get his head back in the game.
"So, Angela was just about to tell us what you guys came up with."
"Based on the angle of attack and the injuries sustained, we were able to determine that the killer is between five foot eight and five foot ten, and approximately one-hundred and sixty pounds. Left handed."
Booth waited a couple seconds for her to continue. "That's it?"
A flicker of annoyance crossed her face, and he rushed in. "Not that that's not good – I mean, that'll definitely be helpful once we've got a few suspects to choose from."
"It's not as though we have any evidence from the killer himself," she said defensively.
"Yeah – no, I know. Like I said, that's great."
She made a face, and went back to writing something in her notes. Booth gave up trying to say the right thing – something he was apparently incapable of these days where Bones was concerned – and set his focus back on the case.
"Okay, so what else have we got? Hodgins – what can you tell me about the gravesites?"
Hodgins checked his notes and made a face.
"Well, it's like I said before – different burial sites. Izzie Lincoln was likely buried in one of the more urban areas in Adair County, Kentucky. Arnold Billings had traces of granite and lead in the particles we found, which I believe are indicative of burial in one of the mine sites in northern Vermont. I found larvae in Riley White's bones indicating the Virginia – "
"So, wait," Booth interrupted. "You're saying each of these kids was kidnapped in their hometown. Killed almost immediately, and buried down the road from their families?"
"It sure looks that way," Cam agreed.
"But all by the same guy," he said, directing the comment at Sweets.
The psychologist nodded. "That remains my theory."
Booth considered the facts in silence for a couple of minutes. Four kidnapping-slash-murders in the past four years; maybe more. All over the country.
"He's gotta do something where he travels for a living," he said after a little thought. "Otherwise, how's he just randomly popping up going after these kids? It would be too suspicious."
Everybody thought on that for a while, before Bones looked up like the answer had just hit her upside the head.
"A drug rep," she said.
Booth looked at her uncertainly. "Come again?"
"A drug rep – pharmaceutical companies have them to sell their products to hospitals and clinics. I would expect there must be such a thing as drug reps for veterinary drugs, as well."
Hodgins nodded excitedly. "Yeah, that totally makes sense. Somebody like that would have access to whatever they needed – and they travel all over the country. Nobody'd think twice, if a guy like that shows up in town."
"And the kidnappings happened infrequently enough and in disparate enough locations that suspicions were likely never aroused," Bones agreed.
Booth jumped up, feeling for the first time like maybe he had a shot of making sense of this thing. "See, this is why we need you here, Bones," he said, gathering up his notes. "You're part of the team – one part of the team's missing, and it just doesn't work the same. So…" he paced for a second, pushing himself to focus. "Can you guys trace the drugs you found in the bodies, maybe find a manufacturer or something?"
Cam looked at Hodgins, who practically knocked his chair over getting up. "It's not really my area, but I'm on it."
Sweets held up a hand, signaling that he either had to use the john or he'd thought of something. By the look on his face, Booth could tell he wasn't gonna like what the kid was about to say.
"I hate to rain on the parade, but I do have something to add."
Booth groaned and sat back down. "Yeah? Great. What've you got?"
A second's pause, before Sweets sighed. "This man you're looking for? The one we've just described, who likely killed these kids?"
Booth nodded.
"I definitely agree that the profile we've come up with is the killer. Unfortunately, I don't believe he's the one who is now digging them up and dumping them on our doorsteps."
"And you still think whoever left us these bones has something bigger planned than what we've seen so far," Booth said, all that hope he'd just felt going straight down the drain.
"I do. Given how quickly those first four bodies were brought to our attention, I believe the perpetrator has a specific – and accelerated – timeline in mind."
"Okay," Booth agreed, trying not to let this latest information totally kill the mood, "So, it's not the same guy. But they had to know each other, right? I mean, they're fighting for the same cause, he knows all the gravesites. There's gotta be a pretty strong link here."
"I think that's a logical assumption," Sweets agreed.
"Great. That means we find the drug rep, he leads us to the other guy. And hopefully, before they ever get a chance to set their endgame in motion."
Once everyone had their instructions and the meeting was over, Booth tried to wait until everyone cleared out so he could get a second alone with Bones. From what he could tell, though, she'd given Angela direct orders not to let that happen. Finally, he gave the artist a pleading look.
"You think you could give us a second, Angela?"
Angela didn't bother asking Bones's permission – instead, she leaned down and kissed her on the cheek, whispered something in her ear. And left. Bones looked pissed.
"What'd she say?" Booth asked, because somehow it seemed important.
Bones pressed her lips together, trying to decide whether or not to tell him. Finally, she sighed. "That she was saving me from myself."
He couldn't help but smile at that. Yet another reason to love Angela. He pulled out the chair next to Bones and sat down, his leg brushing against hers enough to set everything right. Even if only for a few seconds.
"Listen, I'm really glad you came. I mean… I know we're having a hard time right now, but you and me – we're partners, Bones. Always have been, always will be. We'll figure this stuff out. But no matter what, I work better when I'm working with you. You make me try harder, you make me think better…"
He waited for her to tell him how it wasn't really possible for somebody to make another person think better, but instead she just stared at the paper in front of her. Her jaw was clenched tight, like she was trying not to cry. Before he could say anything, she looked at him.
"You told me TJ left Washington."
He panicked. "Did he call you?"
The tears dried up before they ever really spilled. For a second, he thought she was gonna beat the crap out of him. Instead, she pushed her chair back so she could look at him full on.
"No! Caleb called to thank me for helping him, because apparently whatever you did this afternoon with Jamie was very helpful and when they spoke on the phone this afternoon, he sounded better than Caleb had heard him in months."
"Bones, look – you'd already told him to bug off, but he was still trying to figure the whole thing out on his own. I just thought if I gave him a hand - "
"You could have told me. I could have helped – we could have worked on it together. Instead you skulk around on the sidelines as though I'm – I'm…"
"Incompetent?" Booth supplied, trying to be helpful.
"Untrustworthy!" she spit out at him. "And incompetent. As though we aren't a team at all. I just…" She got up and grabbed her notebook, headed for the door at a fast clip.
"Bones!" He ran after her and caught her at the door, blocking her way out. His heart was beating too fast, that realization that he'd fucked this up so much they really might not find their way back just about knocking him to his knees.
"Look, I didn't mean the TJ thing to seem that way, okay? I swear to you – I was doing it because I felt bad for the guy, but I wasn't trying to leave you out. It just… Looked that way, y'know? I do trust you – Bones, I trust you more than anybody on the planet."
"Then you should start acting like it," she said, arms crossed over her chest, fire still in her eyes. "Now, please move. I'm going to Angela's. We'll talk Monday, as we agreed this morning."
He'd seen that look on her face enough times before to know he wouldn't get her to change her mind. Instead, he opened the door for her and then stood there for maybe a minute, maybe more, watching her walk away.
It seemed like they were doing a lot of that lately.
After the knock-down, drag-out with Bones, Booth went back to the Hoover and briefed his guys. Swallowed all the anger, all the hurt, all the fear, and managed to come across as a man who knew his job and had a clear bead on what happened next. Whatever else anybody said to him, Booth was pretty sure no one would ever call him less than a pro.
Once the word was out on the no-name drug rep they were looking for, he swung by Founding Fathers in the hopes of meeting up with some of the crew from the Jeffersonian – Cam told him they were headed that way once they wrapped up, and the last thing he wanted was to go back to his place for another night on his own. Besides, there was always the possibility that Bones might've joined everyone there once she thought he was safely out of the way.
No such luck, though. Which was maybe a good thing, considering just how much it looked like she wanted to strangle him back in the conference room. Angela and Hodgins were nowhere in sight, either, but Cam and Tripp, Sweets and Daisy, Wendell and a bunch of the other interns, were all crowded around a table in the back. Friday night meant the place was packed. Booth stopped at the bar before he joined up with everyone, where Jared's bartender from the other night was serving.
