When he finally came to, it was only in fits and starts. He had no idea where he was, but Booth couldn't shake the feeling that he might be trapped inside some bizarre time loop that had him right back on the floor of the Jeffersonian with two big, overzealous secret service agents on top of him, pinning him down and refusing to lift their weight off him. That's probably why he could barely breathe-and why his head hurt so much. The punches being thrown in there by some unknown assailant were so debilitating that the mere thought of opening his eyes to confirm his whereabouts made him dizzy. Any minute now his sense of déjà vu would be complete, with Bones hovering over him worriedly, calling out his name and asking whether he was okay. But hadn't this already happened a long time ago?

Wherever he was, Bones was never going to forgive him for scrambling his brain yet again. It seemed to be a personal pet-peeve of hers.

Somewhere to his right he could hear the sound of quiet sobbing, and that's when it finally clicked that maybe he wasn't on the floor of the lab after all. Why would someone be crying-he wasn't dead, was he?

There was no avoiding it now-he had to look, regardless of the pounding headache. He turned his head gingerly to focus on the source of the whimpering, and he saw a girl.

That girl.

Mid-teens he guessed, her dark, curly hair a mess and her eyes puffy and bloodshot with tears. She was handcuffed to a pipe a few feet away from him and she kept staring at something in front of her, something that seemed to be terrifying the living daylights out of her but which he couldn't see because there was a column in his way.

Booth could feel a wall directly behind him. He tried sitting up and leaning into it in order to get a better sense of where the hell he was at, but to his surprise, he found that his body wouldn't cooperate. Every cramped muscle, every sore ligament was howling out in outrage against the attempt.

He simply needed to try harder, he told himself.

A more determined effort to push his way up on his elbows resulted in a ferocious stab of pain that tore like lightning through his left side, radiating outwards through his body in waves, almost making him pass out again. Maybe his beat-up brain was the least of his problems.

It hurt. The damn thing hurt, like the kick of an angry mule to the ribs.

Reaching out a tentative hand to the source of his agony, he felt something wet. He didn't have to look to know that his fingers were covered in blood; his blood, warm and sticky as it flowed freely all over the front of his shirt.

This was bad.

Worse than bad; he was hopelessly disoriented, he had a hole in his ribcage the size of a quarter, and judging by the difficulty he was having breathing, whatever had caused the wound had also pierced through one of his lungs. He had to sit up, whether he wanted to or not, because otherwise he ran the risk of bleeding out or choking to death on his own blood before he ever got the chance to figure how he'd ended up like this.

After giving his body a short break to let it get used to the massive burning and piercing echoing throughout his torso, he heaved himself up with every ounce of stamina he had left; only this time, his arms mercifully came through, giving him the power he needed to complete the upwards motion. It had literally taken almost superhuman strength to accomplish this most basic of tasks and once it was over, he lay motionless with his head tipped back, his body shaking and sweating from the effort.

When the torment ebbed a little he looked over to the girl, but this time, his eyes got no further than the floor: there was Sweets, his face turned away from him, out cold by the young woman's feet.

Oh God, Booth thought as his heart took a tumble. No, no. Please don't let him be dead...

As Booth frantically searched for signs of life in his partner's prone body, the missing parts of the story began to slowly come together in his mind; grainy, ragged bits of imagery that were coalescing into a very ugly picture. A dilapidated cold-storage facility, a wolf in sheep's clothing, a young woman suddenly materializing out of nowhere, stepping into his line of sight, forcing him to abruptly change direction.

Through gritted teeth, Booth pressed his left hand hard against the wound he knew would end up killing him if he couldn't stop or at the very least slow down the loss of blood. What the hell had gone wrong? He needed to think back, to recreate the sequence of events that had culminated with him and Sweets landing spread-eagled on the floor of the warehouse and the girl in handcuffs. And where were Gustavson and the others? He tried narrowing his thoughts to those last, few seconds before he'd lost consciousness; those crucial few seconds when everything had suddenly been turned topsy-turvy.

