Later, at the lab, I was impressing Hodgins with my story of how I'd totally won a bitch fit with the head of Hanover security when Brennan and Booth came to the platform, arguing. "What do you mean it's not a suicide?" Booth demanded fiercely, stepping up the platform first. "What is that?" He looked around as the sudden sound started.

The light on the control panel flashed as a high-pitched alarm started to beep. Brennan swiped her ID card before letting it fall back down her lab coat on the lanyard. "We can't just let anyone step into the forensics area and contaminate all the boring details," Brennan hissed angrily.

I flinched. "Oh, Booth. What did you do this time?" It was becoming common knowledge that the FBI agent and the anthropologist had many disagreements.

"The boring details?" Booth repeated, incredulous. "'The boring details' was my signal for you to stop talking, okay?!" It clicked; after calling me, when I was talking to the headmaster and security officer, Brennan must have called Booth while he was talking to the local authority. And then Booth… well. He offended her by calling the details of her discoveries boring. Booth looked back to the control panel before stating sharply, "I want my own card!"

"Well, I want my own gun," I said, shrugging my shoulders. "But that's not going to happen anytime soon, is it?" I knew Booth was mad at Brennan, and not me, actually, he wasn't really mad, he was just trying to suck up to her. Brennan was mad at Booth and the argument was between them, but Booth had to put up with me and Brennan was, like, my favorite person in the world, so I took it upon myself to attempt to diffuse tension between them.

Booth shot me a thankful look for taking the focus off of his rude comment, but now had to turn and argue with me, so he kept his voice from showing relief. "Last time you had a gun, you shot someone!"

"He was a bad guy," Zach pointed out faithfully. I smiled at him in thanks for the defense.

"Actually," I corrected Booth, "Last time I had a gun, I never shot anyone. Last time I had a gun, I was chasing a terrorist, who, may I remind you, you shot. In fact, you almost shot me! You know, that was really rude of you! I have more of a right to say to you that you shouldn't have a gun!"

Booth tried to change the topic, but he was quite obvious about it. "Okay, look, who's our victim?"

"All the boring details?" Brennan clarified stingily.

"Let it go, Bones! Move on!"

Brennan's muscles seized in her sudden onslaught of further anger. She reached out to stop Booth from touching the exam table that the victim was on, her fingers visibly tighter than necessary on his arm. "Don't call me Bones!"

Hodgins and I shared a look of pity for the former sniper and Hodgins interrupted the dispute. "We traced the cochlear implant to Dr. Maurice Ledbetter at Cedars Sinai, who placed it in a boy named Nester Olivos."

I nodded needlessly in agreement. "Nester Olivos has – well, had – a student visa, was the only son of a Venezuelan ambassador. Need anything else right now?" I tilted my head subtly to the head of the exam table, where the hyoid was placed between the mandible and sternum. The snapped bone laid innocently, not drawing any attention to it unless it was pointed out. Booth, however, didn't catch the motion.

"Do you want all the boring details?" Brennan asked Booth, refusing to look up at him.

Booth looked at an x-ray over Brennan's shoulder. "Let it go, Bones…"

Brennan lifted the x-ray up and turned herself at an angle so Booth couldn't see it. "Don't call me Bones! The boy's hyoid bone is broken."

Booth rocked his head from side to side as if to say this didn't mean anything to him. "Strangulation death. The hyoid bone is always broken."

"Where did you get your forensics education?" I scoffed.

"In adults," Zach corrected Booth. "This was an adolescent."

"Adolescents' hyoids are flexible, unbreakable," Brennan informed Booth shortly.

Booth sighed at being wrong once again. I'm sensing a pattern here. "Well, maybe the kid's got some kind of Venezuelan brittle bone syndrome." I closed my eyes and let my head drop. Zach exhaled tensely, which I was beginning to realize was one of the few cues he had that showed he was irritated. Booth quickly backtracked. "I'm just trying to help! So you're saying he was murdered?"

"No," Brennan quickly edited. "I'm saying I don't know what happened to the boy, because I don't have all the facts!"

