A/N: Oh my gosh. I am so, so sorry that it took so long to update this fic. Life was throwing me one curveball after another and it was all I could do to keep my head above water, without having to worry about writing another chapter for this fic. Even when I sat down and tried to write a chapter, nothing would happen, or I would start writing and something else would interfere.

But now life has slowed down and gotten better. The fall semester is over, and I made it out alive. I got a new, awesome job and quit my old, heinous, life-sucking job. I'm dating someone now, he's a squint in a lab that makes vaccines, and he is awesome. I think I love him, really love him, and I know that he makes me wildly happy and oddly complete in a way that I never was before. But I'm sure you don't actually care about any of those things, you just want me to keep writing (I hope you want me to keep writing, anyway). So here I am, writing, and happy. My job makes me happy, my boyfriend makes me happy, being done with the semester from hell makes me happy, the holidays make me happy. I hope you're happy, too. I hope reading this chapter makes you happy... maybe not because of the content, necessarily, but just because it's finally here.

Speaking of the content, a few notes before you dig in. For one, I did a little bit more "summarizing" in the beginning of this chapter than I normally would. I don't like writing that way, necessarily, but I felt it was necessary because it has been something like 4 months since the last time I updated this fic. If I didn't do a little summarizing, you might not remember what was going on, and I didn't want you to feel like you had to either A) go back and re-read to know what was happening, or B) be totally lost. So that's why you might read things that sound a bit like summarization.

Secondly, there is an Easter egg or two in here. If you find them, good for you. I'm not going to give hints or point them out. One is pretty obvious though, if you read anything else that I write. Or at least, I think it's obvious, I guess we'll find out just how obvious it really is. Also, there is an intentional fact error that I'm pretty sure absolutely nobody will catch. If you do, though, your reward is a request of any non-M rated oneshot that I will try my best to write. That is how confident I am that nobody is going to find this error.

Also, a non-related comment... my friend's nephew was born a few weeks ago, and his middle name is Darwin. I am glad she told me this online, that way she couldn't see how hard I was laughing. I'm done now, I promise. Enjoy this chapter, and let me know what you think!

Two roads split off from here
And my life goes running in opposite directions
Exaggerating the barrier between
Who I am and who I want to be

I wanted to be the breath of fresh air
When everything smelled so insincere
But this taste still lingers in my mouth
Deceit has ways of sticking around
And I'm ready to disappear
Vacation seems far from here...

- Note to Self, From First to Last

Booth stepped out of the spacious tiled shower and onto the fluffy bathroom rug, rubbing his hair vigorously with a towel. One of the less glamorous parts of living beachfront that people rarely talked about was the film of salt and sand that covers everything, including you. The dense, humid ocean air laid down a briny-tasting cover on anything it touched, so much that even a simple walk up and down the coast left Booth aching for a hot, soapy shower.

He had twenty minutes to get ready before John Christiansen—the man who he had witnessed dragging his wife into their home kicking and screaming not twenty-four hours previous—would be at his door, ready to take him out to the local sports bar where they had agreed to have a round of drinks and a game of pool with the other neighborhood men. Booth mentally counted them out—himself, John, Dave the environmentalist, and Ramón, a man who he had not yet met but was assured he would get along with. He remembered seeing Ramón's children at Dave and Lori's house the previous night—R.J., Maria, and Secia, the little girl with Down syndrome. He thought about the child's smooth, round face and slightly slanted eyes, staring in awe at the bubbles that floated around the living room, and said a prayer of thanks for Parker's health.

He rifled through his clothes until he found the thing he was looking for. It was soft heather grey, the emblem on the front flaking from years of abuse, collar permanently stretched out just so. He pulled it down over his head and gave himself an approving nod in the mirror. When he had a job that needed to be done, he always called on his Led Zeppelin t-shirt. It was like a suit of armor, his battle courage. It was that one piece of clothing that everyone has—the one that makes you smarter, faster, stronger, better looking. There was no case that couldn't be solved, no killer who couldn't be brought to justice, in the Zeppelin shirt.

"How do I look?" Booth asked as he strode out into the kitchen, where Brennan was curled up on the couch with a variety of case files, flipping through each page carefully. He peered over her shoulder and looked at what she was currently staring at—a high-resolution image of damage on one of the victim's skulls, the second-best thing to having the skull itself in front of her—and she turned in her seat and looked him over.

"Very civilian," she said. "Are you leaving now to go to the bar?"

"Any minute," Booth said, playing with his gelled hair, alternating between spikes and smoothing it down. In the end he would just tousle it as he walked out the door like he always did, giving up on any semblance of style. It seemed to turn out alright most days.

