Slinking out of hiding and checking the corners for flying legumes … Phew. Seems safe to proceed. My comment on enjoying lively debates on the subject of my writing must have brought cosmic karma to bear. Thanks for all the reviews yesterday, both good and bad. I enjoyed all of them. (Really.)

At the risk of incurring further vegetable volleys, I may not be able to update for the next day or two. We're already starting to have meetings about next school year, believe it or not, so I have to go in on Sunday (yes, Sunday) and Monday. Just in case I do drop out of sight for 48 hours, I wanted to leave you with something. Hopefully I'll be able to update again tonight.

I know this offering is short. Nevertheless, here it is …

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

He ran.

In spite of all the lectures about not jumping to conclusion, Booth knew full what scenario Brennan's genius brain had conjured the minute she'd put him, "lunch" and "Catherine" into the same timeframe. Age, sex and horizontal athletic propensities had been duly noted at the crime scene, and motive for the murder was ascribed due to overwhelming scientific evidence. Undoubtedly, Brennan was already closing the case, filing away the remains of the relationship in a backlit bone box for some future anthropologist to study under a microscope.

Booth sprinted toward the Jeffersonian, praying he could get there before she signed off on the paperwork. As he rounded the corner to the museum, his phone rang. He snatched at it impatiently, not breaking stride. "Yeah?"

The caller's words dragged the remaining breath from him. He pulled up short on the steps, the world turning a dark shade of red around him as oxygen-deprived corpuscles screamed for mercy. Everything went dim for a second, eclipsed by the whoosh of blood hammering in his ears. Then Booth's well-honed survival instincts dragged him back out from under the killer wave, his brain automatically flailing for some point of purchase.

"What? When? Where?" Phone glued to his ear, he reversed course toward the SUV, his speed multiplying exponentially.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Her phone rang incessantly, until Brennan finally turned it off. She knew who was calling and had no interest in engaging him in discussion at the present moment. She would have argued that there was no malice intended, nor was there a connection to be made between the earlier incident and her refusal to answer. It was simply that she was making excellent progress on several identifications and required absolute concentration. She was feeling satisfied and relatively relaxed when Angela exploded into the bone room.

There was no other way to describe the artist's arrival, yanking Brennan physically away from the table she'd been working at and pinning the scientist against a wall. Brennan would have rendered any other such attacker instantly immobile. It was only her affection for Angela that kept her from reacting violently.

Angela's eyes were wide and red-rimmed. "Parker's sick, Brennan. He's just been hospitalized."

"What?" Brennan was suddenly grateful for the wall bracing her. "Why didn't Booth —"

Even as the thought was formulated, it died away. The calls she had refused to answer suddenly resonated in her ear loudly.

"He needed you, Brennan. You ignored him." Angela's words were like red-hot nails, forcing their way through Brennan's thick, oblivious brain into the vulnerable heart that Booth had always known existed even when she didn't. "He still needs you. That's why he called me, so I could make you listen. Your living, breathing partner needs you right now, at this very instant. His little boy is in the emergency room with some mystery disease. And you're hiding in this fucking morgue communing with dead bodies. See any problem with the picture?"

Brennan clipped the corner of the table as she shoved away from Angela. Bones clattered onto the tile floor loudly, possibly shattering. It was a desecration of unidentified human remains that deserved as much attention as fully-fleshed bodies already in possession of a name. Brennan's whole career—her whole life—was built upon that thesis. An errant phalange crunched under her boot on the way to the exit and she ignored it.

She didn't see the look on Angela's face.

She didn't hear Cam's astonished imprecations.

She didn't stop to lecture the interns gathered by the stairwell, gossiping unproductively, as she blew past them.

Sweets, who had dropped by for a long-postponed visit, raised both eyebrows, folded his arms across his lanky frame and watched pensively from the safety of the couch on the walkway. This aberrant behavior would merit some definite debriefing at the partners' next therapy session.

Security guards well into their monotonous daily routines woke up and jumped out of her way when she came barreling down the stairs. One was flattened anyway and remained in a prone position, enjoying the view of Dr. Brennan's shapely rear end from this new angle.

Hodgins watched from the platform, certain aliens had finally arrived in downtown DC bearing interstellar cadavers that needed to be IDed quickly in order to prevent the implosion of the galaxy by warring factions in league with the CIA.

The anthropologist known for her attention to detail noticed none of the chaos she was causing.

Two steps forward, instead of backwards, for a change, full-tilt as she did everything after fully committing,

Brennan ran.