The prep school had brought their frustrations to the FBI, which had decided to call a meeting to officially end the argument over whether or not Booth had continued jurisdiction over the case – it depended on whether or not Brennan ruled it a suicide or homicide case. Present were myself (duh), Brennan, Booth, the burly agent that was rude to Booth during the Masruk case (Agent Santana), and a middle-aged African American man named Dr. Goodman. Dr. Goodman, like Booth, took pride in deportment, and wore an expensive dark business suit. His hair was short and neatly cropped, and he handled himself very professionally. Dr. Goodman had, at first, seemed skeptical at meeting me, but when Brennan confirmed my identity, he was pretty cool with me being there when he recognized me as Brennan's assistant who he had, apparently, been getting good reviews about from the latter.

"How hard can it be?" Santana was asking rudely, his demeanor a classic 'I'm better than you' attitude. "A kid hanging from a tree. Obviously, it's a suicide!"

"Dude, you are seriously stunning me with your single-minded stupidity," I said to him bluntly. "Have you ever heard of murder? Or staging? Maybe you should Google those terms."

Santana's eyes narrowed at me, but Booth stopped him before he could verbally assault me. "Sir, has Hanover Prep been stirring the pudding on this?" What a weird expression.

"Of course they are stirring the pudding!" Santana snorted. "Every mover and shaker in this town is connected to that damn school! Apparently the very future of this country is at stake!"

Booth twitched. "Well, I would like to declare it a murder, just to shake those little bast-"

"I'm not going to declare it a murder so you can 'shake things up!'" Brennan interrupted heatedly. Santana sighed obnoxiously, his contempt not being hidden even subtly.

"The evidence is ambiguous at best," Dr. Goodman said, his tone mild. Either he wasn't sensing the tension in the room or, and this was more likely, he didn't care about Santana's petty attitude.

"Well un-ambiguize it!" Santana snapped. "Please, Dr. Goodman."

"Un-ambiguize isn't a word, smartass," I said, rolling my eyes.

Santana shot me a glare and I smirked at him. I was a minor, a federal ward, and he wasn't at all in charge of me, so I could irritate him all I wanted and he couldn't rebuke me. He tensely tore his gaze away from me and to Brennan. "Look, you're very experienced within your field with bones and such, right? Doesn't your gut say suicide?"

Brennan cast her eyes down to the large oval table, not wishing to start a conflict. "I… don't actually use my gut for that, sir."

Booth didn't smile, but his expression didn't exactly stay neutral either. "She really, really doesn't."

Dr. Goodman folded his hands in his lap. "Like all of us at the Jeffersonian, Dr. Brennan prefers science to the digestive tract."

"What about your gut?" Santana changed his focus to Booth.

Booth put on a 'tough guy' voice as he leaned back. "My gut says it stinks."

Dr. Goodman leaned forward slightly. "If he smells with his gut, what does he use his nose for?" He murmured to Brennan and I. Brennan laughed quietly and I snickered, quickly stifling the sound.

Santana gave up with the idea of intimidation. Defeated, he slumped back in his chair, the front wheel lifting up slightly from the floor. "Alright, alright. In order for an investigation to occur, you, Dr. Brennan, have to declare it a murder."

Dr. Goodman smiled slightly, amused. He folded his hands in his lap. He seemed good at keeping the peace. "Without an investigation we can't find out if it's murder, but there will be no investigation unless Dr. Brennan declares it to be a murder." He cocked his head at me slightly. "Shall I send for a philosopher?"

I snorted. "I think that would confuse the FBI even further. In my time with them I'm learning that they're more brawn than brains." Dr. Goodman chuckled at my joke, even though it was half serious. He wasn't offended because he worked in alliance with the FBI, but he was an employee of the Jeffersonian Institution.

Brennan drew a breath and looked from the table to Dr. Goodman. "They're saying it's my call."

Santana looked to Booth triumphantly, arrogantly crossing his arms. "You see? It's how you talk to these people."

I glared. "It's also how you talk about them in front of their faces like they're idiots that makes them punch you in the face."

"Are you threatening me?" Santana leered.

I shrugged, unconcerned. "That depends on how you interpret the fact."

Brennan took the pause in Santana's response to make her decision. "My official finding is that Nester Olivos…" she paused and looked to me as if in confirmation. Warmed as I was that she trusted me enough for my input, this was her decision. Although it could be suicide, it could also be homicide, and the murderer would go free if Brennan declared it suicide, because an investigation wouldn't be opened and the case would be closed. Personally, I think it should be declared murder so that we could investigate. Even if we were wrong, and there was no murderer, at least we'd know that for sure. I gave Brennan a skeptical expression, attempting to convey my thoughts. Brennan nodded at me almost indiscernibly as she finished; I don't think anyone really noticed. "…Is a victim of a homicide."