"I got a phone call from Hodgins while you were in the shower," Brennan said. "It was about the wood particulates found in the wounds on the bodies."

"What'd he find out?"

"They aren't a match for the wood on the dock, neither of them," she said. "So they were almost certainly deposited during the attack itself. The splinters in Sheryl Hawkins's wounds were a match for the knick-knack shelf, the samples that the FBI techs took matched up to the splinters perfectly."

"So she was definitely killed by being pushed back onto the shelf, then," Booth said. "Good, great. That gives us the how, anyway. What about Bill?"

"No luck," she sighed. "The splinters in his remains did not match the dock, the shelf, or the edge of the counter, though that one was a stretch anyway."

"So we're still nowhere with him, then," Booth said gruffly. "Well, hopefully I'll be able to get something out of one of these guys tonight after they've had a few, maybe things will add up a little better."

"Perhaps," Brennan said. "I think he may have been hit with something swung. At first I thought he was hit by someone as tall as or taller than him, but now that I'm taking more time to look carefully at these photographs, I'm not so sure. See how this is angled slightly?" She held the picture up slightly for Booth to see, and he nodded even though he was not quite sure what he was looking at. "I think he may have been hit with something swung at him, from a level just at or slightly below his height, and it turned, giving the impression that it originally came from above when, judging by these radiating fractures, I think the original blow was from slightly below."

"So it was, what, two hits?" Booth asked. She shook her head.

"No, it's one solid strike, but it appears to have been done with something that has a broad side so that it turned while making contact, creating a wider break with an indistinct angle of impact."

"Huh," he said, not sure what to make of that information.

"I'm going to have Mr. Bray and Hodgins conduct some experiments in the lab to see if they can't find a weapon that makes a similar damage pattern," she said. "They should be doing that now, actually. Maybe when you get back from your male-oriented excursion I will have some results for you."

"Don't say it like that," he said. "Male-oriented excursion. That just sounds wrong."

"What about it is wrong? It's an accurate description of… oh," she said, coming to an understanding. "You're worried about the potential homosexual undertones of that particular phrasing. I've never really understood why the suggestion of homosexuality is such a grave blow to the heterosexual male ego. Well, I understand it from a biosocial perspective, but personally I find it difficult to comprehend."

Before Booth could ask what the hell she was talking about, a melodious ring echoed through the cavernous tiled home. He gave a slightly relieved sigh; saved by the bell.

"Hey," he greeted good-naturedly when he opened the door and found John and Dave standing on the opposite side.

"Hey man, you ready to go?" Dave asked, and he nodded. Booth grabbed his keys off the kitchen table and gave Brennan a nod before he was out the door.

Booth followed the caravan of men in his own SUV, the government plates having been removed and replaced with the orange-bedazzled Florida plates he saw on so many of the other cars on the road. He rode with the window rolled down, arm hanging out the side, soaking up the last of the waning sunlight. He drummed on the metal door as classic rock blasted from the speakers, glad for once that he did not have to treat this car as if it were property of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation. It could just be his, his to blast music in and ride with the windows rolled down in. His to treat like a real car.

His goal was clear—get the guys liquored up and talking. Somebody had to know something, whether they even knew it or not. It may not be that they had witnessed anything specifically, but Booth knew how things worked when a bunch of neighbors got together and drank. He'd seen it enough times on the front porches that dotted his childhood neighborhood in Philly; men drank until the empty beer bottles rolled around their feet, and soon enough in their loud, bawdy voices they would begin recanting stories of who did what, what son of a bitch said what to who, and boy what I'd do to him, I tell ya. Booth hated to admit it, and did so with almost a cringe, but men were not all that unlike women in their tendency to trash talk one another. The difference was that women did so openly and without shame; men typically required a little more social lubricant before they began bashing one another.

They were nearly to the outskirts of Jacksonville when they finally pulled into the parking lot of a small, seedy-looking bar that looked to have been essentially thrown into the middle of nowhere with absolutely no rhyme or reason as to its placement. A handful of cars were lined up in the parking lot like crooked, rusty teeth hanging out of the mouth of the beastly bar, and Booth pulled his own vehicle into line and cut off the engine before stepping out warily. With the encroaching scrub woods looming darkly on either side of the lot, and no lighting other than what came through the windows from inside the place, it was less than welcoming.

"I know, looks shady," Dave admitted as he also stepped out of his car, locking the door and shoving his keys into his pants pocket. "But it's usually a great group of people, and it's never too crowded."

