A/N: As promised, here's your bumper edition to make up for the slimline chapter yesterday. Please, please, please, review! I've been having something of a struggle with this story so I really want to hear what you all think. It warms the cockles of me heart guv'nor… So sit back, relax and let me take you to the magical mystery base that it is Quantico….

PS: Congratulations to my 100th reviewer on this story, Hali. You win…. Well, nothing! But thank you to everyone for the support, especially Ava (thanks for the hangover choir, they saved my life) cos she's just plain ace.

Booth marched down the glass corridor flanked on either side by military policemen. That was the joy of Quantico essentially being a military base, there were always armed men around when you needed them.

One hand on the holster on his hip, Booth felt the reassuring weight of his service revolver under his twitching fingers. He had been forced to take many lives over the years but now was the first time he actually wanted to do it.

He pretended to be her friend then strung her up from a tree, what kind of person could do something like that? And to think, I trusted him. All these years, he was my mentor. Then he makes a move on my partner and tries to kill my friend. He's not getting away with this. He's going to pay.

Brennan was chasing after him, struggling to keep up. Pushing past the MPs, she grabbed her partner's arm, trying to make him look at her. Booth didn't even break his stride, marching on toward the indoor firing range. He couldn't look at Brennan, he couldn't speak to her.

I know exactly what she's going to say. Don't be rash, don't shoot him, don't do something you'll regret... She's been suckered in. She kissed him, for God's sake! And who knows what happened after I left?

He shook his head, attempting to drive the image of his partner and his mentor out of his head. It was simply replaced by his memory of Katie, her feet swinging slightly in the breeze, her lips blue as she just hung there, dying.

Booth could feel his partner's frustration beside him and he didn't care. As much as he cared for her, loved her even, she bugged the hell out of him sometimes. Even so, he could never just brush her aside so when she positioned herself in the doorway to the firing range, he finally spoke.

"Bones, don't you dare tell me to be calm in there. You've seen what he's done, what he's capable of. Just because you and him are having some kind of 'recreational' fun doesn't change what he is or what I want to do to him."

She folded her arms across her chest, her face stern but her eyes full of understanding. Just looking at her, he felt his anger quell a little.

"Booth, if you had ever let me have a gun, I would be in there right now sticking it in his face. But you're the one with the badge and the weapon because you're the cop. So be a cop."

He just stared at her, choosing silence over the barrage of angry words that rose within his throat. She sighed heavily as she stepped toward him, laying a gentle hand over his own, resting on the holster.

"You're a good man, Seeley, a great man. If you do something rash in there, he'll have won. He'll have pulled you down to his level and you're better than that. You're an FBI agent. You have fidelity, bravery and integrity, but most of all you have morality. You believe in codes of conduct and honesty and doing the right thing. Don't let him take that away from you."

He blinked rapidly, looking at the floor. She gave his hand a quick squeeze.

"You know what else you got?"

He slowly raised his eyes to hers, watching the slow smile spread across her lips. He felt a smile somehow pulling at his own mouth as he nodded.

"Yeah. I got you."

She grinned back at him before spinning on her heel and marching through the door. Booth popped the restraint on his holster, resisting the urge to pull the gun out all together. He swallowed hard, every instinct in his body telling him it was wrong to confront Agent Rouse on a firing range. There was no advantage here, no angle to play, except in Nate's favour.

Realising how far ahead Brennan was, Booth sped up, the MPs matching him step for step. One of them cleared his throat loudly.

"Permission to speak, sir?"

He glanced over his shoulder, feeling strangely like he was back in the military again. He nodded at the younger man, turning his attention back to Brennan walking ahead of him.

"Agent Booth, don't you find it hard working with your girlfriend all the time?"

He felt himself stop dead in his tracks. It was only a beat, a momentary pause, but the question had caught him off guard. With all the time they had spent together, all the cases they worked, they were often mistaken for a couple. He'd always just brushed it off but now, in the sterile firing range with the sound of gunshots echoing in his ears, he followed the woman he loved and dared himself to imagine what it would be like if he was able to finally grab his moment and tell her how he felt.

He caught himself in that thought and cursed his own weakness.

How can you think like that now? There are two bodies in the morgue, Katie's lying in a hospital bed and all you want to do is fantasise about your damn partner? Pull yourself together!

He cleared his throat as he approached Brennan, who was waiting somewhat patiently for him by Nate's aisle on the range. Throwing a look back over his shoulder at the MP, Booth kept a wary hand on his holster as he moved forward.

"She's not my girlfriend."