"Thank you."

Brennan turned her head to look at Booth from the passenger's side of the SUV, confused. "For what?"

"For going with my instincts in there," he said gratefully.

Brennan scoffed. "I did not back up your instincts. I bought time to find the facts I need to tell me what happened to Nester Olivos. What's with you and the private school?"

Booth sighed. "I thought we understood each other."

"That it's bad?" I guessed.

"I don't…" Booth tried again to convey his meaning without seeming too extreme in his opinions. "I don't like people who think they're better than other people."

"Some people are better than other people," Brennan said matter-of-factly.

Booth groaned, tossing his head in irritation before gluing his eyes back to the road and shaking his head in disapproval. "You know, what you said right there, that is so un-American! 'All men are created equal'; either you believe that or you don't."

"Some people are smarter than others!" Brennan argued. "There's no use being offended by the fact!" She stopped, looking down to her hands in her lap for a moment. "What are we going to tell Nester's parents?" She asked, changing the subject entirely. Her voice was considerably softer than it had been.

Booth's voice softened, seeming to get that Brennan was genuinely sad about the boy's death. "We tell them that their son was found dead, we're looking into it. Sorry for your loss… and we are," he added as an afterthought.

"What?" I asked, not sure why he'd added the obvious.

"Sorry for their loss!" Booth repeated firmly. "It's sad!Try to remember that."

"We're not sociopaths!" Brennan exclaimed, insulted.

"You're bad with people, okay?" Booth took one hand off of the steering wheel to motion to Brennan carelessly. "No use being offended by the fact." Brennan frowned slightly as the agent threw her words back in her face.

The International Affairs Embassy had really tight security. Booth had to get a court order to get in, and then he had to have his gun taken away by security until the point when we'd leave. They had to scan his badge and Brennan's ID, and they had to run a search on me to make sure I wasn't concealing weapons before they let Booth keep me with him. Then that's not to forget all the security in black suits everywhere. It took like an hour for us to go from the lobby to get escorted up to the Venezuelan ambassador's office.

"Hanging from a tree at the school?" Ambassador Olivos repeated with a look of growing horror spreading across her face. She had the traces of South American heritage, although I wouldn't have identified her as specifically Venezuelan if I didn't already know that for a fact. Her dark brown hair was naturally curly, and the natural ringlets made the tight bun look interesting. Her eyes were dark brown and her skin almost bronzed. She wore a black pencil skirt and a business-y black blouse. Her husband and Nester Olivos' father was off to the side. He wasn't very different from his wife in looks, aside from the slacks and necktie, and his hair was lighter and much shorter.

"I'm afraid so, Ambassador Olivos," Booth said, keeping his voice low and humble in respect for the foreign administrator. "We will provide you with full details when Dr. Brennan finishes her investigation."

"Will you need us to identify Nester's remains?" Mr. Olivos asked, his eyes wet with unshed tears.

"That won't be necessary," I interjected. There was no need to let them see their son as he was; it would only add fuel to the inevitable nightmares. I took a few slow paces to the ambassador's desk, not wanting to alarm security as I closed my fist around the necklace in my jacket pocket and pulling it out. I tilted my hand slightly, grasping the necklace chain as the pendant fell towards the desk with gravity, straightening itself out and showing the Catholic seal. "We recovered this from Nester's person," I said, bowing my head. "I asked our entomologist to scan for particulates prematurely so I could return this."

The ambassador took the necklace from me with shaking hands. "Thank you," she said, looking up at me tearfully from her seat. I nodded in acknowledgement before stepping backwards to Booth and Brennan's sides again.

"When was the last time you heard from Nester?" Booth asked, beginning to go through the regular motions of questioning.

"A few days after his holiday began," Mr. Olivos answered while the ambassador carefully replaced her late son's necklace in her purse. "He went with a friend to Nova Scotia."

"We received an email," the ambassador added to clarify.

"Could we have a copy?" Booth asked politely.