"Whiskey shooter and a pint to chase it down?" she guessed, giving him a little bit of a lookover.
He nodded, with more of a smile than he'd given the other night. "Good memory."
"Good bartender never forgets. Jared with you?"
He looked around, like maybe he'd missed him. Gave another little smile. "Doesn't look like it. So, how do you know my brother?"
The music was loud, and the crowd was louder. The bartender – Will, Booth remembered Jared calling her – leaned over the bar to hear him better. Or maybe just to give him a look down her shirt, which seemed just as likely. He downed the shot she set up for him, and nodded for another.
"He's engaged to my sister."
Booth backed off, nice and easy. If this woman was going to be his sister-in-law, there was definitely some etiquette required.
"Wow – he didn't mention that the other night. Sorry. I'm Seeley."
She reached across the bar and shook his hand. "I know. I'm Will. I think somebody's trying to flag you down, Seeley," she said, nodding toward the table he'd spotted when he first came in.
"Yeah, looks like it. I guess I'll see you around, though."
The look she gave him then was just enough to make it clear she didn't have a lot of patience for the etiquette of in-laws. She gave a little half-smile, lowering of the eyes, flipping her dark hair back out of her eyes. Booth didn't necessarily encourage her, but he didn't do much to slow her down, either. Before he left, she all but licked her lips.
"Guess you will," she said.
A few shots and a couple beers into the night, Booth found that he wasn't actually feeling much pain. Maybe he and Bones really were done, but that didn't mean he was dead, did it? It didn't have to be the end of the world. Surrounded by good friends and whole bar of long-legged honeys who were definitely checking him out, he'd almost convinced himself things were looking up.
Until, that is, Daisy got in on the act.
"Agent Booth!" she said, like she'd been saying it for a while and he hadn't answered. Which was probably true.
He was sandwiched in between Cam and Wendell, not much breathing room and another round on the way. It was just past midnight, and the crowd at Founding Fathers was still going strong.
"Uh, yeah, Daisy?" he dragged his eyes from a pretty redhead in the corner, back to Sweets's squint.
"I was just saying how sorry I was to hear of all the trouble you and Dr. Brennan are having – "
"Daisy!" Sweets interrupted, looking like he was about to have a stroke. If he was trying to shut her up, he had no luck.
"As a deeply passionate and yet profoundly logic-based, strong, and independent woman myself, I feel as though I can speak to some of the issues that might arise from a relationship between two dissimilar personalities."
Booth felt all eyes turn on him, and shifted in his seat. "It's not a big deal – we'll figure it out."
"You know what you should do?" the squint asked, stopping just short of bouncing up and down in her chair.
"Daisy – " Sweets tried again, but Daisy just waved him off.
"You should talk to Lancelot – both of you. He's very perceptive. I know up to this point your sessions have revolved primarily around your professional relationship – "
"That's all right. Thanks," Booth cut her off. He'd just drained his third – or maybe fourth – beer, and was plotting his escape for a refill. Sweets apparently liked what he was hearing, though, because the next thing Booth knew, the kid was in on the act.
"That's actually not a bad idea, Agent Booth," Sweets said.
When Sweets drank, he tended to turn into like a cartoon of himself – super serious, and about fifteen years younger than he already looked. When Booth tipped back a few with Sweets, he always felt like he was drinking with a twelve-year-old trying to act forty.
Booth shook his head. "Uh – no, really. I think we've got it."
"Perhaps we could just try a role play – here at the table. Daisy and I have always found that very helpful."
"My favorite is when Lancelot is you, Agent Booth," Daisy said excitedly. She was pretty drunk herself. "And of course, I must say I find it quite stimulating when I'm Dr. Brennan – "
Sweets turned six shades of red. "Ha ha," he forced a laugh. "She's such a kidder. We don't do that," he lowered his voice, dead serious, leaning across the table.
Booth shook his head and stood, so fast his head spun. "Okay, I'm gonna grab another beer. And when I come back, we're just gonna pretend whatever the hell it is you're talking about never happened."
"Yeah, good luck with that," Cam said dryly. "I think my brain's gonna be reeling from that image for a long, long time."
Will was too busy to do anything but hand him a beer at the bar this time out. When Booth got back to the table, everybody but Cam had disappeared.
"Weren't there a lot more people here when I left?" he asked. His voice sounded drunker than he actually felt – which was maybe a clue that he was drunker than he actually felt.
"I made Sweets and Daisy go away. Some redhead just picked up Wendell, so I'm pretty sure we won't see him again, and Tripp's in the bathroom."
Booth sat down next to her. There was more room at the table now that everyone was gone, but it seemed like too much effort to move his chair any farther away. They sat for another few seconds, maybe a minute, of silence before Cam said anything. Booth was well on his way through his beer and was wishing he'd gotten another shooter to go with it, his buzz beginning to fade in favor of that dull, empty ache that had been dogging him for a week.
"So, you've really fucked up royally with Brennan," was what she opened with.
She was leaning on one elbow, head in her hand. Drunk, and then some – Cam didn't usually drink a lot nowadays, but Booth had been around her enough to know you didn't mess with her when she had a buzz on.
"I don't wanna talk about Bones."
Cam rolled her eyes so far back in her head Booth thought they might get stuck there. She was wearing a white shirt and a black skirt – simple, but she always added that touch of class to whatever she had on. Her hair was up. Booth scooted his chair a little closer, finishing off his beer.
"Whatever happened with us, Camille?"
She almost spit her drink out, her eyes widening. "You're kidding, right?"
"What?" he asked, a little hurt. Maybe a little turned on.
"You did not just hit on me with my boyfriend – who's one of your best friends – about fifteen feet away."
"I just asked a question," he said, innocent as Christmas. He didn't move away. Slid his hand under the table, until he found her knee.
Things got a little fuzzy after that.
At some point over the course of the night, he challenged Sweets to a fist fight; got slapped by some girl he could remember only vaguely as brunette; and eventually found himself being hauled to the truck by Tripp.
Who didn't talk to him, the whole ride home.
"I didn't mean anything by it," he mumbled, just before he passed out on the couch. He remembered the look Tripp gave him – a mix of pity and disgust, not a trace of friendship or respect in there – and the look chased him into his dreams.
Someone was pounding.
Hard.
Loud.
The blows weren't landing directly on his skull, but they sure as hell felt like it. He groaned. Pulled the blankets up over his head.
The pounding didn't stop.
It felt like he'd swallowed a wool blanket, his mouth dry and his tongue two sizes too big. His head even bigger. He replayed the night before, hitting the highlights before he tried to refine any details.
The fight with Sweets. Hitting on Cam. He remembered wanting to call Bones – not a good sign. He eased the blanket – which, it turned out, wasn't a blanket at all, but actually his suit jacket – off his face, blinking in the dim light of his apartment.
The knocking had stopped.
Booth took a shaky breath that set his stomach rolling. He tried to focus again: He'd wanted to call Bones, after Tripp dropped him off.
Shit.
Had he?
The pounding started on the door again, harder this time, and Booth managed to get his feet under him enough to stand. Pulled his t-shirt down and searched for a minute before he found his jeans and pulled them on.
More pounding.
"Just a minute, goddammit."
He had to piss like a racehorse. And possibly puke, but he was pretty sure that would pass.
Against his better judgment, he answered the door first, throwing it open without bothering to check who it was first. If it was someone there to kill him, he just prayed they'd do it fast.
Once he realized who was standing there, Booth took a step back in surprise.
"Gordon Gordon." He wasn't clear on whether this was a good surprise or a bad one, but all of a sudden he was grateful as hell to see the man.