Booth waited until Nate had finished his clip and lain the weapon down on the shelf in front of him, removing his ear guards. Fighting back the anger that burned at every fibre of his being, he stepped forward.

"Agent Rouse?"

Nate turned, obviously surprised at finding the foursome watching him. Eyeing Booth with a friendly frown, he wagged a finger in front of him.

"Are we really back to that, Seeley? My name's Nate and you know it. What's with the armed entourage?"

Booth removed a pair of handcuffs from his back pocket, his eyes flashing with rage as he struggled to keep his voice steady.

"Agent Rouse, you are under arrest…"

He moved toward his former teacher with the cuffs as Nate stared at him in disbelief.

"You can't be serious! What the hell's going on? What am I supposed to have done?"

Brennan couldn't contain herself, her voice loud and angry.

"You killed two innocent people just so you could play some kind of sick mind game with me and then the second that Katie suspected you, you strung her up from a tree!"

Nate took a step backwards, shaking his head frantically.

"Katie… What, is she ok?"

Booth leaned forward, his demeanour menacing as he wondered how he was ever intimidated by the small man cowering in front of him.

"She will be, no thanks to you."

Nate put his hands up in front of him in a sign of surrender, his eyes pleading with his protégé before he turned to Brennan.

"Temperance, please! You know I'd never do something like this."

She just stared back, her eyes cold.

"No. I don't know that."

He rushed forward, grabbing at her arm. Unable to control her rage, Brennan seized his wrist and twisted it painfully, driving it up behind his back as she pushed him away, slamming him in to the wall of the aisle. Blood pouring from his nose and rubbing his wrist forlornly, he was barely a shadow of the man she had been attracted to.

She turned her gaze to Booth who just stared at her, shaking his head.

"See, that's not fair. Why do you get to beat up the bad guy and I don't?"

She grinned sheepishly, shrugging as she spoke.

"Maybe if you gave me a gun then I'd have to be a little more restrained."

"Maybe if I gave you a gun, I'd be the one ending up getting shot. No thanks, Bones."

He turned his attention back to Nate and quickly began to feel the anger rising again. Agent Rouse's eyes widened as he shook his head frantically, backing away from his old student.

"No, you can't do this! It'd ruin me!"

Booth shrugged.

"You think I care about your career after the things you've done?"

Nate's voice sounded like a petulant child's.

"But I haven't done anything, I swear!"

Booth ignored him, the handcuffs held out in front of him.

"Agent Rouse, you are under arrest for the murder of Agent Howard Blake McAvoy and Trainee Agent Joy Anne Marshall, and the attempted murder of Doctor Catherine Helen Harwood. You do not have to stay anything unless you wish to do so, though anything you do say can and will be used against you in a court of…"

Booth didn't get the chance to finish.

Nate, one instant the cowering victim, was suddenly charging forward, apparently intent on taking a swing at his former student. Without a second thought, Booth quickly deflected the blow and ducked beneath a second, driving the heel of his hand into the agent's face and feeling the sickening crunch beneath his palm. Eyes watering, Rouse staggered backwards, though Booth quickly realised he wasn't done.

Panicked like a cornered animal, Rouse flung himself forward, only to get Seeley's knee jabbed in his stomach. Booth then grabbed his shoulder, spinning him around and driving his face into the wall as he finally managed to put the handcuffs on him.

Pushing his captive in to the waiting arms of the military police, he just watched as they led him away. He barely noticed as Brennan sauntered up to him, a glint in her eye.

"Feel better now?"

A ghost of a smile brushed his lips as he properly holstered his weapon and followed his former mentor out of the firing range.

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Angela sighed heavily as she slid in to the chair beside the hospital bed. Staring at Katie, she felt the sting of tears but quickly blinked them away.

She wasn't one hundred percent sure why she was even there. Maybe it was the fact that she knew both Booth and Bren had gone to arrest Nate, meaning Katie would be left all on her own. Maybe it was the fact that the profiler had already lost a close friend in Agent McAvoy to the very man and colleague that had tried to kill her too.

Come on, who are you kidding? It's guilt. Plain, simple, gnawing guilt.

An involuntary shudder crept through Angela's body as she leant forward in the chair, dropping her head in to her hands.

I was the last person to talk to her. She realised it was Nate when she was with me and then she rushed off to find him. Maybe if I'd stopped her, maybe if I'd been quicker to tell Booth…

She caught herself in her train of thought, trying to stop it before it consumed her.

A cough from the doorway dragged her attention back to the hospital wing. Turning in her seat, Angela saw Hodgins leaning against the frame, a look of grave concern on his face, though it was aimed at her, not Katie.

