My apologies to all for the delay-my family and I are bouncing back from the plague. Is winter over yet?

"Hodgins, please tell me you have something; anything. I'm getting really freaked out about Brennan," Angela said conspiratorially.

She was sure she had kept her voice to a whisper as she stooped over her husband's shoulder, but Hodgins still almost jumped out of his chair when he heard her, surprised and not too happy about finding his wife so close to his ear. How the hell was a person supposed to concentrate with all these interruptions?

He appreciated where Angela was coming from, he really did; but that didn't make the hovering and the palpable pressure being put on him and Cam by the rest of their team any less disturbing. It seemed like someone kept asking for something every other minute, and it was impossible to work efficiently under these conditions.

Angela had stopped pacing back and forth just long enough to plead her case, but the nervous energy leaping out of her in spades her kept making itself felt in other ways; in the repeated chewing of the fingernails, the frown lines that kept creasing her forehead.

And definitely the hovering. She couldn't help it.

Because she was worried about Brennan; although she'd finally gotten her friend to eat something, however meager and overly-processed it had been, Brennan had hardly spoken a word since returning with her to the van over twenty minutes ago. That state of mute introspection was just plain wrong; the forensic anthropologist had never quietly taken a backseat to anyone before, ever, especially not in a scientific setting. It went against everything in her nature, and it was supremely weird to be witnessing that unnatural display of meekness.

"It's coming, babe. It's coming" Hodgins replied with something close to abrasiveness. "It's delicate work here-I may be the king of the lab, but I'm not a machine, you know" he said impatiently, still on pins and needles from his wife's unwitting sneak attack.

Angela backed away, looking a little hurt.

"I'm sorry, Ange," her husband said in a more conciliatory tone. "I know you're worried for Brennan and for the people in that building, and I know-believe me, I know-our time is running out. But you just can't rush some things and people bugging us all the time isn't helping. Here, I found some stuff, though" he offered by way of a mending of the fences. "Maybe that'll give you guys something to chew on while Cam and I keep working on the rest."

"Go ahead, please; anything to take Brennan's mind off the clock."

Hodgins smiled and squeezed his wife's hand reassuringly.

"This is what I have so far, people" he announced, swiveling around in his chair to face the other staff members. "Make of it what you will. I've found traces of human blood embedded in the particulates we brought back-they must have been picked up by Grant's shoes. I've been able to identity just about every blood type under the sun; positives, negatives, rh factor, you name it. There's got to be a clue in there somewhere, right?"

"Maybe, unless the blood came from his victims," Cam replied, looking up from her tiny desk.

"Already checked; the victims were primarily Os and A positives, one B negative this morning. Besides, don't you think it's highly unlikely he came that close to them all without the police noticing at some point? I'm kind of thinking this morning was just an anomaly. I'm no shrink, but my guess is that his little stunt was an unusually gutsy move for him; part of his recent reinvention as a "bigger and bolder" kind of guy aiming for the big finish.

"You're probably correct, Dr. Hodgins" Brennan said, breaking her self-imposed silence and surprising those who had almost forgotten she was still there. She put down the orange juice that she'd been quietly sipping and looked at Hodgins thoughtfully.

Angela's prior scolding had the unintended but decidedly beneficial effect of turning into a wake-up call of sorts for her, and she felt more centered, and definitely more productive, than she had since the start of this whole hostage ordeal. Removing herself emotionally from all that was going on had taken a 180-degree turnaround in perspective that she didn't think she was any longer capable of, but after repeatedly bullying her heart into submission, she finally felt in control again. Her impassive demeanor wasn't just a brave façade put on for the benefit of her coworkers, she told herself; it was her, the real Temperance Brennan. The scientist that made up her core icy and rational and able to compartmentalize, to disassociate under extreme pressure, like always. It had hurt, really hurt, to take Booth and their new relationship out of the equation, and she figured that doing so would haunt her later, but for now, she was doing what needed to be done. The job was all that mattered.

She continued theorizing about the meaning of Hodgins' discovery.

"If Grant didn't pick up the blood traces at the crime sites, that means that he must have come in contact with the wide range of hematological types through some other means; perhaps at his workplace, or at the location where he set up the second set of explosives, assuming this wasn't just an empty threat on his part. I believe that this new information could potentially help to narrow down the bombing targets we're looking for."