He waved the psychologist in. "I've gotta – " he gestured wildly and hurried off to the bathroom, leaving Gordon Gordon standing in his doorway.
When he got back – a splash of cold water and an empty bladder not quite enough to make him feel like a new man – Gordon Gordon was still standing where he'd left him. Kind of like he didn't quite dare to come in.
"My, Agent Booth, it seems you've truly embraced bachelorhood since your recent split with Dr. Brennan."
Booth narrowed his eyes, pulling Gordon Gordon inside and shutting the door behind him.
"It's not a split – we're just… thinking. You talk to Sweets?"
"Indeed I did," Gordon agreed. He made a big show of walking around the empty bottles and laundry in the living room, and headed straight for Booth's tiny kitchen. Once there, he started taking all the dirty dishes out of the sink.
"Your Dr. Sweets called me late last evening, in the midst of clean-up at the restaurant. He was in quite a state."
Booth stood back with his hands in his pockets, head still aching, gut still rolling. Once the sink had been cleared of the mountain of dishes, Gordon Gordon squirted a big glob of dish liquid in. It was some fruity detergent Bones made him buy – made of wild berries and approved by the rainforests or something.
Booth liked the smell, though.
Steam rose from the sink as hot water filled it, Gordon Gordon's big hands disappearing into the suds. The psychologist – or ex-psychologist, whatever – hummed something tuneless, turning his back like Booth wasn't even there.
"Perhaps you could gather any dishes around the rest of the flat?" Gordon suggested.
"Look, you don't need to do this. I mean, jeez – it's not even eight o'clock."
"Not at all, Agent Booth – I insist." The man turned and gave Booth a goofy grin. "Besides which, if Dr. Sweets learned that I'd gone back on my word and not come to see you first thing – " he shook his head, his eyes getting bigger. "Well, I shudder to think what the lad would do. I expect he'd come haul me bodily from my post at the chef's table this evening. And that simply would not do."
Booth nodded. He'd never admit it, but he was kind of relieved Gordon Gordon wasn't running off.
"Nah, I guess it wouldn't. So… What, you're just gonna hang out here and clean my place? Are you hanging up your chef's hat for a French maid's outfit now or what?"
Gordon Gordon laughed; Booth felt himself start to relax at the sound.
"No, I'm afraid not – though between you and me, I do rather fancy those heels. No… I thought we could just tidy up a bit, and thus allay Dr. Sweets's I'm sure unfounded fears, that you may be… What was the phrase he used? Circling the drain, I believe is how he put it."
"He said that?"
"Hyperbole, I'm sure." Gordon Gordon rinsed a few clean plates and then set them in the strainer. Booth had to scrounge for a minute or two, but eventually came up with a clean hand towel to dry with.
For a while, they just stood like that: doing the dishes, Gordon Gordon humming, while Booth focused on drying. His headache was easing, but he blamed the hangover for not registering Gordon Gordon's strategy earlier on. After a good five minutes of silence, it finally dawned on him: the psychologist was waiting him out, the same way he had a dozen times or more, back when Booth used to see him every week.
Once he realized what was going on, Booth was surprised to find that he didn't really care all that much.
It turned out, he kind of wanted to talk.
"So, Sweets told you about me and Bones?"
Gordon Gordon rinsed another dish before he answered. "He said you'd had a bit of a row."
Booth laughed out loud at that. "Yeah. You could say that."
Nothing – not even a 'hmm' for a response. Booth waited another second or two before he dove in.
"It's just – when she gets scared, Bones has this habit of blowing everything up in our faces. So, I get back from being gone two weeks at this training thing, and I don't know… Parker mentioned to her how we'd been talking about maybe building a house. And she just freaked out."
Gordon Gordon did give a little "Hmm" at that.
"And that's when Dr. Brennan – how did you put it? Blew things up in your faces?"
"Not like that – it's not like she does it on purpose, y'know? She just gets… scared."
Three more plates were washed, rinsed, dried and put away before Gordon Gordon said another word.
"Are you familiar with the term 'projecting'?" he finally asked.
Booth didn't like the question. "Projecting – yeah, sure. It's when somebody's nuts, but they're convinced it's everybody else."
Gordon Gordon laughed. They were coming to the end of the dishes; just a few glasses on the sideboard, and they'd be done. Booth wondered if the man would leave when they were through.
He kind of hoped not.
"That's perhaps a crude way of putting it, but you have the general concept. It's really quite a fascinating defense mechanism."
He finished the last glasses and wiped down the counter without another word.
"So, what?" Booth finally burst out. "You don't think Bones was sabotaging this whole thing? You think I was, and I just put it all on her? Because you haven't been there for all the dinners and movies and… whatever, where I think everything's great and then all of a sudden we're back at square one again."
His voice had gotten louder – enough to rock his already aching head. He settled down.
"Trust me, being with a woman like Bones is no picnic sometimes."
"I'm sure that must be very trying." Gordon Gordon gathered all the beer bottles and put them in the recycling bin Bones and Parker had set up. He rinsed out the dish sponge, while Booth just stood there feeling more and more on edge.
"It is," Booth agreed, still sounding pretty damned defensive.
"I honestly don't know how you've stood it so long." Gordon Gordon sat down in one of Booth's kitchen stools with a heavy sigh. "She's very lucky to have someone with your degree of patience fighting for this relationship. There to guide her when times are uncertain."
Booth sat down opposite him at the table. "Now you're just making fun of me."
"Perhaps."
A second more passed. Gordon Gordon leaned back in his chair and tilted his head, tapping his fingers against his chin before he finally said anything.
"When did Dr. Brennan's parents abandon she and her brother?"
"She was fifteen," he said, his voice quiet now.
"And her life before that? Was it… normal? Peaceful? Happy?"
"I think so, yeah," Booth answered after a second's thought. "I mean – I know she was always quiet, kind of in her own world. A little shy. But yeah – I think that's why it was so tough for her once they left her like that. Before that, she had things pretty good."
Gordon Gordon thought about that for a while.
"And you?" he asked, out of the blue.
Booth looked at him blankly. "And me what?"
"And you – your childhood? It wasn't happy, clearly. Certainly not peaceful. Approximately how old were you when your father began directing his aggression toward you?"
He tensed up in an instant, feeling the words like hot iron.
"I think maybe you should go."
Gordon Gordon didn't move an inch. "Do you?" he asked easily. "It's a simple question, Agent Booth. Just the two of us here, and I believe you know me well enough by now to know that whatever is discussed here never leaves this room."
"I don't talk about that stuff," Booth said roughly, his eyes on the table.
Gordon Gordon laughed, but it didn't sound like he found anything all that funny.
"No, Agent Booth, you don't. But I think perhaps it's time you did. Don't you?"
Ten seconds of silence turned into twenty. Booth sat at the table for a long time, trying to decide what to do. Throw the man out? Tell him to mind his own damned business? There was a spot that looked like dried blood on the table. Booth scraped at it with his thumbnail for a good five seconds before he realized it was just ketchup.
"I don't know what to say," he finally admitted. He sounded tired. A little beaten up.
"What happened when you went to see your old home?" Gordon Gordon asked.
Bones must have told Sweets about it, Booth realized. How worried did she have to be, he wondered, to tell Sweets a thing like that?
He cleared his throat. "You're right – I didn't have the best time as a kid, okay? It's not like I went back to the old place and was all, 'Wow, remember all the great times we had here? Look how small it seems now…' It was always small. My old man was big – not our place. Just him."
Gordon Gordon didn't say anything. Booth wasn't sure where to go next – just start puking up all the sad stories? Dredge up all the crap like the psychologist was his confessor or something?
