Author's Note: Thanks to Kat Morning and Cathmarchr for the beta on this chapter. The fact that it's late rests entirely on my shoulders. Real life interfered in my usually-regular writing schedule. I'm hoping to have another chapter for you Monday,as well!

Chapter Ten: The Tin Man

Parker sat next to Dr. Sweets on the plane, reading a Green Lantern comic book that his dad had given him just a few minutes before he'd left for the Army again. He'd read it a dozen or so times in the year that Dad had been gone, but he never really got tired of it. Sweets had tried to engage him in a conversation, but Parker was ten and he wasn't a kid anymore and he knew exactly what Sweets had been up to with his mother just hours before he'd gotten home from the summer program where he spent his days.

It wasn't like he was expecting his mother and father to fall back in love and move in together. He couldn't remember a time when they were together. They told him that they'd been in love when he'd been... made, but they weren't now. Over the course of his life, his mother had boyfriends and his father had girlfriends, and then his mom had Drew and Dad had Bones. Drew eventually went away but Bones never did, as constant in his father's life as Drew had been in his mother's.

So it wasn't that Sweets wasn't his father. It was that Sweets was his father's friend, and that was just weird. Super weird. And now they were on a plane to suprise his dad. Parker wasn't sure how he felt about, either.

"Parker, do you want a soda?" Sweets asked him. He looked up and realized that there was a flight attendant smiling at him with a pad of paper.

"Uh, yeah sure. Mountain Dew." Parker closed his comic book and put it back in his backpack.

"Want a piece of gum? My ears always pop on these flights," Sweets said, as though he were confiding some great secret. Parker fought the urge to roll his eyes. There were distinct disadvantages to his golden curls. It seemed he was doomed to being treated like a toddler for the rest of his life.

"Brought my own," Parker said coolly. "Mom bought it for me earlier this week."

"Oh. Well, uh, that's good." Sweets turned his attention back to whatever he was reading. It was thick, and Parker's naturally friendly disposition got the better of his intentions to make Sweets pay for the rest of the flight.

"Do they make you read that because you're a doctor?"

"What this? No." Sweets laughed. "A friend wrote this book. She's hoping to get it published. I'm just making some notes for her."

"Have you ever written a book?"

Sweets coughed. "Uh, yeah. I didn't get it published, though."

"Why's that?"

"I started with a flawed premise," Sweets said, all trace of condescension finally gone from his voice. "If your beginning is wrong, all of your conclusions are going to be wrong, as well."

"Makes sense." Parker shrugged his shoulders. "Well, that sucks. I'm sorry."

Sweets' lips quirked in a smile. "Thanks, Parker. What were you reading?"

"It's a Green Lantern comic book," Parker said. "I brought some other stuff to read, too, but I like him."

"I like him, too. I'm more of a Spider-man fan myself, though," Sweets said, his eyes lighting with genuine interest. "You know, the nerd who secretly gets to go out and save the world..."

"Yeah, that's pretty cool." Parker reached inside his backpack, pulled out a different book and opened it. "Dad and I read these comic books together."

"Like your own comic book club?"

"I guess so," Parker said doubtfully. "But cooler. None of the other guys' dads still read comic books."

"Your dad's a pretty cool guy," Sweets said, and Parker could tell that he genuinely meant it.

"Yeah, I think so." Parker tapped his hands on the tray in front of him. "Mom doesn't know that I know, but... he had to fight really hard to get to see me when I was younger."

"How does that make you feel?" Sweets asked, his eyebrows raised.

"A little guilty," Parker admitted. "I really want him to be proud of me. You know... to prove I'm worth it."

"Are you nervous about going to see him?" Sweets popped a peanut in his mouth and ignored the attention they were garnering from the other passengers.

"Yeah." Parker flipped open the book, closed it. "I don't get to be around much when he's working, usually. Lots of gross stuff – dead bodies, bugs, slime, that kind of thing. And scary people. He just doesn't want me to get hurt."

"That's a big part of it," Sweets agreed. "Your father also doesn't want you to have to confront the realities of his profession sooner than you're ready to."

Parker laughed. "Yeah, well, too late. He's been shot, blown up, in a coma..."

"Yeah. He's a little bit like Batman that way, isn't he?"

