Author's Note: Thank you for all the amazing reviews! I want to warn you in advance about this chapter--I just got finished with a full day of work and the last of my finals, so I was tired when I wrote it. Also, alot of it was stuff I needed to put it, but that wasn't real thrilling. I don't know much about how anthropology and everything really works, so feel free to yell at me if I screw it up. I tried to throw some stuff in for you guys to make the exposition go by quicker :-) Anyway, hope it's okay, here you go...


The four musketeers headed back to the coffeehouse on Main Street. The crowd had greatly thinned; there were only four other people, not counting employees, in the entire shop. The same three females who had served them in the morning were working, and Hodgins had a moment where he wondered how long their shifts were.

They ordered their drinks: a double espresso for Hodgins, a skinny Chai latte for Angela, an Americano for Booth, and a skinny latte for Tempe. The girl with dirty blond hair took their orders again, and smiled when she headed off to get their total. The brown haired girl behind the machine started making their drinks before she was handed the order; the drinks were ready quickly.

They wandered around the shop as they drank. The three employees busied themselves by wiping off counters, washing dishes, and straightening merchandise. The girl who had taken their order headed to the back to do something, just as a guy who looked to be about 21 or 22 came in.

Angela watched in amusement as he sauntered up the counter and placed his order with the pretty brunette. He was obviously flirting; she was obviously not interested. She asked him if he wanted anything else with his drink order, and he replied in a cocky tone, "sure. How bout your phone number?"

The girl laughed dismissively and headed to the register. The curly haired woman, who looked to be about 45 or 50, leaned over to her to speak.

Angela heard her say, "classic or unique?", and she saw the brunette smile and reply, "be creative."

Intrigued, Angela watched the next interaction. The brunette headed back to the machine where she busied herself making the boy's drink. The boy stared at her blatantly as she did so. The curly hair woman spoke.

"Hey, Abby, when's your baby due?"

Angela watched as the brunette, who was apparently named Abby, struggled not to laugh. The boy stood, shocked and staring. "Doctors say I should have it around October," the girl replied, her voice and face surprisingly straight. She handed the boy his drink, and he mumbled his thanks quickly before bolting out the door. When he was gone, Abby the curly hair woman burst into laugher.

The woman with curly hair noticed Angela looking on with amused eyes, and smiled. "You'll have to excuse us. Just our little system to deal with unwanted attention."

Angela nodded, laughing slightly as she did so. "Yeah, I understand."

"So, where are you guys from?" The curly haired woman asked. She had an accent that was a mix of Massachusetts and New York.

"D.C." Angela replied, taking a sip of her drink.

"Oh, yeah? How long are you in town for?" She pronounced "for" as if it were spelled "fo-wa".

"We're not sure, actually. We're here for work."

The woman nodded. "Well, I'm glad you could come in see us. I'm Melissa."

Angela smiled. "Angela," she said by way of response. She glanced over at the brunette, who was now ignoring the conversation, firmly engrossed in a book. The cover caught Angela's eye.

"What are you reading?" she asked.

"Hmmm?" The girl said, raising her head. "Oh—a novel by Temperance Brennan. A professor I had this semester recommended it to me."

Angela smiled. "Hey, Tempe!" she called.

Temperance appeared. "Yeah?"

Angela smiled and took a sip of her drink as Abby put it together. "You're Dr. Brennan!"

Temperance looked at the girl, confused. "Yes?"

She held up the book. "I love your book. The characters are so vivid."

Temperance took a moment to register. "Oh, thank you," she said, smiling, unsure of how to respond.

The girl nodded earnestly. "I had a philosophy professor who told me to read it," she continued.

Temperance paused for a moment. A philosophy professor? Nah, it was too much of a coincidence…"Really? What was the professor's name?"

"Dr. Goode."

Angela and Temperance almost laughed. They explained the strange coincidence to the girl, and the three spent the next few minutes talking. The girl was surprisingly articulate; they later learned that this was because she was majoring in communications with plans to be a journalist. Hodgins and Booth appeared a few minutes later, as did the third employee from the back, and the seven spent a few minutes in lighthearted chat, after which Hodgins, Angela, Temperance, and Booth left.

They piled into their cars and headed back to the hotel. When they arrived, Temperance stood outside and called Meg.

"Hey," Tempe said when her friend answered. "I just met one of your students. She told me you recommended my book to her."

Meg thought for a minute. "Oh—Abby Stevenson. Where did you see her?"

Temperance explained the situation and the two talked for a few minutes more.

"So, how did it go with Zach last night?"

