Letting a very large sigh be released from her chest, the pathologist walked from her office to the main lab area where several interns and Brennan were looking over the bones of Keira Booth. What she had just done probably was going to either strengthen or cost her friendship with Seeley, and it was making her nervous as hell. Turning from the remains she looked around at the different offices, trying to choose which one of her colleagues to spill her guts with.


This was the twelfth sketch that Angela had drawn in the past hour of Keira. They all were slightly different, sometimes her bangs were in her eyes, or she was smiling widely or looking away. But whatever it was she couldn't get the picture of this unknown Booth out of her head. From what Bren had told her, Seeley and his mother were taking it quite well, no big scream fests. She tossed the sketch pad onto her desk and leaned back rubbing her eyes.

"Cam how the hell could you do that!" Angela jumped up, and looked around for the origin of the yelling.

"At least it was me and not some FBI agent." Cam said in a cool voice.

"Well maybe that agent would have been Booth." She knew that the voice yelling was Sweets and it was a bit concerning, he was one of the few people that never yelled.

"It was their mother that has been missing for over thirty years. Jared has waited long enough."

"And it wasn't your place to tell him."

"It was me or Seeley three months from now."

"Or his own mother." Sweets swallowed and took in a deep breath, trying to put some composure back into his actions. "Cam yes, you know them personally and for much longer than us. But this is over stepping the boundaries. Extremely."

"Sweets." Angela said from the doorway, her arms crossed like an upset parent, "If we're going to have a domestic dispute, I'm going to have to ask you to take this outside."

"You know what. Deal with this on your own, you obviously know what you're doing, because you all have dealt with finding a parent after an extended period of time." he stormed out at the last comment, it wasn't really rude, but the lab was still shocked that he had raised his voice that loud.


"Oh, uh Jared right?" Ailis stared up at the man, now she saw the resemblance.

"Yes, can I come in?" Jared took a step closer to the door, and Ailis didn't really think about her next sentence.

"Um, Seeley is here now." For some reason this is going to make the whole situation better, Ailis said bitterly in her mind.

"He is?" Jared looked around the room and then followed the sound of heavy footsteps until he saw his brother walking out of the kitchen, heading towards them.

Hearing a very familiar voice at the door, Seeley started to move from the kitchen to the living room, where Ailis stood holding the door open to Jared.

"Jared?" Who told him? He was the one who was going to tell him, supposed to tell him about their mother. "How did you find out?"

"How did I find out?" he mocked, "Seeley, Cam had to tell me Mom's address. Where is she?"

"I'm waiting for her to come back."

"Come back from where?"

"The doctors." Ailis butted in. She had backed away from the door, standing between the coffee table and the couch, the brothers for a moment forgetting. Not wanting to have to go through the long explanation of the cancer now, she would let Grammy deal with that.

"Oh."

"Um, Ailis can we talk to each other for a few minutes." Seeley was

"Yea."

Taking Jared by the arm, Seeley lead him out onto the front porch. Ailis watched, holding onto her elbows stiffly as her two uncles, wow that was weird for her to think or well now know that she had uncles who were seconds away from fighting. When the door closed she folded herself onto one of the bottom steps of the stairs, leaning her head against the wall she squeezed her eyes shut, Is this how all families act or does God just hate me and wants to laugh at my fail of being in a already dysfunctional family?

"Why the hell didn't you tell me?" Jared's voice was harsh even though it was in a slight whisper.

"Jared I was going to. I've only known for two days..."

"I've only known for two hours! You didn't even tell me, Cam had to call me." He turned away from Seeley, but his brother could still see the tension in his body.

"She shouldn't have."

"You shouldn't have kept this from me! I was her son to." Jared turned around quickly and marched over to Seeley.

He stared at his brother for a moment before he spook, "No you are her son." Seeley could see that his brother wasn't pleased with the comment.

"She left us. She didn't want us and she probably wouldn't have come and found us if they hadn't found that woman's body."