Parker nodded. "Yeah, but Mom really doesn't like it. Every time something happens, she'll say that maybe I shouldn't see Dad as often, you know."

"I think your mom sometimes has a hard time dealing with the reality of your dad's profession, that's true," Sweets acknowledged. "She worries that it's frightening for you, too."

"It doesn't matter that I'm scared." Parker shrugged. "He's Dad, you know?"

"Yeah, I do." Sweets took his drink from the flight attendant, and passed Parker his soda. "You know, your dad is really going to be excited to see you. He's proud of you, Parker."

"Thanks, Lance," Parker took a gulp of his soda and beamed. "I can't wait to see him!"

It was cooling but still light outside when the battered pick-up bounced down the drive way and swung in to park next to the barn. The smell of barbecue drifted over Hebrew and Hal Rettinger as they climbed out of the truck. They grabbed the bag of dogfood they'd run to town to get and headed toward the house.

Hal, Hank's older brother, broke off from his father halfway there. "Oh crap. Hey Dad, go ahead. I forgot I meant to check on that heifer in the barn."

"All right, but we're not holding supper for you," Hebrew said with a teasing glint in his eyes. "This way we all have a fair shot at actually getting to eat."

"Ha!" Hal said. "I'm a growing boy, Dad! I need all the calories I can get."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Hebrew waved him off and continued on towards the house.

Hal's stomach was growling but he'd been raised all of his life to respect the animals under his care, and the heifer had managed to hurt its leg pretty badly in a patch of barbed wire. He'd done the doctoring himself, and wanted to make sure the wound hadn't become infected. He flipped on the light and was halfway to the holding area when the smell assaulted him.

He'd been a farm kid long enough recognize that smell. It was the smell of death.

At first he thought it had to be the heifer, but she was laying sedately in the corner, munching on some of the feed he'd left for it her. He spun, looking for the source – perhaps a dead rat or – a mouse skittered across the top of his boot, and Hal followed the rodent to a corner of the barn that was poorly lit until he flipped another switch.

What he saw stopped him in his tracks. The corner which had previously been devoted to bags of feed and farm implements had been transformed into a stage for a unique display of horror.

It had probably been human. That was Hal's first thought – at some point this... sculpture... had been human. Encased now in some kind of metal from his feet to his neck, a jaunty metal cap at an angle on his head, rats worked tirelessly on the exposed flesh of the face and the hands. It took several seconds for Hal to realize what he was seeing.

He ran for the door, holding his hand over his mouth until he reached the outside and dry heaved.

Tuck offered them several kinds of desserts from all over his office. He stashed them, apparently, away from the prying eyes of his parish administrator, Evelyn, who was trying to keep the slightly-obese clergyman on a diet. Booth took a handful of cookies and Brennan reached for a chocolate chip cookie, hoping that having something in her hands to nibble would distract her from replaying her I don't know how to be the woman you want to be... If you still want me, you'll have to show me how to be her declarations over and over in her head. Was she really so needy?

"Now, Seeley." Tuck sat behind his desk, opening a Twinkie with great relish. "You don't just come to see me out of the blue. What can I do for you?"

"Senator Kent Williams is dead," Booth said, without ceremony. "The Bureau sent me out here to figure out who did it."

"Ah, Williams." Tuck opened a drawer in his desk and began rummaging among the pens and paperclips for something. "We met a few times at political fundraisers, that kind of thing, but I couldn't really say I was close to the man. What makes you think I know anything about that?"

Booth smiled. "I don't think you do."

"Political fundraisers?" Brennan's eyebrows rose.

"Yes, I'm very involved in local politics." At Brennan's doubting look, Tuck laughed. "It's hard not to care when you see the effects of poverty and social injustice in your flock everyday, Dr. Brennan. Christ reminds us that there are, for those of us who have to live in the world, duties which we must perform as citizens of that world. I was a soldier, now I'm a conscientious voter."

Booth coughed. "Speaking of your political affiliations, I do think you could tell me about some of the death threats he received."

Tuck's eyebrows rose. "What kind of death threats?"

"From extremists," Brennan said, "presumably on the opposite side of the political spectrum from him. When we spoke with Mrs. Williams, she seemed very concerned about a healthcare bill that Mr. Williams was working on."

Booth continued Brennan's train of thought. "There was an abortion rider attached, Tuck."

