Title: Deja Vu

Disclaimer: Language, violence

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter Twenty-seven: The Real Life

"Why is that bodies seem to follow you around, Bones?" Booth asked as he navigated the unfamiliar roads of the English country-side. A body had been found earlier this morning and Wesley figured Booth would be interested in it. Why he called the agent he didn't say. Maybe he thought the body had something to do with their missing fugitive.

"They don't follow me around," was her reply. She had been grateful for the call to work. It had given her the time to shower and catch an hours worth of sleep. Eventually she would have talk to Booth about why she had flown here. Surely he had already figured it out on his own. Knowing him, he would still want to talk to her about it.

"Are you sure? You show up at my hotel door and an hour or so later I get a call about a skeleton. Seems a bit weird to me," he commented.

"You're drifting again," she remarked.

He jerked the wheel to pull the car back into their lane. "Why do these people have to drive on the wrong side of the road?" he snapped.

Brennan wisely kept her comments, and giggles, to herself. Booth was having a hard enough time driving on the opposite side of the road; he didn't need her to be picking on him. The sun was making an appearance today, hovering near the horizon. Brennan didn't really see the call that England had on people. Then again, she wasn't one for traveling. That was something she did with her family when she was younger. Traveling just brought back painful memories. And yet, here she was, in a car with Booth in England, of all places. She stretched, wishing that there had been more time for sleep. The jet lag was another reason she avoided traveling; unless of course she traveled for the sake of work. Too bad she couldn't convince herself that this was a work related trip, even if she was on her way to see a body. The truth was, she didn't know what this trip was. What was she hoping for?

"Here we are," Booth's voice broke through her foggy thoughts. They pulled off the road onto a dirt track that took them about a hundred yards. Wesley was waiting for Booth when they both climbed out of the car. He looked at Brennan and smiled.

"My, who is this lovely creature?" he asked Booth, nodding in the direction of the anthropologist who was trying to get a look at the skeleton without being overly obvious. She probably wouldn't be allowed to see the body. Surely England had their own anthropologists.

"Wesley Reginald, I'd like you to meet Temperance Brennan," Booth introduced the two. Brennan was only half paying attention to what he said.

"Dr. Brennan," she corrected him, still trying to see the skeleton.

"Doctor of what?" the SOCA agent asked.

"Dr. Brennan is the anthropologist I work with back in the states," explained Booth, giving the British agent a look that told him to keep his mouth shut about the conversation they'd had driving away from the airport. "She decided to take a vacation, see what sort of stuff England had to offer."

Wesley only smiled more but kept silent about Booth's confessions to him only hours ago. "How lucky. Tell me, Agent Booth, is she any good at her job?"

The question actually made Booth laugh. "Are you kidding me? Bones is the best anthropologist back in the states. You couldn't find anyone better at her job."

"Bones?"

Annoyed with curiosity Brennan looked at him. "It's a nickname that Booth insists on using. He thinks that because I work with bones that I should be called Bones. I have yet to come up with a nickname for him that isn't rude in some way or another." She looked back at Booth, a small smile on her lips.

"Ah, you know that you like it when I call you Bones, just admit it finally," came back Booth, with a smile of his own. He was still not sure what to make of the anthropologist's sudden appearance at his door. He wished they had the time to sit down and talk things out. To talk about anything. Had she changed her mind? Why was she really here?

"May I take a look at the skeleton?" Brennan finally asked, her patience running out.

Booth laughed. "That's the girl I know, always about her work."

She shot him a look of concern. Where was the professional attitude of his? Why was he acting weird with her around? Was it because of the fact that she was here? Maybe coming to England had been a bad idea after all. Booth didn't seem to know what to do with her now. She made a mental promise to herself to catch the next flight out as soon as possible. There was no point in staying somewhere she wasn't wanted.

"Go ahead," okayed Wesley. "If you're as good as Agent Booth says you are, I'd be honored to have you look at the skeleton."

He didn't even finish his sentence before she took those last few steps to the body. She crouched down by the body and was instantly hit with a flashback that sent chills down her spine. Once again she saw the charred remains of a body resting between the fading gray tombstones. The ache and frustration of her friend's death came surging back. She put a hand to her head, rocking back on her heels. A strong arm wrapped around her shoulder trying to give her comfort. Turning to look she found Booth giving a knowing look. He took her hand in his and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

"Something wrong?" Wesley questioned. "She can't be a great anthropologist if a skeleton upsets her so much."

Booth shot him a dirty look. "Excuse her for being human, but last time she checked the remains of a skeleton they turned out to belong to a friend."

Wesley wisely shut up, not wanting to piss off the American agent any further. Brennan did her best to force away the memories of that blackened skeleton. She didn't want to see it. She wanted to concentrate on the here and now. With a shaking hand she reached out to the body. Booth let her go to give her room. He didn't exactly feel right comforting her on the job. He watched as she gave the skeleton a quick glance over.

"Female, probably about eighteen- or nineteen-years-old, Caucasian." She gently rolled the skull to the side. "Looks like there was blunt force trauma. May have been the cause of death."

She fell quite and Booth, who had been watching the expression on her face felt that something was wrong. Maybe she was having another terrible memory. He fought the urge to reach out to her. Instead he asked, "Is something wrong?"

"Yeah, there is," she replied, leaning closer to the body. "The bones have marks on them, scraping marks, like some used a seriously rouge sponge or something to remove the tissue and muscle. They didn't want to damage the bones but they wanted to be rid of the flesh sooner rather than later."

Intrigued, Wesley had come over to join their little party. "Why would anyone do that?"

Brennan reached out to pick up a bone. "You said the guy you're looking for is a drug smuggler?"

"Yes," both Booth and Wesley said at the same time.

She held up the bone. "Here's how he smuggled between countries." They just looked at her. She sighed and explained to them. "He emptied the bones of most of the marrow and replaced it with his drugs. If you look at all the major bones in the bodies they have odd marks around the ends; that's where he sawed off the ends to get inside and reattached them glue or something. No one checks coffins as they're shipped from country to country. It made getting the drugs in that much easier."

"Ingenious," Wesley whistled. "I never would 'ave thought to look there. You really are amazing in your work, Dr Brennan." He stood. "I'm going to have my team go through every flight our fugitive ever took and see if a coffin was shipped with him. Maybe we'll get some sort of idea as to where we can find him."

Wesley walked off, his phone in hand as he made the call. Booth smiled at Brennan, who put the bone back on the ground and stood up. "Way to go, Bones. You rock the anthropology world on both sides of the ocean."

Brennan didn't quite understand what he met. "What?"