Disclaimer: See all the other chapters if you are still confused about this.
Author's Note: Don't you just love fast updates? Thanks for all the reviews so far, you guys are awesome! Okay, so here's the thing--today I finally figured out what the crime was going to be, and how it was going to work (yes, I realize it took me eight chapters to figure out my plot, but what canI say? It's my first fic). Do you want another scary thought? I got my inspiration by listening to the first verse of "Dead or Alive" by Bon Jovi. :-) Here's why I'm telling you that--I really like the idea, but if I do it, this is going to be a pretty long story. I know I already give you long chapters, but it's still going to take me a while. So, I just wanted to throw that out for you--if anyone's morally opposed to this, please let me know, we'll talk, and I'll see what I can do...I mean, it's not like anything is set in stone yet.Anyway, here's the chapter...oh, wait, one more thing...this chapter is for all of you who have gotten on me about making Booth and Bones hate each other for so long now. :-) Now, seriously, here we go...
Temperance shoved the phone back into her bag as she and Booth continued down the street. It was 10:30pm now, and the once busy atmosphere of the main drag had died down considerably. Chincoteague wasn't a large area—in fact, it was extremely small—but it played well to beach lovers and families. There were tee shirt stores, a one screen movie theatre, and several restaurants. Though there weren't many flashy aspects to the sleepy little town, it was the home to many artists, and small makeshift galleries lines the side streets. There were a few larger places, with better art that had been created by people with obvious talent, and these seemed to lend credibility to the more marginal shops.
The heat of the day was still firmly ensnared in the humid air, but the lack of sun kept it from being the "take your breath away" heat of the afternoon. The air was think and musty with the sounds of a few restless seagulls and the warm stench of marsh. It wasn't exactly a pleasant smell, but somehow, when you were standing on a quiet island where you could hear the ocean from almost every street, it made the air seem like a rich childhood perfume.
Tempe and Booth walked quietly, both silently reflecting on the day. The silence was somehow more relaxed than it had been on the trip down; more comfortable.
"Angela and Hodgins are going to bring us some of our stuff tomorrow?" Booth asked simply as they walked.
Temperance just nodded in response. The evening air didn't lend itself well to talking; it was something that demanded a kind of reverent silence.
When they arrived back at the hotel parking lot, they both hesitated before getting back in. Neither was looking forward to spending a night sleeping in an SUV.
Booth finally sighed. "I guess there's no use putting it off. We're stuck here. Do you want the front or the back?"
Temperance surveyed the choice. The front passenger seat would recline, so whoever slept there would be more upright, but they would also have more leg room. The back seat would allow whoever slept there to actually be reclined, but their legs would no doubt be sore by morning.
She gave Booth a quick once over. She would be uncomfortable in the back, but for him the confined leg room would be worse. "The back, I guess," she answered. He nodded and opened the back door her without thought.
She stopped for a moment, looking at him. She knew his move to open the door had been instinctual; it was obvious by the swiftness of his movement. Ordinarily she would have commented on how he was treating her like a helpless female, but somehow tonight it didn't bother her so much. It seemed sweet, in an innocent way.
She smiled and climbed in as Booth let himself into the passenger seat. After spending a few minutes trying to arrange themselves into semi-comfortable positions, they both stilled their movements and listened to the crickets singing loudly outside, as they dropped their eyes closed in an effort to sleep.
Thirty minutes later, they were both still awake. And hot. And annoyed. Neither said anything, both assumed that the other was sleeping, and they stewed for a time in their mutual frustration.
Tempe heard Booth make a noise that sounded like a stifled groan, and she realized he was awake. "You awake up there, Booth?"
She heard him sigh. "Yeah. Who can sleep like this?"
She shrugged, only vaguely aware that his back was to her. They lapsed into silence for another moment; the uncomfortable feeling from the drive down returned.
Booth spoke tentatively a few moments later. "Hey, Bones?"
It was the first time he had called her Bones in over twenty-four hours. Somehow, hearing him revert back to her old nickname made her happy. "Yeah?"
There was a beat of silence. "I'm sorry."
Temperance suddenly felt confused and off balance. "For what?"
"You know…for the other day."
Temperance sat quietly for a moment. Was he talking about the fight? Or the fact that he had almost kissed her? "Oh, um, it's…"
He cut her off. "No, it isn't okay. I shouldn't have yelled at you like that."
His words gave her a momentary thrill. "I yelled at you too, Booth." She saw him nod. "I'm sorry, too."
They were quiet for a minute before Booth spoke again. "So…we're okay?"
Temperance smiled. "Yeah, we're okay."
"Except for the fact that we're stuffed in the SUV from hell."
They both laughed, rolled down the windows, and stayed up talking until 4:30 the next morning.