She took a deep, long breath, alternately welcoming the return of the real Dr. Brennan, and feeling sad, maybe even mournful, that the woman who was just starting to blossom as a human being was locked back inside her little box. But she couldn't deny that all in all, it was better to have this intellectual chasm separating her from all the terrible things that were happening around her, things that had been much too close to home to make rational thought possible. It made things…simpler; for her and for everyone else.

She was already ruing the unintentional slip from before; not so much because it had been so out of character for her and therefore deeply mortifying on some level, but because she feared that it might have adversely colored her colleague's current view not only of her as a professional, but of any contributions she might be making to the case in the near future. That unhinged, irrational person crying in front of Angela wasn't her at all, not really; it had been a stranger, an unwanted visitor who had no business being anywhere near these other scientists.

And someone who needed to be kept at arms' length, at any cost.

So what to make of Hodgins' findings, she wondered. Grant was a sniper, a handyman, a loner. He must be living in the area to have become so familiar with his shooting locations and escape routes, particularly the Pinkham Warehouse, and his current place of employment must have allowed for prolonged absences.

Despite all her mental effort, it didn't take her long to accept that they just didn't have enough to go on. This new information was certainly a start, but not nearly sufficient, like being in possession of a single jagged piece belonging to a hundred-piece jigsaw puzzle. No one, not even she, could get a coherent picture with so little to work with. The reality was that they were still a long way off from being able to provide any solid leads that the FBI could act upon. There were just too many variables still, too many open-ended questions for them to form any workable conclusions, and she slumped back into her chair, all her earlier optimism gone.

She was about to ask Angela whether they'd gotten anything else on Grant's background, when a somber Hacker appeared through the door of the station looking less like a man in charge, and more like a traitor being led before a firing squad. That particular conclusion, Brennan feared, was inescapable; it was obvious that Hacker had absolutely no desire to be there right now, and that he was most likely only making an appearance out of a sense of obligation.

It wasn't a good omen.

"What is it Andrew?" Brennan asked, when the agent stopped just inside the doorway but seemed reluctant to offer up any information.

He rubbed a hand over his mouth, looking at Brennan with what she could only describe as dread. He seemed demoralized, like he'd had the wind knocked out of him.

"You asked me to tell you if anything happened. He called."

"Who called?"

"Grant-he called from Booth's phone-dialed me directly."

"What did he want?" Brennan asked, with a hitch in her voice. Those compartments she thought were back in place suddenly didn't feel so watertight anymore.

"Actually, nothing-he didn't want anything. He called to say what we were already assuming-that he placed explosives somewhere else, somewhere where there would be a lot of casualties if they went off, and that he could detonate them whenever he wanted. He repeated what he yelled to our guys in the hallway; if we go after him, he'll blow the other place up. I guess he wanted me to hear it directly from him since there's so many HRT guys running around outside. I think we've got him spooked."

Cam finally asked what they were all unavoidably thinking about, but none had the courage to bring up.

"The hostages? Any information on them? How did he know to call you? One of them must have given him your name."

Hacker looked at Brennan once again, and she felt her heart drop.

"Andrew-what is it?" she asked, fighting the urge run as far away as she could from the trailer before he could answer. She could feel her quickened pulse beating against her ear drums as another contraction, as sharp and attention-grabbing as the one before, came on again, causing her to ball her hands tightly into fists to brace herself against the spasm. It passed.

"He claims the girl's okay, but he wasn't too specific about our guys." His eyes were evasive, and Brennan knew immediately that he wasn't telling the whole truth.

"His precise words, Andrew; I want to know exactly what he said" she commanded. "You promised."

Hacker shook his head wearily, a tired, cornered man, too exhausted to run from the looming confrontation.

"Okay, but before I go on, I swear to you that he didn't mention any names, Temperance" he began, extending his hands in a gesture of openness, as if to highlight the fact that he wasn't lying. "He said that two of our agents were still hanging on, 'more or less,' but that our tech team would be working overtime to clean up the uh…" he looked away, unable to hold Brennan's gaze; "…the brains of the third guy off the floor" he finally let out. "He said he wanted us to know that he meant business."

