Aliens in the City
Disclaimer: Nope, they're still not mine. Just playing with them!
A/N: I am so sorry that it's taken so long to update. Between musie giving me a hard time with it and my computer problems I just wasn't able to get it out sooner. But, here it is and it's long as always. Plus, you get the visual you've all been waiting for!! I apologize for those that are waiting for some action, this is once again a convo chapter; I just feel that there were a few things I needed to establish before moving to the action. Ok, confession time, I suck at writing action so it might be possible that I'm avoiding getting there. I will get there, I promise and I'll try to make it exciting but before there are a couple of chapters before we get there. It's not just cause I have to psyche myself up to write it, though of course that is true, but there a few things I want to say before we get there besides, I just don't think the investigation would move that fast. Ok, as always, thanks to those that have reviewed, I think I managed to reply to everyone if I didnt, I'm sorry but know that your review meant a lot. Thanks also to Puppet for all her help betaing! Hope you enjoy!!
Chapter 11
"Booth, would you sit down?" Jack asked, shifting in his chair. "All this pacing is giving me a headache and making Carter dizzy," he groused. "And you really don't want to wear a hole in that rug, do you?"
"Sorry, sir," Booth said with a wry smile as he sat down in a chair across from Jack and Sam. "It's just not everyday that I wait to meet with the President, you know?"
"I thought you'd received a couple of medals from the President himself?" Sam, who had been fiddling with the hand held scanner, looked up to ask Booth.
"Yeah," Booth nodded, "but there's a difference between a five minute meeting in the rose garden to receive a medal and meeting him for a mission briefing."
"I supposed that's true," Sam granted before turning her attention back to the scanner.
Booth looked at how comfortable both Jack and Sam were while waiting to talk to the President of the United States and couldn't help but envy that ease a little. "I guess you've been here a few times, huh?" he asked them.
"A few times," Jack answered as he leaned his head back against the wall, closed his eyes and laced his fingers over his stomach. "Hayes is a good man, you know. There's nothing to be worried about."
"Yes, sir," Booth nodded. He then turned to look at Sam and commented, "I was surprised at how easy it was for the guards to allow you to bring in the scanner. I'd have thought there'd be more strict security protocols. It is the White House after all."
"Yeah, well," Jack said without opening his eyes, "like you said, we've been here a few times and for most of them, Carter's brought some technology or other to show to the President. The guards are used to her and her gadgets; they know they're not dangerous."
Booth nodded and the group fell silent for a few moments until Sam looked up from the scanner and said, "I'd have thought that Temperance would have come with us today. She was so adamant about going with you into the field the other day."
"She still is," Booth responded with a small smile. "She insists on going with me to every interview or whenever I visit a crime scene but she considers things like this," he said with a small wave of his hand, "to be akin to paperwork. And she has no difficulty whatsoever leaving that up to me. Especially when she has remains she could be examining back at the lab."
"I can understand that," Jack commented, without opening his eyes. "Coming here can certainly be tedious."
"Jack," Sam protested while Booth did his best to wipe off the grin that threatened to come out at the general's irreverence, "coming to the White House is an honor not a punishment."
"It might have been an honor the first few times," he argued, keeping his eyes firmly closed and his posture relaxed, as if he was on the verge of falling asleep and yet Sam knew he'd be the first one to react if something were to happen. "But after about the 100th visit, it somehow looses its shine." Sam made a face at the response and turned to look at Booth, ignoring her husband's unusual opinions with the ease of long practice.
"Temperance has new remains to examine?" Sam asked Booth, curious. She had spent the past few days in Thor's ship, recalibrating the sensors; the last time she had seen the rest of the team had been three days ago when they'd had the first morning briefing. Since then, she'd gotten updates from Jack but she didn't remember anything about having found a new body.
"Yes," Booth nodded. "The search for unidentified bodies generated a few hits already; the first couple were being taken to the Jeffersonian this morning," he went on to explain and Sam nodded. But before she could say anything else, the President's secretary put down the phone and stood up.
"The President will see you now," she told them as she walked towards a door across from her desk and waited for them.
Since they were there on official military business, all three were wearing the dress uniforms of their respective branch of service. Sam and Jack looked striking, confident and, somehow, both relaxed and alert in their matching dress blues. Both wore an impressive array of ribbons and medals on their chests and though more than half of them were the same, Jack had a few that Sam didn't. Booth, who had his own impressive array of ribbons, didn't recognize a number of them and knew that they represented the specific times his superiors had saved the world from hostile aliens.