When Booth's cell phone alarm sounded at 5:15am the next morning, he and Temperance groaned in unison. They had been asleep for less than an hour. With a frustrated sigh, Booth turned his head and looked at his very irritated forensic anthropologist.
"Mornin', Sunshine," he said as he ran his hand over his weary face.
Temperance looked like she was ready to hurt someone. "Why is it whenever I get hung up with you I end up with sleep deprivation?"
Booth chuckled. "Good luck, I guess. We probably should go ahead and get showers so we can head out to the site." He yawned broadly as he spoke. When he finished, his eyes were only half open. "Ladies first?"
Temperance nodded numbly and climbed out of the SUV. She headed toward the doors of the hotel, where the all-too-perky teenagers at the front desk directed her where to go for the shower. Obviously the old man from last night had warned them ahead of time. Booth watched her enter the building, and was dropping back to sleep before she was even fully inside.
She showered quickly and cleaned herself up as best she could. She wasn't a vain person, but she still avoided looking the mirror. There was no way she even looked presentable. When she had finished, she headed out to the SUV where she found Booth, snoring loudly.
She had to laugh at his appearance; he was nearly comatose. She hated having to wake him up, but they had work to do. She walked to the passenger side and opened the door.
Her brain was barely functioning, which is probably why she failed to notice before she opened the door that Booth was leaning against it. She lifted the handle only to find her arms suddenly full of the dead sleeping weight of an FBI agent.
Booth woke with a start when he started to fall and was caught by Temperance. He looked up suddenly and found himself staring into her eyes. His lower body was still in the car, but his entire upper torso was hanging over the parking lot and he was being held under the arms by Bones.
She had bent her knees slightly to brace herself when his weight hit her, and now she was standing over him, their faces dangerously close. There was a moment when neither moved. It passed quickly, however, and Temperance helped Booth gather his limbs and stand.
"Sorry," she mumbled when he was standing on his own. She yawned and stretched.
He did the same. "Don't worry about it. I needed a good scare to wake me up anyway." They both laughed, and Booth headed off to get a shower.
'How does she do it?' he thought as he walked to the building. 'She slept for about twenty minutes in the back of a car, spent all day yesterday in the dirt, showered and had to put the same clothes back on, and isn't wearing any makeup—and she's still gorgeous.'
After finishing a quick shower, Tempe and Booth grabbed a couple of bagels and coffee from a downtown bakery and headed back to the Refuge. It was only 6:30, but it was already hot. Tempe organized another makeshift team and began her search for evidence. By the time two hours had gone by, she had already had to stop at least 35 times to stop someone from destroying potential evidence.
Booth watched her in amusement. She was trying to be patient, and she as actually doing very well, but he could see that she was tired and just wished everyone would be able to do their job without her having to monitor them every second.
The recruits eventually improved, and by the time 11:30 rolled around, things were moving along smoothly. Booth had been helping with the recovery as well, and as much as he wanted to make progress on the case, the heat of the middle of the day was almost too much to take. He suggested that they stop for a while since it was so hot, and that they would meet up to start again around 3:00 when the sun wouldn't be so oppressive. The makeshift crew eagerly nodded and looked to Temperance like children looking to their mother for permission. Much to Booth's surprise, Temperance looked relieved and agreed.
They hadn't eaten in about five hours, so after he and Temperance had some water, Booth merrily announced, "lunch time!"
Temperance just smiled. The man did get excited over his food. The picked up sandwiches and sat on some outdoor picnic tabled to eat. The island was crowded again; they were surrounded by happily squealing children and hot looking parents.
When they had finished their lunch, they wandered around for a while. Booth's cell-phone screamed sharply around 1pm, and he was told that the room they had been promised was available. The old man explained that usually check-in time wasn't until later, but he felt bad that they had had to sleep in their car. He then lapsed into a story about how he remembered when he was in the service and home on leave his wife, been married 47 years now, can you imagine that, made him sleep in the car, and Booth quickly cut him off. They were learning quickly that people from the Eastern Shore liked to talk. They checked into the room and then headed up to spend the last of their time off before going back to the site in the air conditioning. Tempe called Angela to tell her the room number, and she was informed that she and Hodgins would be arriving around 3:30.
Booth flipped on the TV and sat down beside Bones, where she had dropped onto the bed. The air conditioning felt like heaven. After a while, Temperance sat up and the two resumed their conversation from the night before. Booth was amazed at how easy he found Temperance to talk to, and before he knew it he was telling her stories about Parker as a baby, and about his own childhood, and about how he had played soccer in the fourth grade. Temperance just smiled and nodded at him, encouraging, but obviously amused at his exuberant conversation.
He looked at her sheepishly a while later. "I guess I'm talking too much."
He looked boyish, impish when he said it. His collar was flipped at a strange angle; Temperance laughed off his statement and reached up to fix it for him. "No, you're fine," she reassured him. "I don't mind."
