The fight which had really been building for a while, finally erupted in one giant explosion that sent both of them skittering to separate corners of their large, but not-quite-large-enough house lest one or the other of them said that one more thing that might completely fracture their partnership.

He'd found himself in the basement, staring at the items he'd cobbled together in a sketchy semblance of what he had envisioned his man cave to be. Staring had quickly turned to action. Still feeling the fiery adrenaline brought on by the fight, he started scraping the cast-iron base of his stadium seats against the floor in a loud protest of what most certainly was her genius-level pigheadedness. He banged around his room, noisily moving other items around, the movements meant to be angry comebacks to her earlier arguments, the sounds meant to remind her that he was an equal partner in their relationship and deserved just as much right to be heard.

She'd disappeared in her office careful not to slam the door for fear the noise would wake Christine and create another loud explosion to follow the first. Here she fumed and fussed, hugging herself as she paced the small room, angry and agitated still from the fight. She managed to replay the highlights of the verbal blows, the tone and word choices pitch perfect, but rather than re-ignite the flames of anger, the exercise seemed only to cause her to realize just how irrational the entire thing had been.

The whole explosion had been born out of frustration and fear, and even though she was not usually expert in recognizing such emotions in others, almost two years of living with Booth, and loving him as well as years of partnership with him had greatly opened her mind to recognizing emotions.

She knew exactly who was responsible for this new hormonal soup; of that she was sure.

When the baby began crying, amplified by the baby monitor she carried now out of habit, she was the first to Christine. Booth trailed her by several seconds, but he hung around, framed by the doorway, dedicated to his daughter even if he was hesitant to enter her nursery if only out of concern that his presence might start a new explosion to rival the first one that morning.

She realized his reluctance to enter the room was more than an unwillingness to take on the diaper duties; Booth had changed hundreds of diapers by now and was a devoted father in all things Christine. She realized why he was standing outside the room, leaning heavily against the door frame and decided to open the peace talks with a simple, "I'm sorry, Booth."

When he took a step closer, whatever barriers had been forged in their fight came crashing down, and she struggled to find the right words to solidify the apology.

"So you admit that you were wrong?"

She'd been fooled by his demeanor; usually it was Booth who reached an epiphany before she did. Somehow it was she who understood that the strain they were both under had been partly to blame for the earlier altercation, so she couldn't react fast enough to his question.

"A genius IQ doesn't always make you right."

And that, she realized, was the crux of the issue.

"Booth, I'm sorry for the fight. It was irrational."

It was the wrong thing to say, although she wondered if there was anything to say. He brought his fist against the wall and the resulting thud drew both her attention as well as the baby's.

"You know, Bones, sometimes you can be so. . . ."

She was grateful he didn't finish his sentence although the way he turned and left made her wonder if there was anything she could do to ameliorate the situation.

Instead, she turned her attention to the baby on the changing table. Christine's face was screwed up in a scowl that usually indicated her own dissatisfaction with the conditions of her stomach or her diaper. Sighing, she pulled the baby into her arms and gently rocked her as she made her way to the couch. Within seconds, the baby was calmer and she was considering her next course of action, but beyond venturing into Booth's man cave and trying to reason him out of his anger, she wasn't sure what she could do.

oOo

He realized halfway to the basement that he was an idiot.

Bones had tried to make peace and he had tried to make war and the truth was he was the idiot.

Detouring from the basement, he stopped at the refrigerator and stood there for far too long contemplating the stainless steel door.

He was an idiot.

In fact, they all were.

He knew exactly who was playing them for fools.

He'd earned desk duty and shrink time for attacking the bastard—neither punishment helping the situation. Bones had spent 3 months on the run, working menial jobs just to get by and they'd both struggled back from her absence to rebuild the life they had wanted.

They were idiots because the man was playing them. And playing them against the other.

Weeks exploring his rage-fueled response to his taunts had allowed him to learn exactly nothing useful. He knew why he had done it; he knew just how close to out of control he had been. Three months without his family had only solidified his resolve not to lose sight of what was important.

But he wasn't any closer to defeating the bastard.

"Booth?"

"What?"

He immediately regretted the tone of his response as he saw the look on her face. She refused his bait and turned when he decided to offer his own olive branch.

"Bones?"

"What?"

She turned, ready for battle, the truce she had tried to broker upstairs all but forgotten.

They stood that way for several seconds, neither sure of what words to use to bring about a real ceasefire; neither sure of the other anymore.

oOo

When he finally made his way upstairs, the house was dark except for the light at the top of the stairs. He hadn't kept tabs on Bones that evening, leaving the upper floors of the house to her and the baby while trying to think through their present predicament in his own kind of purgatory below.

He was hitting the same kind of dead ends as before.

Worst than that, Bones was in the baby's room, curled up on the couch rather than their bed. Christine, too, was curled up in her own kind of dreams, her fists opening and closing in an odd kind of finger symphony.

He tiptoed toward the crib and bent to kiss his daughter, smoothing a stray wisp of hair from her face. "Sweet dreams, kiddo," he whispered.

The baby slept despite the turmoil around her. Bones was especially good at calming the choppy waters around Christine and he was grateful. Christine was the easy part of their equation. No matter what, they could parent her even if they couldn't quite govern themselves. "Sometimes, mommy and daddy act no better than you do when you need your diaper changed," he whispered. "We don't mean to, but. . . ."

He didn't finish because he really couldn't. What was it about psychopaths that turned normally sane people insane?

The next part was hard. Insanity was a difficult thing to defend and when he turned, he had almost been hoping that Bones was asleep and he could table this discussion for the morning.

But she was honest—sometimes too damned honest—and she wasn't about to feign sleep simply to ease his feelings.

He sighed and tried to order the mishmash of thoughts ricocheting in his brain. "Look, Bones, I was. . . wrong."

Hours of reflection and that was the best he could come up with?

But she wasn't a vengeful woman, just stubborn to a fault.

"So was I."

This was one of those times when she seemed to be taking her lead from him and one of those times when he needed to take a lead from her. He'd botched up her apology downstairs and he didn't want them to be separated when they needed to be united on this.

"Then come to bed."

He held out his hand.

"There's only one person we need to fight, Booth."

He nodded. She had figured it all out long before he had.

"Then we're going to need some sleep, Bones."

oOo

He was back.

He announced his return with a showy kill by the Washington Monument, a trust-fund baby who left behind a wife and two children and a wake of faulty loans and questionable practices that had earned little more than a glance from the federal regulators.

Then there was the second kill, closer to home. A computer specialist from the Cantilever group had been found dead in her office, the computer system she'd been using to track attacks on the foundation's accounts, a smoldering piece of electronic shrapnel next to her charred body.

And then there was the third victim. She was little more than bits of flesh and bone on Cam's autopsy table in the lab, but whoever she was, she was their best hope at finding and stopping him.

Somehow they'd become so tortured by him, that to speak his name only added to their misery.

But he was back.

Christopher Pelant was back.

oOo

A/N: I left the story open thinking I might have a bit more story to tell. Guess what? Like a bad penny, I'm back, at least for a while.