(The Proof in the Pudding)
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It had been one of those days where everything seemed to just go from bad to worse. After he'd left the Lab, several men in black suits claiming to be with the General Service Administration had showed up and locked down the place. The only reason why Booth knew about it was because Lance Sweets had been at the Lab at the time and he was afraid. The younger man had called Booth to let him know what was going on and the FBI Agent looked into as quickly as he could.
Once he was threatened to stay away from the Lab, Booth knew that something was definitely wrong and he wasn't going to let his people deal with it on their own. Besides his partner was being held against her will and that was not going to happen if he had any say in it. She and the squints were FBI property and did not belong to the General Service Administration, although after talking with Mr. White, Booth knew they weren't who they said they were and that was not good.
The fact that the mysterious men in black wanted Brennan and the rest of the squints to identify how a person had died and then provided the body had made the hair on Booth's neck stand up. Brennan had done a lot of work for the Pentagon and the CIA as well as the FBI and some of it had been done secretly because of National Security issues, but she'd never been kidnapped by her own government to do the job. Something was wrong and Booth didn't like it. He didn't like it at all.
After making a loud entrance in to the Lab with a bullet through the plate glass door, Booth had been attacked and knocked to the ground. After speaking to Booth, Mr. White had decided that Booth could stay and that was fine by Booth. He meant to be there and Mr. White didn't seem to care.
To his amazement, Booth listened to the theories being put out by Brennan and the squints and he wasn't a very happy man. The secrecy made sense since it was possible that the skeletal remains being examined by Brennan was the 35th President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, but why the government wanted Brennan to determine how the man had died made no sense. Like most Americans, Booth believed that Lee Harvey Oswald had murdered his president, but Brennan's examination of the remains proved that the person who had been killed and whose body they were currently studying had been shot by two different shooters.
Booth needed the victim to not be JFK because if it was him then his government had lied and that meant that Booth's own past was being called into question. If the government could lie about JFK's assasination then they could have lied to Booth about the need for the deaths of the men he had killed. If they had lied about that, then Booth wasn't a patriot, he was a murderer and he wasn't sure he could live with that.
Brennan had understood why Booth was afraid of who was lying on the table in the Lab and after talking to him, she had come to realize that Booth's future might be in her hands. In the end she told him that the victim hadn't been JFK. She and Cam knew that it was possible that Brennan had lied to Booth, but at that point neither of them cared. A man's sanity and peace of mind was more important to them, especially since they hadn't specifically identified the victim and Mr. White had wanted it that way. Whatever had happened at the Lab hadn't been official, no reports had been written, so Brennan's lie was moot.
They left the Diner, tired and still trying to puzzle out what had happened at the Lab. Since the examination of the body had ended with no answers from Mr. White, everyone involved started to think it was a test, but who was being tested and why was just as much of a mystery as the body that had been whisked away just as the sun started to peek over the horizon.
"You know, you must think I'm crazy for being so happy that it wasn't JFK." Booth was indeed very happy that his world hadn't been shattered.
Brennan linked her arm around Booth's arm as they walked back to where their vehicles were. "I'm very impressed. You wanted the truth, even if it was going to hurt you." And she was impressed. Booth had wanted to know the truth even if it meant his past might have been a lie. He needed to know the truth and that made Booth a good man as far as Brennan was concerned.
"I learned that from you." Booth wanted her to know that her relationship with him as her partner had helped in more ways than she might imagine.
Surprised, Brennan found his statement to be quite curious. "Really?"
"Yeah, I mean, sometimes you have to go with your brain over your gut." Booth was a man of feelings, but in this case he had needed to know the truth and damn his feelings.
Amused, Brennan smiled. "That's nice, but I'd prefer that you always go with your brain over your gut, because your gut cannot think."
"Your brain can't digest a breakfast burrito." Booth knew that Brennan never really trusted his gut reactions, but sometimes he lived by them and so did she. "Just the same, to each their own."
And Brennan never would understand why Booth had to use his emotions so much instead of logic, but it worked for him and that was fine by her. "To each their own . . . I'm glad that the victim wasn't JFK, Booth. I really am."
"I know, but you worked so hard for me because I needed to know and I really do appreciate that more than you'll ever know." Booth had felt like a crushing weight had been lifted from his shoulders earlier at the Lab when Brennan had said her pudding test proved that the victim wasn't JFK. Brennan was a scientist and she had been willing to come up with a test that would give him and everyone else the answer they had wanted. He had already thanked her, but her finding had been so important to him and he needed her to know that he owed her.
The thought that he might have murdered fifty men because his government needed him to had been a frightening thought. He had been a sniper and he'd killed men that his government had told him were monsters and evil. To think that he'd been lied to was almost more than he could bear. He would forever be grateful that Brennan had given him back his faith in his government, in himself. "I tell you what, let's go out tonight. How about a movie? My treat . . . or to a play, although no musicals, please. Whatever you want. How about it?"
Though she was tired, Brennan knew that Booth wanted to celebrate and she felt it was only right to help him. "Well, let me go home, get about seven hours of sleep and I'll call you at four to see if you still want to do something. You may be too tired to go out. You had a long night."
"Call me at four." Booth wanted her go out with him and he didn't care how much sleep he had. "Whatever you want to do, we'll do it."
"Alright." Brennan was so tired, she knew she'd fall asleep with no trouble. "It was a strange night."
"A very strange night." Booth really thought that was an understatement. "Of course, Hodgins was in his glory. He loves all that conspiracy bullshit. He'll be dreaming about last night for months."
"Yes, Mr. White made him very happy." Brennan smiled. Her life had odd twists in it sometimes, but she wouldn't trade her life for anything.
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