Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

AN: And here we have it; "The Woman at the Airport", in which Booth returns to his/Angel's old stomping grounds (Along with an original scene that I felt had to be written)

Angel of the Bones

"Do we have to go through this every time?" Doctor Goodman asked as he sat behind his desk and looked in frustration at the two partners.

"Exactly," Booth began.

"Booth can't just walk in and say 'pack your bags; we're going to LA'," Bones interrupted, snapping her fingers to emphasise her point (Despite himself, Booth had to admit to being impressed; she was coming along pretty well at the whole 'being normal' thing).

"Oh, yeah, yeah, the whole Ice Age warrior thing," Booth said, nodding in feigned understanding (He might have recognised the power of the past thanks to his time as Angel, but researching that kind of thing just for the sake of researching it had never entirely made sense to him).

"Iron Age," Bones and Goodman corrected him simultaneously in a bored voice that reminded him of Cordelia when he'd said something socially stupid.

"And that's not the only thing," Bones added.

"Homeland Security has asked Doctor Brennan to identify three bodies found dead in..." Goodman began, indicating her with one hand as he spoke.

"I'm not allowed to say," Bones interjected (Not that Booth minded either way; if the government wanted Bones somewhere else, she was a valuable enough resource- as much as he thought of her as a person beyond her talents- that they wouldn't send her anywhere dangerous without a decent security detachment).

"The point is, Agent Booth," Goodman said, turning to face Booth, "Doctor Brennan is in great demand on several pressing cases and she's needed here at the museum. Why should I send her to California?"

"Sexy case in Hollywood," Booth replied, a slight smile on his face at the thought. "How much more good press could the Jeffersonian get?"

He wasn't denying that the prospect of taking Bones to 'his' old city was an intriguing one as well- it had been far too long since he'd been to Los Angeles, even if he doubted that he'd run into any of his old friends on this case; it would be too awkward to explain to either the friend or Bones why him being in the sunlight was something that people shouldn't be concerned about-, but Goodman's sudden lean forward suggested that what explanations he'd given had been sufficient to inspire the former archaeologist's interest.

"But Doctor Goodman," Bones protested, realising that Booth's words had made an impact on her boss, "you said the Iron Age warrior was of the highest priority?"

"I can step in on that case," Goodman said, tilting his head slightly in an amused manner. "You pack your bags.

Booth couldn't resist the temptation to smile over at Bones as Goodman voiced his decision.

Back to the city of Angels I go... he reflected as he stood up and headed for the door, calling briefly back at Bones to let her know he'd be outside even as his thoughts focused on what was coming up.

Maybe now he'd manage to see the parts of Los Angeles that attracted people there now that he didn't have to worry about the demon side of the equation...

Looking back on his return visit to the city that had been his home for the better part of five years so far, Booth had to admit that nothing had gone entirely as he had expected it would. Not only had he not had the time even to take a brief look at his old office or the Hyperion- not that either of them would be the same; not only had both the original Angel Investigations office and the Wolfram & Hart building been destroyed even before he left the city, but from what he'd gathered in his research the Hyperion had returned to its old closed state after he'd left and the rest of the team had gone... wherever they'd gone..., but he was definitely not getting a look at the lives that people came to Los Angeles to find.

Granted, he wasn't here to live that kind of life himself, but that didn't change the fact that so far Los Angeles wasn't looking that much more appealing to a human resident than it would to someone in the demonic side of things; the hotel rooms they were in might be nice, but that was about it.

"According to LAPD," Bones said as they sat opposite Ivana Bardu, head of the escort agency that they had tracked the victim to, "a black market breast implant from the same shipment showed up in another girl from Aphrodite Escorts."

"Are you missing anyone?" Special Agent Tricia Finn- Booth couldn't help but wonder if she was some relation to Riley; little connections to his past as Angel always niggled at him in that regard- asked the older woman, with an abruptness that put Booth briefly in mind of Cordelia.

"We're not looking into your business, Miss Bardu," Booth put in; remembering the issues that Madame Dorion had had with his presence when he was trying to help David Nabbit the first time, it seemed like the most obvious explanation for her current discomfort. "We're just trying to solve a murder."

"I haven't heard from Rachel in two weeks," Miss Bardu said with a casual nonchalance.

"Is that unusual?" Finn asked.

"I prefer to ask the questions my own way, Agent Finn," Booth said, looking briefly up at her, noting but otherwise ignoring her slightly hurt expression at his words. "Thanks."

"Rachel booked out at a one week rate," Miss Bardu replied, apparently unconcerned about the interruption but with a slight apprehension in her tone that at least gave Booth an indication that she was genuinely concerned about the missing girl. "She knows to check in with me if the client wants to extend the contract. It's time to worry."