As Jack stood up, he placed his hat under his arm and shifted his briefcase before motioning for Sam to go ahead of him. For her part, Sam also placed her hat under her arm and secured her papers and scanner against her body as she walked towards the door the secretary held open.
Booth, as the least ranking officer, walked behind the couple. That morning had been the first time in almost six months that he'd worn his green dress uniform since for the last few days he'd preferred to wear the green BDU's the rest of SG1 wore while on duty. Brennan's reaction to seeing him dressed in the more formal uniform had been interesting – so interesting in fact that he'd almost been late arriving at the White House.
He still didn't understand what she found so fascinating about the sight of him wearing the uniform. But, as Brennan had told him, he wasn't a woman and couldn't appreciate how the width of his shoulders was accentuated by the jacket, or how nice his ass was displayed by the well fitting trousers, or how the tan beret brought attention to his eyes; he couldn't have understood how the sight of him wearing what was essentially a warrior's gear with the symbols recognizing his superior ability appealed to the primitive side of Brennan – how the sight that proved he was an alpha male brought out the alpha female in her.
With a minute shake of his head, he put those thoughts away and entered the Oval Office where President Hayes was greeting Jack and Sam like old friends.
"This is Major Booth," Jack introduced Booth as he joined the small group in the middle of the room.
"Major," Hayes said, offering his hand, "it's a pleasure."
"Mr. President," Booth said, shaking the hand of the most powerful man in the world, "it's an honor."
Hayes nodded before tilting his head to one side with a thoughtful expression. "Haven't we met before?" he asked Booth. "I seem to remember giving you a medal a few years ago – though I could have sworn you were a civilian; an FBI agent if I'm not mistaken."
"Yes, sir," Booth nodded, surprised that a man that must have a million and one things on his mind, would remember something like that. "That was me; I was. . . am," not knowing how much he was allowed to say at the moment, Booth looked at Jack for guidance. Jack nodded and took over the explanation.
"Booth is an inactive Ranger," Jack told Hayes. "I've recalled him to active duty for the duration of the mission."
"Ah, yes, the mysterious mission," Hayes said as he sat down and motioned for the others to follow suit. "So, why don't you tell me all about it?"
"Carter?" Jack asked as they sat down, needing to make sure who he was talking to before going any further. She looked up from the scanner and nodded to indicate that the man in the room with them was indeed the original President Hayes. "And I take it that there are no bugs and that everyone outside are who they're supposed to be?"
"Yes, sir," Sam nodded and sat back on the couch with a satisfied air about her. Both Jack and Booth also relaxed. The chance that the President would have been replaced was a long shot but still, it was nice to be sure.
"Jack," Hayes asked, looking from one officer to the other with a small smile. "Care to tell me what's going on?"
"Well, sir," Jack began. "We have a problem." Jack was nothing if not a master of the understatement.
"Of course we do," Hayes nodded with the air of someone that had had the same conversation quite a few times before. "When don't we? What is it this time? A parasitic race bent on galactic domination?"
"No, sir," Jack shook his head with a small smile.
"That's right," Hayes said. "We kicked their collective asses, didn't we? Well, I hope it's not another half-ascended, wanna be God?" At Jack's denial, the President kept guessing, "bugs made out of metal? People from another dimension or an alternate reality that either want to take over or are bringing news of a devastating event? The timeline has been changed and we need to put it back where it should be? Oh, please tell me the Wraiths have not found a way to make it here from Pegasus!"
"No, sir," Jack said again. "It's none of the above." Booth was surprised about the relaxed, almost frivolous atmosphere of the meeting. Given the nature of the topic under discussion, he'd expected a more somber mood, but it seemed that the President shared General O'Neill's unconventional sense of humor – no wonder they got along so well.
"Oh, so it's something new," Hayes was saying. "Well, that's good; wouldn't want us to become too complacent."
"No, sir, we wouldn't," Jack agreed. "But this problem may be a bigger one than the ones you mentioned; it's certainly more insidious and presents a huge problem to our national security." At that pronouncement, the President's demeanor changed and became more serious.
Fifteen minutes later, all sense of frivolity had disappeared and the President was sitting back, rubbing his hands over his face as he tried to assimilate what Jack had just told him. He understood the severity of the situation without any prompting.
