A/N: I finished this and the next one, so I figured I'd post it.

Booth groaned, tossing the remaining half of the saddest burger he'd ever eaten back into the styrofoam takeout container on his passenger seat. How did it come to this? Had he really been so immature to have to ditch his partner at a crime scene with some lame excuse about meeting Hannah for lunch? What the hell was happening to him? Lying, cheating… now he was sitting in his car, eating lunch alone in an underground parking garage in order to avoid being caught in yet another fucking lie. He eyed his fries with disdain. He could hardly stomach his lunch right now. Everything was a fucking mess.

He'd felt like a complete bag of shit for leaving Bones at the crime scene and awkwardly asking Cam to give her a lift, but he'd had to get the hell out of there if he was going to maintain any semblance of professionalism. What kind of sick fuck was he with his dick half-hard at a damn crime scene?

Booth was making notes about what Hodgins was babbling about, something about larvae, when his ears picked up a sound that brought him right back to the previous night. Bones groaned as she stretched, and it sounded distinctly like the sound she'd made against the side of his throat as he pressed his cock against her clit through those ridiculous froggy shorts. He didn't think he'd ever hear that sound again after last night, but there it was, assaulting his ears as her back curved and twisted, releasing the pent up tension from leaning over the rotting corpse for too long. He'd probably heard her make that sound a million times before, but it would never ever be an innocent sound to his ears again. It was suddenly the hottest thing he could think of hearing. He wanted to hear it again. He pictured himself being the one to cause that sound to fall from her lips.

He made every attempt to ignore her from there out, but every once in a while, he'd catch himself staring, watching as she tugged her lower lip between her teeth in concentration, creasing her brow in concentration, and all he could see was that it was exactly the same face she'd made when she pressed her forehead to his, her tight heat gripping his fingers as she circled the brink of orgasm.

Every time he looked at her or heard her mutter something, it was all he could do not to picture her coming unraveled in his arms. The stupid squint suit wasn't even the least bit attractive, but when she stretched her arms back behind her, relieving the tension in her shoulders, he couldn't stop his eyes from traveling over her breasts, straining against the front of the suit, the same breasts he'd caressed last night to push over that final edge.

He felt like he was being haunted. A sweet torturous ghost was stalking his every thought.

Unable to be alone with his thoughts any longer, he drove to the only place he knew he could go to get everything off of his chest without judgment.

"Shrimp." Pops greeted him happily, pulling him into a hug and giving him a firm pat on the back. "What are you doing here in the middle of the day?" he inquired as Booth sat down on the couch next to Pops' lounge chair.

He shrugged, suddenly feeling like the teenage boy caught feeling up Becky Santini behind the gym at the junior spring formal all over again.

"You got something on your mind, Shrimp." Pops' words were stated, not asked. He could always read his grandson's emotions like a book. "Better to bring it out into the light and see it for what it really is." he told him, and Booth smiled sadly. That was something his Grandmother had told him when he'd first come to live with them. Little Seeley had gone out of his way, hiding and sneaking, stealing food even, unsure of their new arrangement but determined to protect Jared at all costs. They hadn't spent much time with Pops and Grams while they were living with their dad, so they really weren't sure what the lay of the land would be like. Grams had cleaned their room while they were at school and found his secret stash under the bed. He hadn't expected that; nobody had ever cleaned up their room for them before.

She'd said the same thing the first time she tried to help Jared take a bath. That was new too because he was usually the one helping Jared take a bath. At Grams' and Pops' house they took a bath before bed almost every night. When Seeley was in charge, he'd make sure he and Jared took a bath whenever they started to smell bad again. It worked for them, but Grams was pretty insistent after three days of the boys refusing.

"He fell down." Seeley had blurted out quickly when he saw Grams frown at the cigarette burns on Jared's arm.

"I think we all know that's not what happened." Grams had whispered, kissing them both on the forehead and saying nothing more about it.

Later that night, she'd tucked them both into their own beds with clean sheets and pajamas, not just the clothes they'd found in the laundry hamper, real actual pajamas, and even though he was too old for it, a teddy bear for both Seeley and Jared. "Now, nothing good ever came from keeping secrets from the people who love you. Everything seems bigger and scarier when kept hidden away in the dark. Better to bring it out into the light and see it for what it is." she'd told them softly from the doorway. "I promise you, you can't ever tell us something that will make us love you any less."