"It will help us determine exactly when the victim died," Brennan said in an effort to be considerate and explain. Booth elbowed her slightly, discreetly, and she glared at Booth for a moment before correcting herself. "Your son. We're very sorry for your loss."

"There was nothing to suggest in any email that Nester was unhappy," Mr. Olivos told us, looking between the three of us unsurely, like he didn't know who to address.

I shrugged slightly. "With all due respect, Mr. Olivos, I'd like a copy of that email and others forms of written communication that your son composed. Although it seems unlikely, it is still a possibility that the email you received is forged, and it is our responsibility to investigate any possible leads. By comparing the speech pattern and writing styles of two different literature compositions, one written for sure by Nester, we can make an informed decision on whether or not the email you received is legitimate."

Mr. Olivos looked at me for a moment, surprised, but then nodded in acceptance. "Of course, miss. Anything you need."

"We would like to take him home," the ambassador stated firmly and suddenly. I switched my (hopefully gentle, but probably cool) gaze to Nester Olivos's mother. "We must petition the church to bury him in consecrated ground."

Mr. Olivos looked to his wife. "Nester was an altar boy. They will bury him properly," he assured her, before looking to Booth, a grim expression set on his face. "When will you release him to us?"

Booth put his hands in his jacket pockets, trying to subtly avoid eye contact with the grieving parents. "It's up to Dr. Brennan," he said instead.

I waited while Hodgins hurried over to the platform edge to scan his card so I could join he and Zach. "Thanks for releasing the religious necklace," I said to Hodgins quickly. Sentiments weren't really my thing, but I felt like, since Hodgins humored my request when I don't have a place in his lab, I owed him a notion of gratitude. "Ambassador Olivos was glad to have recovered it."

"No problem, kid," Hodgins said, going back to his microscope. Although usually I'd find it offensive if someone called me a kid all the time, it didn't seem like Hodgins ever intended it to be rude, and the way he said it was cheerful, so I wasn't about to get myself riled up over nothing.

"What did Naomi mean when she said, 'take a hint?'" Zach asked suddenly, looking up from the suture he'd been examining. He seemed frustrated and unable to focus, grinding his teeth almost unnoticeably.

"Ooh," Hodgins voiced his thoughts unhelpfully.

"What did I do wrong?" Zach continued doggedly.

"It's not what you did wrong. It's what you didn't do," Hodgins said with a slight look of bemusement, but he made sure Zach couldn't see.

Zach blinked, earnestly confused about his (ex) girlfriend's words. "Where do you learn this stuff?"

I snorted. "Not the Kama Sutra, that's for sure."

"There are some things you learn by doing," Hodgins said smartly, sounding self-confident and smug. "Riding a bike, driving a car… pleasing a woman," he added with a slight smirk.

Zach's eyebrows furrowed as he considered this. "I can't ride a bike or drive a car."

I started to laugh, but didn't want to offend the Jeffersonian team, so I bit down lightly on my fist. Or, apparently, please a woman,I thought.

"Or, apparently, please a woman," Hodgins said bluntly.

I blinked. That… was a little weird…

Zach moved from the side of the exam table and to his friend's side, trying to get him to pay full attention to him and not the particulates he was running through on Petri dishes. "I need specific instructions, a list of techniques to implement, or a sequence of 'moves,'" he pushed.

I clenched my jaw, pretty sure blood was going to my cheeks. I really didn't need to hear this. "I'm really not the guy to talk to about that," Hodgins said with a grimace, apparently sharing my opinion.

"Why not?" Zach demanded, but his tone still lacked anger like most peoples' would have had. "You've slept with, like, ten thousand women."

I groaned, covering my face with my hand.

Hodgins sighed roughly, not seeing any choice but to continue to write off the intern. "Because our relationship is all about what's up here," he emphasized, motioning to his head. "What you need to do is talk to someone more earthy." He made a semi-gesture to his pants.

"That's it. Boring questioning or not, I'm joining Booth in Brennan's office," I announced.

