Thanks once more for reviews. Hopefully this chapter isn't too disjointed, but hopping from one perspective to another is a pain when they aren't in the same place.


Booth stretched slightly trying to loosen the muscles in his arms without making any sudden movements that would attract attention.

He, along with another 30 or so agents, were spread out along a street in the suburbs of Washington, providing cover for the main team which was leading the operation. It was cold and he was thoroughly fed up. He glanced at his watch. It was nearly eight in the evening, he'd been standing around for the best part of four hours and nothing had happened. He rubbed his nose and wondered if he'd ever get the feeling back into his feet. Two pairs of socks were not helping keep out the cold. He was wearing several layers on top and a heavy Kevlar jacket, even so the chilly winter's evening was starting to seep deep into his bones.

He started to think about Temperance, but forced the thought away. He needed to stay alert. Day dreaming could get someone killed. He smiled wryly be could almost hear his drill sergeant repeating those phrases, so familiar to him from his training in the army. Concentration, and the ability to focus on a task absolutely, as much as his accuracy with a gun was what had got him noticed and picked out to be a sniper.

Suddenly off to his left, down on the street, he saw the signal. Things were kicking off. He checked his weapon and waited. All his senses trained on the scene below him.


Across town, Temperance sat in front of her laptop typing rapidly. She stopped to take a drink of water and her eyes flicked left to right as she scanned the paragraphs she'd just written. It was good. She breathed a sigh of relief, somehow or another she'd found some inspiration to sort out the problem chapters in her latest book. She clicked save and then burnt it to CD. She didn't take any chances with her drafts, having once lost nearly 20,000 words when the computer had crashed. She shut the lid on her laptop and noticed the envelope that Booth had given her the previous day in his office with the details of the Pennsylvania case. She looked at it with pursued lips, thinking about Booth.

She didn't know where they stood. She'd finally acknowledged how much he meant to her, but she didn't know how he felt about her. Sure, she knew he liked her, but not if it was more than platonic friendship. She needed more evidence to draw a conclusion. Even the arm around her shoulders the previous evening could just have been a show of friendly affection. She shut her eyes for a moment and told herself that she wasn't going to think about it anymore. Perhaps he'd call later and they could talk as he'd promised. She supposed it would depend on the case he had been roped in to help with.

If not, she could always talk to Angela in the morning.


Almost three and half hours later, Booth was standing wearily in his hallway. The operation had been a success. There had been a limited number of casualties, none serious, and he hadn't been called on to do anything other than stand in the cold. He dumped his coat over a chair and went to the kitchen to make a hot drink. While the kettle was boiling, he looked idly at his phone. It was too late to call Temperance to talk, but perhaps he should sent a text?

He opened the message menu and then typed: 'Hi - Just got in. Cold, boring op. All fine tho. Hope yr day was good. Will U call 2moro or C U Tues. xBooth.' He hesitated a moment and then pressed send. He flipped the phone shut and turned it off. He made a decaf coffee, which he drained rapidly. He yawned widely and made his way up to bed. He was asleep in moments.


Temperance was lying in bed dozing when she heard her phone bleep. She rolled over and picked it up off the side table. When she pressed a button the screen lit up and she saw the message symbol. She opened the message, a smile slowly spreading across her face.

She clicked reply: 'Hi Booth. Glad U R OK. Look 4ward 2 speaking soon. xBones.' She looked at the screen and deleted the end of the message replacing 'Bones' with 'Temperance' before sending the message. Then she turned off the phone and turned over falling asleep easily.


Temperance was up early and arrived in the lab before anyone else, as was her custom. The snow had largely melted, although heavy blizzards were forcast for later in the week.

She sat at her desk with the Pennsylvania folder in front of her and started to check through the procedures the local agencies had put together to try to verify the identities of the various bodies. She tapped the top of her pen on her lips in between noting comments. The basic concepts were there, they were just in the wrong order. In the end, she gave up trying to write notes and turned on her computer and rewrote the procedure. Although she had added in some extra checks, she had deleted several unnecessary steps, so she figured that each identification would take roughly the same amount of time. She printed off some copies and then wrote a quick e-mail to Booth, attaching the file:

'Morning Booth - I've attached the rewritten protocol for the case. I'll need to run through it with them, considering they managed to come up with the original version! I'm not planning to do anything else on the case today unless you tell me different. What time are you picking me up tomorrow? B.'

Then she walked out into the lab and turned her attention to the skeleton of a Second World War solider, which was set out on a table.