"Do any of these woman resemble Rachel?" Bones asked, passing her a folder containing some of the digital representations that Angela had made of their victim's possible facial structure (Booth was still a bit hazy on how plastic surgery could make that much of an impact on Angela's ability to make an accurate ID of their victim's appearance at the time of her death; he got that it would make the 'flesh markers'- or something like that- a bit confusing, but that was about it...).

"If I had to pick one," Miss Bardu said, briefly lifting one of the pictures out of the folder, "this is the closest, but not really."

"Does Rachel have a last name?" Booth asked as he took the folder back.

"Rachel wasn't even her real first name," Miss Bardu replied, a brief smile on her face.

"She goes by Rachel Ashaunce," Finn interjected from the corner.

"Rachel went to Vegas with a long-time customer," Miss Bardu continued.

"I need his name," Booth said, not entirely surprised when Miss Bardu simply leant back silently in her seat. "Miss Bardu, it's always the same story; beautiful young woman, somebody wants to meet her, somebody can't have her, somebody dies."

"Doctor Anton Kostov, an assembly line nip/tucker in town," Miss Bardu answered after a moment's pause. "If that's all?"

"Do you have a card, Miss Bardu?" Booth asked, smiling slightly at her while ignoring Bones's stare; it might give the wrong impression, but one thing he'd learned from his time as Angel was to never ignore any possible avenue of inquiry until it was totally exhausted.

"We provide a law enforcement discount," Miss Bardu said, smiling slightly at him as she passed him a card from her bag, Booth simply nodding in response as he took the offered card without bothering to correct her assumption.

"Miss Bardu," Bones asked, clearly wanting to get the conversation back to a topic that she was more comfortable with, "do you have any idea of what Rachel looked like before her plastic surgery?"

"Which time?" Miss Bardu responded with a brief smile before she walked out of the interview area.

Booth didn't need to be an expert in the field to know that things had just become more complicated; how were they meant to figure out what this woman looked like when she'd changed her face on more than one occasion...

As he walked through the office of the FBI's Los Angeles division- he almost wished he'd paid more attention to any contacts Wolfram & Hart had in this agency; as much as he hated that part of his life, he'd take anything if it meant improving his chances of figuring out who'd been killed in the first place-, Booth was just looking for somewhere quiet for him to sit and think when it happened.

"Agent Booth," Finn's voice said, prompting him to turn around and look in her direction as she ran up behind him, "can I have a moment, please?"

Without responding verbally, Booth turned around and walked off to a corner of the room before turning back to face the other agent.

"Have I done something to offend you?" Finn asked.

"Look," Booth said uncomfortably- even after so long in Los Angeles, he'd never felt comfortable discussing feelings like this with people he'd only just met-, "I'm really not into this whole, west coast, 'in touch with your feelings' thing, so-"

"Yeah," Finn said, speaking before he could properly start walking away, "um, I'm really good at my job, and I've been nothing but cooperative and helpful to you, but you just freeze me out."

Booth simply hummed in a noncommittal manner as he waited for her to say anything else.

"And I know you have nothing against working with women because you're partners with Doctor Brennan," Finn continued, "so your problem must be with me."

"Look, I don't have anything against you, Agent Finn," Booth said as he turned to look at her, Finn's appearance briefly replaced by the memory of a thin man with overly spiky hair who'd tried to be him without understanding his motives; David hadn't understood what he was really about until the end, and it had resulted in his death. "I just don't like the way you view the FBI."

"What do you mean?" Finn asked.

"This is a proud and noble job, but you're using it to get something else," Booth said, glaring pointedly at Finn as he spoke, hoping she'd get his point.

After all, he'd been where Agent Finn was himself once, even if his motives had been significantly different from hers; he wasn't denying that he'd essentially done what he'd just accused Finn of doing back when he'd first learned about the Shanshu Prophecy when he still ran Angel Investigations- fighting for what he'd get in the end rather than fighting for the sake of actually doing some good-, but working towards your spiritual redemption and working towards getting a movie-writing career were far from the same thing.

"My advice?" he said, as he took a couple of steps forward to stand more directly in front of her, his height once again working to his advantage. "Write your script, get an agent- Hell, have a little plastic surgery-, but quit using my Federal Bureau of Investigation as a stepping stool into something that you think is better, because in my book, there is nothing better."

As he walked away from Finn, Booth was surprised to find that he meant what he'd said.

Admittedly, he might have made a larger-scale impact when he was Angel in the supernatural sense, but he wasn't exactly useless now that he was Booth either; he'd already put away a decent few murderers even before he'd started working with Bones, and things just kept on improving now that they were permanent partners.