"As a school psychiatrist, I'm bound by patient confidentiality." The female doctor was across from Booth, seated nervously in the chair across from Brennan's desk while Booth appeared to have taken Brennan's seat from her. Sanders, Hanover Prep's headmaster, Brennan, and I were standing at various points around the room, although the Hanover employees didn't particularly want me to be there. The woman's shoes tapped slightly, uncomfortable in the aggressive level of dominances competing between Booth, Sanders, the headmaster, and, yes, myself. Her nylons flexed as she crossed her legs. "In the absence of a warrant or permission from his parents, I can't divulge the specifics of my meetings with Nester Olivos. I can tell you that he was at extreme risk of suicide."

"There are no indications that Nester was taking antidepressants," Brennan challenged mildly. Despite the argumentative words, her tone didn't exude the attempted intimidation or retorting attitude that had been so well-worked into Booth's or mine.

"I can only make recommendations to the parents," the psychiatrist declared, swallowing nervously as Brennan looked over at me for confirmation. I nodded; that was true. A doctor can prescribe away, but it's up to the legal guardians whether or not the minor actually ingested the medications.

"And you think this boy was depressed enough to hang himself from a tree?" I asked, raising my eyebrows and injecting myself back into the questioning. "During the middle of a supposed leisure vacation when he could have been chilling with his homies in Nova Scotia?" Yeah, I said that. I'm seventeen, I'm entitled to being unprofessional once in a while.

"I'm not even sure why you're talking," Sanders told me with a sneer. He added to the psychiatrist, "You don't have to answer to her."

"Hey, guess what, dude?" I said, cracking my knuckles threateningly. "You'd better reconfigure your attitude, or I'll reconfigure your face!" While I never use the same threat twice on the same person, I do like the way that that particular threat sounds, so I say it fairly often when I'm in the mood for a mental laugh.

"Answer her question," Booth ordered the psychiatrist before Sanders and I could engage in another bitch-war.

The psychiatrist nervously raised her hands as if to shield herself. Jesus, I mean, I know she's not very at home here, but she doesn't have to act like we're going to hit her. I know only too well how horrible it is to be on the receiving side of that sort of treatment. "He was alienated by language, by his handicap, by his own social awkwardness – yes."

"Thank you for coming down, Dr. Petty," the headmaster dismissed carelessly. The psychiatrist stood up, collected her bag from beside the chair, and hurried out the door, taking off like a bat out of hell as soon as she was past the threshold. It's fitting that her surname is Petty when she has to put up with adolescents' petty issues, isn't it? "As we suspected, suicide. A depressed and lonely boy hangs himself over the holiday."

"How is it that the son of a foreign ambassador goes missing for two weeks and nobody notices?" I asked accusatorily, rounding on the headmaster.

"As far as the school was concerned, Nester was vacationing with his roommate." Sanders put a file on Brennan's desk, in front of Booth, and obscuring the first few keys on the right of Brennan's keyboard as well as covering most of one of her reports on a WWI victim. "The school requested and received a waiver from Ambassador Olivos."

"I was in Venezuela last year," Brennan inputted, tucking a strand of hair back behind her ear, showing she didn't enjoy the conversation and wished that she could control it more. Which made sense, we were in her office. "It's very unstable, politically."

Sanders nodded once, acknowledging the statement. "It's true, the family received threats. We were cognizant of that. But you aren't seriously suggesting that some kind of Venezuelan hit squad assassinated a student at Hanover Prep?"

"Well, we have ruled it a homicide. Why don't you tell us what we're implying?" Booth said, leaning back and appearing fully at home in Brennan's revolving task chair.

"Like the doctor said, it's a simple case of a depressed boy ending his life." The headmaster laughed shortly. "Not a Tom Clancy novel."

"We'll be starting with Nester's roommate tomorrow morning." Booth said simply, without leaving room in the statement for argument. It was officially his jurisdiction, so if he didn't appear up to persuasion, then Hanover's employees were outta luck.

Sanders went to the difficulty of smiling, however false it was. "It's your investigation."

"Dr. Temperance Brennan, Holly Kirkland, meet Sid, the owner."

Booth gestured grandly to a Chinese man in front of him. I bowed quietly to the man, who bowed back in return. Sid had very short brown hair and wore loose pants and a button-up shirt with the top and last buttons undone. He had decisively Asian features but, despite the usual estrangement shown in this city by foreigners, Sid definitely looked and felt like he belonged. He did own this restaurant, Wong Foos, after all, so it made sense; he was in his own domain.