"Keira's body."

"Well how the hell would I know that? I haven't talked to her in thirty years."

"Jared..."

"Don't even try to explain this." Jared turned from him and looked out to the street. "When is she going to be back?"

"Ailis said twenty minutes."

"Ailis..."

"The girl inside,"

"Yea,"

"That's Keira's daughter."

"Shit, I'm an uncle." Jared turned to look at Seeley, surprise clearly on his face.

"You've been an uncle to Parker." He said slightly confused.

"Well, yea it's just a bit of a shock." He took a second before continuing, "How old is she?"

"Ailis?"

"Yea."

"15, Keira would have been 32."

"So. How is she?"

"Mom?"

"Yea."

"Okay. Well it's not okay, but."

"For the situation."

"Yea."


Angela really knew that because Bren was Bren, she would have missed the event of the decade, Sweets yelling. Standing up a bit stiffly, she left her office and started over to her friend's office. Rounding a corner of the lab she saw that the office was dark, turning to look up at the where the bodies and other pieces of evidence were she only saw a few of the interns and then Wendell.

"Wendell!" she called.

"Yea." Turning to look at Angela his elbow hit the beaker that he had been holding up to his eyes. "Ahhh." he sighed as he steadied the beaker and prevented the liquid inside from spilling and him being yelled at. "Good." Looking at the beaker, making sure that it wouldn't fall he turned to see the woman he gave an awkward smile in return to the look on her face. "Hey." Rubbing the back of his neck Wendell attempted to keep a blush down.

"Have you seen Bren?"

"Dr. Brennan? No she left around ten."

"Did she say where she was going?"

"No."

"Grrrr."

"Have you tried calling her?"

"No." it took her a minute to realize that he was actually trying to be helpful. "Oh. Thanks Wendell."

"No prob."

A few of the other interns looked up from their work at his use of the slang, "Sorry, -blem."


In a trio they sat, all staring at different parts of the room or for Ailis, at her phone. Far from what she expected the two brothers came back in slightly more appreciative of each other, though they were still a bit stiff.

"So when did Mom say she was going to be home?"

"A little bit, there might be traffic." she said as she looked at her phone screen. 5:35. Her appointment was supposed to be over sooner, it had started only three hours earlier.

"Oh yea, rush hour." He nodded, he and Seeley were used to the tension between them, but throwing in a teenage girl that they both barely knew, and it seemed to become impossibly higher.

"Yup." Ailis was in her own world as she flipped open the phone to reply to a text.

"Who are you talking to?" Ailis ignored it, thinking that Jared was asking some random question.

"Ailis?" she looked up, pretending to just not have heard instead of choosing not to hear.

"Oh. . Um my friend Conner..."

"Friend?" Jared gave a small smirk to Seeley, maybe they could joke their way to a somewhat normal niece-uncle relationship.

"Yea. I've known him since I was like seven." She rolled her eyes at the suggestion.

"Always the best couples." She knew that he was trying to joke, but still even when Seeley did it, it was so forced. Gosh, this was the perfect set up for a character on some stupid teen show.

"What? Wow, not like that at all man. Way," she exaggerated the way out, as if that proved her point, "Way off."

"Oh." Seeley nodded he looked at Jared who had a sly face on, even if he had just met her, he was still going to treat her like family. Which was joking on her all the time.

She rolled her eyes in the teenagerish fashion and returned to typing into her phone, before hitting send she paused when she heard the halt of a car's axles. Lunging up she ran to the door with excitement, she really needed a Grammy meatloaf. But a disappointed look fell across her face as she saw a really fancy car outside of the house, with a woman climbing out of it.

"Seeley?"

"Yea."

"Isn't that the lady that you came with the other day, the author?" Not responding with words, Seeley took a spot parallel to Ailis and looked out the window to find the missing Temperance Brennan walking up the steps to the Booth Household.