Temperance heard Meg almost groan. "It was unbelievable. He bought a girl a drink and then spent the next fifteen minutes talking to her about the pH balance of alcohol. I thought she was going to fall off her seat from boredom."

Temperance laughed. "So, you're giving up?"

Meg sounded defiant. "No way! He's a nice guy, I'm sure there's a way to make him better at this stuff."

Tempe laughed again, and once again wished her good luck, before clicking off the phone. She was heading up to the room when it rang again in her hand. She glanced at the ID. Brian. She paused, answered quickly, and told him that she was stuck on Chincoteague for a while. She told him she would call him later because she was in the middle of something. He seemed to accept this, though with unveiled disappointment, and they hung up.


The group, minus Angela, headed back to the site at 5:45. Angela was going to find some take-out food and bring it back to the hotel for everyone. Booth, Hodgins, and Tempe arrived back at the site a few minutes before the rest of their ragtag crew.

They worked until it was dark, and then told everyone they were free to go home for the night. Temperance had gathered a few more bones, some that she was sure went with the skeletons she already had, though there were a few that seemed out of place. She would know more fully when she had time to work with the remains. The three gathered their things, told the park rangers to keep the area sealed, and headed back to the hotel. Booth would go to the police station and gather missing person's records tomorrow.

Angela had bought Chinese food, and they ate hungrily. When they were finished, they took turns in the bathroom, and soon it was time to go to bed. Hodgins and Booth both stared at one another. Then, Hodgins moved and placed his arm firmly around Angela's waist.

"I think I'll sleep with Angela tonight," he said, as if the idea had just come to him.

Booth nodded, thinking only about the fact that this meant he wouldn't be sleeping with Hodgins; he neglected to think that this meant he was sleeping with Temperance.

He realized it quickly however, when Temperance stood beside him. "Oh," he said, suddenly feeling awkward. Hodgins and Angela were already snuggled under the covers; they couldn't quite see the way Angela was staring and grinning as she watched.

She just shrugged. What were their options? No other rooms were available yet. They climbed into bed, both extremely careful not to get to close to the middle, and turned out the light.


Booth woke around 3:00am. His groggy mind registered a warm body, smelling vaguely of fresh scented soap and the ocean, pulled tightly against him. Even in his sleepy haze, he knew the smell of Bones. His Bones. He wondered for a moment why she was lying so close to him; she was on her side and he was spooning her, much as Hodgins had been spooning him the night before. His face was buried in her hair, his mouth close to her ear. A moment later, he figured out why they were lying so close together. They were all the way on her side of the bed—apparently she hadn't moved much during the night—and his arms were clutching tightly around her waist, molding her to him. It was the closest he had ever been to Bones. He smiled, sadly. The only reason he was this close even now was because she was unaware of him. He tightened his arms, and kissed the exposed skin where her hair had fallen away, between her ear and her hair line. She slept on, unaware, and his tiredness took over, as he was reluctantly pulled from awareness.


Angela awoke first in the morning, and the first thing she did was look over at the bed where Temperance and Booth lay sleeping. She felt disappointed. Their sheets were in disarray, so obviously they had moved in their sleep during the night, but they were lying on opposite sides of the bed, not touching. She sighed, wondering why the two of them just couldn't get it together. Somehow she had thought that if they woke up in each others arms, they would realize how right they were for each other. Okay, so it was a little fairy tale-ish, but that didn't stop Angela from hoping. She sighed and headed to get the first shower.

The rest of the group awoke slowly and showered and dressed as well. They headed back to the coffeehouse for morning beverages. The curly haired woman had been replaced by a more heavy-set woman who looked to be about 55 or 60, but the other two girls were working again. They got their drinks, exchanged some quick morning banter, and headed off.

Booth and Angela dropped Hodgins and Temperance off at the refuge. Since they were the two members of the group who were actually trained to do recoveries, it had seemed logical. Angela rode with Booth to the police station to work on getting missing person's reports. She was good with people and had good instincts, so Booth had been happy to let her come along.

The Chincoteague police department was a small operation, but there were still a few hoops to jump through before Booth and Angela could get the information they wanted. After a while, they managed to get to the right person who, supposedly, could get them what they needed.

Booth handed the haggard looking man the information Temperance had given him. He accepted it, gruffly, and began working on pulling up information.

The search criteria Temperance had provided had been fairly vague, but even with this fact Booth hadn't expected to have so many results. The computer pulled up name after name, and finally Booth had to speak up.

"All of these people went missing from this little island?"

The officer regarded him with boredom. "Most of them aren't local." He shrugged. "Kids ages 16-23 run away all the time; their looking for freedom or something. So, family takes a vacation, the kid sees an opening, and bolts. It happens more than you'd think."

