Disclaimer: Don't. Own. Them. (Which is too bad, really.)

Hey guys, I'm back already – and I brought chapter 3 with me. I'm not sure I'll be able to continue updating this regularly, but we'll see. As of now, the ideas still keep coming.

"So, how come you were so cranky this morning?" Booth smiled at Brennan while pulling the SUV on the highway. He noticed he still was in a good mood. That was object to change soon when they would reach the possible crime scene, but at least he wouldn't allow Brennan to spoil his day by being miserable.

Brennan looked up. "Cranky? I wasn't cranky."

Booth reached for his sunglasses and put them on. "Oh, yes you were. You seemed pretty tense to me. Maybe you need a vacation?" He was prepared for loud protest when he said that, but, surprisingly, didn't get any. Instead, Bones sighed and sank back in the passenger seat.

"Maybe you're right." she finally said.

He looked at her in astonishment. "I am? Gee, Bones, thank you. I can't believe you really said that. You giving in like that almost makes me worry about you." He chuckled, but turned serious again when he saw that Bones looked tired.

"Come on Bones. There's something on your mind, isn't there. You can tell me anything, you know that. Has it anything to do with our last case?"

She shook her head. "No." She paused.

Booth decided not to investigate any further. If she didn't wanna talk, fine. She probably wasn't in the mood to let him read her like an open book. Maybe she only needed some time.

After a couple of minutes of driving in silence, Brennan picked up the conversation again.

"Booth?"

"Yeah, Bones?"

"I mean, maybe I really should take some days off. I don't even recognize myself. I've always been someone who was able to work under pressure. But for the last couple of weeks, I felt like things outgrow me. I'm only functioning, like a machine, I don't feel like a human being anymore." She let out a heavy breath. 'I can't believe I told him that' she thought. 'Am I crazy? It's not like he's my therapist or something.'

"That's a normal reaction to stress."

"You think so? That it's normal?"

"Yes. Well, if you look at everything that happend in the past year, I'm not surprised. The thing with your parents, your brother – then the gravedigger, and Howard Epps..."

"You, shooting an innocent clown..." she chipped in.

"Me, shooting an innocent clown..." he admitted.

They both had to laugh.

"I'm sorry it didn't work out with Sully, Bones." Booth finally said.

Brennan bit her lip.

"Don't be. It's ok. He was a nice guy, but we were just too different. It wasn't meant to be. Maybe I'm not really a 'relationship person'."

Before Booth could object, they had reached the exit to the airport and Brennan looked out of the window, trying to find out where they had to go.

"Maybe we should have brought Zach. He should be included in stuff like that. He needs more responsibility, after all, he's more than just my grad student now. He's a full-functional anthropologist."

'Full-functional?' Booth thought. 'Maybe more like a little disfunctional, and full with squinty behaviour, that's for sure.' He decided not to say that out loud. Instead, he nodded in agreement.

"We'll bring him next time. And for now, he can be your backup at the lab, and he can assist you when you return with whatever me may find here." He took a turn to the left.

"Cullen said they found the body on the airport garbage dump. Nice place to end somebody's life."

After driving around the whole airport terrain, the arrived at the right place. There were a couple of police cars standing at the fence right next to a large garbage truck. Cops and garbage men were wandering around. Booth made out Cullen in a group of people who seemed to be airport personal.

They both got out of the car. Brennan made her way through the small crowd to take a look at the remains, while Booth met up with Cullen to catch up on the latest new.

"Sir."

"Morning, Booth." Cullen pointed over to the remains. "As you can see, a decomposed body was found here by some garbage men in the early morning hours. It was stuck in a wooden box, which was thrown into that large trash container. Probably would never have been discovered if the box hadn't fallen out of the container by accident while while they were trying to empty it into the truck. The box broke and out came the body."

Booth turned up his coat collar in an attempt to cover his mouth and nose. The smell of the trash, the remains or both was just unbearable. He shuddered. "So why is this a matter for the fbi, sir? I admit, I can smell murder here – in every sense of the word, I'd say, but why go federal on this?"

Cullen raised his eyebrows in concern. "It's the box." he stated. Booth look at him confused.

"Well," Cullen continued. "The box has kind of a false bottom. It actually looks as if the human body was put on the bottom, covered with wooden shelves, and then the box was filled with whatever was actually supposed to be in there – whatever that may have been. We assume it was cargo, but what we don't know is how it ended up here. Combined with the fact that there are remains words in Spanish on a sticker on the side of the box, we should really find out where this came from. I doubt it originated in the U.S. "

Booth nodded. He understood. "You think our victim here was a blind passenger from South America? I always thought that people smuggling was more of a problem at the Mexican-American border."

"Apparently, we should at least look into that. We also need to know if he or she was still alive when put in that box."

"He." Booth and Cullen turned around. They hadn't noticed Brennan coming up to them. She pulled off her examination gloves. "The victim is male, aged around 20 to 25, I suppose. Those remains need to be bagged carefully and brought to the Jeffersonian."

Both men nodded.

Brennan took out her cell phone in order to call the lab, but then readdressed Cullen first. "Oh, and I need the box and everything that appears to have been in it, for Hodgins." She stepped aside with the phone. "Zach? It's Dr. Brennan. Listen, put the bones from this morning on hold, will you? We have an urgent case coming up and I need everybody's full attention on this. ... What?... Yes, we will be back with the remains shortly."

Booth finally stepped over to the remains to take a closer look. He felt a lump in his throat when seeing what was left of what was once a human body. 20 to 25, Brennan had said. Way to young to die. And whoever it was, no way he had deserved to end up like this.

Whoa, this is getting ugly. You probably know by now who our poor victim is, but there is so much more to it. Stay tuned and make the poor author happy with a nice little review!