"Ah, yes, I remember." Tuck rubbed his eyes with both hands. "Very upsetting, that. Very upsetting."

"Why?" Brennan asked, blinking her eyes. "He made a political deal which will allow thousands of women and children to have access to low-cost healthcare. We would get nowhere in politics without meeting in the middle."

"Bones," Booth said firmly. "We don't have to get into this, okay? You two aren't even on the same planet when it comes to this stuff."

"Dr. Brennan is entitled to her own opinion, Seeley." Tuck waved his hand. "But you're right, a debate here will only slow you down. I can give you some names – people that might get violent, that kind of thing. I'll also include the presidents here of 'Catholic Voters of Kansas' and 'Pro-Life Kansans'. They might be able to give you a better idea of the hotheads – those groups are legitimate but they've certainly got contacts to groups that aren't as much."

"I figured you might be able to," Booth said with a smile. "I appreciate this, Father, I really do."

"Not a problem." Tuck began to scribble on a pad of paper.

"You have any impressions of the man, from the few times you met him?" Booth asked. "Whether he was honest, that kind of thing?"

"He was very polite on the few occasions that we met," the priest said, breaking one of the golden cakes in half and studying the inside cream for a minute. "But all of the politicians seem to be, you know."

"I understand his public image was a bit slimy," Booth said.

"I don't know that I'd go that far, but you know most folks around here wouldn't trust a politician for much. Especially not one that's been in Washington for twenty years. There was a little talk that maybe he'd lost focus of the people he was supposed to represent. I heard a rumor about the party maybe going in a new direction."

Booth made a note on his pad. "Serious talk?"

"There was a name floating around. Douglas Michaels. Nice enough guy. He's the representative for the second district. Socially middle-of-the-line and fiscally conservative. He'd've been a big hit, except for his stance on illegal immigration."

"Hmm," Booth said, scribbling some more. "Did you ever meet the wife?"

"Of Senator Williams?" At Booth's nod, the priest coughed and adjusted his robe. "Yes, I've had that honor, once or twice."

"Is she capable of killing her husband?" Brennan asked bluntly.

"I can't think of any good reason why she would need to, to be perfectly frank with you," Tuck said. "But then again, I'm not their confessor or a close friend of the family, so I couldn't say."

"Ah, okay, thanks, Tuck." Booth closed his notepad and tucked it away in his suit pocket.

"It's getting close to the end of the working day. Are you going to join us for supper? Evelyn can't cook worth a damn, so you'd have to suffer through my mostacolli but..."

Booth's cell phone began to ring. He took a look at it and excused himself to outside the office.

"So." Tuck smiled at Brennan, and for the first time she saw the soldier which must have been buried somewhere underneath of the priest. "You're Seeley's partner?"

"Yes. At work. Work... partners."

"Also his friend, I imagine." Tuck rose from behind his desk, and moved to sit next to her in the seat Booth had occupied. "Seeley talked about you when we spoke for the last few years. He said you uh, helped him when he had the surgery."

"Yes," Brennan said, going a little cold and sweaty. "He refused to believe something was wrong, but... I'm sorry, Booth doesn't usually like people discussing his private life behind his back."

Tuck laughed, a full-bellied chuckle. "No, he really doesn't. Not much has changed." He leaned forward. "I want you to do me a favor. I want you to keep an eye on him. He's got that look in his eye."

"What look?"

"The look that says he's not handling being back well. Seeley's got what we Catholics call the package guilt complex. Comes with the territory. Assuming responsibility for everything that happens around you, the decisions of other people..."

"Yes, I have observed that character trait in him many times," Brennan admitted.

Tuck tapped his fingers on the desk. "Listen, I could be wrong, but I think you should stick close, Temperance. I don't know exactly what's going on, but..."

Brennan's eyes narrowed. "What did Booth say when you two talked about me?"

"He told me you were beautiful," Tuck said easily. "Among other things."

"Bones?" Booth stuck his head in the office and smiled sheepishly at Tuck. "Thanks for the dinner invitation, Tuck, but we've got to drive back tonight. We've got another body."

Brennan blinked. "What?"

"Another body on the Rettinger's farm. Encased in some kind of... metal... this time." Booth grabbed her arm and started tugging her gently towards the door. "Thanks for the help, Tuck!"