They were silent for a long time before Gordon Gordon gave a big sigh. Booth expected more dramatics, more games, but when he looked the other man in the eye, all he saw was honesty. Maybe a little sadness, but it didn't look like pity.
"Tell me about your mother."
He started to get defensive again, but Gordon Gordon held up his hand. "Not in any Freudian way – I'm sure she was a lovely woman, and I've no interest in how you felt about her. At least, not at the moment. Just… What did she do?"
Booth relaxed. "She wrote jingles. Y'know – for commercials. Played piano."
"A musician," Gordon Gordon said. He looked impressed. "And your father?"
"Fighter pilot in the war. Then he came back and he was a barber. Y'know… Just a working class kind of guy. My mom actually came from a kind of stuffy family – they never thought my old man was good enough for her."
"And that couldn't have been because he was an abusive alcoholic who demeaned her and beat her children?"
He said it so easy, so casual, that it took Booth a second to register the words. Maybe he was more hungover than he'd thought.
"Look, my old man had problems, all right?" his voice got tighter. "That doesn't mean you can just bad mouth somebody when they're not around to defend themselves."
He settled down when Gordon Gordon didn't move. Cleared his throat again.
"He had problems – I know that. Nobody's perfect, right?"
"That's true." The way the psychologist said it, it didn't really sound like he was agreeing. A couple more seconds passed.
"Agent Booth, do you believe other people think Dr. Brennan is too good for you?"
He shrugged, his eyes skating from Gordon's. The question made him more uncomfortable than it should have.
"Do you believe Dr. Brennan is too good for you?" the psychologist followed up, when Booth didn't answer.
Booth chipped away at the ketchup stain some more, his eyes fixed on it. Gordon Gordon waited a couple seconds, then stood up and put his hand on Booth's shoulder. He squeezed, and it felt good – solid, strong. Safe.
"My dear boy," he said, kind of quiet. Kind of sad. "You can do this. All it takes is that most rudimentary skill."
Booth looked up and met the man's eye. He realized he was kind of crying – or trying like hell not to, a lump the size of Baltimore lodged in his throat. He cleared his way past it.
"What's that?" he asked.
"Language, Agent Booth. She asks a question, you answer. The dance begins."
Booth laughed, kind of shaky, and followed Gordon Gordon to the door.
"So, that's all great, but what about the other stuff? The fucked up family, the crappy childhood, the…" he fell off. Gordon Gordon smiled.
"The not thinking you're good enough?" he asked.
Booth shrugged. Kept his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the ground.
"I suppose you could invest in some self-help course or other – they're immensely popular these days. Repeat 'I'm fabulous' a hundred times before bed each night."
Booth rolled his eyes. Laughed a little, even, looking up. "Or?"
"Or," Gordon Gordon drew the word out. "You could stop being a dolt. The visit to your old home shook your confidence, but there's no reason to let it demolish you. Look in the mirror. You're accomplished, courageous, decorated, virile. A good bit more intelligent than you give yourself credit for. Stop moping about like a sad old sod. If you want Dr. Brennan in your life, show her you're the same man you've always been. That, I'd wager, is the very man she fell in love with."
"So, stop moping," Booth interpreted. "This is kind of like the 'grow a set' advice – you know that, right?"
"Very similar," Gordon Gordon agreed. "Now, I must be going. I have a private party of twelve expecting an orgiastic feast to appear magically before them at precisely one o'clock. And, contrary to popular belief, there is very little magic involved in such endeavors."
"Time to cook," Booth translated.
Gordon Gordon grinned, nodding. "Time to cook. Bring Temperance by once you've smoothed things over, and I'll make something befitting a scientist and her white knight."
Booth agreed, closing the door once the psychologist was gone. He stood there for a few seconds with his head against the door, breathing in. Breathing out.
All of a sudden, his shoulders felt looser.
His headache eased up.
He was back, damn it.
Now, he just had to convince Bones of that.
Before he could do anything where Bones was concerned, though, he got a message from Sweets telling him to meet him at the Hoover for an urgent meeting with Werner.
Which was, of course, exactly what he wanted to hear.
Sweets was already in Werner's office when Booth got there, acting tense and completely freaked out. Booth couldn't tell if it was because of whatever had happened the night before at the bar or if it had something to do with the meeting they were having, but either way he was getting a bad feeling. He gave the Deputy Director a quick rundown of everything they'd figured out the night before and where they stood on the investigation – which was basically nowhere, since at the moment all they could do was chase down leads that, it seemed, weren't leading anywhere – and then got the tight feeling in his gut that he had so much these days it was starting to feel normal.
"Was there anything else, sir?" he asked.
Sweets looked like he was about to have a heart attack. He cleared his throat when Werner looked at him, then sat up straighter in his chair.
"Uh – Deputy Director Werner requested – " the way Sweets said requested made it clear to Booth that there'd been no requesting about it, "an update on how I believe the evaluation is going thus far, of your partnership with Dr. Brennan."
All of a sudden, Sweets made a point of looking Booth in the eye, making a whole series of weird eyebrow moves that Booth guessed were supposed to be subtle. Werner looked at the kid like he was having an epileptic fit – which, for all Booth knew, he might be.
"What the hell's wrong with you?" Werner demanded. "What, do you have some kind of tic or something? I just want a read on how things are going on this thing, and I can't seem to pin you down for more than two minutes to get a straight answer."
Booth looked at Sweets; Sweets looked at Booth. There was silence for five seconds or more, before Werner exploded.
"Well?"
Sweets sat up straighter. All of a sudden, he got calm – did that thing Booth had started to admire in him, and stepped up to the plate just when Booth was sure he was about to fall on his face.
"It's going fine, sir," Sweets said, looking Werner square in the eye. "Naturally with a case of this magnitude, there are bound to be some challenges in any partnership – "
"What kind of challenges?" Werner interrupted.
Sweets stumbled. "Uh – n-nothing, sir. Just, you know, the usual… Challenges." After another beat, he recovered. Looked at Booth again, fast, then at Werner. The psychologist seemed to be deciding something, but Booth had no idea what.
"I'd like your permission to speak freely on this matter, sir," he said.
Booth dropped his eyes to Werner's desk. All of a sudden, his hands felt clammy, his mouth dry. This was it, he thought silently. The end of the partnership. And if he and Bones weren't partners anymore, and the relationship was dead-ended the way it seemed to be, what did that mean? That they were back to coffee? Or less than that, even.
Sweets cleared his throat. "Agent Booth – are you listening?"
Booth looked up absently. "Yeah, Sweets. I'm listening. Go ahead."
"Good." Sweets took a deep breath. "Over the past few days, I've shadowed Dr. Brennan and Agent Booth as you requested, sir," he started, focusing on Werner. "But the truth is, I've spent the past three years observing their partnership – their relationship, if you will – closely. And while the dynamics of that relationship may technically have changed over the past six months, the reality is that fundamentally nothing is any different between Booth and Brennan."
He paused again, like he was thinking things through. Werner cleared his throat impatiently.
"You mind telling me what the hell you mean by that, Sweets?"
"Of course," Sweets nodded, like he'd expected that kind of a response. He thought for another second. Leaned forward in his seat, his elbows resting on his skinny knees.
"What I mean is, Agent Booth and Dr. Brennan have always been too close – at least, they have for as long as I've known them. They've always lacked objectivity where the other party was concerned. Both have demonstrated innumerable times that they are willing to sacrifice their own lives for the life of the other."
Booth sat back in his chair, not sure how he should be taking Sweets's words.
"So, what does that mean to me?" Werner asked, pretty much voicing Booth's thoughts.