"Obviously," Angela said quietly as she watched the names fill the screen.

Eventually, Booth and Angela had a thick stack of information. "Anything else you can give us? Any history of a sudden spike in missing persons or anything that would suggest a killer working the area?"

The officer shrugged. "It ebbs and flows."

Angela felt herself grow irritated with the officer's bored attitude. These were people, and most of them were just kids. How could he be so calm? A glance at Booth showed he was having similar thoughts.

The officer's eyes brightened for a moment, remembering. "Oh, wait. We did have one thing, a couple of years back. A couple of girls went missing. We still don't know if the cases were related, but one was found. She had been raped and killed, though we weren't sure in what order. Some sick bastard shoved her in a trash bag and left her near the marsh. Never caught the guy."

"DNA?" Booth queried.

"Didn't leave any. I have no idea how that's possible, but that's what I was told. Girl's name was Hannah something." He clicked a few strokes on the computer and a few minutes later the ancient printer groaned out another sheet. The officer added it to Booth's stack. Booth and Angela thanked him and left.

It was about 1:30 when Booth and Angela were finished, so they headed back to the site where they found Temperance and Hodgins still hard at work.

Hodgins stopped what he was doing and approached them when they arrived. Temperance continued what she was doing.

"Found the remains of one more person. We think the extra bones we found yesterday go with them, though."

"Which brings the grand total to what?" Booth asked.

"Including the first things you found? One boy, three girls, and one old lady."

Temperance approached then. "What did you guys find?"

Angela and Booth went through their day as Hodgins and Tempe listened.

After they were finished, Hodgins spoke. "I'm going to need a lab to work on the soil samples."

Booth nodded. "I'll call around. Maybe NASA has some facilities we can use."


NASA did, in fact, have facilities that would work, and after going through a lot of authorization with Cullen and the FBI, Booth had secured the location. The bodies could be sent their as well; Booth wondered for a moment why a space center could double as a morgue, but pushed the thought away. Who cared? They had a base for operations now.

The group headed to the base around 6:00pm, after everything had been worked out and transported. Hodgins and Temperance were busily working on setting things up for their work, while Booth and Angela looked on. There wasn't much they could do yet. Once things were ready to go, Hodgins and Temperance dove into their work. Temperance began sorting bones why Hodgins studied miniscule specks of dust under a microscope. Angela moved over to where Tempe was standing and began studying the bones, making notes. Any information could be useful when she was trying to recreate what the victim looked like later. With nothing really to do, Booth sighed and dropped to a nearby table, where he began studying the files he had received that morning.

The four worked steadily for hours, making comments to one another as things caught their attention. By 10:30pm, they were all tired. They decided to call it a night. Temperance had made some good progress with the bones, and they had been able to narrow down some of the files. Facial reconstruction would help immensely. They packaged a few things, prepared to send a few things off for further analysis, and finally headed back to the hotel.

When they arrived, the old man who had met Temperance and Booth on the first night was working again. "Good news!" he said in a merry voice when he spotted the group. "Another room is open. It's yours, if you want it."

"We want it," the group said quickly. Sharing one bathroom was getting old.

The room had two beds in it, just like the first room, though it was a floor higher. After some deliberation, Angela and Hodgins decided to take one room while Tempe and Booth took the other. They worked out the payment of the room, the keys, and moving of their stuff, before ordering a quick dinner and retreating to their rooms.

Booth eyed Temperance as they settled in that night to go to sleep. She still had no idea about how he had held her the night before; he, on the other hand, had thought about it all day. It was so comfortable to have her near him. He had felt like he was at home.

They said goodnight to one another, each dropping into a separate bed. 'She's a work associate,' he said to himself as he watched her close her eyes. 'That's it.'

He knew this wasn't true. He knew she was slowly beginning to creep into his thoughts more and more often. He knew she meant more to him than just a colleague. He sighed. What was happening here?

She opened one eye and caught him staring at her. "Can't sleep?"

He smiled tightly. "No. You either?"

She smiled. "Not really."

He was infected by her conspiratorial smile and felt it spreading to his face. He knew she was remembering their night in the car, how they had talked all night long. He mentally shook his head. Only she could make a night were they had talked, not even facing one another, seem sexy.

They fell into an easy conversation, and eventually Booth left his bed and sat beside her on hers. His sheets were barely moved; he hadn't laid on them long enough. Sometime, in the middle of the night, she grew quiet and he heard her breathing slow. He wanted to reach out and touch her, to kiss her head, but he didn't. He just rose, crossed over back to his bed, and struggled to fall asleep.


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