"She's right." Pops had spoken from the doorway, though none of them had seen him arrive. "Not a goddamn thing you could do in this world that'd cost you our love. Get some shut eye, soldiers." he'd told him in his gruff way, and Grams quietly admonished him for cursing in front of them as they walked down the hallway away from the boys' bedroom. As if they hadn't been cursed at plenty by their dad.

"You think they'd still love dad if we told them what he did?" Jared had asked, but Seeley didn't know the answer. He was thinking that maybe Grams and Pops already did know and that was why they were living here now.

"I messed up, Pops." Booth muttered pitifully. "I, uh,..." Booth sighed, leaning forward and burying his face in his hands.

"Who'd you get pregnant this time?" Pops asked, and Booth's head whipped up to look at his grandfather in question. "Well, the last time I saw you this beside yourself, it was because you'd knocked up Rebecca." he commented, defending his stance. "You're a big boy, Seeley, if you got your lady friend pregnant, you just make sure you do right by her and the kid like you've done for Parker."

"I didn't get anyone pregnant, Pops." he told him defensively. He'd been careful with every woman he'd been with after that. Very, very, careful– almost mood ruining careful, in fact. "I cheated on Hannah." he finally whispered, as if someone might hear them.

He waited silently, with his head hung, but no words of wisdom or disappointment for that matter followed. No words at all, in fact, for a very long stretch, so he looked up, shamefully meeting his grandfather's kind eyes.

"Almost wish you'd gotten someone pregnant." Pops finally muttered. "That'd be a lot easier to deal with."

"Pops… I don't know what to do here. I know I need to tell Hannah the truth, but you know, she and Bones are friends, and that'll fuck things up between them too. I don't even know where I stand with Bones anymore either…" he started, trying to get it all off his chest.

"Wait a minute. It wasn't… Shrimp, tell me it wasn't Temperance." Pops said, looking at Booth with a disappointment he hadn't seen in years.

"What? I thought you liked Bones." Booth defended, even though they both knew that wasn't why Pops was upset.

"I love her like she's my own, and I'd sooner see her with your grandmother's ring on her left hand than anything else in this world. You know that." Pops told him, pointing a serious finger in Booth's direction. "Seeley, tell me you didn't sleep with Tempe. Not after all that crap you told her about moving on." he said, scrubbing a hand over his weary face. How would Bones feel about her good friend Hank knowing what she and Booth had done? He wanted to laugh at himself when he realized that she probably wouldn't care even half as much as Booth did.

"Pops… I did move on, okay? I love Hannah. Anyways... Bones and I didn't … I, uh, –" he struggled, trying to articulate the situation without being crude or embarrassing himself for the rest of his life. He was feeling like that teenage boy getting the sex talk all over again.

"You're too squeamish. I didn't talk to you about this stuff enough. I bet if I asked Temperance what happened, she'd give me a detailed written report, right down to the anthropological meaning of the size of your junk." Pops grumbled. "You put your pecker in her?" Booth blanched, but shook his head. "Used your mouth on her?"

"Pops…" he complained. The last thing he wanted was his grandfather thinking he'd gone down on Bones, even though it was something he'd thought about pretty frequently in the last several years. This was a nightmare even worse than he thought he'd already been living in. "No… my hands." he admitted. "And we sort of kissed."

"There's no sort of. You did or you didn't." Pops admonished him.

"Did. We kissed. When she.. You know." Booth told him.

"I don't need the details." Pops waved at him dismissively.

"She keeps trying to convince me it wasn't sex, but it felt like sex, Pops. It feels like I was unfaithful to my girlfriend. It also feels like I've irreparably damaged my friendship and partnership. I can't even look at her without…"

"Temperance puts up a strong front, but we both know that's exactly what it is, a front." Pops told him, and Booth knew he was right. "You have two fine women in your life that you now owe explanations and apologies to, but only you can decide if that's what you want to do. Whether you stay with Hannah–"

"Of course I'm staying with Hannah." Booth interrupted, but Pops waved him away again. "Pops, it was a mistake. One time." Booth couldn't understand why his grandfather so adamantly didn't support his relationship with Hannah. Bones had turned him down first. Pops should be on his side.

"Mistakes like that come from a lot deeper places than you want to believe, Seeley." Pops told him sagely what he'd already known deep down. If it hadn't been Bones, he'd never have gone as far as he did. Any other woman would have been politely but firmly put in her place if she crossed that line. The problem was it was Bones, and she wasn't the only one crossing lines last night.

"I think part of what hurts so much is that something so damn wrong could feel so good… so right." Booth admitted. "Wrong timing though, I guess. We've both moved on."