"Well," Sweets continued, "I believe that individuals with lower personal standards, those with a more diminished moral compass, might be compromised by the type of relationship between Booth and Brennan. But because they do hold themselves – and the world – to such rigorous standards, their relationship ultimately only strengthens the way they perform. They push one another to excel, to pursue justice, to embrace truth even when that truth is difficult to take. It is by no means your typical partnership, however…"
He stopped. Booth raised his eyebrows, still not quite daring to believe this was really happening.
"However…" Booth prompted.
Sweets smiled at him. It was a good smile, too – the kind of smile you got from friends who've stuck by you long after you deserved to lose them.
"However," Sweets picked up, "that partnership still works. Their record speaks for itself – theirs is a formidable pairing that will not suffer, regardless of what might be happening personally. Regardless of what personal challenges they may face, I genuinely believe that Dr. Brennan and Agent Booth will always set those challenges aside in order to assure the successful resolution to a case."
Booth let out a breath, sinking back in his chair. Werner looked at him, then back at Sweets. The old man was smiling, just a little.
"So, Dr. Sweets, your official recommendation?"
Sweets stayed serious. "Though it is not the two weeks initially thought required for this process, I would like to offer my professional conclusion now. It is my opinion that the personal relationship between Dr. Temperance Brennan and Special Agent Seeley Booth has no bearing on the respective outcome of their investigations, or how said investigations are conducted. The fact that the two subjects are employed by separate agencies further facilitates their ability to maintain objectivity and have the appropriate checks and balances in place to ensure that justice continues to be served, as it has by both parties to this point."
Booth's eyes widened, and he scratched his head a little.
"Okay – in English, Sweets?"
Sweets turned in his chair and held out his hand. "Congratulations, Agent Booth," the psychologist said sincerely. "I hope that you and Dr. Brennan will continue your partnership for many years to come."
Booth almost broke the sound barrier trucking over to the Jeffersonian after his meeting with Sweets and Werner. The investigation into his and Bones's partnership was over. TJ should be back in Portland by now. His talk with Gordon Gordon that morning made him feel like he had a better grip on himself than he'd had in weeks. And now, it was time to track down Bones and make things right again.
Once he got to the Jeffersonian, however, it turned out there was just one thing standing in the way of his whole turning-over-a-new-leaf-and-getting-Bones-back plan. Actually, just one person.
"No way."
At the moment, that person was standing with her arms crossed over her chest, blocking the way into the cryptology lab in the basement of the Jeffersonian, where Bones was working.
"Angela, look – I'm not gonna screw this up. I've had time to think – "
"No. You've had time to get drunker than a skunk, hit on Cam, for crying out loud, and then suddenly have an epiphany in the morning. Be grateful I intercepted your call last night, before you did permanent damage."
Booth's face fell. "Wait – I called her?"
"You called her," Angela confirmed. "It's just lucky for you I've had some experience with lovesick boys and their lust for drunk dialing, and convinced her to hand over her phone before bed last night."
He winced. "That bad?"
"Soooo much worse. Trust me. Maybe you really have had time to think, but frankly? Brennan hasn't. She's still pissed – and has every right to be, might I add. And you may have showered and shaved, but you still look like hell, and your pores are leaking 90-proof liquor."
He didn't say anything. They were both talking low, the door shut behind them and Bones doing her bones thing just out of sight. The Jeffersonian basement always gave him the creeps, anyway – it was dusty and dark, with weird stuff from the displays lurking in all the corners. Saturday afternoon meant the place was mostly empty – everyone but Hodgins had done their thing as far as the Black Ridge case went, so until they either got more bodies or more evidence, nobody could do much of anything. Bones, of course, always had work she could do.
He was debating whether or not to listen to Angela or ignore her and talk to Bones anyway when a voice came from behind him, so sudden Booth just about jumped out of his skin.
"Seeley."
Booth turned around to find Tripp headed down the hallway. The man looked tired and a little scruffy, a wary look to his eyes that said he wasn't sure whether Booth was actually safe to be around anymore.
"Hey," Booth greeted him. The night before came back in a rush of bad moves and worse words, and he had to work to meet the man's eye.
"Listen, about last night…"
Tripp waved him off, but it wasn't like an all's forgiven wave – more like a 'we'll deal with it later' wave.
"Cam told me you'd be down here. Come on – we need to swing by your place. Grab your gear."
Angela had been quiet up to this point, still guarding Bones like she was protecting the queen, but now she piped up.
"What gear?"
"Yeah," Booth echoed. "What gear?"
"Pack. Woolies. You still got those snowshoes I loaned you?"
Booth nodded. "Yeah, but what the hell – "
"Cam said to get you out of town. I checked in with Werner, pretending I was helping out with the case. He said everything's at a standstill while your guys chase down leads. You've got your cell – we'll stay in range. But we're hitting the woods."
"I can't hit – "
"Oh, yes you can," Angela interrupted. "That's actually genius. You guys can have some male bonding ritual thing in the woods, and I can spend twenty-four hours without Jack talking to me about the miracle of – "
"Hey hey hey," Booth interrupted. "He never said anything about inviting Hodgins on this thing."
Tripp shrugged. "Nah, that's a good idea. I already invited TJ – the more the merrier, right?"
"Wait?" Booth froze. "You already what?"
Tripp turned innocent eyes on him for about two seconds before he broke into a grin. "Just kidding."
Booth started to say something in protest, but Tripp held up his hand.
"Hey – you hit on my girlfriend while I was in the next room buying you beer. I figure I'm entitled to a few shots."
Booth fell silent, feeling a flush climb his neck. "Yeah… Have I mentioned how sorry I am about that?"
"You can apologize on the way out," Tripp said. He gave a smile that seemed sincere enough, and nodded toward the exit. "Don't worry about it, we're good. But that doesn't mean I'm letting you anywhere near a beer, a bar, or my girlfriend for at least twenty-four hours."
Considering the way he'd acted, Booth figured that was probably fair.
Tripp, Hodgins, and Booth somehow turned into Tripp, Hodgins, Sweets, Wendell, and Booth. And Jared. Booth put his foot down when they mentioned bringing along the Brit and the Arab guy who wasn't really Arab. There was a limit to a man's patience, after all.
Despite Booth's very loud protests, they all crowded into Tripp's suburban, along with backpacks and snowshoes and those sausage things that squirt cheese when you bite into them. No beer. No liquor. Booth was allowed to bring his cell phone and his gun, since there was the chance that the Black Ridge case could break wide open anytime. He double and triple checked on the security at Hodgins's place, but so far nobody had seen a trace of somebody following Bones. Remembering his mistake over the summer, he made sure he was on top of both the private security at the Hodgins estate and the Feds Werner had gotten on board. After the whole break-in at Bones's place earlier that week, he just kept expecting somebody to show up, some contact to be made… Something.
But there was nothing.
And so, they went into the woods. Since Booth actually did need to stay kind of close at hand, Tripp managed to find a place that was only about an hour outside DC but still looked like it was the middle of nowhere. Greenbelt Park wasn't far off, but this place was beyond the park limits – apparently, one of the Outward Bound guide's buddies had a cabin he'd said they could use for the night.
The only problem was, there wasn't actually a road leading up there.
Or a path.
It was cold. Dark, with nothing but a toenail moon looking down on them, but the snow kept things light enough to see by. Seven o'clock on a Saturday night, but Booth found that once he'd gotten past everything else, he was kind of glad to be where he was. He strapped on snowshoes like the rest of the guys, took a few easy breaths, and followed behind Tripp.
The snow was maybe a foot deep, solid enough that it was easy to blaze a trail without falling through the thick layer of ice at the top of the packed powder. Sweets was having a hard time keeping up, so Booth fell back a little to keep him company. Jared was quiet – Booth realized for maybe the first time just how rare it was for him to actually include his brother in his life. For him to include anybody in his life, really, except for maybe Bones.
