Disclaimer: Normally this would be witty and amusing but right now I'm tired so just refer back to one of the other chapters.
Bones was struggling to wrap her head around the entire situation. It wasn't s feeling she was familiar with being a genius.
She had spent nearly the entire flight back to D.C trying to relate Michael Westens group functions to an anthropological standpoint. However she hadn't been able to identify any lines of influence.
Michael was clearly in charge. He fell into the alpha male leadership position in almost exactly the way that Booth did. He didn't act like he had chosen a leadership position, he didn't even seemed like he enjoyed it very much. To Dr. Brennan's eye he looked like someone who had been unofficially voted into the leadership position without knowing he had been elected, and then hadn't been given the opportunity to consider whether or not he actually wanted the job.
Mr. Axe appeared to Brennan as the automatic second to Michael. However, he didn't look like the type of second who would ever plan a hostile take over. He was more like the second who gave advice and was ready to step in if Michael wound up dying. Brennan had then tried to analyze Jesse and only managed to work out that he had merely not been given the quality to automatically vote him in to leadership where Michael had.
Madeline appeared to be the only one who had the ability to force the others to take care of themselves. She had also tried to analyze Fiona but had concluded that, from an anthropological stand point, there was no way in HELL that it was possible. It just couldn't be done.
She had had more luck when she tried to analyze the NCIS team. They had a structured team. Gibbs was the leader like Booth but he didn't seem to have any of the sense of humor that Booth did, or it would seem the harsh, dry, irony that Michael used to pass for humor. If you looked at it like a family then Gibbs was definently the father.
Using that medifore Tony was the goofy, protective, oldest son and McGee would be the geeky younger brother. Bones had spent a bit more time on Ziva but had worked out that the closest thing she could be compared to was the oldest brothers girlfriend who was also the adopted daughter.
All groups worked in seamless teams. Bones just wondered how they would all work together.
"Hiya Bones." Booth said as he slid into his seat next to her. "What's up?"
"Not much." Bones replied and then stopped for a moment considering. "We are at quite a high altitude and descending so the chances of their being anything above us are slowly increasing"
"I meant in your head Bones." he clarified.
"Oh, then I was considering the anthropological dynamics of the groups of people we are supposed to work with for an undefined amount of time." she explained.
They chatted idly about the cases they had waiting until the plane touched down on the tarmac.
Michael was feeling extremely edgy. He had barely left Miami for 8 years. He hadn't been allowed to, and now he was back in D.C. Which wasn't bad in it's self. He knew the city lay out, and after traveling across over half the world every city was pretty much the same. What made him uncomfortable was the amount of people in D.C. who he had both worked with, killed, and nearly been killed by. That wasn't so bad either, he had worked long enough in intelligence that the 'Kill Michael Westen' bandwagon was getting pretty crowded. It just happened to be true that a lot of the people on that bandwagon resided in D.C.
He was jerked from his slightly brooding thoughts by Fiona's arrival. She rubbed his shoulders lightly. "What are you thinking?" she asked.
"Wondering how much trouble we're going to run into." he replied in a low voice.
"Oh don't be." She answered casually. "Besides if we do run into trouble, I have a sweet little block of C4 that I have been dying to break in."
"Fi this is serious."
"Relax Michael." She answered rolling her eyes.
"We'll be in D.C. The only other place that wants me dead more then here is Russia." he commented.
Fiona plonked down on his lap and looked at him sternly. "Michael. As your fiance I forbid you from worrying about such trivial things. Now, I have a wedding to plan and you have my wedding to pay for."
Michael smiled and picked up his hand to examine the ring residing comfortably on her finger.
"It's a beautiful ring Michael." She told him.
"I'm glad you like it." he replied.
Fiona glanced quickly around the plane. The government had actually sprung for a private flight for all of them because it cleared them from having to explain Michael's lack of ID. And Job history. And general life documentation. Not to mention the rather thick interpole files with their names on them. Fi kissed Michael for a moment before jolting at the rustle from Madeline's steps.
"Oh don't you ducks stop because of me." Maddy said as she kept walking. "I'm just happy to see the two of you so happy together!" She slipped quietly away.
"Oh Michael! That's another thing for you to think about!" He looked at her questioningly. "You haven't told your mom yet!"
Michael's head could have broken a board with they amount of force that went into it hitting the seat back as he groaned in dismay.
"There there." Fiona said. She patted his arm soothingly as Michael added this to his mental list of 'Thing's not to tell Mom for a while' list. Sadly, that list was getting pretty extensive.
"This is your captain speaking. We are beginning our decent into D.C. Please return to your seats and restore them to your previous upright position." Came a crakly voice over the intercom.
Michael pulled up his seat but kept his eyes firmly closed. He opened them when his phone started to ring. He looked at it in confusion for a minute. Only five people hed ever been given the number for that phone and four of them were in that plane. The fifth one had been Nate, and he was most definently dead. Michael frowned and checked the caller ID. He didn't recognize the number.
He flipped it open. "Who are you and how the hell did you get my phone number." he asked bluntly into the receiver.
The whole plane cabin went silent as every occupant listened into that end of the conversation.
"Umm is this Michael Westen?" Asked a high female voice that rung a very distant bell in Michael's memory.
"That depends. Who the hell are you?" he asked again. He ignored the memory bells in favor of the alarm ones.
"Michael? If that is you, this is- well this is-"
"Spit it out whoever you are." Michael prompted impatiently.
"This is your brothers ex-wife."
She was met with absolute silence as Michael tried to process this.
"Michael? Michael? This is Ruth."
Michael's brain had taken a lot. He was stressed, worried, tense, and he hadn't slept longer than 4 hours at a time in almost two weeks. Really he couldn't be blamed for his brain's absolute refusal to process any type of new information. The information simply refused to compute. He did the only thing his brain could come up with under the circumstances. The only option his brain could even get around to processing.
So idiotic and potentially life threatening as it could have turned out to be, he blinked repeatedly for a moment. And handed the phone to Fiona.
A/N: So? What are you waiting for?! Do some freaking reviewing!