"I don't think so." Pops muttered under his breath, but continued before Booth could object. "You've got work to do, and it'll probably get a lot uglier before it gets any better, but you gotta wade through the shit storm you've conjured up if it's going to get there at all." Pops told him, patting him on the shoulder.


Booth entered the upper deck lounge at the lab and was greeted by the team already seated around the table. He found himself grateful that Bones had saved the seat next to her for him, despite everything that had gone on between them over the last 48 hours. It felt like a good sign that she'd be open to talking afterwards.

His good feelings were quickly squashed when she turned her body away from him as he sat down, shrinking in her seat to avoid rubbing shoulders with him. It was like the air in the room had suddenly dropped several degrees when he'd said hi to her and she spared merely a glance in his direction, if it could even be considered that much.

"Bones, about yesterday–"

"Let's get started. Angela?" Cam interrupted his hushed attempt to talk to Bones, commanding the attention of everyone in the room.

Booth sat quietly, listening to the squints rhyming off their evidence about the victim. Bones practically ignored him as she made her intern present their findings to the team. She'd barely even spoken, other than to say "Very good, Mr. Nigel-Murray.", so when it was Booth's turn to bring up his input on the case, he was already on the edge of irritation.

"Hacker's hornier than a virgin on prom night." He muttered, feeling just a little petulant. It was only when Bones choked and spat coffee all over the files in front of her that he remembered that Hacker and Bones had recently broken up and it was mainly because Hacker really was a horny virgin. Shit.

He vaguely heard Cam's admonishment and Angela's scoff as he tried to avoid looking like a total prick. Pulling out his pocket square, he tried to hand it to Bones to clean up the coffee on her blouse, but she actively ignored him, opting to snatch the stack of napkins in the center of the table, probably left over from lunch.

He'd fully intended to apologize to her and have a long conversation after the meeting, right up until the suspect's identity was revealed to be Jacob Broadsky. He was pissed. Where the fuck did Broadsky get off thinking he could take the law into his own hands. If he'd had proof that this McLoughlin guy was the killer, he should have brought it through the proper channels.


"Agent Booth!" Sweets called after him as he stormed away from the table at the end of the meeting. He wasn't about to sit there and make small talk while a sniper who's skills rivaled his own was out there taking kill shots at people. "Wait up!" Sweets said breathlessly as he caught up to Booth. "Wow, you're like a wicked fast walker." he muttered, still trying to catch his breath.

"What do you want, Sweets?" Booth demanded, stopping just shy of where he'd parked his car.

Swets put his hands up in defense. "I'm just checking in. You seemed really upset about Jacob Broadsky being the prime suspect. I want you to know that nobody thinks you're the same. You heard my profile, the guy is clearly unhinged and taking the law into his own hands." Sweets told him, and he shifted uncomfortably.

"I know that Sweets, okay?" Booth insisted. "I'm fine. I just want to get this guy behind bars before he kills anyone else."

"I don't think that you're fine, Booth." Sweets insisted. "It's quite obvious from your body language and the way you're lashing out at your team that you're carrying a heavy burden. You need to know that you have no reason to feel guilty." Booth felt himself fuming at the kid. He had no idea what the hell he was talking about. "What you did during your time in the army is not the same as what Broadsky is doing. He is playing judge, jury and executioner here." Booth nodded, hoping his silence would end the conversation.

The kid wasn't entirely wrong. He did feel guilty, but it wasn't just about being a sniper. He was holding onto a very fresh batch of guilt that had nothing to do with his past.


Booth was only halfway through his scotch by the time Hannah got home. He'd hoped to have at least one or two drinks before this moment arrived. "Hey." he greeted her as she sailed by him, stroking his arm on her way past to make her own drink.

"How was your day?" she asked, as she uncorked a bottle of wine.

"It was shit." he told her truthfully, and she paused, looking up at him. She clearly hadn't been expecting that answer. "I need to tell you something." he said, ripping the band aid off before he had a chance to chicken out.

"Okay… I have a feeling I'm not going to like this very much." she said, eyeing him suspiciously. She was a reporter. Of course she was going to see through his strained demeanor once he said that.