"It's gorgeous out here," Hodgins said, stalling out about halfway up a steep incline. "I keep reminding myself to get out of the lab, but nights like this I realize just how much I'm missing."
"You ask me, it's a little creepy," Wendell disagreed. He kept looking back over his shoulder, like he expected some monster to come after them any second. "Back home, the only time people come out someplace this quiet on purpose is to kill somebody."
"Where the hell'd you grow up, El Salvador?" Jared asked.
"Philly, born and bred," Wendell told him.
The conversation tapered off, but they stayed where they were. From their spot on the mountainside, they could see back down over a world of white and ice, trees stripped bare and ragged evergreens that would never make the cut in Christmas town. It was a real winter scene – not the ones in Rockwell paintings where the snow's still fresh and the trees have that pretty coat of white, but the darker world of black and white that felt more real, somehow, to Booth. Prettier, too, in its way.
"We should keep going," Tripp finally said, when everybody'd gone quiet. Booth snapped out of his trance, and they moved on.
When they reached the cabin, Booth found himself feeling more clear than he had in a good, long time. He'd sweated out all the alcohol he'd been dumping down his throat for the past seventy-two hours, and finally felt clean. Pretty fresh, too, for a guy who'd slept like crap for weeks and smelled like old gym socks.
Inside, Tripp got the woodstove going and they cooked up bratwurst and beans and all the fare that would make the cabin completely unlivable by three a.m. Played a couple games of cards, talked about women and jobs, sex and stress and the good old days. Somewhere along the line, it occurred to Booth that the people he was surrounded with – Hodgins and Sweets, Wendell, Tripp, his brother – had stopped being just guys he knew, and had become friends. Family, in a way that went deeper than just blood. It got him thinking about the Rangers, which got him thinking about Mickey.
"So, I'm thinking about buying the bar," Jared said, out of the blue. The Rangers and Mickey went straight out the window.
They were sitting in lawn chairs around a potbelly stove in the middle of the one-room cabin. There were bunkbeds lining the walls, and the place was already getting that homey smell that came with six guys who'd just eaten more than their share of bratwurst and beans.
"What bar?" Booth demanded, sounding more like a big brother than he had all night. Jared rolled his eyes, pursed his lips.
"Founding Fathers," he said. "Well – to be honest, I'm kind of beyond the thinking stage."
"How far beyond?" Sweets asked curiously.
Jared got that little half-smile Booth always had the urge to wipe off his face. Quirked an eyebrow. Pulled out a set of keys from his jacket, and dangled them in front of them.
"The keys to the kingdom, fellas."
"You bought Founding Fathers?" Booth asked. "Where the hell did you get the money to buy Founding Fathers? And aren't you a drunk? What the hell are you thinking buying a – "
"Don't make me separate you, boys," Tripp said easily. "Booth, chill out. Let him tell his story."
Jared waited until Booth had settled back in his chair, thinking for the first time that leaving the beer behind might have been a mistake.
"I didn't buy it alone. Padme's sister – Will – went in on it with me. We talked about it for a while, and…" he shrugged. "Let's face it, big brother, my military career isn't exactly taking off. But this… I could be good at this. I'm good with money."
Booth rolled his eyes. "Since when?"
Jared bristled, but Sweets interrupted. "It's true, actually. I've had a few conversations with Jared about finances – his advice has always been very sound."
"So, you own a bar," Booth said, letting the thought roll around in his brain. "That's what you were doing there the other night – that was the page of numbers you had out."
He nodded. "You got it."
"And that whole, you're a drunk thing?" Booth pressed, not content to just let it go now that they were talking about it.
There was a long silence. Jared had a ginger ale in his hands – he kind of rolled the can back and forth, eyed it for a minute. Thought.
"One day at a time, big brother. You're the one who brought up Cheers the other night, or don't you remember? Sam Malone was the biggest drunk out there. If he can do it…"
"Sam Malone was on TV," Booth pointed out.
He shrugged easily. People were always saying how much Jared looked like his big brother, but Booth never really saw it. Just then, he did.
"Okay," Booth finally nodded. "So, you bought yourself a bar." He thought about it. "I guess that could be a good thing. If this case doesn't work out, I might be looking for a job."
Jared gave him a slow grin. The talk steered away from the bar and back onto other things. Booth got sleepy, but he stayed up as long as he could. Listened to the chatter, cracked a few jokes, felt life slowly ease its weight off his shoulders.
It had been a good day.
When he settled into his bunk that night, it wasn't quite midnight. He was on the bottom bunk, Jared on the top, the way it used to be when they were kids. A memory came back to him all of a sudden, and he kind of smiled. Stretched his legs up and kicked the mattress above him.
"Ow. Quit it, Seeley," Jared said.
Booth smiled. Kicked again, light enough not to do any damage, hard enough to be annoying as hell.
"Damn it, knock it off. Or – "
Old threats came back to him. "Or what?" he challenged.
"Or I'll come down there and kick your ass."
"Both of you knock it off, or I'll come over and kick both your asses," Tripp said, half asleep in the bunk across the room.
Jared shut up; Booth let his legs fall back onto the bed. He thought of Parker. Thought of Bones. Said a silent 'thank you' for both of them, and closed his eyes. He was happy where he was, no doubt, but all of a sudden he couldn't wait for morning to come.
Because he knew exactly where he was headed at first light.
"Seeley." A whisper at his ear, but definitely not the voice he was used to hearing before dawn. He opened one eye.
"What?"
The cabin was filled with snoring and guy funk – which was all right in small doses, but Booth was looking forward to getting home all the same. Tripp was crouched beside his bunk, dressed and sharp-eyed in the dim light that spilled through dirty windows.
"C'mon – I've got coffee. Let's go for a hike."
He groaned. "Take Sweets – he loves that shit. I'm sleeping."
It turned out that he wasn't actually sleeping at all, though, because the next minute Tripp had stolen his pillow and was already headed out the door. Booth kind of grumbled, wondering how the hell someone like Cam – Cam, for Christ's sake, who never got out of bed before noon if she could help it – put up with this.
He dressed in a hurry, silent and alert, feeling the miracle cure of twenty-four hours without a drop of booze and the workout the night before, beginning to kick his body back into shape.
Outside, a light coat of snow had fallen while they were sleeping – the Rockwell world he'd dismissed the night before was back. He had to admit, it was impressive. Fresh powder weighed down the evergreens, covered the roof, coated the blue tarp protecting a woodpile up against the cabin. The air was cold, but not cold enough that he minded much – a little bite that was good for waking up. No wind. No noise.
Tripp handed him a thermos and his snowshoes. "C'mon – sun's almost up. Best view's up over that rise."
Since fighting him would be pointless, Booth just strapped on his shoes. Tucked his thermos in his pack, and took the trekking poles Tripp had been holding for him.
"What time is it?" he finally asked.
Tripp shrugged. "Not a clue. Early, I imagine. Come on – get the lead out, kid."
They hit their goal maybe twenty minutes later. It wasn't a hard climb, but it was enough to get Booth's blood moving and his breath coming a little harder. The sky was that deep pink he'd only seen in winter skies – a color Angela would be able to capture, he knew, but otherwise he couldn't imagine anybody but God getting it right. He and Tripp sat on a narrow ledge with their feet dangling over the edge, nothing but air for miles below them.
They were both silent for a while, before Tripp started talking.
"Did Cam ever tell you I was married before?" he asked.
Booth shook his head, surprised. It seemed like the kind of thing that would've come up before.
Tripp dug around in his pocket for a minute and came out with his wallet. Opened it up and pulled out a picture, then handed it to Booth.
"Caroline," he said.
The woman staring back at him was blonde. Great smile. Blue eyes. Good looking, but Booth wasn't exactly sure how he was supposed to react.
