Brennan sat with Angela in the front row, watching Booth give his speech. She didn't really hear the words; she was still drugged for the pain, but the meaning was clear, and tears welled in her eyes as he stepped back down from the plinth and sat in the empty seat beside her.
'That was beautiful.' Angela leaned over from her other side to say, and Booth nodded, his faint smile not reaching his cheerless eyes. Brennan tried to smile encouragingly, but somehow found her face muscles wouldn't obey her. She stared dumbly at the black coffin being lowered into the hole, draped in the Stars and Stripes.
The priest was finishing the sermon with a few words that none of them heard, their attention held by the plain black coffin. Booth and Brennan had only known Rod for a few hours - and Angela not at all - but they all knew of his courage in not only protecting them, but in preventing a murderer from killing again.
The rest of the service played out as they sat in silence on the front row. As it came to an end, and the last of his friends and family filtered out of the graveyard, Brennan found herself getting to her feet as if in a daze. She stopped in front of the grave for a few seconds, Booth silent at her elbow.
'Hey.' He said softly after a while, and she blinked away her tears to glance at him. His face was hard.
'Hi.'
'You need a ride home?' She nodded, giving her friend's grave a final glance before letting Booth lead her away. Angela shot her a small smile as they passed, but Tempe couldn't return it. She opened the door on the passenger side, but Booth shook his head, nodding at the other seat. Amazed, Brennan crossed to the other side and slid behind the wheel of the SUV.
'You're actually letting me drive?' She said uncertainly to Booth as she started the engine, and he flashed her his grin before taking his cell phone out of his pocket. It was buzzing.
'Booth.' He answered, looking pointedly at Brennan until she looked back at the road. He listened for a few minutes as Brennan carefully steered the vehicle onto the main road, then snapped his phone shut.
'Change of plan, Bones.' He rattled off an address on the other side of town, and she immediately switched lanes, swinging the car in an arc, which seemed to annoy everyone else on the road.
'FBI!' She hollered out the window. 'Don't make me shoot you!' She shot the smirking Booth a disapproving look. 'What did they find?'
Booth instantly switched back into FBI mode. 'It's hard to tell, exactly. The body is burnt beyond recognition, so they, uh, called us. You up for a challenge?'
Brennan flashed him a grin of her own as the SUV zoomed down the road. 'Always.'