He remembered having his finger on the trigger of his gun as he quietly made his way to the front of the room from the rear. Rounding one column after another in order to get a clearer shot at the suspect. He'd gotten the thumbs-up from Cooper and sent the message covertly to the rest; that part he was pretty sure about. Next up, Markowitz and the others leaving as planned, which meant that Sweets and Gustavson were the only other members of his team left in the room with him and the killer.

It was actually absurd, what an insignificant amount of work was left for them to do to in order to finish off the job. With the staff gone and the explosives rendered worthless, the suspect was ripe for the picking.

But fate had apparently decided to intervene and make a mockery of all their carefully laid-out strategies, cheating them of their victory right when it had been right before them.

It all came into razor-sharp focus now.

He was steadily closing in on the suspect, seconds away from getting past that last pillar and issuing the required FBI warning, when he heard the first shot. He had no idea whether that first bullet ever found its way to its intended target or whether that target had been Sweets, but the second one-that one he could sure as hell vouch for. That second bullet had ripped through him, slamming him in the process into the wall, right as he lunged forward to put himself between the hidden killer and the girl who'd come out of nowhere. It had been a purely instinctive reaction on his part; there'd been no time to think or to do anything else-not even to try to get off a shot of his own. The unmistakable contour of a metal barrel had told him there was a gun aimed in her direction, and he could either push her out of the way, or watch as a bullet sliced through her heart.

He reached back into his foggy brain for more. The girl, she'd been peering down at her phone as she came out of a side-room by the windows, a pair of ear buds apparently making her oblivious to everything in her environs. It looked like she was in the middle of texting someone.

How would that look on his record? Decades of special training, of hard-core military tours and FBI missions, only to be taken down by a teen's text. He shook his head in disbelief.

So that was it, and here they were-end of story.

He surveyed the room for the suspect but as much as he could tell, the man wasn't there. Booth noticed that the door leading to the hallway had been bolted shut from the inside though, so he couldn't be too far, unless the creep had figured out a way to magically make his escape without being spotted. Anything was possible; there was still a lot they didn't know about this god-forsaken building.

"Hey" he whispered to his companion, the effort it took to get the word out not lost on his throbbing side. "You okay?"

The terror-stricken girl turned her face to him, but he knew what the blank expression meant: a complete lack of comprehension. It was as if he wasn't there at all. Just like he'd told Sweets earlier, severe shock very seldom translated into a coherent phrase.

Getting her to pay attention was going to be tougher than he thought.

"You hurt?" he tried again. "I need you to help me, please."

Her eyes held his for an instant, before they went right back to whatever it was that was making her so frightened. What the f-k was she gawking at? Didn't she know they needed to work together on this, that he was her only chance of getting out of here alive?

Ignoring the trail of blood left behind as he moved sideways, Booth groaned as he scooted his body closer to the girl's in order to get a glimpse of whatever it was she was looking at that was invisible to him from his current location. When that alone didn't give him the results he wanted, he leaned in closer, stretching his neck as far out as he could without throwing up from the pain.

Maybe he'd been better off where he was at.

What he saw made him ill.

Gustavson's back had been thrust onto one of the rusty meat hooks hanging from the wooden ceiling beams of the warehouse, and his eyes were open and vacant. There was a gaping bullet hole in his right temple, hopefully betraying how he'd met his end; a point-blank shot to the head would at least mean a quick, relatively painless death for his colleague. As Booth stared slack-jawed, his own injuries forgotten for the moment, dark, fluid ribbons were making their way down Gustavson's frame from the wounds in his head and back, coming together at the tips of his shoes. From there, gravity took care of the rest. The now single stream of blood continued the last of its sojourn towards the floor, where it was already collecting into a sizeable pool just beneath the dead man's feet.

Drip, drip, drip.

The sound was nauseating.

The impact of the cruel set-up left Booth reeling. He'd witnessed a lot of traumatic things in his lifetime, but none had affected him quite like this. Gustavson wasn't just a coworker-he was a friend. He'd met his wife and kids at office picnics, shared drinks with him at the end of more than one case. He was a good, honest, generous man with a great sense of humor, who loved his family and who wholeheartedly believed in the goodness of his country. A tough, savvy veteran of urban warfare who had risked his own hide more than once to get the job done.

