Agent Tim Sullivan was chewing on the last bite of his spare ribs when the phone on his desk rang. Licking his fingers of the spicy Texan barbecue sauce off his fingers, he picked up the phone holding it between his ear and shoulder as he reached to grab a napkin from the take-out bag.

"Sullivan." He answered jovially, mid chew.

"Am I disturbing your lunch, Agent?"

Tim Sullivan quickly finished swallowing and wiped the evidence of his lunch from his face as if the caller on the other end could see the reddish brown sauce on the corner of his lip. He would know the authoritative voice of Deputy Director Sam Cullen anywhere.

"Uh...No, sir." He said as he shoved the eaten spare rib bones into the grease stained white paper bag.

"Good. I'll get right to the point then. You wanted an in back in DC, well you got it. We have a situation here that requires your presence."

Sully felt the first surge of optimism he had since he came back to the F.B.I. after his not so fulfilling sail around the warm waters of the Caribbean. He had wanted to work back in DC but both Hacker and Cullen had other ideas, wanting him to prove himself again and assigned him to the field office in Dallas. He wondered what happened that would cause Cullen to call him back out of the blue.

He had a decent solve rate but nothing that would cause Deputy Director Cullen's notice.

"A situation, Sir?"

"You remember Jamie Kenton?" Cullen asked, his voice filled with a quiet rage when he spoke the name.

How could he forget? Everyone knew Kenton. He was a murderer and a turncoat and he had also been Sully's partner at one time for a very brief period. But last he heard, the bastard was in prison.

"Of course."

"Excellent. You need to help us find him."

"Find him?" He chuckled. "I didn't know he was lost."

His attempt at a joke went flat. He didn't have to see Cullen's face to know that the man's lips formed a thin line. No, he didn't find that remark funny at all.

"This is not a joke, Agent Sullivan. Kenton is responsible for the deaths of over ten highly influential individuals not to mention the attempted murders of a fellow FBI agent and an esteemed and more importantly pregnant FBI consultant."

This was very serious, indeed. Sully felt the humor within him dissolve and a horrible feeling made his gut clench tightly as Cullen went on to explain Kenton's involvement and escape from Witness Protection only to result in hiring a hit man to carry out murders on his behalf. The hit man was captured and placed under guard in the hospital after an altercation resulting in shots fired but Kenton was still loose. It was only after some quick work by the Jeffersonian Institute that they had discovered Kenton's involvement.

He didn't want to tip his own apple cart but something wasn't adding up. If the Jeffersonian was already involved then wouldn't Booth be lead agent on the case?

"Sir, I'm grateful that you need my assistance but why me? I know Booth and his merry band of squints are perfectly capable of carrying out the assignment."

All Sully heard was a deep sigh on the other end. His spare ribs felt heavy in his stomach. Something was very off.

"Booth was on the case but I am pulling him off and you are the only one I know that is able to work with the merry band of squints as you so affectionately call them and Kenton was your partner at one point. You may know him better than anyone."

Well, no one actually knew Kenton. If they did they would've realized long ago his loyalties did not fall on the right side of the law. Then the other comment Cullen made resonated deep within him.

"Why was Booth pulled off the case?"

"He was the agent that Kenton put a hit on."

Okay, personal involvement. That made sense.

"Is he hurt? Is he okay?"

"He suffered a minor concussion. As for being okay, that is up to interpretation."

Sully's senses went on immediate alert. Cullen was holding something back. Something important.

"You're not telling me everything."

"Perceptive, Agent Sullivan."

"Are you going to tell me?" He prodded.

"I was hoping to save it until you got here but I may as well tell you now in case you feel you cannot handle the assignment objectively. The FBI Consultant that I mentioned before is Dr. Brennan."

Tempe.

Sully felt like someone punched him in the diaphragm. All the breath left his lungs and he felt like he was gasping for air as he gripped the phone tighter in his fist.

No wonder Booth was off the case. It wasn't because Kenton had out a hit on him. It was because he had put a hit out on Temperance. Temperance, who apparently was carrying a child...Booth's child. He must be going insane right now.

"Dr. Brennan was admitted to the hospital with a gunshot wound to the chest and is currently on a respirator in a medically induced coma. We are hopeful but not optimistic at this point." Cullen continued forcing all emotion from his voice but his rage at the circumstances seeped through his clinical explanation anyway. "The infant was able to be delivered and is currently thriving so I am told. Thank God."

The phone dropped from Sully's grip, clanging unceremoniously on his desk and he fought back the bile that rose from his throat.

Temperance may die.

Kenton was a dead man.

He heard Cullen shouting his name through the receiver breaking through his shock. Numbly, he picked the phone back up.

"I'll be on the next flight out to DC." He said absently before hanging up.

Two hours later Special Agent Tim Sullivan was boarding a plane to Dulles airport.

"Sully? " Booth was momentarily stunned. "I thought he was off playing the wayward sailor down in the Bahamas."

The last he saw of Sully was when he waved to him from the docks as he sailed off into the sunset on a boat named after his wife; The Temperance.

"I'll give him the honors of explaining that when he gets here. But suffice it to say, he is the only one I know that can work well with the squints besides you. And we need that."

Booth knew they did. But Sully? He couldn't deny he was a great guy but he was also Bones' Ex. She had actually considered sailing around the world with him. Booth hated to admit that he couldn't help but feel insecure.

Shake it off, Booth. He's coming to help. There is no room here for a testosterone fueled pissing contest.