While the others did their best to contain their expressions of horror at the awful image those words stirred up, Brennan didn't as much as blink. She felt…different. Calm and removed from the conversation, as if she were watching a performance instead of the real thing; the dialogue and interactions going on onstage unreal and fabricated, like the words on a script. She had the distinct feeling, just for a second, that as soon as the final act came to a close, the curtain would descend and they would all exit this theater of the absurd and go back to their normal lives. She could picture her and Booth together at home, sitting on their couch, his hand over her belly feeling for a kick; and finding one, his face lighting up with joy and surprise, like it always did no matter how often that same moment had happened before between them.

"That could mean anyone, Tempe, not just Booth" Hacker explained, taking her silence for panic. "As to how he knew to call me, he didn't say."

"How do we know he wasn't bluffing? The guy's a crazy, mean bastard, and he loves screwing with us. He could be lying," Hodgins suggested.

But something in Hacker's countenance told Hodgins and the rest of the crew that the FBI insider was holding something back, a piece of evidence that probably corroborated all that the killer had bragged about but that was too depressing to share.

Brennan could feel it too; she looked up at Hacker, her eyes unwavering, determined.

She needed everything.

"There's more than just that, isn't there?"

Hacker looked around uncomfortably as if pondering whether to tell or not, before he finally succumbed to the obvious anxiety poorly hidden behind Brennan's expressionless face.

"I'm afraid so; he sent a picture. A picture of two feet hanging in mid-air, with a pool of what looked like blood collecting underneath. It was pretty…telling. Graphic, to say the least. And the time on it was 4:40, today."

"I want to see it."

"You can't figure out who it is from the photograph, Temperance; our guys already tried. I really don't think…"

Brennan held out her hand, and Hacker unwillingly gave her the phone.

The silence in the crowded room seemed to amplify what they all were feeling; the fear that hung in the air like some poisonous miasma, the lurking specter of death, waiting to pounce at the first show of weakness.

Refusing to waste time, Brennan scrolled through the phone, moving her thumb around its surface until she found what she wanted. She ripped off the metaphorical band aid without giving it a second thought and focused on an image, and Angela couldn't help but say a prayer for her friend because no matter what Hacker thought, Brennan would know who the person in the picture was, especially if it was her partner.

"It's not Booth" Brennan finally said, closing her eyes and relaxing her shoulders as a wave of relief washed over her. "It's not him."

She handed Hacker his phone back.

"I'm sorry to have to ask you this, Tempe; it's not like I would ever doubt your word, but how can you possibly be so sure?" Hacker asked. "The picture's kind of grainy-you really can't make out the shoes or the suit too well."

"It's the socks," she replied, full of conviction, irrational as she was willing to admit that certainty was. "Booth never wears dark socks. He insists on wearing those silly striped ones, even to work."

The old Brennan, the one who felt her heart wasn't capable of opening up enough to let anyone in would have shied away from using the word "never;" but the new one, the one who loved Booth unconditionally, didn't hesitate to say it.

But just how sure of that detail was she, a niggling voice in the back of her head asked. She hadn't actually seen him get dressed this morning, had she? Because she had bulldozered her way out of their house before he even had the chance to dry himself off.

But he always wore the striped ones; always-another all-or-nothing word, another tipping of the hat to the person she had become-so why would that change today? It wasn't Booth; it simply wasn't Booth.

And with that stubborn pronouncement, a pronouncement which left no room for argument, the walls were firmly back in place.

"It's not him," she repeated to Hacker, compelled by the need to assure not only him but herself as well that this was so.

No one in the station had the heart to contradict her.

Hacker smiled uncertainly. "Well, I'm glad for you that you think it's not Booth. Listen, I've got to go," he said, lunging at the chance to get away from her.

Brennan understood, and part of her felt sorry for Hacker; it was always difficult to be the bearer of bad news-she certainly wasn't any good at it, god knew- and that had never been Andrew's forte anyway. Booth, on the other hand, Booth would have known exactly what to say to make her feel better.

He always knew what to say, she thought back with bittersweet fondness, and she was really missing that part of him right now. She was missing everything about him actually, both the good and the bad-and there simply was no way of getting around that deep-seated void, no matter how hard she tried. How soon until she knew whether that feeling of longing would be a temporary or permanent state for her?

Unhappily, not much longer; not much longer at all. The questions, the fears, the anger, these might go on indefinitely from this day on forward, but time was the one commodity that unfortunately was in very short supply. They could all feel it slipping away, like grains of sand through a child's stubby fingers, one irreplaceable minute at a time.