Booth had decided that we all needed to relieve ourselves of some stress, so he'd insisted that Brennan and I leave the Jeffersonian for a while and let him take us to a good restaurant he knew. Although Brennan and I had been persuaded to come, we'd been reluctant for very different reasons; Brennan didn't want to leave her work, while I was mostly opposed to going to Booth's idea of a good restaurant. Unlike McDonalds or a trashy street bar, it was bound to be expensive. Everything Booth wears or uses usually screams pricey, so I was no stranger to the idea that he had no financial issues. This made me wary about going to a high-priced restaurant, but if they knew the extent to which I struggled with money, they might report the issue to child services, in which case the somewhat-emancipation I'd managed to grasp would be taken away by the foster system.

"Hey, the bone lady," Sid said, recognizing Brennan slightly. He surveyed me quickly. "And the partner in justice."

I closed my eyes and sighed briefly. When would the media stop running their stories on me? My brash reactions to them during the Masruk case, coupled with reports of my presence at the Hamilton Cultural Center to stop Masruk, had only boosted my popularity.

"The sign says 'Wong Foos'," Brennan pointed out, looking over her shoulder at the entrance for a moment.

"Family name changed at Ellis Island," Sid explained gruffly. Like Farid Masruk, his English was clipped as a result of it being a learned language. "I'll get your meals," he said as he led us to an unnecessarily large booth in a darker corner of the restaurant. The velvet booth was comfortable, and high enough for me not to get the light from the overhanging lamp fixture above the table shining in my eyes.

Brennan looked after him as she shifted onto the booth next to me and across from Booth. "But we didn't order!" She called after him.

Booth shook his head, drawing her attention away from Sid's retreating form. "No, Sid knows what most people want better than they do."

Zach, Angela, and Hodgins came through the doors, looked around a moment, and then made a beeline straight for us. Booth groaned audibly and Brennan's eyebrows raised, curiosity piqued by her colleagues' presence. Hodgins and Angela slid in on either side of Booth while Zach took the seat next to me, trapping me between himself and Brennan. My gut twisted nervously; I hated feeling trapped, and I took a deep breath to calm down. I was safe here. None of these people were a threat to me.

"Nester's bones are completely normal," Zach announced, not noticing my short anxiety attack. I'd gotten good at reigning them in. "Not brittle in any way." Zach took some some pictures from a file of Olivos' bones and laid them out across the table.

Booth sighed and massaged his temples with his fingers. "You know, this is kind of my little getaway place. You know?" He stressed.

Angela ignored Booth, instead addressing Brennan and I and bringing us up-to-speed. "It proves the rope marks left in the branch where Nester was hanging are too deep for his weight."

"Please, everyone," Booth said, on the fence between sighing and pleading.

"The works all indicate that the insects which fed on the body are all indigenous to the tree in which he was found," Hodgins nodded along with his own words. "It means he died there approximately ten to fourteen days ago." Sid happened to walk a few feet away at that moment and Hodgins leaned over slightly, bracing himself on the edge of the table as he leaned out of the Booth. "I'll have the seven organ soup!"

Brennan shook her head very slightly. "You don't order, the guy just… brings it," she said, obviously unused to this kind of treatment.

"He didn't void," Zach added, steering the conversation back to the point. "Usually, somebody hangs themselves, the floodgates open. Bodily fluids everywhere."

I stared down at the table, my groaning very slightly in the back of my throat. I wasn't usually squeamish, but the clinical wording coupled with the unfamiliar, bold, spiced scents of the Chinese cuisines weren't being very kind, especially not with the near anxiety attack. I still caught myself wondering how much Zach weighed and therefore how much force it would take to shove him out of his seat, or how hard it would be to get my heels under me and scramble over the back of the booth.

"There was plenty of the affluent in his clothes, but they are all post-decomp," Hodgins modified. "As the body swells, it bursts from internal gases. How does the guy know what you want?" He asked, melding his sentences so he couldn't be interrupted before his curiosity was sated.

"The guy has a knack," Brennan explained vaguely, repeating what Booth had told her in the car.

"The guy's name is Sid," Booth interjected, still trying to massage away a headache.

Zach exhaled quickly before continuing with his reasons for coming here. "The birds ate his eyes and ears. They worked their way into the skull." He now scattered a few pictures from the crime scene over the table and tucked the empty yellow envelope under his leg.