He moved forward slowly, stopping beside the chair.

"Zach said you were here."

She nodded, her gaze returning to the pretty blonde.

"I couldn't leave her on her own, not after everything she's been through."

He laid a hand on her shoulder without a word. She felt the tears welling up again and after a few moments, she placed her hand on top of his. He shifted then, grasping her fingers and squeezing them reassuringly. She smiled to herself.

How, in all our time together before, did I never see that he was always there?

She cleared her throat, swallowing back the tears.

"Shouldn't you be in the lab with Zach and Doctor Reynolds? Booth's going to need evidence to pin that wily old son of a bitch down."

Hodgins nodded, retracting his hand.

"Do you need anything? Coffee, magazine, armed agent outside the door?"

She smiled and shook her head.

"Thanks Hodgy, but I'm fine. Really! Go do your grimy slimy thing."

He moved away but paused in the doorway, turning back to look at her with eyes full of a turbulent storm of emotions.

"It wasn't your fault, Ange. None of this was your fault."

He left her then, not wanting to see the tears he knew she was crying, and just hoped that she believed him.

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Brennan watched through the one-way glass as her partner stalked up and down the interrogation room, his face set in a look of revulsion.

"I just don't get how you could do it, Nate. McAvoy, yeah maybe I can see that. He's a drunk, he pissed you off, maybe he was getting a little too raucous for you. One thing leads to another, next thing you know you got a dead body on your hands. But then you shot him execution style, shoved a load of evidence down his throat and put him on display for all to see."

Nate's eyes were blank above his bandaged nose. He just stared straight ahead, his voice devoid of any emotion.

"I did not kill Agent McAvoy."

Booth stared down at the man he used to respect.

"Sure, he just did all this himself. He got drunk, shot himself in the back of the neck and tad ah! Instant mind game for Doctor Brennan!"

"I did not kill Agent McAvoy, nor do I think he did this to himself."

Booth rested one foot on the chair in front of him, laying a casual arm over his knee as he leaned forward.

"What've you got against Doctor Brennan anyway? What she ever do to you? Because all this started long before she ever shot you down."

Nate flinched, causing Booth to smile a little as he leaned in further.

"That bug you, huh? The fact she turned you down?"

Rouse just stayed silent, staring straight ahead, but his cheeks began to flush red.

"Was that the same problem with Joy Marshall, huh? Did she turn you down too? Is that why you strung Katie up from a damn tree, because suddenly she saw the real you and that meant you knew you wouldn't be getting any from her, even after you got McAvoy out of the way?"

"I did not kill Agent McAvoy. I did not kill Joy Marshall. I did not try to kill Doctor Harwood."

Booth threw his hands up in exasperation.

"So you keep saying, Nate, but I really don't believe you. You're a liar and a murderer and we're done playing your twisted little games."

Nate leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest with his jaw set firm, not saying a word. Booth just shook his head.

"You're a sick, sick man, Nathaniel Rouse."

"No, Agent Booth, I'm an innocent man. I understand the need for this ridiculous line of questioning. The fact that Katie's told you it's me, the severity of the case, all of that is fine. But you… You're actually enjoying seeing me in this position. Whatever happened to the agent I trained, the man I helped create?"

Booth felt his anger surge to the surface as he slammed his hands down on the table.

"I don't enjoy seeing my old teacher in this position, I don't enjoy having to interrogate someone I used to trust. But I do enjoy watching a tiny little excuse for a man like you, a liar and a murderer, squirm under pressure."

Nate smiled up at him, his expression sickly sweet.

"Except I'm not squirming, Agent Booth, you are. And why is that I wonder? Is it because you so desperately want to hit me again? Now why would you want to do that?"

Booth leaned over the table, his face just inches from his suspect's.

"Because you murdered two people and tried to kill a third, all as part of some idiotic game you were attempting to play."

Nate's smile broadened as he locked eyes with his former protégé.

"You don't want to hit me because you think I'm a killer. You want to hit me because you think I slept with your partner."

Booth froze. It was only for a moment but it was all Rouse needed.

"You always were a fool when it came to women, Seeley. I remember what happened with Katie and I heard about Rebecca and your son. You've never been able to make it last and the way you're going, you never will. That's why Temperance came to me. Willingly, I might add. You were never going to be good enough for a woman like her. I mean, even I struggled to keep up"

Booth rushed forward, yanking Rouse out of the chair and slamming him in to the wall, pressing his forearm hard against the suspect's throat, his eyes narrowed in rage.

"Say one more word about my partner and I swear to God I will permanently wipe that smug smile off your face."

