Presenting the long awaited car ride to Brennan's apartment!

Disclaimer: - not mine in any way shape or form, except of course for the characters I made up and the situations our favorite people find themselves in.

Delaney rested her feet against the back of the passenger side seat. She considered that for the situation to truly fit the feel of what was happening, it should have been night time and the lights should have cast eerily decadent anti-shadows against the window. But, as usually happens, real life fell far short of the fictional and it was midday, the sun shone happily and mocked the occupants of the car.

Brennan was staring at the dashboard, trying to ignore the sidelong glances Booth kept giving her. It wasn't the time to start analysing him and his bewildering actions towards her. She had to figure out who this sixteenth girl was and find the other girls. He said it was over! She thought indignantly. How dare he come back after all this time. Genevieve had moved on, as best she could, under the circumstances. Bones sighed heavily.

Booth heard it and felt even worse. He had decided that it was a distinctly high possibility that Delaney was Genevieve. The only thing he couldn't figure out was why she kept saying she was her daughter. Booth's focus on driving slowly slipped away as autopilot guided him to Bones' apartment, and his mind deliberated on the whys of this increasingly frustrating case. If I were Sam and one of the victims was freed, what would I do?

"You didn't have to leave University," Brennen stated. "You could have just rung me and I would have paid for the plane ticket straight here." For a minute Booth wondered who she was talking to. Delaney had been so quiet he had almost forgotten she was accompanying them back to Bones' apartment.

"I took a leave of absence. They were fine about it."

"They were fine about it - I'm not. You'll never get your Doctorate if you continue to skip whole semesters!"

"I've never skipped a semester in my life. The longest I've been away for is a month, and that was to accompany my Professor on a working collaboration with Forensic Scientists in Oz."

"Still…a little warning would have been nice. You went to South America before you came here."

"I needed the distraction, time to think. Besides, I'm only eighteen and I already have my Bachelors. That's three years! I think I can afford to dabble in life first."

"I think you've had a little bit too much experience in life."

"Oh, like you can make the comparison."

"Whoa, okay guys…girls," Booth started. "Let's just settle down, we're almost there." Well, at least they fight like family, he thought. He would have chuckled if it hadn't been so heated, and there was the high possibility both Bones and Delaney would have decked him.

They ascended the stairs to Brennan's apartment in silence. The only sound was the slight scuffing of their shoes contacting the floor. The click of the lock in the door made Booth think of the cocking of a gun. He absentmindedly poised his hand over his gun. Brennan was so used to this action from Booth she barely noticed it, but Delaney did, and it set on her edge. She shifted her weight closer to Brennan.

They entered the apartment; Brennan immediately went about the house picking out seemingly unrelated items, books, magazines, cds, even odd pillows and memorabilia from past expeditions. She pulled out a box and dumped all the items into it.

"Okay, I only have to get one more thing now," she stated.

"What's that?" asked Booth.

"It's the duffle bag I hid in the lift loft of the gym where I work out."

"Are you serious?"

"What's in the bag?" asked Delaney, who had settled herself on the couch during Brennan's rush about the house while Booth had stood dumbly in the middle of the room, fixated on Brennan.

"It's the key I need to unlock the codes I've placed in these items," Brennan answered.

"That's seems like an awful amount of work to go through for one simple batch of old files," replied Booth.

"I may not have been entirely forthcoming about this case."

"Really?" The sarcasm was lost on Bones, but not on Delaney Booth noticed.

"It's not exactly old files, but more of a collection of information I thought at the time was irrelevant, yet couldn't disregard. Besides Genevieve made me keep it, so it seemed there was a good possibility it was important."

"So onwards to the…what did you call it? Lift Loft?"

"Yes, the lift loft…the extra lift bit at the top of the building, where the pulleys are and the maintenance men go."

"Ah, the lift loft…."

"Alliteration for the soul," Delaney remarked as she opened the door and started toward the car.

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