(After 'The Past in the Present')

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Special Agent Hayes Flynn had been transferred to Booth's section, Violent Crime and he had been ordered to take over Booth's position while the Supervisory Special Agent's wife was missing. The Assistant Deputy Director and Deputy Director felt that Booth probably knew where his wife was and the man would not be able to run his department while the manhunt was on going. Dr. Temperance Brennan was wanted for murder and it wasn't known if she had accomplices or not. They couldn't leave Booth in his position and risk him interfering in their search for his wife.

Hayes had known he might ruffle some feathers at the Hoover, that was a given, but he hadn't thought about the Medico-Legal Lab. The people employed at the Lab were contract workers for the FBI and therefore he expected them to do their work in a courteous and professional manner.

Entering the Lab, Flynn stuck his head into an office and spied a beautiful woman of Asian descent. "I'm looking for Dr. Saroyan. Can you tell me where she is?"

Slowly turning to see who had entered her office, Angela frowned. "I don't see a security badge. Who are you?"

"I'm Special Agent Hayes Flynn. I've taken over Agent Booth's position." Hayes noticed the scowl and ignored it. "I'm the new FBI liaison officer."

A feeling of distrust swept through Angela. She knew that she didn't know Flynn but she felt uneasy with how he was trying to step into Booth's job. She would be careful not to betray Brennan and that meant she wanted the man out of her office as quickly as possible. "Go down the hallway, her office is the second door on the left." Turning away, she knew that she was being rude, but she didn't care. This whole situation was wrong.

Flynn could see that the lady didn't want to talk to him, but he didn't really care. Moving down the hallway, he entered the office he was looking for and stopped a foot inside the doorway. "I'm Special Agent Flynn Hayes, I'm replacing Agent Booth."

She had known this was probably going to happen, but Cam still didn't have to like it. After she closed a file on her PC, she turned in her chair to face the agent. "You're not replacing Agent Booth, Agent Hayes. The team we had set up was Agent Booth and Dr. Brennan. If you plan to be the liaison officer then you will be teaming up with Dr. Clark Edison."

"So, it's like that?" Hayes shook his head. "You don't even know me and you've already formed an opinion?"

Realistically, Cam knew that she needed to cooperate since the Lab was contracted to work with the FBI and she really needed to make that work so she, Hodgins and Angela could stay in the loop. They needed access to what the FBI knew about Brennan and Pelant just in case that knowledge could be of help to Booth or Brennan later. She knew that Angela and Hodgins were working on clearing Brennan, but she couldn't get involved in that and she had to pretend she didn't know that was what they were doing. Practical, she had to follow the letter of the law so she wouldn't lose the access. Cam was certain that Angela didn't understand that, but she knew that Hodgins and Booth did. "What can I do for you?"

Since he needed Cam's cooperation, Hayes shrugged off the cold reply. "I need access to Dr. Brennan's office. I know the techs have looked it over, but I want to take a look and see if they overlooked anything."

Standing, Cam walked across the room, entered the hallway and walked over to Brennan's office. Flynn assumed that Cam was helping him and followed her. Once they were in Brennan's office, Flynn stared at the empty desk and wondered if that was normal. "Has anyone used this office since Dr. Brennan left? Have you removed anything from her desk or this office?"

"No, they have not and no I have not." Cam stood near the door with her arms folded against her breasts. "Everything is exactly the way it was when Dr. Brennan left . . . well, except for the computer which the FBI took and have not returned. I do want it back."

"Okay, you'll get back . . . eventually. I'm going to be a while, so you can go back to doing whatever it is you do." Unaware of how dismissive he sounded, Flynn missed the look of loathing on Cam's face before she turned and left.

Once she was back in her office, Cam sat down, drummed her fingers on her desk until she decided that she wasn't accomplishing anything and opened a file on her PC.

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After he looked through every book on Brennan's bookshelves, opened and inspected every drawer in her desk, checked the bathroom and the small closet, Flynn knew that he wasn't going to find anything that would point to where Brennan was. He had hoped to find something pointing towards Booth somehow being involved in what Brennan had done so that would give him some leverage dealing with the man, but that hope had been dashed. I'm going to search his house, again. The techs may have missed something. Done with her office, Flynn stepped outside into the hallway, noticed a man walk into an office across the hallway and walked over to confront the man. "Where is Dr. Brennan?"

Not inclined to be polite, Hodgins continued to remove the cover on his snake aquarium and placed it on a table behind him. "How would I know?" Inspecting his snake, he picked up a small box, removed a mouse from it and set it into the glass container. "No one knows where she is."

"I don't believe that for a minute." Flynn watched Hodgins to see how he would react and was surprised when the man didn't react at all. "Who are you?"

"Dr. Jack Hodgins." Hodgins placed the cover back on the container. "Who are you?"

His badge now in his hand, Flynn showed it to Hodgins. "Special Agent Flynn Hayes. I'm replacing Agent Booth."

Snorting, Hodgins walked over to his spider aquarium and stared at the tarantula inside. "Yeah, no one is replacing Agent Booth. Dr. Brennan isn't here. Cam might have you work with Clark, but you're not replacing Agent Booth."

"This Lab has a contract with the FBI. I will expect full cooperation from you and everyone else here." Flynn was staring to feel very annoyed. He wasn't the enemy and he didn't appreciate being treated as such.

"We're professional here unlike some other places. We'll do our job." Since he didn't want to say anything else, Hodgins left his office leaving the agent behind.

His temper barely under control, Flynn turned to watch Hodgins walk next door and enter that room. He knew that civilians could be hard to work with, but the misplaced loyalty he was seeing made him distrust the people in this building. He would work with them, but he would not trust them.

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Booth had observed Flynn take control of his department and he had seen the agent when he had come back from the Lab. Amused, he returned to the paperwork he had been assigned and decided that Flynn could handle it or not. At this point he wasn't sure he cared. He had been honest with his superiors and had told them that Brennan had disabled his car and left him behind at the church. He knew they didn't believe him and that was why he was temporarily reassigned. Perhaps they thought this would break him and make him quit, but they didn't know who they were dealing with. He'd been a prisoner of war. He'd been tortured and humiliated. If they thought making him sit in the bullpen would break him then he felt sorry for them. They obviously didn't know him at all.

He had to remain with the FBI so he had access to the databases he needed to find Pelant. Nothing and no one would drive him away. Eventually he would find Pelant, prove that Brennan was innocent and get his job back. In the meantime, he would do the paperwork given to him, keep his head down and let Flynn flounder.

Remembering what it had been like to work with the squints that first year, he knew that Flynn would be put through the same battles he had gone through. The squints didn't believe in blind loyalty to an institution. They were oriented around the people they knew and understood. It had taken him months to get them to realize that he wasn't just a Fed in a suit. He had earned their trust and he was certain they would remain loyal friends while he did what he had to do to get Brennan back.

Flynn would never earn their trust if he went into the Lab expecting them to jump while he gave out orders. That was the worst thing he could do, but Booth didn't feel obligated to give him any advice. If Flynn was going to do his job, then he'd have to do it without his help. He planned to work on finding Pelant, do any nickel and dime job they wanted him to do and get his job back.

He knew that the next few weeks were going to try his patience, but he was a sniper and he had been trained to be patient when he needed to be. Seeley Booth wasn't going to run. He was going to stand his ground and in the end he was going to get his family back and he was going to get his office back. Fuck them. Fuck all of them. They don't know who they're dealing with, but they will.

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I wanted to cover the beginning of Booth's demotion after 'The Past in the Present'.

Let me know what you think of this. Thanks