Chapter 2

"You're going where?" Angela Montenegro poked her head into Temperance Brennan's office with her hands on her hips and a particularly stunned expression on her face.

Brennan rolled her eyes and continued to shove objects on her desk into a bag that was opened on her chair. "Berlin. A doctor from Chicago got blown up outside the International Diagnostics Conference and Booth got assigned to the case. The guy was decimated. Hence why they need me."

Angela stepped deeper into her office. "And you seem bitter because…?"

Brennan looked up. "I have got a lot of work to do. And we'll get over there, and I'll figure out who the guy is within a couple of hours and then I'll be stuck in Germany til Christmas Eve while Booth solves the case," she replied, grabbing a large file off her desk and putting it into her bag.

Angela smiled. "Only you would be upset about going to Berlin at Christmas."

Brennan zipped up her bag and placed it on top of her desk. In actual fact, going to Berlin didn't bother her as much as she had let on. The thing that was bugging her most was that she was going to be spending Christmas, or the lead up to Christmas in a foreign country with the only person she knew being Detective Seely Booth.

She would much rather spend it in her office at the Jeffersonian Medico lab forking through the boxes of unidentified bones that lay in the room next to hers. It was her safe haven; the place she knew she could always go to, especially at Christmas. Since her parent's disappearance when she was 15, she had spent Christmas by herself.

She wasn't sure if she found the notion of that safe or familiar.

Booth stepped into her office, his customary black sunglasses in his hand and a large bag in the other. He had a particularly annoying smirk on his face which annoyed Brennan.

"You ready to go?" He asked her, nodding at Angela as a smile creeped onto his face.

Angela looked at her and grinned.

Brennan kept the roll of her eyes to herself and picked up her bag. Taking one look at Booth's gleeful expression, she smirked and nodded, squeezing Angela's arm as she walked past her and Booth, out the door.

"Have fun…" Angela's voice called out to her warily. Brennan waved her hand at her, hearing Booth walk up behind her.

She couldn't help but feel apprehensive.

X

"So what's the deal? You've spent the entire flight banging in my ear about Berlin, but have failed to mention the case," Brennan stepped out of the cab outside the Estrel conference centre and placed her bag on the cement.

"I didn't want you to overreact," Booth replied simply, putting his sunglasses on and sticking a note at the driver.

Brennan glared at him. "Overreact about what?"

"There have been talks … about who the guy is. Who got blown up. There were a few eye witness accounts, several people got injuries. It is a pretty serious thing, Bones," Booth said, slinging his bag over his shoulder and nodding his head in the direction of the building.

"So why am I here?" Brennan barely managed to keep the annoyance out of her voice as she stared at him, before walking towards the Estrel. The front of the building showed the distinct sign of being burnt. A large hole was burnt out of the side, obviously from the explosion. Police tapes and officers were positioned at the 'entrance'.

"Because, Bones, we need to make sure that the guy they think was blown up was the actual guy who was blown up. We've done stuff like this before. Besides, I thought you liked doing all this detective stuff," He nudged her in the ribs with his elbow and she smiled softly.

"Ok. So who's the guy they think it is?" Brennan asked, as Booth led the way into the centre, showing his badge to the security guard. He nodded, opening up the tape to let Booth and Brennan in.

"Nathan Evans. 32. A practicing diagnostician at Chicago general. He seemed to be alone at the conference, although," Booth looked at the clipboard he pulled out of his bag, "was seen to be talking to a male and a female before he left the building and the explosion erupted."

She ignored Booth's predictable 'Ugh' when she walked up and slid into to the blue tarpaulin which was obviously in place to keep people from seeing the rather gruesome remains. She bent down, eying the arm and leg which was burnt down to the bone in front of her. Brennan held out her hand and Booth gave her the bag which contained all the objects she needed. Pulling on the latex gloves she picked up the decimated remains of the man and eyed them.

"Definitely male from the size of the bone, I'd say in late 20's to early 30's …" Brennan picked up a plastic bag and dropped the arm into the bag.

"What are you going to do with that?" Booth asked her, eying the arm.

Brennan didn't reply, but grabbed her camera out of her bag and flipped the lens switch. She took several photographs of both the bones and the area to which they were lying.

"I'll beam the photographs to Zack and let him work on that while I …" she looked around at him. "Does there happen to be an anthropology lab around here somewhere?"

X

House sat in the corner of the restaurant, picking at his sandwich in front of him. It was barely 12pm, and the room was rather busy for a conference. Today's lectures had been postponed til tomorrow morning, not that House cared at all. He cocked his head to the side and peered out into the lobby. There was a new bunch of police officials gathered around the lobby, and around the fluorescent tarpaulin which contained the … bits of … he had an inkling of who it was. There had been whispers. Talk. And he wasn't sure exactly how he was supposed to feel about it.

Cameron, on the other hand, had been particularly quiet since last night. After the initial explosion, the room went into chaos when people realised what had happened. When everything had calmed down slightly, she had left abruptly.

He wasn't sure why he was so … he wasn't worried.

He took a large bite of his sandwich when Cameron came up, and sidled into the seat opposite him. He placed his sandwich down and stared at her. She looked like crap. A mix of jet lag and the fact that she looked like she hadn't slept all night. She was dressed in a simple pair of black pants with a red jumper. Her hair was tied up in a bun loosely, stray curls framing her face. She looked up at him.

"What's up?" House asked, almost awkwardly. He hated her complexity.

She smiled softly. "What's up? What's up. Only you would ask me what's up after what happened last night."

"Well what else am I supposed to say?" House asked, annoyance etched in his voice.

Cameron didn't reply, but looked down at the table, fingering the tablecloth absentmindedly. He knew she was beating herself up over this. Even though he had no clue, which was killing him, who Nathan was, he could tell that he was someone important. Was someone important. He wanted to know who he was.

"Cameron … Who-"

"Don't," her voice was soft, yet he could hear the finality in her tone. He looked away, rolling his eyes and leaning back in his chair as he redirected his gaze to the table.

"Dr House?"

House and Cameron both looked up simultaneously to see a rather tall bulky man standing before them. He was wearing a black suit, with black sunglasses on his head. House stared at him and Cameron looked at House, a bemused expression on her face.

"I'm going to need to ask you a few questions," the man said simply, taking off his glasses and sliding them into his pocket.

House smirked. Somehow, he had known this was coming.

X