The beeping of the machines that were monitoring her vitals were enough to drive her in insane. Yes, the pain killers were an upside to staying in the hospital, but being alone with the beeping caused her to be bored and annoyed. Booth was out sweeping the crime scene with the local unit and he still hadn't returned. She flinched as she remembered what he would find; she wondered if Chase had survived, he had suffered the full force of her wrath.

Brennan was concerned because Booth would see first-hand what she did and that scared her. Would he accept the fact that she was afraid for her life and couldn't help but feel vengeful? Or would he think of her as a monster? The extent of her actions went beyond mere self-defense and neutralizing the threat. Now that she really thought about it, Chase probably hadn't survived for very long after she left. Her eyes looked up at the ceiling and silently asked God to forgive her.

Booth was pacing outside her hospital room; he loved her, but he was having a difficult time wrapping his head around how they found Chase. His face was shredded with chips of thin, delicate glass embedded in the cuts, his arms were tied to two poles and he had been burned with a small blowtorch, his shins had been snapped like twigs, and his whole body was dark with bruises. The thought of Brennan doing that to someone made him shudder; she had tortured and killed a man. Had she enjoyed it? Did she try to get information out of him? Did she even have an excuse? How much guilt was she feeling? Was she even sorry at all? All of these questions had answers that could crush him. With a heavy sigh, he pushed open the door and stepped in.

"Hey," he said softly.

"Hi."

He slowly sat down next to her bed. Booth looked defeated, Brennan looked apprehensive.

"What happened, Brennan?"

She visibly flinched at the cold usage of her last name. He never called her that.

"I don't have a good excuse. All I have to say is that I wanted to know if there were any other bodies and I wanted to see him suffer the way we did."

"'We'? You mean you and the other girls?"

She nodded.

"What did he do to you?"

"I was drugged, beaten, burned, and I did what I had to do."

"You had to murder him?"

Brennan clenched her jaw and turned away from him.

"What were you thinking? Are you even sorry?"

"I'm regret doing that to a person, but I don't regret doing it to him."

"I see," he said quietly.

A week later, Brennan and Booth returned to DC and to their normal lives. However, the pair had both done their equal part in avoiding each other. Brennan stayed in the lab and Booth had stayed in his office; the murderers in DC had apparently decided to take a break from killing people. Hodgins and Angela both knew about the change in the partners' relationship and they also knew that the two had gone five days without seeing or speaking to each other.

Brennan sat on the couch in her office with Angela and Hodgins while they talked over a large, stuffed-crust pizza. They weren't working really, they were just musing on random topics and relaxing.

"So, Brennan," Hodgins spoke up after a moment of silence. "what annoys you the most- out of everything in the world, what do you find the most annoying?"

Brennan swallowed a bite of pizza.

"North Korean firing squads and snipers that can't aim."

Both heads turned to look at her in bewilderment.

"What?" Angela asked in horror.

"It's long story, but the North Korean firing is mean and they are pretty hateful towards Americans and if you're going to be shooting people at long distances with bullets that hurt like hell, the least thing you could do is make sure you kill the person," Brennan muttered. "Friggin' sniper."

Hodgins laughed.

"When did a sniper shoot you?" Angela asked.

"Eh, boss did something I didn't care for, so I made sure he knew it. He thought I would betray him, so yadda yadda I almost got whacked."

"You sound so Brooklyn," Angela laughed.

"Yeah, really. I was so used to you saying 'anthropologically speaking' or something like that," Hodgins snickered.

"Ah yes," Brennan sighed mock-wistfully. "I made a good squint."

Booth was sitting in his apartment on the other side of town, on his couch while he tried to drown himself in alcohol...again. He missed her, but he couldn't bring himself to face her. He loved her, but he couldn't bring himself to admit it anymore. She had brutally murdered someone and then she played it off as nothing. How could she be so cold? It was like she didn't even realize that it was a living, breathing human being that she had slaughtered. The images of Chases body flashed through his ind and caused him to cringe. How could she stomach that?

Then another thought came into his mind; she was drugged and terrified. Brennan was trying to get information and she wasn't in her right mind. So, why did she act like she intended to beat and burn him? It was most likely because she still blamed herself for what happened. Her mind was telling her that it was still her body that did that and therefore her responsibility. He groaned.

"Why am I such an ass?"

Hey guys!! Sorry about this one being so short, but it's all I got for now and I didn't want to make you wait again. Please review!!