Thank you to everyone who reviewed (and to everyone who didn't) for reading. Hope it's a pleasurable experience because all of your notes sure made my day!

Disclaimer: I keep wishin' and hopin' but they still don't belong to me.

Four

It started the same as always. The audience cheered for her as she climbed up the few steps to the stage with the piano playing the familiar song in the background. Like all the times before she tried to turn around, to back down, to remain in that empty seat next to his but she moved forward inexorably. The mike was suddenly in her hand and although she tried to shout a warning, nothing came out but the lyrics that she had memorised as a teen. Her friends were laughing and clapping, Booth was being ridiculous in that charming way he had as he waved a lighter in the air. None of them noticed that she was panicked and fear stricken. She knew what was coming next. The room was suddenly empty now, only she, Booth and a faceless third person were in the room. The music continued to play although the piano itself had disappeared. Now she waited, frozen. An indistinct sound that issued from the individual behind Booth caused him turn, but now he turned slowly, as though he were under water. Brennan turned wide eyes to the blurred figure at the back of the room, watched as the pistol was raised in slow motion and now the face of the third person was clear. But unlike every other time, the face that met her gaze was not that of the psychotically enraged Pam Noonan but a man whose face was also burned in her memory. His darkly tanned face was pulled into a smile, a stray dark curl fallen over his brow. His black eyes met hers and his grin widened as he pulled the trigger.

"No!" Brennan shouted as she sat up suddenly, her cerulean eyes shooting open.

The dark confines of her bedroom greeted her and she quickly realised that she was not back at the Checker Box. Her back was damp with a cold sweat and she had to focus to bring her breathing back to a steady, even tempo. She glanced at her alarm clock where 2:07 a.m. glowed warmly on the digital readout. Too early to get up. She padded to her ensuite bathroom and filled a glass she kept on the counter with cool water. She took a few swallows and then returned to bed. The nightmares of Booth being shot were nothing new. She had perfected the art of coping with them and usually was able to go back to sleep shortly after she had one. But this new ending was an unexpected twist. Obviously, the case was already getting to her and she dreaded what else her unconscious mind would dredge up in her dreams. She hated that she was being pulled back into a reality that she had worked so hard to put behind her. But the silent call of the remains to find his identity, to find his killer, pushed her onward despite her personal feelings and concerns.

Settling back against her pillows, she attempted to put all thoughts of the case out of her mind and go back to sleep, pulling the sheet and blankets up under her chin. She had just rolled onto her side and closed her eyes when the phone she kept next to her bed rang shrilly. Sighing, she rolled back over and picked it up on the second ring.

"Hello?"

"Temperance," a male voice said.

"Jake," she breathed with a sense of relief.

"I called as soon as I got in. Sorry it took so long."

"I don't care about that. Did they tell you?"

"Yes."

"Jake, you swore this wouldn't happen."

"I thought it wouldn't. I thought it was impossible."

"Did you know this was coming?"

"I swear to you, Tempe, I had no idea."

"Do you know who it is?"

"No, he must have gone around me with this one."

"I thought you were high up now."

"I am, but he still does all of this ridiculous left hand and right hand stuff."

"Right."

There was silence on the other end of the line for a few moments.

"How are you holding up?" he finally asked.

"I'm fine. I'm still very adept at compartmentalization."

"Yeah. So you'll call me when you get an ID?"

"Immediately."

"Good, that's good. Well, I should let you go. I'm sorry if I woke you."

"You didn't."

"Good. Well then..."

"Jake?"

"Yeah?"

"Do they want me to go back?"

"No. Not right now. We still don't know where they are and without the location there's no point in you going down there."

"Ok."

"Ok."

Again, Jake paused, the silence heavy with things he still desperately wanted to say. But instead all that came out was a very tender, "Good night, Tempe."

"Good night."

Brennan hung up the phone gently. She considered getting up despite the hour but her mind still felt fuzzy with exhaustion and she turned back over again. She'd get more work done if she was fully rested.

The next time Brennan awoke, it was with the sunshine full on her face and the smell of brewing coffee wafting through her apartment. As she did a lazy cat-like stretch, she sniffed the air more forcefully and another scent came to her nose that caused her to sit up. Someone was cooking eggs in her kitchen.

Pulling on her robe, she wandered down the short the hallway into the kitchen and was met with an unexpected sight. Special Agent Seeley Booth was standing in her kitchen, holding her favourite spatula, and cooking what looked like an omelette. His black suit jacket was hung neatly on the back of one of her dining chairs along with his shoulder holster that held his FBI standard-issue handgun. The sleeves of his pale blue dress shirt were rolled up the elbow, his neck and some of his chest exposed due to the undone top three buttons. She was mildly fascinated as she watched the muscles of his forearm flex when he flipped the eggs over and continued his tuneless humming. The oddest element of the entire scenario was that she didn't find it odd to find her partner in her kitchen looking completely at home. In fact, it felt perfectly normal.

"You're not wearing a tie," she finally said.

