"Well?"

"Fine!" the medium barked.

"That stupid funhouse goes up every year, two weeks before Halloween, and the carnival sets up shop right next door. The arrangement boosts profits for everyone. Kids come out all jittery from the haunted house and wind up here, looking for food and booze and even more ways to blow their parents' money. I sure don't complain when they do."

With a sweep of her right hand she singled out her clothes and wig.

"Mind you, I only wear this ridiculous outfit this time of year because the money's way too good to pass up. I have a nice little studio in Bethesda that I normally work out of. It's very tasteful-relaxing Indian music, a keurig, central air. It's nothing like this dump. I bet you'd like it" she declared, winking at Booth.

The agent clenched his fists.

"And?" he redirected with impatience. "We were talking about the crime, remember?"

"God, you're persistent. What do you want me to tell you? Have you taken a good look around with those trained, FBI eyeballs of yours? The carnival and the funhouse are both magnets for weirdos. It's nut-case central every night. Blood and guts everywhere, knives, guns, even scythes. Who knows what's real and what's not. I mean, it's Halloween, in case you haven't noticed. About the only normal-looking people within a 1-mile radius are those folks from the EMT crew that the haunted house keeps on standby for emergencies. There's one guy who's regular as clockwork, pulling out ditzy, drunk girls who go in all giggly and then freak out when the clown jumps out at them. Me? I don't get it; don't care one way or another about clowns. I can't really see what all the hoopla is about."

Madame's interviewer, on the other hand, could totally relate to those giggly girls.

"That's it?" he asked, disappointed. "You sure?"

Madame Crystalle shrugged her shoulders.

"Hey, my job requires me to be inside my tent most of the time, not out of it."

Booth knew it was coming, but it still hurt. Brennan's wide smile, unapologetically gleeful, sparked up her features, giving the dusty chandelier a run for its money.

"Well, as I accurately predicted, even without being a 'psychic', this was a completely pointless investigational detour. Now can we please head to the lab so I can determine our victim's cause of death?"

Brennan stood up, gesturing for Booth to do the same, when Madame Crystalle spoke again.

"Now you, you were more angry than lonely growing up," she said to Booth. "You're angry still-I can see that; you just work that angle much better these days."

It had taken him a little longer than Brennan, but Booth finally had his fill of the woman's mumbo-jumbo.

"Alright-we're done with this crap."

"You're looking for a family-someone who can love you in spite of everything you believe is dark and unworthy about you. You're too hard on yourself, army man. The spirits are telling me that you need to give yourself a break."

So very close to the truth, the comment rattled Booth enough to where he no longer seemed able to just get up and walk away.

Madame was clearly stringing them along for some ulterior motive Brennan could very well guess at, and unfortunately her companion was falling for the mystical tripe hook, line and slinky. Perhaps the woman thought she could get extra cash out of them-or more accurately, Booth-if she continued to shovel more educated speculation their way.

Brennan was already incensed at their conniver's insensitivity, the way she kept poking and prodding into their respective pasts just to toy with her and Booth's personal weaknesses for financial gain. But watching her partner be strung along this way, his emotional frailties guessed at and cruelly exploited, proved to be the last straw for the anthropologist.

"You claim to know our pasts, but you said nothing about our futures, which is what we paid for" she parried, aiming to unmask their witness and her Delphic shenanigans for the hoax they really were. "I think Agent Booth should get his fee back."

The abrupt demand jolted Booth out of his slump.

"Bones, what are you doing," he hissed under his breath. "Let's just go-forget about the other stuff. It was only thirty bucks anyway."

"I demand a full reading, or a return of our payment. I'd be more than happy to fish it out of your apparel if you can't do it yourself."

To Booth's horror, Brennan rummaged through her purse and pulled out a fresh set of examination gloves.

For the love of God, he thought.

What if the medium refused to give back the money and instead handed Bones a fortune similar to the one she'd gotten before, when she was a teen? So far their 'fraud' had been a little too close to the mark with both of their histories for comfort, so much so that it had made the hair on his neck stand on end even through layers of sweat.

If this turned out to be a repeat performance, it could take him years to undo the toll Madame Crystalle's reading might take on his partner's psyche.

It wasn't quite all that altruistic, though.

