*Claps giddily* thank you all so much for the great reviews! This story has been such a challenge; you guys are the reason I've been able to update so quickly. Every time I read the kind words you've taken the time to leave for me I get inspired to write just a little faster:) I think I only have one more chapter to go after this one so lemme know what you think. Happy reading and thanks again for taking the time!

The kids had all eyed Booth with suspicion and Angela with interest as they'd been ushered from the science lab by the vice principal. Until Mr. McBride's family was notified of his death the school wasn't going to tell the students what had happened, but the rumors would probably fly after the FBI forced them to take an unexpected study hall in the cafeteria.

Angela took in an exaggerated breath. "Ah, the smell of formaldehyde in the morning. Takes me back to my high school days. And, sadly, back to work this morning."

Booth wandered into the office attached to the classroom to look around. It was a small space filled with boxes, shelves of text books and past yearbooks, models, spare equipment, several locked cabinets filled with chemicals, a few file drawers and some framed drawings sitting on the desk. Booth noticed that there were no pictures of a wife or any children, just random art.

Angela joined him in the small space. "What are we supposed to be looking for?"

Booth picked up one of the framed drawings. "Not sure. Just getting a feel for the guy."

She turned her attention to what he had in his hand and raised her eyebrows. "Cool double helix."

Booth turned a questioning glance at her as she took the picture from him for a closer look. "You know, a DNA strand?"

"Leave it to the science guy to have pictures of science stuff decorating the office in his science room."

Angela snickered and put the frame back on the desk, picking the next one up to inspect it closer. "This one is a paramecium. Wow, the attention to detail is really good. Look, you can see all of the cilia as individuals."

Booth stared. "You know, just when I forget that you're a squint you say the words paramecium and cilia."

Angela smiled and picked up the last picture. "These are all signed by the same person. M. Dunham."

He looked over her shoulder to see the signature in the lower right hand corner of the picture. "You think it's one of his students?"

Angela shook her head. "I doubt it. These have the look of a more practiced hand. This person has had some training."

Putting the frame down Angela walked over to the shelf with the yearbooks on it and found the most recent. Thumbing through for a moment her face lit up as she stopped on a particular page. Putting the book down on the desk, she pointed triumphantly at the picture. "Molly Dunham."

Booth looked at the picture of the pretty blond on the faculty page. "The art teacher."

Angela nodded. "Seems like she might be pretty important if the only personal touches in his office are her framed art."

He smiled up at Angela. "Let's go ask Ms. Dunham to come with us for awhile."

XXXXXXXXX

"The substance that was used to eat away our victim's flesh was concentrated HCL."

Bones looked away from the x-rays of the victim's skull she was analyzing to see Hodgins standing in her doorway. The look on his face told her that he was still angry with her from their disagreement that morning.

"Hydrochloric acid?"

He nodded and handed her a report that he'd been holding. "The pattern of deterioration on the flesh suggests that the acid was thrown in the victim's face while he tried to shield it with his right arm."

Hodgins lifted his right arm to demonstrate how the victim had most likely tried to protect himself from his attacker. "Given the rate at which concentrated HCL destroys tissue, this would have had to sit on his skin for long enough that it would have been excruciating."

Bones turned her direction back to the x-rays, pointing at a shadowy area on the film. "Not if the victim was unconscious while the deterioration was taking place. This x-ray confirms there was blunt force trauma to the head, which barring anything in the tox screen, is most likely the cause of death. Until we can remove the flesh so I can look at the skull first hand I won't know what kind of instrument was used to cause the injury."

Hodgins nodded tersely at the information and then handed Bones another report. "Here are the results from the soil samples that you found unimportant."

She looked up from the paper that he'd just handed her to meet his hard eyes with her own. "I didn't say they were unimportant, I merely questioned why you were prioritizing them."

"And, in so doing, you questioned my judgment."

She wanted to snap back at him that she had every right to question his judgment if she felt that it was flawed, but she had to admit to herself that she had been unfair to him. Jack Hodgins was her colleague and her friend and he didn't like having his decisions doubted any more than she did, especially considering that his judgment was almost always spot on.