"You're welcome, Seeley," Tuck said softly, and shook his head as the door swung shut behind Booth. After a moment, he picked up the phone and began to dial.

Angela sat in Hodgins' office, waiting for the mass spec to finish running the last of the tests on a few fibers he'd had yet to identify. She'd been ready to go for what seemed like ages, but she hadn't wanted to drive to work by herself this morning, she was stuck waiting for Hodgins to complete his tasks. Normally, he'd have no problem shutting down and leaving right at five o'clock, but he was currently absorbed in the mass spec readings, marking furiously on his tablet of paper in his coded language. Angela was trying to be respectful of his process, but her back had really begun to ache, and she was more than ready to go home.

A soft knock at the door made Angela raise her head from the sketchpad she had on her lap. "Hi, Cam."

Cam stuck her head in the door and smiled sheepishly. "I know Hodgins is busy, but do you want to join me in an end-of-day cup of tea? For you, I mean. I'll be drinking coffee."

Angela smiled in relief. "Absolutely, sure." The two women walked in companionable silence to the couches overlooking the forensics platform. Cam's hips swayed confidently and Angela fought to keep her gait from being the waddle she was beginning to see as inevitable.

Cam poured the water for Angela after she poured steaming hot coffee into her own mug. She took a seat while she waited for it to boil and smiled at Angela. "It's good to have you guys back, you know."

"I felt bad leaving you here in the lurch," Angela said, wincing a little, "but how often does your husband offer to take you to Paris for a year of honeymooning?"

"Once in a lifetime," Cam said with a small smile. "Did you enjoy it?"

"It took about a half a second for my French to come back," Angela said, beaming. "We got this little... hovel of an apartment in downtown Paris. Jack explored museums and crawled along riverbanks and I did some paintings that I'm arranging to have shipped back over. It was... lovely. How about you? How was the Jeffersonian while we were gone?"

"Busy," Cam admitted. "Clark and Wendell and I managed to hobble along, though." She grinned. "It's good to have you two back, though. It certainly wasn't the same without you."

"Done!" They heard Hodgins announce from the platform.

"What've you got, Hodgins?" Cam asked, leaning over the railing to look down.

"Stray fibers on the victims' clothing aren't as useful as I'd hope they'd be. Your typical pollen, hay, that kind of thing. There were several strands of cotton and nylon fabric blends that you would find in seat belts. I can't trace the specific blend to a particular manufacturer; the blend is far too common," Hodgins said, frowning. "What I can tell you is that there were faint traces of diesel fuel on the victim's clothing as well as a single fiber from the upholstery of a 1980s-era Ford. Maybe that's what the murderer used to haul him across the state."

"Great, Hodgins." Cam nodded encouragingly at Hodgins. "Not a smoking gun, but still good work. I'll give Booth a call."

"Sounds good. Ready to go, babe?" Hodgins called, already taking off his lab coat. "I can get back to all this stuff tomorrow."

"Yeah." Angela turned to Cam and embraced the other woman easily. "You know, I never thought I would be homesick for dead bodies and daily yuck, but... It's really, really good to be back."

Cam smiled. "Good."

The phone rang as Angela and Hodgins made their way home. Angela flipped her phone open with a grin. "Sweetie!"

"Hello, Angela," Brennan said dryly. "Booth got a text message from Cam that Hodgins had some test results? We're on the road again so I have dialing-duty."

"Oh, okay. I'll put you speaker," Angela said, propping the phone up on its charger and relaxing? back against the seat.

"Hey Hodgins, it's Booth. What have you got for me?"

Hodgins glanced over at the receiver and hesitated for a moment. He'd become a lot more cautious in recent days, as if he were unsure of himself, somehow. It was definitely an odd characteristic for him, and Angela couldn't put her finger on why he was acting this way. All she knew was she was too tired to figure out precisely how she felt about it just then. Her eyes drifted shut as Hodgins began to recite the results of his mass spec tests.

She could have sworn she had only closed her eyes when Hodgins shook her thigh. "What?"

"Dr. B wants to talk to you," he said softly. "Not on speaker phone."

"Oh." Angela sat up. "You let me sleep?" she hissed, realizing they were a good ten minutes into their drive.

