It's not the paperwork that gets to him. Not the way his lower back aches from sitting at a desk for hours on end or how his eyes begin to blur well before lunchtime. A result of staring at a computer screen. It isn't even the insult of seeing another agent making his office their own that really starts to break him.
It's not that the bullpen is stuffy or that he knows that they all pity him; the famous Seeley Booth being brought back down to their level.
It isn't any of these things.
The only thing that really upsets him is hearing her name. When he knows that their hushed conversations are centering on their misguided opinions of his partner.
They try hard to avoid his glare, to stay far from the reaches of his disappointed glanced because they all know he's a time bomb really to ignite.
Most of them don't believe that she's guilty.
At first.
But as time passes their faith in the anthropologist begins to flatter. She was a strange person.
And besides, the victim had threatened her daughter. As FBI agents they knew all too well that anyone was capable of murder given the right circumstances.
From what he overhears, they believe that her running meant that she was guilty. Otherwise why not stay and fight? She had unlimited resources; she could afford the best defense.
He becomes furious with his co-workers.
Don't they realize that she would have been killed had she stayed? That Pelant was able to pull strings in a way that defied their comprehension?
He resists the urge to grab them by their collars. To force them to understand. To tell them what he knows. That his partner ran because of their daughter. Because of him. That Temperance Brennan has a heart that was too big and too easily broken to ever do something so evil to someone she considered a friend. That she had never blamed Ethan for his delusional ramblings. That if either of them would have murdered the man for the threat, that it would have been him.
But he couldn't. Because he was already in enough trouble. Besides they wouldn't believe him. Unleashing his anger would only make the situation worse.
This would all be over soon, he reminded himself. And then they'd know. They'd understand that he had been right all along.