Remorse temporarily cut through what was turning out to be her constant ire. "I'm sorry Hodgins. You are excellent at what you do and I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I hope you can forgive me."

Hodgins was taken aback. Dr. Brennan had never been an unreasonable person but she wasn't one to admit that she was wrong lightly. Her apology was unexpected and almost touching. "Apology excepted Dr. Brennan."

Giving him a small smile at their truce she looked down at the mass spectrometer results for the ground samples in her hand. "Ephedrine, Iodine, phosphorus, ether, sodium hydroxide, methanol." She looked up at him with confusion in her eyes. "Are these things commonly found in a high school science lab?"

Hodgins smiled the way he did when he knew the answer to something before anyone else did. "Some of them are, but all of them are commonly found in meth labs."

Bones' eyes widened. "Meth labs?"

Hodgins nodded. "My theory, based on these facts, is that the victim interrupted someone stealing supplies from his classroom to make methamphetamine and the murderer, caught by surprise, dumped the acid in his face before striking him on the head."

Bones' eyes grew wide. "Booth detained an art teacher from the school for questioning. They're down at the FBI right now. I'll take this down to him so he can add methamphetamine usage to his line of questioning."

Hodgins reached out for the reports. "That's alright Dr. Brennan, I can just fax them to him and save you the trip. Just call him and let him know they're on the way."

She pulled the papers tighter in to her chest. "No, that's alright, I'd rather not interrupt him if he's in the middle of an interrogation. I'll just take them myself."

Hodgins cocked an eyebrow but didn't argue, much to Brennan's relief. It wasn't entirely unusual for her to take something to Booth while he was in the process of questioning a suspect, but in this case it definitely wasn't a necessity. A simple text message would be sufficient, but she needed to see Booth. She couldn't explain why, she just needed to see him.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Bones turned the door handle to the interrogation room's observation area and walked quietly inside. Apparently she hadn't missed much as the agent who'd given her Booth's whereabouts informed her that he'd just arrived with a suspect for interrogation.

Upon hearing the door open Angela turned away from the two-way mirror and, seeing who'd entered, darted over to grab her friend up in a hug. "Sweetie he made me go with him, don't kill me."

Bones chuckled despite herself. Angela had a way of eliciting that response from her. "I understand Angela, you don't have to worry that I am going to kill you."

Stepping back from the embrace they both faced the mirror and Brennan's heart did a little hop skip at seeing Booth sitting opposite the suspect who was currently in tears. Her skin was pale, as was her hair, which was swept up into a funky bun with two colorful chopsticks holding it into place. She dabbed her eyes with a tissue, a chunky glass bracelet bobbing on her wrist with the motion. Her appearance and general demeanor were that of an artistic yet professional person. Brennan's eyes narrowed. "She doesn't appear to be a user of methamphetamines."

Angela lowered her eyebrows in confusion. "Meth? No way."

Bones directed her attention back to Booth, so confident and calm in his element. He was never sexier than when he was interrogating a witness. Well, she thought, maybe there were other times that he was just as sexy.

Shaking her head she redirected her thoughts from their actions the previous night, as she'd done for the hundredth time today, and met Angela's eyes. "Hodgins found traces of the ingredients commonly used for meth production in the soil and the substance used to eat away the victim's flesh was hydrochloric acid. Based on the evidence, whoever attacked the victim most likely did so during an attempt to steal the ingredients from the science lab at the school."

Walking over to the intercom that led to Booth's earpiece, Bones pressed the button so she could relay the information to him. "You need to ask her if she has anything to do with, or knows anything about a meth operation at the school."

Booth sat up a little straighter in his chair, his eyes widening slightly. "Bones?"

The suspect, Molly Dunham, began a fresh round of tears. "There were bones? David's?"

Booth looked at her. "No Ms. Dunham, I'm sorry I was, I just," he cleared his throat. "Ms. Dunham, what do you know about possible meth production happening at your school?"