"Birds pecking at the soft tissue of the throat," Hodgins hypothesized, pointing at Brennan. "Could that crack the hyoid?"

I answered in the middle of carefully breathing through my mouth, not wanting to made my nerves and the scents around me flare up into a bad mix of ill-timed nausea. I hadn't been sleeping well and I hadn't been sleeping much; the stress of being guarded constantly, of not having been to my home in a while, and of nearly being shot, of shooting someone, of nearly being lit on fire, of taking down a terrorist required more time and solace than I'd been able to give myself. "No, it's a stress fracture caused by the rope against the throat, not post mortem."

Angela sighed and gave Brennan and I soft sympathetic looks. "You put a highly sensitive adolescent in a high-pressure prep school, add social alienation, cultural differences, pressure from high-achieving parents… could be suicide."

"It's not a suicide, okay?" Booth declared shortly.

Brennan couldn't resist the snarky comment. "Because Booth thinks that prep schools turn out entitled criminals."

"We all went to private schools and none of us are criminals," Hodgins said to Booth, sounding offended at the insinuation.

"In fact, we fight criminals," Zach contradicted. "We're crime fighters."

"No, you're not," Booth said loudly, complaining and upset he wasn't getting his way. "You're…" I gave him a look and he rolled his eyes, huffing. "I'm just saying it's not a suicide!""

Angela nodded sagely, humming lightly. "I'm a big believer in instinct."

"Finally," Booth said in relief, gesturing to Angela thankfully. "A squint with an open mind."

Angela smirked and I had no doubt something perverted was flashing through her mind. Angela's one flaw, as far as I could tell, was that she was very sexually-oriented. "You have no idea of how open-minded I can be," she purred. I don't think anyone wants to know how open-minded you are, Angela.

Sid came back with two other waiters. Both balanced a dark tray with both hands, dishes spread out to balance the weight. Steam trailed up, illuminated by the low lighting, and disappeared up to the ceiling in little translucent wisps. The waiters grimaced and looked around the pictures on the table in horror. Sid scowled. "What's with these pictures? This is a restaurant! People come here to eat." He sent dirty looks around. "What's the matter with you people?" Sid reached over the table's surface and lifted up the pictures, gathering them into a haphazard pile and turning them upside down, shoving them onto Zach's lap. He looked up at Booth, his eyes narrowed. "Booth, what the hell did you bring into my place?"

I had to bite my lip to keep myself from smiling. The guy's reaction was pretty amusing. Booth raised his hands and quickly denied the accusation. "I had nothing to do with it."

Brennan had no reaction to Sid's anger, instead swallowing a spoon of the Chinese soup in front of her. "This is exactly what I want," she said enthusiastically. "This is amazing. The guy definitely has a knack," she told Booth in full agreement.

Hodgins got his seven organ soup in front of him, apparently, because he rubbed his hands together. "Ooh, so you do take orders?" He confirmed excitedly.

"Of course we do," Sid said gruffly, not very happy with us. "But it's always better when you leave it to me. Booth?"

Booth nodded. "Okay, I will take care of it." Sid nodded, reassured, and stalked back off towards the kitchens. Booth looked back to Hodgins. "You're saying that the boy died like ten to fourteen days ago?"

"Hey, bugs buzz, but they do not lie," Hodgins said, grinning roguishly as he started on his soup. I looked down to the unidentified cuisine I had; it seemed light and everyone else was enjoying themselves (sort of) so I shrugged and started eating.

Brennan swallowed again, looking up to Booth and loyally commending her employee. "Hodgins is very good at using insects to ascertain time of death."

Booth looked grimly triumphant and my jaw dropped as I realized what Booth had. "Then how do we explain the email sent to Ambassador and Mr. Olivos only a week ago from Nova Scotia?" I asked, tilting my head as I came to the conclusion.

Booth nodded before continuing about how the situation was fishy and that Hodgins really should have just let Sid handle his order. Hodgins got a wicked smirk on his face when Angela told Hodgins not to listen to Booth.

"No, no, you've got to taste it," he said, holding up a spoon of his soup.

"I can smell it from here," Angela dismissed uneasily.

"Angela, it's so good," Hodgins tried to sway her, taking another spoonful. "Mmm."

Angela flinched and looked away. "That's so gross."