"Uh – wow," was all he finally came up with. Then, "Does – uh, does Cam know you're carrying around a picture of your ex-wife?"
"It was her idea," he said easily. He took the picture back, looked at it for a second, then put it back in his wallet. "And not ex – late. She died, just over twelve years ago."
"Oh." Booth thought about this for a second. "I'm sorry. Were you married long?"
Tripp nodded, thinking about the question. "Fourteen years. We got married young – one of those whirlwind things. We met when we were both pre-med. I took one look at her, and I was gone. Asked her to marry me on our second date."
Booth laughed, looking at the man in surprise. "What'd she say?"
Tripp rolled his eyes. "Ask me again in six months."
"And?"
He shrugged. "I asked her again in six months, to the day. She said yes." They got quiet again for a little while, Tripp kind of thoughtful. "We were engaged for a year. Ten months into it, she broke it off. Said she didn't want to see me anymore."
Booth found himself caught up in the story, trying to imagine Tripp at twenty-four, twenty-five. A lovesick pre-med Tripp, without scruff and an overloaded backpack.
"Why?"
Tripp grinned, rolled his eyes. A big roll, too, like women were a little too much sometimes.
"Said I didn't talk to her."
At the words, Booth perked up. He kept his eyes out on the horizon, thinking about this. "You?" He had a hard time believing this. "What'd you do?"
"Said good riddance. I was a hotshot resident at that point – couldn't teach me a thing I didn't already know. We were apart three days before I came groveling back."
"So, what'd you do about the talking thing?" Booth asked, trying not to seem too interested.
"Caroline came up with the solution. You know that thing we did this summer? That one question a night thing?"
Booth nodded with a frown, remembering the Outward Bound course that summer and talking way more than he wanted to about things he didn't really care to share with anyone, at campfires in the woods when he would've much rather been sleeping.
"She came up with that?"
Tripp nodded, with a little laugh. "Yep – that was all her. That was the rule: one question a night, no holds barred. No lying, no secrets, no not answering."
Booth considered this for a couple seconds. "And it worked?"
Another nod. Tripp got quiet, looking out over the valley below. Took a breath.
"Once the kids were old enough, they got in on the act. Drove them nuts for a long while. But when she was dying – she was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was thirty-seven, – we kept up with the questions." Booth didn't say anything. It seemed like there weren't really any words for that kind of thing. Tripp went on, after a while.
"Not long before the end, she wrote a whole notebook of questions for me, for after she was gone… Things to ask the kids. Things to ask myself. Conversations I'd have with the stars, imagining she was there." The man leaned back against the rock face behind them, a distant smile on his face.
"It's funny, after a while one night of great sex starts to blend into another… Not that great sex is anything to sneeze at, of course. But those talks – sometimes, I can just replay them in my head. I can remember the way Ginny – that's our youngest – used to roll her eyes at the beginning of the night, before she started getting into it and pretty soon you'd have to do everything but muzzle her just to get her to stop. I remember Caroline sitting on the bed with her arms wrapped around her legs, her chin resting on her knees, this look on her face like there was no place in the world she'd rather be. Nothing more interesting than the conversation we were having."
He kind of laughed, bringing himself back from that world like he'd gotten lost for a minute.
"You find somebody who wants to hear your stories – all of them, even the ugly ones – that bad, and you don't let them go."
It got quiet again. Booth was thinking about the other morning in bed with Bones. Lying in her arms, knowing that there was no other place on the planet he'd rather be.
He stood up, all of a sudden.
"We should go."
Tripp looked up at him with a big old grin. "Oh yeah?" he asked knowingly. "Where to?"
Booth didn't even dignify the question with a response.
"I'm not leaving."
Angela was giving Booth the eye at the front door of the Hodgins palace, but he didn't even care. He was showered, he was shaved. He was thinking clearer than he had in days.
And he wasn't leaving alone.
"How long since your last drink?" she asked skeptically.
Booth checked his watch. It was ten o'clock on Sunday morning, and Angela was wearing what had to be the only maternity kimono on the planet. He did a little mental calculating.
"I don't know… Thirty-six hours? Not since Friday night."
Angela thought it over for a few minutes, then nodded toward the back of the place.
"She's out feeding the ducks."
"You have ducks?"
"There's a pond out back. Sometimes, there are ducks in it." Angela crossed her arms over her chest. "Is that really important?"
Definitely not.
Bones wasn't actually feeding the ducks. Mostly, it seemed like she was studying them in that way she did, taking in every detail of what they were doing. She was sitting on a wooden bench with coffee in her hands, the collar of her coat up and a wool hat Booth had always liked, setting a little lopsided on her pretty head.
"Hey," he said, because he had to say something to start things out.
She turned around in her seat. As always, he could read every emotion that crossed her face. First – and this was the one he chose to cling to – came a little flicker of happiness. Next, of course, came sadness, and then she just looked pissed off.
All of which, to be fair, Booth could totally understand.
Still, he wasn't going anywhere.
"I wanted to talk to you."
"We agreed we'd talk tomorrow morning," she said. She stood up, holding her coffee like it was a deadly weapon. "You're being irrational."
"I have to go out of town in a couple of hours," he said, which was true. "I won't be here tomorrow to talk."
Something that looked a lot like panic flashed in her eyes. She turned her back on him and looked out over the pond. There were maybe three ducks out there, and an ornery looking goose walking on the opposite bank.
"I'm not ready," she said. Her voice was so quiet he almost didn't hear her, a desperate edge to her words.
"Not ready for what, Bones?" He kept his voice quiet, easy. Went to her and turned her with a hand at her elbow, until she had no choice but to meet his eye.
"Ready for what, Bones?" he repeated. "Talk to me. Another twelve hours isn't gonna change your mind if you've already made your decision."
It was hard to get the words out; even harder to look Temperance in the eye, watching the way her face changed. Tears started, but then a second later she got a hold of herself and went still.
"I don't think this is right," she said quietly. "It shouldn't be this hard." A single tear leaked out, and she brushed it away. "I can't do it anymore. I think perhaps some people simply weren't meant for a relationship. I have my work – "
"Bones," he said, just as quiet. He hadn't meant it to sound so naked.
She stopped. Crossed her arms over her chest defiantly, her chin tipped up and her eyes flashing.
"You said you wanted us to talk."
"I do," he said, meaning it for the first time in a long time.
He sat her down on the bench, then took a seat beside her. Besides the squawking of those few birds on the little pond, the place was silent. It felt like he and Bones were the last people on the planet.
"I know things have been rough lately, and I know that's my fault." He looked at her, waiting for her to say something.
She didn't.
"I'll take that as a yes. So… yeah. I know things have been rough, and I haven't been as open as you deserve. But here's the thing, Bones – "
She looked at him then, interest slowly edging out both the sadness and the anger. He was grateful, at least, for that.
"The thing is…" he took a deep breath. "I deserve another chance. Unless you know without a doubt that you don't wanna be with me – unless you've decided that you don't, you know," he swallowed hard, but kept going, "love me anymore, then… I deserve a second chance. We deserve a second chance."
She didn't say anything for a few seconds. All of a sudden she got up again and made for the pond. Booth followed, but it was a while before she finally turned and looked at him.
"Sweets says the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
Her jaw was set, arms crossed over her chest, but there was something in her eyes that gave him hope. Whatever she said, he could tell she hadn't closed the door completely. Not yet.
He took her hands, carefully unfolding her arms and pulling her just a little closer, so they were facing each other.
"Then we won't do the same thing, Bones. Okay? You want me to talk, I'll talk." She didn't say anything. He took a deep breath. "Go ahead – ask me anything. Deepest, darkest secret you can think of. I'll tell you anything you want to know."
It was the only thing he had to give, he realized.
