(The Cheat in the Retreat)

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I don't own Bones.

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Brennan loved going undercover and when she was given the chance with Booth's latest case, she knew just the costumes she'd need to play the part. Her partner thought Tony and Roxie would be perfect roles and after she thought about it, she realized he was right. She knew of a resale shop that carried interesting jewelry and some of their vintage clothes would be perfect. After she had made her purchases, she had also shopped in a wig store for something to make her character bigger than life.

Excited, she had shown Booth her clothing purchases and he'd approved. "You got this Bones. They have Roxie's style written all over them."

Pleased, she'd also shown him the necklace she had found. "This is for me, not Roxie."

The necklace was made from the Bakelite beads that Brennan had favored for a long time. The light blue matched her eyes and Booth loved it. "This is really nice, Bones. It'll go really well with that dark blue blouse you wore last week." He had always admired her eyes and found that he could get lost in them if her stared into them too long.

"I think so too." Brennan placed the necklace around her neck and admired it in the dresser mirror. "These necklaces are getting harder to find. The store clerk said they had bought several pieces of jewelry along with clothes and coats from an estate sale."

"Well, I think it's pretty." Booth stood behind Brennan and placed his arms around her, his hands resting on her hips. Staring at their image in the mirror, Booth smiled. "Tony and Roxie are going to be the hottest couple at that retreat."

Amused, Brennan laughed. "That's probably true, but I hope we find the murderer quickly. The retreat won't last very long and I would hate for the murderer to leave before we find him or her."

"Yeah, we have our work cut out, but we've done it before and we'll do it this time too, Roxie."

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It was fun letting herself be someone else. In the real world, she was a forensic anthropologist who believed in science all the way. Facts helped her do her job and facts helped her get through her days, but Roxie didn't quite see the world that way. Roxie could pretend to call upon dead people to speak to her and think nothing of it. Roxie was friendlier with people she didn't know and it didn't bother her if she didn't understand them. People are weird and Roxie knew that. Roxie just didn't care about being misunderstood by anyone and Brennan found that to be refreshing even if it was just a role to play while she was helping Booth look for a killer.

No matter how many times, he'd gone undercover, Booth never grew tired of watching Brennan act out her role as Wanda or Roxie. It amazed him that she was able to get into her undercover persona and seem so carefree about it. He knew it was acting but it puzzled him how someone like Brennan could set aside her powerful personality and accept another personality that was a far cry from his scientist partner. It was mysterious, it was sexy and he had a good time being undercover with her. It added to their partnership in ways he had never thought about before he got into a relationship with her.

Sometimes, when they had time and they were in the mood, they did some roleplaying at home, in their bedroom and their undercover personas were just an extension of that. They were still Booth and Brennan, but sexier and more adventurous when they were playing other people. That's healthy isn't it? Sure it is. Anything we do is healthy because we're normal. We're good looking people with healthy sexual attitudes and we like to play games. Totally normal. Yep, normal.

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Their case had ended with a surprise. The old couple, Bill and Evelyn Schumacher had killed Adam Pak. It had been quite a shock, but Booth did his duty and arrested them for murder. Their case over, Booth and Brennan returned to work and found themselves involved in the Robert Hann case again.

Now that they had time and there were no new cases to work on, Brennan and Cam read through the emails and notes the original coroner had sent them about his autopsy of Robert Hann. Dr. Stewart's notes from his diary had helped fill out what they had surmised from the photos and reports provided by the police and Dr. Stewart's office. They both came to the conclusion that Robert Hann had been murdered and that Christopher Pelant's confession had been a true one.

Standing in Angela's office, Angela displayed the pictures from Robert Hann's autopsy on the Angeletron while Cam and Brennan pointed out what they felt were clear markers that Robert had been murdered. Once the pictures were shown, Brennan went over Dr. Stewart's notes and the drawings he had done of the neck and head. He had mentioned the deep bruising on the neck and the multiple burn marks on the young man's torso and arms. He had been unable to determine what had caused the burn marks, but he had noted that the bruise to the throat might have been caused by being struck across the throat. The police and put it down to a bad dive, Robert hitting the diving board and the board breaking his neck. Cam shook her head in disgust.

"Look, if he dived wrong, he would have hit his face or head on the board, not his neck." Cam just didn't see why Dr. Stewart had gone along with that scenario. "I know Dr. Stewart was overwhelmed with seven other autopsies, but there is no way he should have recorded that the dive caused the injury to his neck. There is no way he dived and hit his neck if he was doing a flip or simply diving downward, just no way."

"I agree. A bad dive could have allowed his chin to hit the board and snap his head upward and back or he could have hit the board with his face his shoulders or his chest, but to hit the front of his neck with enough force to break it seems unlikely especially since it didn't leave any bruising on his chin, shoulders or chest." Brennan stared at the neck injuries and knew that Dr. Stewart had allowed the Stanford police to influence his work. "The police may have wanted to avoid having to investigate a murder and they put a lot of pressure on Dr. Stewart to say it was an accident."

Booth flipped through some notes in his notebook and looked towards his partner. "Probably . . . I did some research and I think I know why Robert Hann was killed. I found out that Robert was a teaching assistant for Professor Hosseini. The Professor is a software engineer and his class was popular. Once Robert Hann was dead Professor Hosseini got a new teaching assistant and his name was Christopher Pelant."

"Damn, that man didn't let anyone get in his way when he wanted something." Angela was disgusted. "He killed his high school guidance counselor so he could use her to write a letter to Stanford and killing Robert was just another stepping stone for him. I'm glad he's dead. Who knows how many people he would have killed before we stopped him?"

"I agree." Hodgins stared at the autopsy pictures and he knew that Robert Hann never had a chance. "What gets me is he was obviously tasered and the police and the coroner didn't question that. What did they think happened? Greek house hazing? Come on. They were in a hurry to get a cause of death so they could concentrate on the bus accident victims and Robert didn't get justice. If they had done their job, Pelant could have been stopped before he killed anyone else."

After he placed his notebook in his jacket pocket, Booth checked his phone for messages and placed it back in his pocket with the notebook. "I have a meeting with Fairburn in forty minutes. I'm going to let him know what we've found out about Robert Hann and I think we should be able to close this case. Christopher Pelant confessed to the killing and the evidence proves he probably did it. I don't think we need to waste anymore time on this case. Robert Hann was a victim of Pelant. I'll inform Dr. Stewart and the Stanford police department as well at the president of Stanford. They screwed up, but we've proved the cause of Robert's death and they're going to have to live with that. I'm sure his parents will probably have something to say about it. It's probably going to get very ugly."

Unconcerned about the consequences for those involved in the case in Stanford, Brennan shrugged her shoulders. "I have work to do." Leaving the room, she was followed by Booth who stopped her in the hallway.

"Hey, Bones. Want to go to lunch with me this afternoon?" Booth glanced at his watch. "I should be free around noon."

"That is an excellent idea." Brennan touched his arm. "I need to talk to you about an offer I received this morning from Dr. Wayne Sherman."

Curious, Booth stared at his partner wondering if this was good news or bad news. "What offer?"

"You have a meeting to get to, Booth." Brennan glanced at her watch. "We'll talk about it at lunch." After she kissed him, she walked back towards her office leaving a worried Booth behind in the hallway.

"Fuck. Now what?"

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