Bone's doctor approached them quietly and pulled him aside.

"What is it?" Booth asked suddenly panicked. "Is something wrong?"

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to alarm you." The doctor quickly apologized for giving the wrong impression. "I just wanted to inform you that we're going to begin to ween Dr. Brennan of the coma inducing anesthesia."

"What? Isn't that dangerous? Didn't you put her on that so she could heal? What if she's not healthy enough for that yet?" He fired off the questions in rapid succession.

"Mr. Booth, please calm down. I understand you are under a lot of stress."

"You don't know the half of it buddy."

"We need to ween her off so we can gage how her healing is progressing. In order to get accurate test results, we need to conduct them when she is out of a coma state. We can always put her under again if she is not doing as well as we hoped."

"And the intubation?"

"We need to keep that in for now. Her lungs still are not re-inflated enough for her to breathe on her own."

Booth really wished Cam were here beside him to confirm what the doctor was telling him was accurate.

"It will be quite some time before she awakes, Mr. Booth. May I suggest you go home and get some rest? Your body is still recovering from a nasty blow to the head."

Booth was shaking his head before the doctor even finished his sentence.

"No. No way. Not gonna happen. So you can just forget it."

"It really would be in your best interests..."

"My best interests would be staying here with my wife and child." Booth cut him off.

The doctor nodded. "I understand. I'll see what I can do about having a family room be available to you."

Booth nodded curtly in silent thanks.

Sully went straight from the airport to the hospital. He knew he would probably catch hell from his superiors without checking in first but this was something he had to do. Because of his credentials he gained easy access into the ICU and past the security that stood diligently outside her door.

He could hear the machines before he even entered the room but even the sounds of them couldn't prepare him for what he was about to see. The woman that he was in love with, even now after all this time, he was man enough to admit that he still was, looked nothing like the fiery, stubborn, smart woman he knew.

Pasting a smile on his face as if she could see him, he sat on the chair next to the fragile figure on the bed. He stayed silent at first, just watched her; searching for any signs of life besides the ones the machines were providing for her.

"You know, if you had come with me, we'd still be sitting on a remote beach somewhere drinking exotic cocktails with colorful umbrellas sticking out of them." He tried to joke. "But no, you had to solve murders with Booth. It's okay, though. I get it. Speaking of Booth, I haven't seen him yet but if I know him, he'll make a bee line here as soon as he hears I'm in the building."

He leaned forward scrubbing his face with his hand as he did so and took her hand in his other one; no longer having the energy to keep up the pretense of a happy facade.

"We're going to get him Tempe and you're going to get better. Okay? That's an order."

He half expected her to awaken and tell him to go to hell, that no one gave her orders. But she didn't.

Booth stood in the doorway of her room, showing up as soon as he was informed that Sully had arrived and went straight to Bones' room. He didn't announce his presence at first; wanting to hear what Sully would reveal in these unguarded moments. Was he still carrying a torch for his wife? Was he going to try and insinuate himself in their lives? He didn't want to believe this of the other agent but the truth was Bones had feelings for him at one point and she had seriously considered going away with him when he asked her to.

Sully felt eyes on him and turned around to see Booth, more haggard than he had ever seen him, leaning against the doorway with his hands in his pockets, watching him warily. He saw Booth's eyes dart from him to Temperance and saw his jaw clench when his gaze landed on his hands interlocked with Tempe's. He immediately dropped his hold on her hand and stood up abruptly.

"We need to talk." Booth said and he gave Bones a tender look before turning his grim expression back to Sully. "Not here."

Sully nodded and followed Booth out of the room. He knew they needed to have this conversation if they were going to be working together and despite what Cullen, Hacker or anyone else said, they would be working together. He knew Booth well enough to know that he wouldn't just take a backseat in this investigation.

"So, you're back." Booth said as they sat in the family room that was set up for him. It also doubled as a base of operations for now.

"I'm back." He confirmed.

"When?" It was the one thing Booth wanted to know besides 'why'. "Last I heard you were sailing from port to port in search of the perfect sunset."

Sully slumped into a chair, determined to be honest. He owed Booth that, at least. "It didn't take me too long to figure out I shouldn't have left in the first place. What was supposed to be a journey of self discovery turned into me just wandering aimlessly with no one to share it with...at least not the one I wanted to. I came back last April...first to Quantico to beg for my old job back and then to see Tempe."

The vein on the side of Booth's temple started to pulsate. "She didn't tell me anything about that."

"Maybe because there was nothing to tell." Sully said defeatedly. "We went out to dinner, we caught up on each others lives, we laughed...but she also made it quite clear that she was waiting for you...to stop being angry, that you had some sort of understanding...whatever that meant." He shook his head as he recalled looking into her blue eyes, wanting nothing more than to take her back to her place and make love to her all night long like they used to. Hearing her tell him that was like having a pail of ice cold water dumped on him.

"So, I left. I was re-assigned to Dallas. Then a few months later, I get a wedding announcement in the mail with a note from Tempe saying she was sorry she did not invite me but considering the circumstances, she thought it might have been awkward to all involved. Reading it, I really couldn't disagree."

"And now?"

Sully emitted a heavy sigh. "Booth, even back then I could see there was something between you; even though you both denied it, even though you didn't physically act on it; I knew it was there. And now that you have...well only a fool would try to come in between that. And my mama didn't raise a fool. Now? Now, I just want to get that bastard, Kenton."

Satisfied with his answer, Booth nodded.

"Let's get to work then."