He could never go back to saving the world like he had done when he was Angel- he'd lost too much back then to really feel right in that role, and he definitely couldn't push himself physically the way he could before-, but Seeley Booth wasn't exactly a slouch when it came to saving lives his way.

"Scenario number one," Booth said as he and Bones drove down the street, their latest attempt to prompt a confession from the plastic surgeon having met with failure, "prostitute gets breast augmentation from plastic surgeon in return for sex; she threatens to tell on him."

"Plausible," Bones said, a slight uncertainty in her voice that hinted that she didn't agree with what she'd said.

"Scenario number two," Booth continued, trying to ignore his partner's tone, "jealous boyfriend…well, yada yada …you know the rest. Which do you like?"

"Neither," Bones replied.

"Because there's no real evidence," Booth said, allowing his slight frustration at their lack of information to seep through into his tone; they'd been working at this case for two days and they still knew nothing about the murder beyond the technical details.

"Unless you count a volley ball," Bones added, the two sitting in silence for a few metres before Bones spoke again. "Sounds like you're getting ready to quit."

"Quit?" Booth repeated, looking back at Bones for a moment before he sighed in frustration. "No, it's just the Deputy Director wants me to hand the case over to the LA field office; we're supposed to give Agent Finn what we've got and go home."

"What?" Bones said indignantly. "Forget it; you don't even like Agent Finn, you think she's an idiot-"

"Bones," Booth interrupted, "the whole case is a bust; it's a blank. I mean, we don't have anything. We checked her apartment, nothing. There are no pictures, nothing. We don't know what she looks like, we don't know her name..."

"It's like she lived on the world instead of in it," Bones said, prompting Booth to sharply glance at her at that last comment, his mind momentarily flashing back to the time when that phrase could have been applied to him.

He'd done what he could to fit into the world after he'd started dating Buffy, but even after all the time he'd spent with the rest of the team- even after his dates with Nina-, he'd only really felt like he'd belonged in the world again after he'd become human once more; his time as Angel had been defined by the distance between himself and the rest of the human race...

"You have to tell him he's wrong," Bones said, her words breaking into Booth's brain as he quickly went over what he'd heard while he was distracted; she was talking about the director saying he was at a loose end.

Taking his eyes off the road to look at her for a moment, Booth pulled in at the first likely-looking parking space he found, turned the engine off, and turned to look at her; this was definitely the kind of conversation that required all of his attention.

"Is he wrong?" he asked, hoping Bones wouldn't take it the wrong way; as much as he trusted her, the fact remained that they'd really had relatively little luck getting anywhere with this case so far.

"We know we're looking for someone who grew up in New England and moved here about eight years ago," Bones began, an earnest resolution in her voice as she spoke. "Her leg was crushed in a car accident when she was thirteen; she was on a boat shortly before she was murdered. We know some of her names and some of her faces."

"That's all your stuff," Booth said, unable to stop the depression entering his voice

"Usually by now we know more about my stuff."

"We have separate stuff?" Bones asked, looking at him in confusion.

"Yeah," Booth confirmed, his voice low as he looked back at his partner. "By now, I usually have a feel for the person, what they wanted, how they felt, what was going on in their lives; with this girl..."

He sighed. "Nothing."

He could think of so many reasons why someone in this girl's position could have died, but without any idea about her real name or history, there was no way to know what she really would have done...

"She thought she was ugly," Bones said after a moment's pause, prompting a brief spark of hope in Booth; it might be minor, but any moment where Bones demonstrated some kind of understanding of people was a step in the right direction in his book. "She did everything she could to make herself beautiful… and all she did was make herself more invisible."

"Everybody in this city thinks they're ugly, and nobody is," Booth said, shaking his head as he remembered Rebecca Lowell's attempt to get him to turn her; she might not have been able to get the kind of roles that had made her career any more, but that shouldn't have stopped her from trying to go beyond that to become something new. "I'm starting to get why you hate anonymous death so much."

"We were born unique," Bones said (Booth wondered how she'd react if she ever learned just how unique he'd been before they'd met). "Our experiences mold and change us; we become someone, all of us, and to have that taken away by murder, to be erased from existence against our will, it's just-"

"Evil?" Booth suggested.

It was one of those rare moments when Bones was particularly passionate about the current topic she was discussing while he could simultaneously relate to the topic. He didn't always get her when she was talking about bones as part of her archaeological duties- or even when she was talking about some details relating to their current victims-, but for the moment, even if it wasn't the same kind of evil that he was familiar with from his time as Angel, they were discussing something that both of them felt passionate about.

"Unacceptable," Bones corrected, still talking rapidly (Booth briefly contemplated her reaction if she knew of the evil he'd seen in his life, and just as quickly rejected it; she had enough to deal with human monsters without being given an idea of the evil he had once fought). "These bones you bring me, I give them a face. I say their names out loud. I return them to their loved ones and you arrest the bad guy; I like that."