This wasn't how it was supposed to end, with Gustavson's body hanging impiously in a meat locker like that of a butchered animal.

In two weeks, the office was supposed to be throwing him one whopping good retirement party. He and Bones would be there for sure to wish him and his wife good luck on this next chapter of their lives, a chapter they'd been saving for and dreaming about for a long time. A home and a boat in balmy Florida, purple and orange hued sunsets skimming the water as far as the eye could see, grandkids chasing each other and making sand-castles on the beach while the adults stood by watchfully, perhaps sharing happy stories with each other and maybe a nice bottle of wine or two.

It wasn't supposed to end like this at all.

He forced himself to look away.

Like it or not, he had to be pragmatic about the situation. Gustavson was dead, and there was nothing anyone could do for him now. The important thing was to get through to the girl; she-and with any luck Sweets-were the only ones he had to worry about.

He tried again.

"Hey-don't look over there anymore. Keep your eyes on me, you get it?" he ordered in a low voice. "What's your name?"

The deep, commanding tone that came so naturally after years of leadership seemed to do the trick; the girl's head turned towards Booth again, but this time, his presence triggered a semblance of a response.

"Kaylie," she stammered. "It's Kaylie."

"Just don't look at him-don't. So, you hurt?"

She shook her head.

"That's good. How about him," Booth asked, nodding over to Sweets' body, so ominously still. "Can you tell me what happened to him? Can you tell if he's still alive?"

The girl stared at his partner.

"I…I don't know-he's just lying there," she answered in a shaky voice.

"Did he get shot too-did you see?"

"No…" There was a moment of hesitation as she made a visible effort to pull herself together. "No," she continued with more certainty; "he didn't get shot; I'm almost sure. I think that man smashed his head with the gun right after he shot you, and he fell down after that. There's a lot of blood all around his face. I can't tell if he's breathing."

Booth knew it wouldn't be there, but he had to check.

Of course not.

His gun was gone. His cell phone and his wallet too, along with his handcuffs.

"Where is he-the guy who did this?"

She motioned with her head over to the alcove that Cooper had been working in, the one where the explosives were stored. Booth listened carefully. There was definitely someone in there, rummaging around, the faint glow of a flashlight bouncing every so often off the walls.

"You try to keep calm, okay. If you were part of the crew that was in here before, then I know you can handle yourself. You an intern?"

She shook her head. "I'm in high school-I'm in a special program." Despite Booth's exhortation, the young woman began to cry again.

"There, you see?" Booth lied; "special program. They must trust you if they brought you along to something like this. You follow my orders, and everything will be alright. The FBI is just outside, and they're coming for us real soon. Your only job right now is to keep watch over my friend there. His name is Sweets. If he starts waking up, try to make eye contact with him very, very quietly and with as little fuss as possible, and see if you can get him not to move. We don't want him to get hurt any more, and if the suspect thinks he's still alive or that he's a threat, he might go after him again. You can do that for me, right? Keep your eyes on him?"

She sniffed and nodded.

"So we have a deal, Kaylie; that's your job then. But don't draw attention to yourself by crying or talking-I need you to lay low; it'll make my job easier if he forgets you're here. You understand?"

"Okay" she eked out weakly. Her eyes grew wide again as they flew past Booth.

"Ah, finally" he heard a voice call out to him.

The suspect had emerged from the back, a tool kit in hand and a familiar blue duffel bag slung over his shoulder. There was an open smile on his lips, but it was as detached and unwelcoming as his pale blue eyes.

"And here I'd almost given up on you" he said, squatting in front of Booth so that he could examine him more closely. The calculating inspection made Booth feel like an injured animal caught in a trap, with the hunter weighing the pros and cons of finishing him off. "I was really hoping you'd pull through, though. I needed a little more leverage. On second thought, I shouldn't have killed that other one," he said, glancing at Gustavson's body. "But sometimes, I'm just too f-ing accurate for my own good. Gets me in trouble every time."

The reference to his fallen comrade made Booth want to leap up and break every bone in the killer's body, but besides the fact that he wasn't remotely able to stand, much less engage anyone in any sort of physical confrontation, he knew it wouldn't be a wise move. What he needed was to talk calmly to the suspect, try to win him over to buy the FBI some time. Alienating him would be the worst possible thing that he could do; he didn't need Sweets by his side to warn him about that.