"I thought we'd finally taken care of Ba'al," he said, with a hint of question in his tone.
"So did we," Jack answered, shaking his head.
"Why can't that bastard have the common decency of staying dead?" Hayes asked in disgust.
"I don't know, sir," Jack shook his head. "He's about as bad as Apophis when it comes to that; but I guess it would be too much to ask a snake head for some common decency."
"Actually, sir," Sam intervened, "with all the clones and things, I think he might even be worse than Aphophis about coming back when you're sure you've killed him."
"You might be right, Carter," Jack said with a sigh. "He might just take the prize when it comes to dead guys coming back from hell."
"Well, at least SG1 still holds the record for over all come backs, right?" Hayes asked with something that closely resembled a smirk on his face.
"I'm sure we do at that," Sam answered with a grin which faded when she saw Jack's face. She and Hayes looked at each other and silently decided to change the subject and Booth wondered what the story behind that was.
"Ok," Hayes said, changing the subject, "so should I assume that whatever Colonel Carter used a few moments ago reassured you that I'm not a clone?" he asked them.
"Yes, sir," Jack nodded, minutely shaking his head to get rid of whatever memories the previous discussion had brought up.
"That's good," Hayes said. "I wouldn't want to not be me," as soon as he finished saying it, he frowned at the complete weirdness of the situation. "And everyone outside?"
"They're all originals too," Sam assured him and he nodded his head again, relieved. "So, what's the plan?" he asked Jack, who leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees.
"As you saw," Jack started to explain, "Carter has already recalibrated a handheld sensor to determine who's a clone and who's not. She's also spent the last few days working with Thor to recalibrate the sensors on his ship so that we can scan Congress and the connected buildings from orbit."
"That sounds good," Hayes agreed.
"The Chiefs will be here in a few minutes," Jack continued, "once they get here, we'll scan them to make sure they're the real deal. Frankly, I'm not really anticipating any surprises there; like you, they're too high profile for any changes not to be noticed. I really don't think Ba'al would have taken that chance – at least not yet." He paused for a moment, only to continue when Hayes nodded, "we'll also have to scan all of their staff. I think it is far more likely that Ba'al will have to replace someone farther down in the chain of command. It just makes more sense to replace someone that has access to sensitive information but is responsible for it."
"Yes, it does," Hayes said, slowly, clearly thinking of something else. "But what happens after?" he asked, looking from Jack to Sam.
"What do you mean, sir?" Jack asked for clarification.
"Well," Hayes said as he stood up to get a glass of water, "it's all very well and good to make sure we're all ourselves right now, but what happens if one of us is replaced after you confirmed our identity? How would we know? For that matter, how would we know if one of you guys," he added, pointing at Jack and Sam, "were to be replaced? I don't think scanning us all over and over again will be very practical, do you?" Since it had taken them over a day to come up with that question, Booth was impressed by how fast the President was processing the information.
"No, of course not," Jack answered, shaking his head. "Carter here had the same thought and came up with a solution," he added and then motioned to Sam to explain.
"Well, sir," Sam began, "as you know that all SGC personnel have a tracer imbedded in their arms so that we can always know where they are;" she paused to see Hayes nod before continuing.
"Are you thinking of using them for this too?" Hayes asked and she shook her head.
"No, sir," she answered. "They're too easily detected and removed. In fact, Ba'al already knows we use them and one of the first things he'd do if he were to capture any of us would be to look for them and remove them."
"Couldn't you do something to make them less detectable?" Hayes wanted to know.
"I might be able to do something with the type of energy they emit – to make them less easily detectable," Sam admitted. "But that wouldn't change the fact that any physical scan of whoever is abducted would detect the tracer itself, since it would show up as a foreign object in the body. No, we need something that won't be detected at all."
"So, what did you come up with?" Hayes asked, grinning as he knew she already had the answer.
"This," Sam said, grinning as she held up a bunch of what looked like oversized band-aids. "These are made from a material that it's absorbed by skin as soon as it is applied to it. Since it then becomes part of the skin, there'll be nothing to detect. And the energy it'll be emitting will be thermal energy, the same kind of energy we all naturally emit. Only someone who knows where to look and how to look for it will be able to detect that energy signature; anyone else will just read normal thermal energy."
"Where did you get the material?" Hayes asked as he leaned forward to receive the patches.