"I can see why," Booth muttered under his breath as they entered the small, stale building that reeked of beer and what was faintly reminiscent of cat urine. There was a pool table shoved into the far back of the building, taking up nearly the entire far wall. A few booths were crammed along the side wall, across from the long, knotty pine bar that stretched the length of the right-hand side of the rectangular hovel. He scanned the bar and took notice of all the details he could absorb in such a brief amount of time before he was shaken out of his personal thoughts by a loud, somewhat annoyed voice.

"Hey," she said, and his head snapped towards her. She was tall, willowy, and dark-complexioned, with light blue eyes and a thin face. Her deep brunette hair was pulled back into a messy bun, and she wore a look of extremely thin patience. "I asked you a question, don't you hear?"

"I'm sorry, what?" he asked, and she sighed before repeating herself.

"I said, what do you want? Your boys here got tap, you too?"

"Uh, sure," he said, nodding vacantly. "That's fine, whatever's good." She seemed satisfied and filled him a pint of something deep and frothy, which he took thankfully. The other men had already began congregating around the pool table, and he joined them, setting his drink aside on the bartop nearby.

"Sam, this is Ramón Melendez," Dave said, introducing Booth to a tall, stocky-built Hispanic man with kind eyes traced with crow's feet and a gapped smile. "Melly, this is Sam Parker, they moved into…"

"Yeah, yeah, I seen 'em moving when I was over last, hey man," the man said with a heavy accent, offering Booth a genial handshake. "Nice to meet you."

"And you," Booth said, looking the man over and nodding. Once they were all introduced, they settled into an easy game of pool, exchanging jovial insults and slurs against each other's mothers. Booth kept his distance without being conspicuous and watched their conversation unfold in a predictable manner—sports, work, family. Not one mention of the traffic on the interstate, to which he smiled. As he expected, the topic eventually turned towards Bill and Sheryl's murder.

"It's too bad Bill isn't here," John observed somberly. The men nodded, and Booth took a sip of his beer, deciding how to best approach the topic to get the information he wanted.

"I heard he was murdered, right?" he finally asked, as if he didn't know the details of the investigation. The men nodded collectively.

"Yeah, they dunno who did it yet though," Melly said.

"I'm sure it has something to do with the Yankee Lake project," Dave said, and Booth wished he could have bet someone money that he was going to say that just so he could have collected on it. "The timing was too perfect, it had to be related."

"The whole world doesn't revolve around that project like you do, Dave," John said. "It probably had nothing to do with it."

"I dunno, it's pretty big politics, you know?" Melly said. "Lots of jobs at stake if the project goes down the tubes. Lots of people who won't have work anymore, and with this economy… I know there's some days I'd kill for a job, a real job."

"Where do you work?" Booth asked.

"Here and there," Melly said. "You know, stereotypical Mexican, I do odd carpentry jobs when I can." He laughed, not derisively but with genuine humor, allowing Booth to laugh with him, then continued. "Used to work for a big university doing electrical, but they had to cut their workforce in half when the money went, and I was part of the 'sorry Charlie' group."

"Ah," Booth said. "Sorry to hear it, man."

"It's alright, we're making it okay," Melly sad. "But just. Thank God Belinda is working, if it was just me we'd be hungry, three kids and all."

"Do you live in the neighborhood?" Booth asked, not thinking he had seen the man before. Melly let out a bark-like laugh.

"Me? Hell no," he said. "Not in that fancy-ass place. Nah, I known John from high school. Pedro Menendez, class of '83!" Melly and John both laughed, and Booth smiled. He knew he liked this guy for a reason, right off the bat.

"But really, I think it's more likely that it was just a break-in that went violent," John said. "I doubt it was planned, who would want to kill Bill and Sheryl anyway?"

"Oh, I don't know," Dave said. "How about, anyone on the Yankee Lake committee? Or any of the investors who would've lost millions of dollars if the project was shut down?" John shook his head.

"It's too out there, I don't believe it," he said. "You mark my words, eventually they're going to catch this guy, and he'll be some thug off the beach. He won't even know Bill and Sheryl, just saw a nice house and figured he'd take what he could."

"What do you think, Sam?" Dave asked, and it took Booth a second to remember that they were talking to him.

"Who, me? I dunno, I don't really do all that conjecture stuff," Booth said, barely suppressing a grin. "Besides, I wouldn't know who would want them dead, I never even knew them."

"Oh, come on, man," Dave said, taking another deep swig from his beer. They were all on their second or third mugs, large pint-sized glasses, and all feeling fine. "Play along."