As a kid, he might have been excited about what the future might bring because it couldn't possibly be worse than the present he was barely surviving at home; as an adult, he knew better. Especially not in his line of work or with his abysmal luck with love. This crackpot was clearly not your average carnival swindler, out to make you feel good about yourself in exchange for a few bucks.

She seemed more real than most, and suddenly he didn't want anything else from her.

He especially didn't want to hear about his upcoming fate, how many bullets and when. Didn't want to hear about more romantic catastrophes, or more lives taken, and he didn't think it would be good for his partner to hear what might be coming down the pipeline for her either, just to be safe.

And frankly, if he wanted torture, he could just go to the Hoover and listen to Sweets drone on and on for free. Or better yet, he could hightail it back to the haunted house and have a couple of drinks with the clown next door.

"Very well" Madame replied, with a strange smile that gave Booth the willies. "I'm gonna make sure I give you both your money's worth."

"I don't think..."

"Army man, I see a ring on your finger."

"A ring?" Booth replied, a little confused. "Are you talking about me? I never wear rings."

"This isn't an ordinary piece of jewelry-it's a wedding band."

"I'm getting married?"

Wide-eyed, he looked at his partner and shrugged a single shoulder. "I guess I can live with that."

"Let me guess," Brennan interjected sarcastically. "She'll be tall, beautiful, and blonde. The usual fortune-telling cliche."

"Tall and beautiful, but I'm not seeing blonde. Not for long, at any rate. Brunette...yes, the woman will be a stunning, very accomplished brunette."

The air in the tent seemed to Booth to have suddenly gotten warmer and he unconsciously loosened his tie even more. He gave Brennan a piercing look in the hopes she'd just leave it alone so they could be on their way, for real this time.

But the skeptic in his partner refused to give up so easily; she rallied back and came out like an angry bull gunning for her teasing matador.

"It was lucky that you assumed that Booth wasn't married already-not all spouses choose to memorialize their unions with rings, particularly men. You could have easily made a fool of yourself. But I suppose the mathematical odds were in your favor."

"Not luck," the woman insisted. "It's a gift. Sure, some of it may be an act, but I'm the genuine article most of the time. Have been since I was a girl. It wasn't an easy thing to live with, especially when the news you have to deliver ain't so good. You get used to it, though. Besides, I always try to put the best spin on it that I can."

She went right back to Booth.

"I'm also seeing kids."

"How many?" he asked hurriedly, before his pugnacios coworker had the chance to interrupt again. Now that his outcome seemed more upbeat he was more inclined to hear the woman out, even if deep down he knew that everything she was going to say was most likely just hooey. Kids, a wife? This future didn't sound so bad. "I already have a son," he volunteered. "Did you mean others?"

"Yes; several children-with that woman, the one who becomes your wife. Maybe two; maybe three."

Brennan rolled her eyes.

"Well, at least you'll be paired with someone fecund, who obviously enjoys sexual intercourse," she remarked dryly. "That should please you. You've always said you expected to get married someday."

Married someday...

The tiny scratches and dings on the crystal ball's surface suddenly captured the anthropologist's full attention and her expression lost much of its sharp, cynical edge. The globe's curvature had distorted the psychic's image, and her disembodied head appeared to be floating like a balloon within it's glass walls.

Booth married; with a wife and children. It was almost impossible for Brennan to envision that scenario, the two of them had been together, bound by their aloneness, for so long.

If that view of the future were to materialize, what would it do to their partnership? As much as Brennan wished she could be happy on Booth's behalf because she'd known for a long time how much he wanted to be in a committed relationship, hearing about his hypothetical involvement with another woman caused her insides to ache in some way she couldn't quite process. No more midnight talks in their apartments, or drinks and dinner after a case. No more of so much that symbolized "them," whatever that was. What other things would change, things so basic she no longer even thought of them as anything but a given between them?

Things she realized with a bit of shame that she looked forward to and yet took for granted?

Egging the psychic on had been a gross miscalculation on her part, she realized belatedly. Almost as bad as accepting that challenge from Russ. This was revealing itself to be not so much a war of minds, but of hearts-and that meant that she was woefully unequipped to be on the front lines of the upcoming battle with Madame Crystalle.