Booth arrived late for work. The traffic had been hell and he had hit snooze on his alarm one too many times. He spent half an hour filling out his part of the paperwork for yesterday's operation and then opened his e-mail. His eyes were immediately drawn to the message from Temperance. He opened it, and smiled ruefully when he realised that she had already done the work on the case. He clicked reply:

'Thanks for the file - very quick work! Hope you didn't waste your Sunday working on it. Anyway, how about I pick you up at 8:00 tomorrow morning, from your place? Booth.'

He worked his way through the rest of his inbox, and then headed off to a mid morning meeting .


Temperance was checking her e-mail just before lunch, when Angela walked in.

"Hi sweetie. Not seen you all morning," Angela flopped onto the chair in front of Temperance's desk, "So, how was Booth on Saturday?"

Temperance looked up guiltily. Well, well, Angela thought leaning forward conspiratorially, "Oh... I guess you didn't just talk about the case?"

When her friend didn't reply, Angela said, "Hey come on, the suspense is killing me. What happened? I've got a few theories..."

Temperance looked up and touched Angela's arm to forestall what were likely to be lurid theories that involved throwing Booth across his desk and ravishing him, and she ignored the part of her mind that rubbed its hands together at the thought.

She took a deep breath and talked Angela through the evening and the previous morning. She had to pause to close the door, as Angela's exclamations of "Dinner!"; "He said what in his toast?" and "She dumped him!" were pretty loud. It went downhill from there, and soon Angela was reduced to sighing "no way" and "so cute" after almost every sentence.

"... and so we're off to Pennsylvania tomorrow on this case." Temperance concluded with a sigh.

Angela looked at her friend's miserable face in utter bewilderment, "Sweetie, that's good isn't it? A day away with Booth."

Temperance looked at her, "I don't know... I'm not sure that he feels the same way."

Angela was momentarily stunned into silence - not only had Temperance had actually admitted that she had feelings for Booth, yet she seemed to have missed a fact so obvious that everyone, including Zach, was aware that Booth adored her. Angela took a deep breath concluding that yelling 'I do you so' wasn't going to help and neither was trying to shake some sense into her, "Sweetie, trust me, it's obvious. Booth is in love with you too."

Temperance's eyes widened., "I... I.. never said I was in love with him." She felt as if all the air had been knocked out of her body.

Angela raised an eyebrow and then frowned in exasperation, "I'm not even going to respond to that, it's so dumb." She smiled placatingly and took Temperance's hand, "You two need to talk to one and other. This trip is the perfect opportunity. It'll work out."

Temperance found herself nodding, then jumped when her desk phone rang.

"Sorry - hang on a sec." She said to her friend and reached over to pick up the phone, "Dr Temperance Brennan here."

"Hi Temperance." Booth she thought, and wondered how they could possibly work together in future if his voice was going to bring her up in goose bumps each time he spoke to her.

"Hi Booth." She was pleased with how calm she sounded. Don't look at Angela she thought, "What d'you want?"

"It's about the trip tomorrow."

"Uh-huh - eight my place yeah?" she said.

"Not exactly, things are getting a bit tense up there. The families have started a sit in at all the local authority offices - sheriff's department, the hospital, the council. They are demanding federal jurisdiction. It's peaceful at the moment, but the word is that things could get out of hand. I've been told we need to get up there asap." She heard him pause, "I know you're busy today, but any chance that we could leave this evening? If we could offer them a town meeting tonight, things may ease off a bit."

Temperance knew thatthere wasn't anything that pressing to do in the lab, Zach could do the initial work on the World War Two solider if she spent a couple of hours running through what she wanted done, "Okay, I can leave early today if you need me to, but not before four." She said and heard Booth's sigh of relief on the other end of the phone.

"Thank you. That's another one I owe you. I'm working up quite a list already this week." He smiled down the phone at her, "Do you want me to pick you up from the Jeffersonian?"

Temperance shook her head as she said, "No, I've got my car. Pick me up from my place at five."

"Okay. See you then..." Booth replied, Temperance waited because he had sounded as if he was about to say something else, but there was only silence.

"Fine. See you later Booth." She heard a distant "Bye" and then hung up.

Angela was grinning gleefully at her, "So it's a night away with Booth, then?"

Temperance nodded.

Suddenly Angela became serious, "Talk to him, okay." Temperance didn't reply, "Promise me, sweetie."

"Okay - I'll talk to him." Temperance caved in, "But now I need to talk to Zach about what he needs to do while I'm gone." With that, the two of them stood and walked out into the lab.

(TBC)