Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with the television show Bones, its characters, or anything else. They all belong to Fox.

Inspiration, Chapter Three:

There was a surprising amount of traffic on the way to the Jeffersonian for this time of night. Drumming his fingers rhythmically on the steering wheel, Booth sighed as the line of cars inched forward.

"Is there something going on tonight that I'm not aware of?" He held his hand out appealingly, eyes remaining locked on the dent in the boot of the car in front him, noticing that the tags came from Florida state. Ah, the things they teach you to look out for in the F.B.I. He even noticed the cardboard tree hanging from the rear view mirror.

"I wouldn't know."

"Maybe the aliens have finally landed," he muttered. Temperance just looked at him , before resuming her scanning of the world beyond her window, which currently consisted of the over weight man in the car in the lane beside them chewing gum with his mouth open. Another reason to choose forensic anthropology over social.

Booth felt his cell phone vibrate in the breast pocket of his coat. He had set it on vibrate earlier because, with the noise of the wind, he was more likely to feel it than hear it, and he was expecting a call. Checking the caller I.D., Booth flipped open the phone and brought it to his ear.

"Booth," he paused a moment as the person on the other line spoke. "Just leave it on the coffee table." Another pause, and when he spoke again it was with restrained annoyance. "Yeah, I'm sure I got everything. Right. That's fine." He hung up without saying good bye, and caught Temperance's inquiring look. Booth remained silent as he took a right which would hopefully bypass some of the traffic.

Temperance had been looking over the bones for little over an hour the next morning when Booth appeared beside her. She had not noticed him come in.

"What have you got for me, Bones?" He took off the over coat he was wearing, which he had retrieved from his office, and draped it over an arm. Still bent over the remains, Temperance shot him a glare.

"Don't call me Bones." It was fast becoming her mantra.

"Look, Bones we've been over this. I'm not gonna stop."

"Well, then, I should give you a nickname." She straightened up, and walked over to a computer.

"You call me Booth, I call you Bones. Simple." He was rather interested in what she would come up with, though. Temperance thought for a moment.

"I'll come up with something," she finally said, drawing a blank. How do you make a nickname out of Seeley or working for the F.B.I? Booth chuckled.

"Right. The body, Bones?"

Temperance proceeded to fill him in on the current data.

"It seems you were right about how he got the breaks in his arms. They were held behind his back," she demonstrated, "and forcefully pushed upwards, breaking them. We still haven't worked out the accelerant used, but Zack found this in the chest cavity."

Using forceps, she held up a small piece of metal, less than an inch in diameter.

"You said you found this in the body?" He was beginning to get a strange feeling of déjà vu.

"It has no external damage caused by the fire, and the only explanation I can think of is that it was placed there after the body was burnt. But why would someone wait that long?"

Booth leaned over her shoulder to get a closer look at the object in her hand. She was right. It was not burnt or blackened in any way, and appeared to be shaped like an….

Suddenly Booth knew what it was, and as quickly as he had come in, he left, sliding on the over coat with a flourish. He exited the building with his head bowed in thought.

"Booth?"

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