The backs of her fingers brushed his neck ever so gently as she folded the collar back into place. His face suddenly grew serious.
Her breath caught, and suddenly they were in her office again. Staring into each other's eyes, ignoring the passage of time.
They didn't lean in for the kiss; they didn't get the chance. The door handle rattled and they heard a sharp knock. "Tempe, let us in before I kill Hodgins!"
Temperance and Booth broke from their trance and smiled at one another before Tempe stood up to let her friends in.
Booth ran a distracted hand through his hair. Her smiled told him that she acknowledged that had happened, and he was suddenly unsure of himself. He was aware that if they had sat there much longer, he probably would have kissed her. The thought frightened him slightly. 'What's wrong with me?' he thought. He shook his head, as if to clear his thoughts. This was Bones. She was just a colleague, nothing more.
"You made it early," Tempe said as she helped Angela and Hodgins through the door. Her voice was natural and even, but the slight flush on her cheeks didn't escape Angela's notice. Tempe was going to be questioned about this later.
"Yeah, well, Grandpa over here finally let me drive. I swear, he drives like an old woman going to church."
Hodgins puffed slightly. "I do not drive like an old woman! I'm cautious!"
"Whatever, Gramps." Angela surveyed the room. "Well, this should be fun."
Temperance looked around with her. "Yeah, I guess you and I will share a bed and so will Booth and Hodgins."
Booth and Hodgins both shot each other a look. "Uh, you know what, I think I'll just give the car another shot," Booth said.
Angela and Temperance shot him a look. "Oh , c'mon, be men," Angela said, rolling her eyes at the two guys who were now eyeing one another.
"Just sharing a hotel room doesn't make you gay," Tempe pointed out.
Hodgins and Booth both stood up straighter. "We know that!" Hodgins shot back defensively.
Temperance and Angela laughed. "Whatever," Tempe said. "C'mon, Booth, it's almost three, we have to head back to the site."
Booth nodded and followed Temperance out the door.
The recovery of the site continued to go well. Although they didn't find many more bones, Tempe was able to recover almost the entire skeleton of the male. The old woman's bone troubled her; it seemed out of place. She had only found two bones that went with that skeleton, both of them finger bones. Something about it troubled her. When they had finished most of the recovery, Tempe called Hodgins and told him to come down to collect some samples. She had gathered some for him, and had marked where she had found evidence so he could take others. Then, she and Booth headed off the hospital morgue so the Dr. could do what she did best.
Temperance studied the bones closely. They were definitely those of a male, aged 18-25 years. The structure suggested that he had been Caucasian, and had stood roughly 6'0" to 6'4" tall. She was still uncertain about cause of death, do in large part to the fact that the bones had scratches and teeth marks left by animals, but the bone at the base of his skull was fractured and broken, which lead Tempe to believe that he had died of a blow to the back of the head, probably delivered by someone who was shorter than him. She was studying the angle to get a feeling for what direction the attacker would have come from when Angela called.
"Brennan."
"Time to leave the morgue, we're starved and ready to go to dinner."
Temperance looked at her watch. It was 7:30. How had it gotten so late? "Okay, come pick me up." She clicked off the phone. Booth had dropped her off at the morgue about two and a half hours ago.
She called Meg while she was waiting for her ride. She apologized profusely for being such a bad hostess, and swore that she would make it up to her. Meg had just laughed her off.
"This has been some trip, huh? I come to see you, and you're the only one I don't see!" Her amusement was evident in her voice.
"I'm really sorry. I'd invite you down here, but we're already out of bed space."
"Don't worry about it," Meg said, dismissively. "I went by your office earlier to drop your clothes off to Angela and ran into that Zach kid. Turns out for him it's a Friday night with nothing to do. I got talking to him and asked me if I could take him out and show him how to pick up girls."
"What!" Temperance laughed at the idea. That didn't seem like something Zach would do.
"Hey, what can I say? People open up to me. He said he'd like to meet someone but he's not real comfortable meeting new people."
"He was obviously comfortable meeting you!"
They both laughed. "It's just my gift, you know that. People tell me things. That's why you and I are so close." It was true. For some reason, people felt compelled to share their personal lives with Meg. Something about her made people feel instinctively comfortable; she and Tempe had gotten along very well in the beginning for this reason. She knew how to get people to open up about what was really bothering them without making them feel pressured, and she was very perceptive. Temperance just shrugged. "Okay, be good to him. He's the only assistant I have."
Meg laughed. "I'll play nice. He seems like a sweet kid. I'll take him to a bar and he'll find a girl in no time."
Temperance smiled. Meg had no idea how hard her evening was going to be. "Good luck with that," Tempe answered with a slight smile. Tempe saw Angela pull up outside the doors. She said her goodbyes to Meg and headed to the waiting car.
Now is a good time to review.