"And how about this one?" the man asked, pulling a gun from his waistband and aiming it at Sweets. "Maybe I should just put this one out of his misery, assuming he's even still alive. Don't you think?"

Booth was bent on keeping his cool.

"Don't bother;" he said in a casual tone. "He's just a paper-pusher, not a real first-responder like the rest of us. He's not worth the price of a bullet. The top brass sends him along to keep an eye on the rest of us, so there aren't any lawsuits later."

"And the badge and the gun?" the killer asked, narrowing his eyes with suspicion.

"He got them a few days ago-it's only because he knows people in the Bureau. Guy can't hit a target two feet away from him; it's a joke. Even the noise of the discharge scares him. He thinks he's a real agent, but we all know it's nothing but an empty title. Hey, you were talking about how accurate you are" Booth said, desperately fishing for a new, less dangerous topic. "I've got to hand it to you; you're very accurate. I'm impressed," he added enthusiastically. "Where'd you learn to shoot like that-you a military man, I'm guessing?"

The suspect relaxed and put the gun back into his waistband.

Booth took a deep breath; close, close call for Sweets there.

"Army. And I'm only giving your buddy here a break out of professional courtesy-I know who you are. You're the Seeley Booth, aren't you?" he asked in an admiring tone, willing to let the previous subject go. He held up the card that Booth had given him during that morning's interview and twirled it around in his fingers. "With the Rangers? Got to be-it's a pretty unusual name, and what with you being FBI and all... Believe it or not, I was always trying to be just like you when I was in the service. We all were. Your aim is legendary among the infantry guys-especially the snipers. Did you know that? But of course you do. Who'd have ever guessed we'd cross paths like this? You were my idol back then-the gold standard among shooters. I couldn't believe my luck this morning when you handed me that card. Seeley Booth on my case-imagine that. I didn't realize who I was talking to in that parking lot until I got home. It's a good thing I didn't make the connection right away-it might have tripped me up."

"So we're both army guys, huh?" Booth replied, ignoring the compliment. "Where'd you serve-you must have been deployed overseas, you're too good to just be stateside."

"Afghanistan-three tours. Heard you were there on my last one. Didn't get to meet you then, but here we are; it's a small world, ain't it. And I was good. Too good, apparently. People, they get jealous, even in the military. A little longer and I would have had your records licked, I'll have you know. All I needed was a little more time. Just a little more time" he mumbled, as his face took on a far-away expression. "Listen, it's been nice talking to you" he said smiling once again. "But I have some things I have to get done. Your guys sure did a number on my munitions-lucky for you I'm a very forgiving man. Besides, I always have a backup plan. Always-it's going to be a hell of a finishing number. Now, when I'm done, we'll talk some more-I promise. It's always nice chatting with a fellow ex-soldier. No one else knows what it's like-they all say they do, but they don't."

"Wait-you know my name. What's yours?" Booth asked.

After thinking it over, the killer nodded.

"Sure, I can give you my name. Why not? It won't change anything. It's Grant; Thaddeus Grant. Weird name, huh, like something out of an old-time Western-you can probably relate. No one calls me Thaddeus, though. They call me Ted-couldn't even get them to get the Tad part straight. That's what happens when your crazy, bible-thumping asshole of a dad insists on giving you some backwater name; no one can ever get it right. Hey," he said, suddenly looking very pleased with himself. "You know what's funny about us?"

"What?"

"Booth-that's the last name of the actor who killed Lincoln, isn't it? And my last name is Grant, like the name of the president who came after Lincoln. It's poetic justice, don't you think? A guy with the name of a president-killer, getting killed by a man with the name of a president. Pretty ironic, huh? Payback's a bitch, no matter how long it takes," he said chuckling. "I'll give you some time to mull that one over so you can appreciate just what a weird coincidence that is. Yup, definitely poetic justice, I think. Be back in a bit."

Poetic justice, or just the universe having a hearty laugh at his expense? Either way, Booth decided gloomily, it sucked.