Brennan burst through the door of the interrogation room, pulling Booth back and pushing him out into the corridor. Slamming the door behind her, she turned to face her partner, hands on hips.

"You can't let him get to you like that, Booth."

He punched the wall with a frustrated grunt. Brennan couldn't help but flinch.

"Booth, please."

"Please what, Bones? That scum in there deserves everything he gets!"

He let out a long breath, attempting to steady himself. After a few moments silence, he looked her straight in the eye.

"Did you sleep with him?"

Slightly taken aback, Brennan blinked rapidly.

"No. I mean, we kissed but that was all. We went for a walk afterwards down to Hogan's Alley which was when I saw…"

She tailed off, her mouth hanging open uselessly as she remembered the fact that she still hadn't told Booth she had seen him leaving the casino. She snapped her mouth shut.

"No, I did not have sex with Agent Rouse."

Booth was staring at her through narrow eyes. Eventually he let out a heavy sigh.

"Why didn't you tell me you saw me outside the casino?"

She shrugged.

"There's just so much going on right now. And I made you a promise that if you were ever to slip, I wouldn't gossip. It may not have been sex, but it was still a slip."

He shook his head.

"I didn't gamble, Bones. I can't deny I was tempted, more than tempted, but I didn't do it."

Booth leaned against the wall, seeming to deflate right in front of Brennan's eyes as he slid down to a crouch, his head in his hands.

"He pushes all my buttons. He knows how to make it hurt, to turn everything back on to me."

She moved beside her partner, sitting on the floor in front of him.

"That's the only way he can feel good in his life, Booth. That's why he has to kill, why he has to play the mind games. You don't need any of that."

He shook his head, his voice muffled through his palms.

"He was my mentor, Bones. I looked up to him. When I met him, I felt like I knew I was on the right path. What does that say about me? I couldn't see him for what he really is, I couldn't stop him."

Brennan shuffled closer, her arm snaking round his waist.

"None of this is your fault, Seeley. And you've stopped him now. Katie's safe and the game is over. You won. You beat him."

He raised his head out of his hands, his eyes locking with hers. Their faces only inches apart, he could feel the steady heat of her breath on his cheek and he smiled a little.

"You know I could never do any of this without you, Temperance. Thank you."

She shrugged, a sly smile spreading across her face.

"What else are partners for? Though without a gun, I am starting to feel more like a useless sidekick."

He grinned.

"You're my Tonto!"

She frowned at him, blinking rapidly.

"I don't know what that means."

His grin widened.

Same old Bones. Some things never change.

Throwing an arm around her shoulders, he knew he could get through anything with her by his side.

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Katie opened her eyes slowly, staring at the ceiling above. Something was different.

Blinking rapidly, she looked around the room, her eyes eventually falling on Angela's sleeping form, her legs curled up beneath her. The profiler couldn't help but feel touched by the virtual stranger's concern.

Katie smiled, a strange sensation of warmth seeming to envelop every inch of her body. But then the memory of hanging from the tree returned. She remembered the jerk of the fall, the burning as the noose tore the skin from her neck, her inability to scream as the rope tightened. Above all, she remembered the panic, the fear that no-one would find her until it was too late.

But now, all she felt was warm and fuzzy and light.

Her eyes slowly focused on the drip attached to her arm and her smile widened.

I love morphine. It makes everything so pretty.

A strange feeling nagged at her, telling her there was somewhere she needed to be.

There was something I had to tell… Something I had to do…

Without flinching, she yanked the tube from her arm and swung her legs over the side of the bed. After waiting for a few moments for the room to stop spinning, Katie slipped on the slippers laid out by the bed and carefully opened the bag of her personal belongings. Slipping on a pair of trousers and a jacket over the hospital gown, she tip toed across the room, pausing beside the chair.

Looking down at Angela, Katie's smile slipped a little.

Why isn't Booth here?

Swallowing hard, she moved to the door and looked around for any medical staff. Seeing no-one, she glanced back over her shoulder and then scurried off down the empty corridor.

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A/N: Hmmm, verging back to the angst again! Did you get the Tonto reference, did ya? It's cos Booth used to be a lone Ranger, get it? Yes, I'm sad but you know what, I really don't care… Hope you enjoyed your bumper dose. Things should be back to normal tomorrow for chapter 13 (unlucky for some, and definitely at least one of the characters….) Mwah hah haaaaaah! Yes, that was my attempt at an evil laugh. I feel I should point out that it is now 4:49am so I really don't have much cognitive ability left… Me go sleepy now. Nighty night kiddo!