"I adapted a material that Thor had available on his ship," Sam answered as she sat back from giving Hayes a few of the patches.
"How do you get it off?" Hayes asked as he turned it around on his hands.
"Well," Sam answered, shifting in her seat, "we can deactivate it so that it won't give off the energy."
"Are you saying there's no way to get it off after we get it on?" Hayes asked, and he didn't sound too thrilled with the idea. He then looked at Jack and said, "I can't believe you'd like that."
"I don't," Jack agreed, frowning. "I still don't like the fact that I had to keep the darn tracer. I thought once I was transferred to DC I'd be able to get rid of it," he added, grousing.
"Sir," Sam said, firmly, "you know that as the Head of Homeworld Security you need to be secure and we need to be sure you are where you're supposed to be."
"Christ, Carter!" Jack complained, "you make me sound like a baby that needs to be looked after by his mommy!!"
"You know that's not what I meant, sir," Sam argued, even as the President grinned in delight at the sight of one of his most senior generals complaining as a child. "Just as you know that the security concerns are real."
"Yeah, yeah," Jack nodded, sounding very put upon. Sam ignored her husband and turned to the president again.
"We're working on a lotion that would hopefully dissolve the material after it's been absorbed but we're still in the developing stage and frankly it's not one of our priorities right now."
"I understand," Hayes nodded. "But it's safe?"
"Yes, it is," Sam confirmed. "We tested it extensively and it is completely safe." Hayes nodded again and turned to Jack.
"Can I assume you'll be using it?" he asked Jack.
"Yes, sir," Jack answered with a frown. "In fact," he added, "Carter, Vala and I were implanted last night after the final tests came through."
"Will you be the one monitoring the patches' energy output?" Hayes asked Sam, who shook her head.
"Actually, sir, we believe that, given the circumstances, it's not prudent for anyone on the planet to have access to the monitoring data. We think it'll be much safer for all concerned if only Thor has the correct frequency for all the patches; that way if I were to be abducted, there would be no security breach."
"That sounds very sensible, Colonel," Hayes agreed, as Jack frowned at the possibility of Sam being abducted.
"Thank you, sir," Sam said, "We've isolated one computer in Thor's ship which will run a continuous scan of every patch that's activated. Since it'll basically be a passive scan that'll be confirming that every active patch is still in the Metro area and that nothing has interfered with it, it won't need anyone to supervise it. The computer will simply let us know if anything goes wrong."
"Every patch that's been activated?" Hayes asked. "Who else are you planning on giving a patch to?" Sam looked at Jack, who answered.
"We were planning on giving one to you," Jack nodded to the patch that Hayes still had in his hand, when Hayes nodded to show that he was resigned to the idea, Jack continued, "We also brought enough to give them to the Joints Chiefs, once we're sure they're who they're supposed to be. And the rest of SG1 and Booth's team will be getting theirs later today."
"Anyone else?" Hayes asked, keeping in mind the mention of Booth's team for later.
"Well," Jack said, as he shifted forward, "We were planning on giving one to the members of Congress that know of the existence of the Stargate – after making sure they're who they're supposed to be, and maybe to their top advisers," Jack added, "to the top advisers of the Chiefs and the other officers involved with the Stargate Program."
"Jack," Hayes said on a long sigh, "that's a lot of people."
"I know sir," Jack replied with a wary nod. "And that doesn't include all the people that don't know about the Program and their staff. But trying to give a patch to everyone would make things too awkward."
"There's no easy way to explain such advanced technology as this," Hayes agreed, holding up the patch he still held.
"Yes," Jack nodded. "Plus, there's also the fact that the more people that know we're doing this, the higher the probability that Ba'al will find out we're onto him. I want to keep this whole investigation as low key as possible until we've found every clone and found out exactly what that snake head is up to."
"I understand," Hayes told him. "But how are you planning on doing that? Because even if Thor's scans pinpoint every clone, from what you've told me, scanning takes a long time and without giving a patch to everyone that's been cleared, there's no way to be a hundred percent certain that they'll stay cleared – if you see what I mean."
"Yes, I do," Jack said, "the scan is too complicated for it to be done on everyone at once and there's no guarantee that someone that was declared an original wouldn't be changed to a clone afterwards. Not if we don't give everyone a patch; which we can't do without raising a number of suspicions. This is particularly true for the lower ranking staff, who I'm sure are the most likely candidates but who rarely have the clearance to know about the Program."
