In the car ride back to Brennan's house, Booth was getting fidgety and annoyed.
"What's wrong? You haven't said anything the whole way and now you're fidgeting" Tempe states.
"I'm fine" Booth says suddenly. He notices he had just snapped at Brennan. "Sorry Bones"
"That's ok. What's the matter?"
"I'm just worried I'll be out of service for a while so you'll get put with someone else, probably some sleaze who hits on you and calls you sweetheart"
That's such a typical Booth thing to say, Tempe thought, she was shocked. But he was right, she hadn't thought about that, with booth out of action, she would probably be matched with some sleaze bag of a guy who wears expensive shoes and who thinks he's the bee's knees.
"Bones are you ok, now you're the silent one"
Tempe realised she hadn't spoken for at least a couple of minutes now, she realised those thoughts were only in her head and she hadn't replied to Booth's 'being replaced' comment.
"Yeah I'm fine." She says finally.
Then she thinks of something else she forgot to tell Booth about while they were at the hospital.
"You know those papers I had to sign at the hospital?" she says.
"Yeah, the discharge forms"
"Only one of them was a discharge form, the other was the toxicology results"
"Toxicology results? What for?" Booth was confused.
"You were drugged and then shot, that's probably why you didn't feel it when the bullet penetrated your arm"
"Drugged? But how, when?" Booth was even more confused now.
"Well the results said it happened early in the morning. What were you doing this morning?"
"I was out on a case signed to me by the bureau, then I came back to the Jeffersonian and the first thing I did was get a coffee and sit in on a meeting…" He pauses.
Tempe notices his pause.
"What, do you think someone drugged your coffee?"
"No that's impossible because I made it myself from the machine…" He pauses again.
"What?"
"Maybe they did" he says
"But you just said.." Tempe was confused now.
"No, I got up to go to the bathroom about halfway through, and then I came back and finished my coffee. Someone must have slipped something into it then" Booth concluded.
"Ok well if someone drugged your coffee, we'll get to this bottom of this, even if it means sifting through all the froth" states Tempe.
Booth liked her punch line; clever and to the point. Tempe was always coming up with witty remarks and 'punch lines', it was a part of the humour that Booth loved about her. He gave her a witty Booth smile and she returned the favour and continued driving.
They were driving for a few minutes when Tempe realises he had stopped fidgeting, that was probably due to the fact that they had been talking, which obviously kept his mind off his bullet wound, which probably itched like hell.
She decides to engage in conversation once again to keep Booth from boredom.
"So do you think Angela and Hodgins had a good date?"
That was random, she thought.
"Angela and Hodgins went on a date?" he says.
"Yeah, you didn't know?"
"No, unlike you Bones, I'm not in on the gossip circle"
"I don't gossip"
"Uh, yeah you do, remember the time you spread rumours that I was sleeping with Rebecca"
"They weren't rumours, it was the truth"
"Oh well, my point is you don't spread nasty rumours behind.." he stopped.
They were suddenly interrupted by Tempe's mobile cell phone ringing from inside her handbag. She fumbles through the handbag and pulls out her phone and answers it.
"Brennan" she says, again Booth thought she sounded so professional.
Tempe utters a few words to the person on the receiving end and hangs up.
"Who was it?" Booth asks.
"Zach. A couple of kids found a pretty badly decomposed body in a storm drain not far from here." she tells him. She hits the accelerator makes a left turn.
"I thought we were supposed to be going back to your apartment?" questions Booth.
The last thing Booth wanted to gaze at right now was another badly decomposed corpse. He just wanted to get home and relax.
"Yeah well, things change" She tells him. "I promise I'll take you home after, right now I wanna check out these remains"
Bones always come first, Booth thought, was he getting annoyed or was he just impatient because he was tired, he couldn't tell. He just wanted to be on a nice comfortable sofa in Tempe's apartment or in his own bed in his own condo, but he knew that wasn't going to happen for at least another hour or two, or more.
He sat in silence on the way to the crime scene and stared out the passenger side window of Tempe's car, reminiscing of what he liked to call the good old times of himself and Tempe together on cases, always disagreeing on something. Boy he was going to miss those times now his Tempe was going to be assigned to someone else.
He snapped himself out of it, as if an invisible hand reached up and slapped him across the face, what was he thinking, he can't let Tempe be assigned to someone else, he wasn't goin to let it happen, no way, not over his dead body. He and "Bones" were a match made in heaven, he wasn't going to watch some other guy work cases with his girl.
Bones would slap me if she knew I said that, Booth thought to himself, Tempe was an independent woman and hated being referred to as someone else's girl.
They finally arrived at the crime scene. There were already lots of cars and people at the scene, including news reporters, journalists, local police officers, and Zach and Hodgins. Tempe parked her car and got out. She runs around to let Booth out as well but he has already let himself out. She gives him a concerned look. Booth notices her look.
"What? I can manage, I'm not an invalid" he tells her. Tempe lets it go and walks over to check out the corpse in the drain.
She jumps down into the drain which is a large, flat, open area of concrete nearest to everyone on the bank, and then it continues on for what seems like forever according to Hodgins into small, dark, claustrophobic tunnels. It is only when you shine a flash light into the tunnel you can see the corpse. Tempe crawls in on hands and knees to inspect the find; she had firstly put on her coveralls from the trunk of her car for which she used to keep to her everyday clothes clean. When she reached the corpse she was amazed and shocked to find that the victim had been a young female, most probably in her late twenties, she couldn't see in the lack of good light but Tempe guessed she was Caucasian, maybe of Spanish or Italian decent, most probably European. She had seen enough for today. She crawls back out of the small dark space and tells Zach and the Medical Examiners on scene to bag the remains and send them back to the Jeffersonian for forensic analysis, then she takes Hodgins aside and tells him of her findings. While this was going on Booth was watching the body being excavated from the storm water drain and being put into a black tarpaulin body bag. Then he fixed his gaze onto Tempe, who was talking to Hodgins, he still felt nervous about the probable partner reassignment.
"So you're saying that the victim is of European decent and has dark brown or black hair and is female?" hodgins asks Brennan, trying to get his head around Tempe's cryptic report. Something seemed strange to Hodgins about this case.
"Yes, and is probably in her mid to late twenties" she tells him, and notices a distant but sad look suddenly come upon his face.
"What's wrong?" she asks him.
"Angela's cousin Courtney was recently reported missing, I'm just hoping and praying to God that she's not her" looking over towards the corpse found in the storm water drain.