The devastated woman wiped her running nose with the tissue and shook her head in confusion. "Meth? Like, crystal meth? I don't know anything about that. David would never have anything to do with that."

"Ask her if she's witnessed any kids with burns on their hands or arms. The attacker flung acid at the victim, they could have been splashed with it themselves."

Booth straightened his tie, her unexpected presence clearly rattling him, but he relayed the question regardless.

Molly Dunham blew her nose. "It's a large school Agent Booth, almost 4000 kids. I haven't noticed anyone with a burn, but that doesn't mean anything. If it has something to do with drugs though, I know that David isn't involved."

Booth tilted his head, regarding the art teacher for a moment. Bones recognized it immediately as the look that he got when he was reading her body language and minute facial indicators. "David is dead Ms. Dunham. The victim of a violent crime. The only way you can help him now is to tell me what you know, you don't have to protect him anymore."

She shook her head vehemently. "I'm not protecting anyone, I swear. David would never have anything to do with something like that. He went to MIT, did you know that? He's been published several times in scientific publications. He was one of the most brilliant people I've ever met, and he dedicated his life to educating kids, to changing their lives." She heaved a sob before she continued, her words coming out in a frantic rush now. "He was perfect and amazing and I never told him! I never told him how much I loved him! I was always too afraid that he would reject me. He was the brilliant scientist and who was I? Just an artist who liked to teach kids to draw and now I'll never know what would have happened because he's gone! Someone killed him and he'll never know that I would have died instead! I would have died for him!"

Bones felt Angela's hand on her shoulder and she realized that she'd begun to cry. Suddenly the room was spinning and she allowed her friend to lead her to a seat. Putting her head between her knees she gulped air through her tears, trying to reestablish equilibrium.

Angela got down on her knees in front of her friend so they were eye level. "Breath, just try to breath."

All of the anger and irritation and bluster melted from her with each passing second and she began to shake when fear, heart-wrenching fear, was left in its place. She supposed that it had been there all along, covered up by the fury that had seized her since this morning. Now it was at the surface and she felt like she was going to collapse under its strength.

"Angela," her words were coming out in gasps. She couldn't get enough air. "Angela, I'm scared. I'm scared."

Angela took her hands in her own and squeezed them, locking eyes with her friend. She knew how much those words had cost her to say out loud, knew that she had to say them if her defenses had a chance of ever coming down. "I know you are. You just have to fight through it. You can't run from it anymore."

Bones looked back into the interrogation room, looked at Booth sitting across the glass divider and she allowed herself for the first time to imagine what it would be like to lose him. Now, after all they'd been through and what they'd finally been able to share, what if he disappeared like David McBride, or her parents or Russ? What if her actions had put a permanent divide between them and she'd really driven him completely away?

She jumped to her feet, the room spinning, and dashed toward the door.

"Bren, stop! I can help you with this, you need to sit down."

She spun back to face Angela just as she reached the door, her sobs shaking her whole body in her panic. "I can't handle this Angela! Don't you see? That woman loved a man and she lost him and I can't lose Booth! I can't go through that, I just can't! I've messed things up enough."

Angela had never seen her like this and she was powerless to help her. Temperance Brennan was someone who had to come to grips with things in her own time and no amount of persuasive words or reassurances would work with her. She had to work through her fear before she could come out on the other side. It still didn't make it any easier to stand feebly by, being only able to watch.

"I love him Angela." Her eyes were wide and terrified as she said the words out loud, hot tears racing down her cheeks. "I love him and I can't stand the idea of losing him because I'm too emotionally incapable of handling things like a normal person. I'm too damaged to have a conventional relationship. I've always known that. Whether its today or ten years from now I am going to lose Booth and I can't handle that because I allowed him to matter!"

With that she burst out of the room, ignoring the shocked looks of the agents she passed in the hallway as she dashed for the elevator.

Angela looked back into the interrogation room helplessly just in time to see Booth jumping up from the table and bolting from the room. She glanced at the control board, her suspicions confirmed.

Brennan had left the button engaged to his earpiece. He'd heard the entire thing.