"You looked like you needed it," Hodgins said with a shrug of his shoulders.

Angela lifted the phone from its cradle and took it off speaker. "Sweetie," she said brightly, "How's Kansas?"

"Hot and miserable," Brennan said succinctly. "We're on the road again, back to the crime scene. It appears that they've located another body."

"Do we need to head back to the lab?"

Hodgins shook his head firmly at her, but Angela waved her hand at him.

"Doubtful. KBI techs have already begun processing the scene, although everything having to do with the body will have to wait until I get there. In any case, it should be noon tomorrow before I'm able to ship anything back to the Jeffersonian."

"How do they know it's the same killer?"

"At this point, we are unsure of that," Brennan said, and Angela heard the faint sound of jingling bells. "You'll have to excuse me, we've stopped to get some coffee for the trip back to Decatur County. We're at a gas station."

"That's fine, Sweetie. The victim?"

"It uh... appears that he's been placed inside some sort of suit of armor."

Angela's jaw dropped. "Oh my God. They found the Tin Man?"

"Doubtful, Angela," Brennan said firmly. "No conclusions without facts."

"You know, I adore every single neuron of that stubborn brain of yours," Angela said, grinning broadly.

"Uh, thanks, I guess." Brennan sounded just adorably clueless as she always did, and Angela fought the urge to laugh out loud at her.

"Can you take a step away from Booth?"

"Yes, of course. We aren't attached at the hip."

Angela sighed. And to think she had missed this part of their relationship. "I want to ask you a question you won't want to answer in front of Booth, sweetie."

"Oh." There was a slight shuffling. "Sorry, Booth," Angela could hear her say, "this should only delay us a moment." Another pause. "Yes, Angela?"

"How are things going? How's he doing?"

There was a silence. "That is... difficult to answer." Brennan sighed. "I hesitate to say for sure one way or the other, but..."

"But what?" Angela's razor-sharp instincts were intrigued by something in Brennan's tone. "What, sweetie?"

"I told him."

Angela felt sympathetic butterflies swirl around her stomach. "How did he react?"

"He uh... kissed me."

Angela's eyes widened. "And? How was it?"

"Booth has always been very... accomplished, in that particular area."

Angela grinned. "Sweetie, this is when you say that he knocked your socks off."

"On the contrary, my socks were firmly in place." Brennan coughed, and Angela wriggled happily in her seat.

"How are things now? Super awkward?"

"No." Angela could practically see Brennan's scrunched brow. "Are they supposed to be?"

"A little bit, yeah. Sweetie, you can't just shove something like that under the rug and leave it to deal with later, you know?"

"I would utilize our time in the car, but Agent Donaldson is with us," Brennan said. "We had to go retrieve him from the hotel. Booth attempted to leave him in Salina to question some of the senator's staff but he was quite insistent that his assignment was to stay with us until Dr. Sweets arrives."

"When does Sweets get there?"

"He comes in tomorrow evening," Brennan said. "He's meeting us at the airstrip in Hoxie at six o'cock."

"Good. I'm sure Booth is ready to see Parker."

"Yes. I find that I am very much looking forward to seeing him, as well. Thank you, Booth," Brennan said, away from the receiver. "Sorry, Ange. He brought me my coffee."

"Don't have time for girl talk, Bones," Angela could hear Booth say. She rolled her eyes.

"Tell Booth he doesn't get to manhandle you your first case back, Sweetie. Stay firm on that."

"He's attempting to be charming at the moment, but it's failing miserably," Brennan said, probably more for Booth's benefit than Angela's.

Angela couldn't fight the yawn that overtook her. "Sweetie, do you want to talk more tomorrow?"

"Yes, of course." Brennan seemed a little taken aback. "Are you feeling unwell? It's not like you to be tired so early."

This is it. Tell her. The voices inside of her head screamed at her, but Angela held firm to her original plan. "Just having trouble adjusting to the time difference, Bren. We'll probably do a video conference to catch up tomorrow after you've processed the crime scene, right?"

"Very likely."

Angela beamed. "Good. I'll see you then."

"Good-bye, Angela." Brennan clicked off the line and Angela reached out her hand, covering Jack's on the gear shift as he maneuvered their car through traffic and onto the highway that would take them away from the city and to the oasis he had called home for all of his childhood.