"Well," Booth said slowly, thinking about how he could best propel the conversation without sounding like he knew too much. "In the news they said it was an attack, right? No guns. So I don't think it was a random person… because if it was, wouldn't they probably have used a gun? Don't most people who rob houses use guns?" He watched the faces of the other men, who chewed on his words thoughtfully—or rather, as thoughtfully as a semi-drunk man can. He decided that he had given them just enough to get their gears turning without sounding like he had thought too much about it. It was a delicate balance to strike, between sounding disinterested and sounding too interested.

"You're right, man," Melly said. "If it was random, I bet the dude would've used a gun or something. But they said it was like, an assault, like they got beat up real bad. That sounds kinda personal."

"But what could Bill and Sheryl ever have done to anyone to deserve that kind of beating?" John asked. "It just doesn't make sense…"

"Yankee… Lake…" Dave almost hissed, as if possessed by alcohol and a burning hatred for South Florida. "I'm telling you, it's the project! It all comes back to the lake!"

"You're drunk," John said with a dismal head shake.

"And right!" Dave countered. "You know there's nothing else Bill or Sheryl could've done to piss someone off enough to kill them, but people get crazy about money. Money is the root of… of all evil," Dave said in a slow, almost ethereal way, as if he were being given some great revelation from above. He really was drunk. But it made Booth wonder…

Their conversation quickly degenerated as their blood alcohol levels rose, and they didn't end up leaving until after many hours and cups of water. The sassy young lady bartending that night would not give them back their keys until they were able to walk along a line of tape laid down on the bar floor, recite a difficult tongue twister without error, and count back from one-hundred by three's. Booth was actually quite impressed.

Once she decided they were sober enough to be on the road, they headed out. Melly and John took off, leaving Dave and Booth in the parking lot continuing a long-winded argument about which lager had a better taste. Booth had just opened his mouth to launch into another one of the finer points of Yuengling on tap, when he saw something out of the corner of his eye that disturbed him. He took a step back behind his own car and pushed Dave back with him, leaning slightly around the edge of the vehicle to check out the scene.

"Hey, what are you—oh," Dave said, seeing what he saw. "Just leave it, man."

"What? That's illegal…" he said, pointing towards the large, heavily built man leaning out of his car window at the edge of the parking lot, talking to a young, scantily-dressed woman. The way his headlights were dimmed and his voice low, car tucked into the darkest corner, he knew well what was going on.

"It doesn't matter, just leave it alone," Dave insisted. "You don't want to get involved with something like that. It's her life, if she wants to do that, you know, whatever. Her choice."

"But look at her," Booth said, gesturing openly. "She's a baby, she barely looks sixteen, there's no way she's…"

"Dude, let it go," Dave insisted. "If you feel so bad about it, we'll call the cops and get out of here, let them handle it."

"But…" Whatever he was about to say was lost, though, as they witnessed another man jump suddenly out of the back of the idling car. He grabbed the young woman, however old she was, by around the waist and began to pull her into the back of the car. She let out a shriek, clawing at air and the open door, and that was all it took. Booth went bolting out from behind his car like a mad dog, crossing the parking lot in what seemed like only a few strides. He reached into the open door and grabbed the man around the neck with both hands, pulling him out of the vehicle and slamming him onto the hood, his grip on the young woman relinquished in fear.

"FBI," Booth growled, wrenching the man's arms behind his back. "You're under arrest for soliciting prostitution, soliciting a minor, and kidnapping, bare minimum. I'm not familiar with Florida law, but since I doubt she's a day older than sixteen, probably a lot more." The man vaguely said something about not knowing she was under eighteen, for which Booth gave him a good taste of the hood. He smiled with grim victory as the man spat a tooth, and sat him curbside while he cuffed both the man in the driver's seat—who had been intelligent enough to stay put—and the girl, who up close didn't even look old enough to have a learner's permit. It made his stomach flop, but at least now he knew nothing bad was going to happen to her tonight. Once they were secure he stepped away and flipped open his phone.

"Hi, this is Seeley Booth with the FBI, I need back-up," he said. "I've just made an arrest for a non-federal offense, I'd like some of your boys to come down here and make an arrest under their jurisdiction." Once satisfied, he hung up and sighed, turning to where he knew Dave was still standing. The man stared at him with wide eyes, tinged with anger and disbelief.

"I can explain..."

"You damn well better," Dave spat. Booth felt a sharp pang in his chest; he had come to really like this man and his family, and he hated the look he was on the receiving end of. That look of disgust, of hurt. Knowing that he hurt someone he had begun to consider a friend. It was never a good feeling, and was easily the hardest part of undercover work.

"Not now," Booth said. "Let me deal with this, then we'll go home and I'll explain it, okay? To you and Lori, I'll explain everything."