Brennan leaned over the bones on the examination table, a clipboard tucked under her and a pen hanging from between her lips. Zack waits patiently for her next instruction.

"Ok Zack, you can go ahead and clean the bones, just be careful with the right femur…there looks to be some sort of communated fracture. Let me know when you are done."

"Yes Dr Brennan."

Zack moves around the table to the instrument tray, Brennan notes down the details of the fracture on her clipboard and places it down on the edge of the examination table. As she looks up she sees Angela approaching with a wide grin and two cups of coffee. Brennan sighs knowing full well what Angela is up to and makes her way down the lab steps to the concourse area.

"I thought you could use a break sweetie."

"I know exactly what you want Angela. I also know that if I don't give you details that you are going to harass me all day until I do."

"See how well we know one another Bren, this is why we are such good friends."

Brennan rolls her eyes an takes her coffee from Angela before leading the way to her office.

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Angela leans back in the sofa and takes another sip from her coffee. Brennan mimics the action and looks at her watch.

"Sweetie, at least tell me this.. If Booth hadn't called, would you have been interested in taking him home to find out the size of anything else other than his medulla oblongata?"

"Angela, the size of the medulla oblongata doesn't dictate the intelligence of humans…"

"Which is why you should have taken him home sweetie…there are other indicators of"

A cough from the door makes them turn to look sharply. Angela's face brightens immediately. Her mood suddenly turning flirtatious.

"Well hey Booth… Come on in, we were just discussing Bren's big date."

"Yeah I heard…Possibly a little too much." He turns to Brennan and smiles. "You look refreshed."

"Thanks, I feel refreshed."

"Any progress on the case yet?"

She shakes her head and places her coffee on the table. Pushing herself up she walks to the door to face him, arms folded over her chest. "I have Zack cleaning the bones right now, Jack is analysing the soil samples and scrapings from inside the well to see if he can get anything."

"Do you have an estimated time scale on all that?"

"Booth, it'll take as long as it takes. What's the rush?"

"The driver's license that we found? It belongs to an ambassador… There's a lot of pressure on right now to get this thing tied up."

Brennan turns to Angela who is watching from the sofa. "Ange, go and ask Zack to prioritise the skull, we need to set the markers so you can get started. Can you also tell Jack that I need his findings as he goes along, as well as a report at the end of his investigation?"

Angela nods and gets up from the sofa, she purposefully brushes up against Booth who smiles appreciatively. When he turns back to Brennan she is heading into the office and is about to sit down at her desk, in two strides he is in front of her and taking her by the arm to prevent her from sitting down. She glances at his hand on her and then arches an eyebrow at him.

"What?"

"I'm taking you to lunch…I feel bad about crashing your date last night, and I want to make it up to you."

She waits expectantly for a joke to follow and when none does she tries to sit down again only to have him steer her towards the office door.

"I can't leave right now…. You already said this was urgent."

"Bones, they've got it under control.. It's gonna be a couple of hours before anyone has anything for you, so just relax and let me take you to lunch."

She goes to protest again but he stops her and places a finger on her lips. "Now Bones, I'm going to take great personal offence if you don't let me buy you a burger and a beer….Do you really want to offend me?"

She shakes her head with his finger still on her lips. When he takes his finger away she can still feel the tingling sensation. He gives her the 'charm' smile and puts a hand on the small of her back to steer her away from the lab. "That's my girl."

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She sits at the table waiting for him to return from the car, a waitress appears by her side and places their order on the table, she thanks her and watches her leave just as Booth enters the diner. When he slides back into his chair he places an unmarked box on the table in front of her. She frowns at him in question and he nudges it forward.

"Open it."

"What is it?"

"Well you'll never know unless you open it will you Bones?"

He picks up two French fries from his plate and chews on them. Still frowning she opens the box and places the lid on the chair next to her. The frown disappears and is replaced by one of surprise and genuine delight.

"Booth… What did you go and do that for?"

She pulls out a shoe. Identical to the shoes that she had ruined the previous night standing in the rain and sopping mud. He shrugs bashfully and picks up another frie.

"I just figured that it was my fault that you had to leave your date and ruined your shoes.. So I wanted to replace them."

"You know I have hundreds of shoes, it really wasn't that big a deal. You didn't need to do this."

"Well last night you looked…. Well, anyway…I did it."

Placing the shoe back in the box and replacing the lid she slid it onto the chair next to her and took his hand in her own. Giving him an earnest smile and a quick squeeze he looks up.

"Thank you Booth."

He blushes slightly and hopes that she doesn't notice. He nods towards her food "Your food will get cold." She takes her hand from his and starts to dig into the plate of food in front of her. He immediately misses the contact of her hand in his, but he is satisfied that he has done something to please her. Watching her take the first gigantic bite of her equally enormous burger he smiles to himself before turning his attention to his own food.

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Brennan and Booth walk back into the lab side by side, he's obviously just said something to make her laugh because she has the remnants of a stupid grin plastered across her features, the grin quickly disappears to a look of surprise as she lifts her head and spots Marcus in the distance. He is leaning against an examination table talking to Angela, who as always is listening eagerly. As they approach Marcus looks up from Angela and smiles in her direction.

"Marcus….what are you doing here?"

"Well you said drop by, and I thought I would come and see when we could arrange dinner next?"

Her attention is distracted by Angela who is making fanning motions with a file behind him, apparently indicating that Marcus was hot, the motions were not lost on Booth either. Brennan takes Marcus by the arm and smiles. "Why don't we go to my office and talk? Then I'll give you a tour if you like?"

"Yeah I'd like that, I'm quite curious as to how things work around here, very intriguing environment….."

Brennan gives Booth a quick glance and as they walk away she lightly slaps Angela's arm. Booth watches his partner and the African-american stranger disappear into her office, and to his dismay the office door closes behind them. Angela who is watching him closely comes to stand beside him, still fanning herself with the file.

"He is hot with a capital H….. I don't remember any of my professors ever being as hot as the ones that she seems to be able to dig up."

"Well, she's an attractive woman."

Angela glances at him form the corner of her eye and smirks. "Yes she is sweetie, attractive and available….. " He tears his eyes from the office door and smiles at Angela.

"Tell her I have gone to do some digging. Get her to call me as soon as anything comes up, I've not really got that much to go on at the moment so I need as much information from you guys as possible."

Angela nods and watches him walking away. She can sense a difference in him, not being able to put her finger on it right now she decides to keep an eye on him and figure it out later.

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