"Exactly," Hayes nodded as he got up to refill his glass of water. "So, what's you're plan?" he asked again.
"To conduct this as if it were another criminal investigation," was Jack's surprising answer. "Which is why Booth is here," he added, motioning to Booth, who had been more than happy to keep quiet up to that point. "Major, care to fill the President in on your investigation?"
"Yes, sir," Booth answered smartly as he sat up straight on the couch. "As General O'Neill said, I'm conducting this as if it were any other homicide investigation. All of the scans and advanced technology," he said, waving his hand around to indicate everything from the patches on the coffee table to Thor's ship that was in orbit, "are all very well and good but they won't tell us what Ba'al wants to do or even what he has done already. To know that, we have to look for anything that's out of place."
"So, how do we do that?" Hayes asked as he sat down again.
"Well," Booth answered, "first we go over what we know." With that, Booth started to tell the President what they knew and what his plan for finding out more was.
"What have you got so far?" Hayes asked when Booth finished speaking.
"As I was telling Colonel Carter," Booth answered, "the search for unidentified bodies has generated a few hits, the first of which are being taken to the Jeffersonian where Dr. Brennan and her team will examine them to see if they're clones or the bodies of the missing Congressional aides."
"Dr. Brennan and myself have also interviewed most of the replacements to the Congressional aides that have gone missing," Booth continued, "we didn't find out anything concrete, not that I was really expecting anything different. I just wanted to get a feel for the people and the situation," he added. Hayes, who had been an Air Force officer before getting into politics, Jack, and Sam, all nodded; as military officers they all knew the value of knowing your enemy and good intel.
"And?" Hayes asked. "Did you learn anything useful?"
"Nothing concrete," Booth repeated. "But something's off," he added, shrugging. "There was just something off about them," he said slowly, as if looking for words to explain what he was thinking. "Nothing I could put my finger on; they had all the right answers and attitude but there was just . . ." Booth trailed off.
"Something off?" Jack finished for him.
"Yes," Booth agreed, smiling. "We're already looking into their history, so hopefully we'll know something soon, but my gut tells me they're definitely involved. We've also managed to break into workable parts the Congressional records for the past year and the political positions of the Senators and Congressmen."
"That is a lot of information," Hayes remarked, shaking his head.
"Yes," Booth nodded. "And it's going to take quite a bit of time to go through it all; thankfully we have half of SG1 helping." At that, Hayes turned to look at Jack, surprised.
"Mitchell can't go into the field with that broken ankle," Jack explained. "And there's really no one better at condensing huge amounts of seemingly useless information than Daniel and Jonas, so that's what they're doing."
"Where are they doing all this?" Hayes asked.
"At the Jeffersonian," Jack answered. "As I said, I really want to keep this as low key as possible."
"I understand," Hayes said. "What does Landry say about this?"
"He doesn't really know the details of what's going on."
"You don't think the SGC has been compromised?" Hayes asked, surprised.
"Not at all," Jack responded, shaking his head. "With the security safeguards we implemented six months ago after we first discovered the clones, the SGC is probably the one place I'm sure of that has no clones. But still, there's no need to tell more people about it than absolutely have to know. Landry understands," Jack ended with a shrug.
"And he doesn't mind that you're keeping his best team for an indefinite amount of time?"
"Oh, I'm sure he does mind," Jack said with a small smile. "But he also knows I wouldn't keep them here if it weren't necessary and that he'll know the details when it's safe. He's good soldier; he knows what 'on a need to know' means."
Hayes nodded again and said, "Well, it sounds like you have things under control."
"As much as we can," Jack said, "yes we do." Before Hayes could respond, the phone rang to let them know the Joints Chiefs had arrived. A few minutes later, they were shown into the room and the explanations began all over again.
--
"Hey, Bren," Angela said as she walked to where her best friend was examining one of the remains the FBI had brought in. "How you doing?"
"Fine," Brennan answered distractedly as all her attention was on the body before her.
"The SG1 boys are completely buried in their research," Angela said, leaning against a table and crossing her arms. "And now that Vala's here, they've pulled her into it."
"That's good," Brennan responded, once again sounding as if she didn't know what she was responding to.
"I guess," Angela said. "She's into it now too; though she did resist for a while but when they failed to respond to any of her taunts, she gave up and joined them."