He just hoped it was enough.
It was enough, at least, to get her interested. She thought for a couple of seconds. Booth had the uneasy feeling he might not like where this led. Finally, she fixed him with her blue eyes, staring him down, the slightest hint of a challenge in the way she tipped her head, the way she set her jaw.
"Why do you always change the subject when I talk about what happened in Portland?"
Something must have crossed his face, a flicker of just how much he didn't want to have this conversation, because Bones moved away from him. Not much – maybe just a fraction of an inch, but it was enough to notice.
"Jeez, Bones – you couldn't start with something easy, like where do we go when we die, or where do babies come from?"
Instead of getting the joke, Bones just looked confused. Then hurt. Then pissed – a whole storm of emotions that passed in an instant, and Booth knew it was time to get in the game before he blew this completely.
"Hey – I'm kidding, Bones. I'm sorry." He nodded toward the bench. She didn't move, even when he took a seat on the cold wood. "C'mon, Bones. Sit."
Another second's hesitation, before she finally settled beside him. He turned a little so he could face her. Remembered another bench, another time – him telling her things he'd never told another soul, her hand in his for the first time.
He took a breath, and did what he didn't have the guts to do back then: Looked her in the eye.
"You wanna know why I don't talk about Oregon?"
She nodded, the challenge in her eyes fading now that he was really giving in, vulnerability replacing it.
"What do you remember about that night?" he asked. Didn't want to, because it would mean dragging her – dragging them – back there, and it was the last place on the planet he ever wanted to go again.
She thought about it. "Not a lot," she finally confessed. "I remember the cold. The rain." She got quiet – testing him, he thought, to see if she could really trust him with this when he'd let her down so many times before.
"I remember talking to you."
"You mean when I got there?"
She shook her head. Got still, and sad, and distant. Booth felt his throat close up. He found he had to remind himself to breathe.
"When I was alone, hiding. You were everywhere – I would think I couldn't go another step, last another moment. And I would hear your voice, or see you telling me to keep going, no matter what." She paused, looking at him like she was just remembering something. "I thought that perhaps that was the way you feel at times, when you're praying. Though of course I know that you exist, and God is an unquantifiable construct – "
Booth held up a hand, managing a smile. She fell silent, not looking at him anymore. He reached over, careful, like he was working with a wild thing sure to run at the slightest movement, and took her hand.
She looked at him, searching for something. She must have found it, because she didn't pull her hand away.
"I don't remember very much else," she finally said, like she was letting him down. "I don't remember you coming – only that suddenly you were there. There are things I know from reading the reports, but Washington being there, Mickey dying…" She shook her head. Looked down at his hand, playing with his fingers.
"I didn't know that," he said. Why the hell hadn't he known that, he wondered?
"I didn't want to talk about it at first," Bones finally said, when the silence went on too long. "But then it became so frustrating not to remember… to have all these pieces of the night simply erased, not to be able to access them and analyze what had happened…"
He kind of smiled at that. Only Bones would want to remember one of the worst nights of her life so she could look back and analyze it later.
Her hand was cold, which meant her other hand was probably colder. Booth took both of them between his own to try and restore some warmth.
"You wanna know what I remember about that night?"
Bones looked up in a flash, like he'd just tossed her a lifeline. Her eyes were shining, no tears spilled but they were there all the same. She didn't say anything, didn't nod, but Booth figured he knew the answer to the question.
"You died that night." She started to say something, but he stopped her with a shake of his head. "Not really – really, we got you airlifted to the hospital and they warmed you up and set your ankle and you came back to me."
He paused. Swallowed hard, but kept his eyes full on hers. "In my head, though, you died about a thousand times that day – every sick, twisted way you can imagine, from the time they took you the night before to the time when I finally saw your eyes open in the hospital and I knew you were really safe."
The night came back to him in a flash. Bones in the rain, her eyes dead, Mickey's arm wrapped around her neck. He took a quick breath, pushed the image away.
"When I saw you that night…" his hands tightened around hers. "You looked so cold. You were shivering, his clothes plastered to you, torn and bloodied, your face whiter than I've ever seen anyone. I didn't know what he'd done before I got there, how hurt you might be."
"You thought he'd raped me," she said, just realizing it herself. Her voice was even – kind, like she felt bad for him, for Christ's sake. He felt a tear spill when she said it, and let go of her hand just for a second, to brush it away. He nodded, but it took another second before he got his voice back.
"I didn't know. Not until we got you back to the hospital and they did the kit, and they said he hadn't. That whatever happened to you was exposure and falls and running... He hadn't gotten to you. But until then, all I could think was that I hadn't gotten there on time. And I couldn't stand the thought that somebody who would do that to you – " he got choked up again, and stopped to take a breath. When he spoke again, his voice was almost back to normal. He looked her in the eye once more, but he couldn't quite hold back the tears this time.
"I brought him into your life. And I know you say it's not my fault, it's okay, but if I hadn't gotten there when I did, or you hadn't gotten away before he could do more…"
The wrinkle was back in her forehead, and she was watching him like she did sometimes – blue eyes wide, that kind of softness that made him feel more loved, more seen, than he'd ever felt in his life. She reached over and put her hand on his cheek.
"But, Seeley," she said, soft enough to break his heart. "None of those things happened. I did get away. You did get there in time. What happened wasn't your fault – yes, you introduced me to Mickey. But the fact that he was the man he turned out to be – "
She leaned in all of a sudden and kissed him, fast, and them moved back far enough to look him in the eye again.
"I'm all right. And when I'm not al right, I would like to be able to tell you without feeling as though I'm burdening you – "
"You're not burdening me. You can always come to me if you need to talk, Bones."
"Only if you promise to do the same, though. Otherwise, it's not fair. It's not a partnership, any other way."
He kind of smiled. Nodded. "I'm starting to get that, I think."
Things got still between them. He ran a hand down her soft cheek, around to the back of her neck. Thought of how strong she was, how breakable. How many different things she was, and it seemed like he was still just scratching the surface.
"Are we okay?" he whispered, almost afraid of the answer.
She hesitated, long enough to make him think maybe all this had been a wasted effort. Finally swallowed past all the fear and doubt Booth knew she must be feeling.
"We're okay."
He leaned in once the words were out, and did the only thing he'd been wanting to do for days. Moved closer, and their lips met. Pulled her close and her lips parted and they kissed until he knew they were both catching fire, until it felt like her body was melting into his and making love right there on Hodgins's back forty sounded like a pretty damned good plan. But, since he figured Angela and Hodgins were probably inside right about now with their faces pressed to the glass watching this whole thing play out, he decided to forego that last part.
Instead, he pulled back and couldn't swallow his grin at the want in her eyes.
"So, Bones, I've got a favor to ask."
He could tell by the look in her eyes that she was waiting for something sexy – which he'd be happy to give her in spades, just as soon as they had a spare second. For now, though, he had his partner back. And, it turned out, they actually had some work to do.
"Remember how I said I'm going out of town?"
She nodded, the anticipation turning to a sort of glazed sense of duty. "I remember."
"Good. 'Cause I want you to come with me – you've got the bone stuff figured out, and I think I know where we're gonna find our missing horse pill salesman."
Despite everything, there was a spark of interest in her eyes. "Where?"
"There's a plane leaving for Kentucky in an hour. You with me?"
If she wasn't getting sex, apparently adventure was a pretty good substitute. Bones nodded. They stood up, and he wrapped his arm around her shoulder as they walked away from the pond. She leaned into him, but he could still feel a tiny reserve between them, could tell she wasn't ready to trust him just yet after everything he'd put her through. That was okay, though - he had another chance. They had a plane waiting and a killer to catch. And somewhere along the way, he'd convince Bones he was never going anywhere again.
TBC