"You're not. Sit down." he instructed her, nodding at the chair across the table from him. He waited until she was seated and had taken a long swallow of her wine before he began speaking again. "Uh, listen, I did something recently that I'm not proud of, and I want us to be able to be honest with each other, and to be able to work through things when we fuck up." he started, watching her face for any indication that she understood where he was going with this, but her face was stoic. "The other night, while I was over at Bones' place, we were just messing around and things kind of got inappropriate. We— we crossed a line–"

"Stop." she told him, putting her hand up in the air and closing her eyes. "I suspected something like this had happened. I don't want the sordid details. I'd rather not have the fucking visual." she told him, glaring at him angrily. "Just know that it can never happen again, Seeley, because so help me…" she sighed heavily, draining her wine glass. "So fucking help me, Seeley, I'm not that girl. I'm not that girl who's boyfriend does that shit and just gets away with it. I'm worth more than that, and I respect myself enough not to put up with it."

"You're absolutely right. It was a big mistake." he assured her, wondering how the hell he was getting off so easily, and she pursed her lips, nodding slowly as she rose from her seat and poured another glass of wine.

"Yea, well if you two can't keep your lusty residual feelings at bay when you're alone together, then maybe you shouldn't be alone together." she told him, and he nodded along like a repentant child. "Unbelievable though. She clearly can't be fucking trusted." Hannah ranted. "What an actual bitch. She's definitely the shittiest friend I've ever had." Booth opened his mouth to defend Bones, wanting to explain it wasn't just her fault, that neither of them had been thinking of anyone but themselves, but Hannah's sharp look told him he'd be better off shutting the fuck up right now.


Brennan was half asleep when her phone rang on her nightstand, jolting her wide awake with its shrill tone. She snatched it and hit accept on the call without bothering to look at the caller ID. "Brennan." she grumbled.

"Cherie, please tell me you are sitting down." Caroline Julian drawled sardonically through the line.

"In fact, I'm laying down as it is after midnight, and I was sleeping." Brennan snapped back. She determined without hesitation that social niceties were for daytime hours.

"Well, I'm sorry for disrupting your beauty sleep, but I thought you'd want to hear this from me so you didn't wake to the breaking news story in the morning." she snarked right back. "Heather Taffet has been granted an appeal date. She's appearing before the judge tomorrow afternoon." Miss Julian told her, and Brennan's throat went dry.

"Why so soon? How?" she asked. She'd know Taffet was trying to get an appeal, but had faced delays and petitions to prevent it. It made no sense that the courts would grant this to her so rapidly.

"Seems she still has some friends in high places that believe she's innocent." Caroline's derisive response made it clear she didn't understand it either. "I've got a few more calls to make. There are going to be a lot of very unhappy people having to write some very persuasive statements in very little time to keep this sow behind bars."

"I'll call Booth." Brennan told her quickly. "I want him to hear it from me." she added, and Caroline hummed in acceptance before hanging up.

Brennan inhaled deeply, blowing out a shuddering breath. This wasn't possible. The Gravedigger still haunted her dreams, but the one thing she could hold onto was the fact that she was locked away, unable to hurt anyone else. She knew Booth felt the same way, his nightmares were still visited by visions of near misses.


Booth shifted uncomfortably on the couch, trying to find a position that didn't cause his back to ache. His phone vibrating on the coffee table next to him only served to further irritate him. "Booth." he snapped into the line.

"It's me." her voice was soft, but he heard it tremble in those two words.

"What's wrong?" he asked, sitting up as his flight response activated momentarily. "Bones?" he whispered when she didn't reply right away.

"Caroline just called me. Heather Taffet has an appeal date for tomorrow afternoon, and it's looking like her connections will work in her favor." she explained, and he heard her sniff quietly, like she was crying.

"Well, that's not fucking happening." he snapped, glancing over his shoulder when he realized he'd raised his voice. Hannah was locked away in the bedroom with the door closed, but he didn't want to take any chances at poking the bear tonight. "Are you okay?" he asked when she had yet to say anything more.

"I'm fine." she replied quietly, and he could tell she was anything but fine. He wanted to offer to go over there, and in a perfect world, before all of this, he wouldn't have even said anything. If this was a year ago, he'd already be in his car while he kept her talking to him on the phone until he arrived at her place to distract and reassure them both.

"Do you wanna maybe… meet at the diner?" he asked awkwardly, looking down at his boxers and socks and realizing he'd have to go into the bedroom to get clothes.

"The diner?" she questioned with confusion. "No.. I– I'm going to the lab now to try to review everything. I just asked Caroline to let me be the one to tell you."

"Thanks, Bones." he told her quietly.

"Goodnight, Booth." she whispered before hanging up the phone before he could offer to meet her there.