"That's nice," Brennan replied as she moved to get a better angle. Then proving she was paying attention she asked, "Why aren't you helping them out too? I thought you were going to help in the research since there's not much else for you to do here yet."
"I am," the artist answered with a nod. "But I needed to take a break. There's only so much reading about politics I can do before I'm bored to tears and my head starts to feel as if it were being squeezed in a vice – slowly."
"It's not that bad," Brennan argued, looking up at Angela through her goggles.
"No, it's worse," Angela nodded for emphasis. "So, tell me: why are you here instead of with Booth? I mean, they were going to the While House today!!"
"Yes, I know," Brennan answered with a small grimace. "They were going to debrief the President and the Joint Chiefs about the case. Who knows how long that'll take and I had to start working on the remains, so I thought this was a better use of my time. There's nothing I would add to that discussion anyway."
"Maybe not," Angela said with a shrug, "but it's the White House!" Angela repeated, wide eyed. "How can you pass an opportunity to meet the President and be at the Oval Office??"
"I already met the President that time I went to that luncheon which, incidentally, was held at the White House," Brennan reminded Angela.
"I know," Angela nodded. "But that was a big luncheon; you barely got to say hi to the man. Don't you want to meet him on a one on one basis?"
"Not really," was the careless reply which had Angela gaping. Noticing this, Brennan added, "Come on, Angela. He's just a man; there's nothing that special about him."
"Nothing special…" Angela repeated incredulous. "Bren that man is the President of the United States! Only the most powerful man in the world! And not only is your man meeting him but you had a chance to too! How can you be so nonchalant about it?"
"I guess because I had more important things to worry about than meeting a politician," was the dry response.
"Hey, Bren," Angela said, on a softer tone as she walked closer to Brennan. "Are you ok?"
"Sure," Brennan answered with a shrug not looking up from the body. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"Because Booth is back on active duty," Angela answered. "And I know how you feel about that." The quiet observation had Brennan stopping was she was doing and looking up at the concerned face of her best friend. "So, are you ok?"
"Yes," Brennan answered, sighing. "I'm as okay as I'm going to be," she added, straightening and moving to lean against the rail. "I don't like it but there's not much I can do about it."
"Have you talked to Booth?" Angela asked, coming to lean next to her.
"Yes," Brennan nodded. "We talked about it that same night. And I get it; more than that, I share his excitement about this case."
"But . . .?" Angela asked.
"There's no but," Brennan denied. At Angela's knowing look, she sighed and added, "I know he loves me and Parker and our life together but I also know that there's a part of him that likes the idea of going through the Gate on a regular basis."
"Yeah, well, of course there is," Angela nodded. "I'd be surprise if there wasn't. I mean the man was a Ranger and is now an FBI agent; I'd say it was a given that he likes action."
"Yes, he does."
"And it's not like you don't," Angela pointed out. "I think the fact that both of you like action so much is one of the reasons you guys understand each other so well, despite of how different you are in most other areas."
"Maybe," Brennan conceded after thinking about it for a minute. "But I'm not the one that's being called back to active duty every time something comes up, am I? Nor am I the one that would be on the front lines if some generals in the Pentagon that have nothing to do with us decide he's needed there."
"The chances of that happening are slim to none," Angela protested.
"But they still exist," Brennan argued.
"Yes, they do," Angela granted. "But that's the man you fell in love with. He's dedicated, loyal, brave and will do what he has to do to make sure the people he loves are safe – even if that includes going to war."
"I know," Brennan agreed. "And I also know I wouldn't love him half as much if he were any less of a man than he is."
"You probably wouldn't have fallen in love with him in the first place," Angela corrected. "Because you have that same core of values, you also do whatever you think is right and necessary to protect those weaker than you. And that is another reason why you guys are perfect for each other."
"Maybe," Brennan said again. "It still sucks," she added with as close to a pout as Brennan ever got and that showed Angela that while Brennan was never going to like the idea that Booth could be sent off to war without much notice, she had accepted it and even understood it.
"Yes, it does," Angela agreed as she put her arm around Brennan's shoulder. "But hey, look on the bright side; his ass does look great in his uniform."
"That it does," Brennan agreed with a small laugh, determinedly shaking off her earlier thoughts. "Yup," she added as she remembered how Booth had looked that morning. "That it definitely does."