"So do I," Booth said, smiling back at her despite his still-depressed mood.

It was one part of his life as Booth that he definitely preferred to his time as Angel; at least as Booth, he was able to give people answers, whereas when he'd been Angel he'd sometimes had to conceal the answers from the bereaved due to their potential inability to understand what had happened to their loved ones.

It might be depressing that he failed to save them, but at least he could say that he could give the victim's family answers when he couldn't do anything else for them.

"I feel like we should be arresting these doctors," Bones said, the moment apparently passing for her almost as quickly as it had originally come, "because whether they killed her or not they… they still erased her."

"Well..." Booth said, putting his sunglasses back on as he turned his attention back to the road in preparation for starting the car, "maybe I could hold Cullen off for a day."

"It's not good enough," Bones said, but the slight tone of acknowledgement in her voice was enough for Booth.

"You're welcome," Booth replied, as he started the car and began to drive away just as Bones's cell phone began to ring

"Brennan," she said as she answered the phone, pausing for a moment as she listened to the voice on the other end before she spoke again, a smile on her face at the news. "You compared the bones to the marks left on her jaw? That's… brilliant, Zack."

After another brief pause as she listened to the speaker on the other end of the line- and Booth could only hope that Zack was living up to Brennan's expectations of him; right now they needed a breakthrough in this case-, Bones spoke again. "Tell me he's in LA."

Before Booth could reach the point where he felt obliged to ask for information, Bones had terminated the connection and turned to look at him. "Doctor Henry Atlas, Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills. Go."

With that instruction, Booth put his foot down on the accelerator and began to drive towards the named area, his mind already buzzing with the possibilities of what they'd find there as he listened to Bones's explanation for heading to this particular location.

Even if Doctor Atlas wasn't the murderer, the fact that he'd designed a rare tool that had served as the murder weapon was definitely not something they could dismiss as coincidence...

Later that following night, the case concluded, the killer arrested, and plans already in motion to contact the victim's parents, Booth found himself standing in front of the remains of a once-again-abandoned old hotel, Bones unaware of his current location as she rested in her bed.

It was probably a pointless thing to do, he acknowledged- his team hadn't used it as a headquarters in this plane of existence for over a year before he'd been given his Shanshu, and they'd spent so little time in it when they were in Hell that it hardly counted-, but after he'd vanished from that life so abruptly after setting his last couple of affairs in order, he'd have been lying if he claimed that he didn't feel any sense of nostalgia towards the building before him.

Besides, after the complete erasure of the Wolfram & Hart office after he and Wesley had forced them to expend so many resources to bring him back to life after his last fight in Hell- he sometimes wondered if they'd ever managed to recover anything after he'd been given his Shanshu and thus escaped any possibility of fighting for their side in their planned Apocalypse-, coupled with the destruction of his original offices during Vocah's attack, out of all his residences over his eight years fighting alongside Buffy or fighting with his own team, this was the only one left standing, and hence the only true reminder he had left that his time as Angel had been real and not just some strange dream.

The hotel might be locked- and he wasn't going to enter it; it might not be impossible for him to gain access but it would probably attract too many questions if he was caught-, but after the slightly unnerving experience of meeting Doctor Atlas- that man's resemblance to Richard Wilkins was uncanny; the part of Booth that would always be Angel had to wonder if the man had been some distant relative of Sunnydale's now-deceased mayor from before the guy had made the deal that resulted in the development of Sunnydale-, Booth hadn't been able to resist another chance to look at the reminder of the good he'd accomplished in his life.

The demon that had once inhabited this hotel was gone, and, in a place whose history had once been defined by murder and destruction, the only thing that remained for those who had lived there were memories of a location where they could find some degree of safety and security from the chaos of the world around them…

And, for a few brief years, it had been the first place where the first vampire with a soul had found what could legitimately be thought of as his family (His bond with Buffy in Sunnydale had been an important connection, but he'd never really managed to connect with the other Scoobies while he was there; they'd been Buffy's friends rather than his own).

It had been a good, if strange, life while he lived there…

But it was gone.

This building before him was nothing but a reminder of his long-gone past; his life as Angel had been good, but even if he had retained his vampiric strength, he could never go back to the way things had been back in those days.

He was a different man now; he had a son, he had an official job, he had qualifications, he had paperwork, he had a passport…

He existed.

Looking at the hotel in front of him one last time, he smiled softly.

"Goodbye," he said, the comment being addressed to nobody in particular.

With that, he turned around and walked away from the hotel, the building that had been his home for three years left in its old state behind him, its previous history as far in the building's past as his own was.

Tomorrow morning, it was back to Washington with Bones, where whatever future awaited him would come for him once more.