Booth didn't even start. "It's in my coat pocket. It's easier to cook without it."

Brennan nodded and yawned.

"Breakfast won't be ready for another ten minutes or so if you want to get dressed," Booth said, keeping his eyes on the pan in front of him. It was safer to focus on the eggs than to stare at his partner who still managed to look amazing with bed head and wearing a fluffy teal robe.

She nodded and headed back down the hallway. She had showered the night before and thus, went straight to her closet pulling out her favourite pair of jeans, an army green tank top and a tan corduroy blazer. Grabbing a necklace made of large wooden beads off her dresser, she went into her bathroom where she ran a brush through her slightly curled hair and put on a bit of make-up. Returning to the kitchen, she arrived just in time to see Booth pouring cream in her coffee.

"Good morning by the way," he said without turning to look at her. She wondered sometimes how he knew she was there when he hadn't even seen her but somehow knew that she wasn't ready for the answer.

"Morning," she returned and sat down. Booth went back to the kitchen and grabbed the mug he had long claimed as his own, filling it with coffee as well, and then joining her at the table. Brennan gazed at her plate hungrily. Booth had indeed made her a vegetable omelette with two slices of wheat toast on the side. In addition to her coffee, there was also a large glass of milk at her place and a small glass of orange juice. It was like one of those breakfasts she had seen in commercials as a kid.

"Dig in," Booth said, holding his own fork in his hand and motioning for her to do the same.

Brennan took a mouthful and immediately made a sound of satisfaction when the food touched her tongue. Booth grinned widely with self-satisfaction and turned his full attention to his breakfast. The pair ate in comfortable silence. Brennan was so engrossed in her first meal in over twelve hours that she was initially utterly oblivious to the fact that Booth was studying her. His dark brown eyes were roving over her face, checking for any sign that she was still tired, that the case had begun to bother her more than usual, but there was nothing unusual there. He knew the planes of her face better than his own, could understand the slightest eyebrow twitch, knew all the various shades of blue and green that her eyes could be. It terrified him sometimes.

"Booth?"

"Yes?"

"Do you think you could stop staring? You're not as surreptitious as you think."

"Oh, um, yeah," Booth replied, grabbing his milk and taking a large swallow.

Brennan smirked. Sometimes it was too easy to unnerve him. The rest of the meal passed by in unbroken silence.

Taking one last bite, she set down her fork, finished her coffee, and leaned back in her chair.

"So what did everyone discover yesterday?" she finally asked.

"You held that in one for almost an hour. I'm impressed," Booth said with a smile and then wiped his mouth with a napkin.

"You didn't answer the question."

"I know. I was hoping I could enjoy the last of my coffee."

"You can't enjoy your coffee and answer my question at the same time?"

"Not so much."

Brennan sighed, crossed her arms, and pointedly glanced at Booth's mug. He lifted it to his lips but then put it back on the table.

"Ok, I cannot enjoy my coffee when you're looking at me like that."

"Like what?"

"Like you might just pour it down my throat to hurry up the process."

"Well, what do you want me to do?"

"Stop staring at me like that."

Brennan rolled her eyes but got up, collected the empty plates and glasses, and took them to the sink. She shot a look at Booth over her shoulder who saluted her with his coffee mug and then took a miniscule sip. Shaking her head, she wandered back down the hallway towards her bedroom and grabbed the journal of forensic anthropology she had been reading the day before. Returning to the living room, she settled into her couch and tried to read. But her mind had already jumped into overdrive, going over her conversation with Jake, making a list of features to check for on the remains that would indicate whether this crime was indeed the same as the others she had seen.

Booth returned to watching his partner over the rim of his coffee mug. Her eyes had stopped moving over the words on the page before her and he knew that her brain had gone to light-speed, re-evaluating the case that lay ahead of them. He frowned. He hated being kept in the dark, hated to keep bumping up against walls marked "Classified", but most of all he hated what this case had already done to Bones. Her shoulders appeared to be holding up an invisible, immense weight and her eyes didn't sparkle at the thought of some new mystery to unravel. Instead, they were filled with poorly hidden dread. He desperately wanted to bring the sparkle back but didn't know how. Taking the last swallow of his lukewarm coffee, he sent down the mug with a clunk. Brennan looked up at him eagerly.

"Now will you tell me?"

"Mmm, only if you say please."

She rolled her eyes again but gave the required word, "Please."

"I'll let the squints tell you all the science stuff when we get to the lab, but here's what I've come up with so far," he said, pulling out the notebook he kept in the inside pocket of his suit jacket and joining her on the couch. "I talked to the guy who found the remains again but he didn't give me anything more than he already gave to Charlie. I talked to the Park Police who were supposed to be guarding the Memorial. There was a disturbance at the Washington Monument around 7:00 p.m. and they were down there helping out for almost an hour. Assumedly that's when our guy hauled up our victim into Lincoln's lap and turned him into a human torch."

"What kind of disturbance happened at the Washington Monument?"

Booth flipped through the pages of his notebook before he replied, "The cop I talked to wasn't really sure. It was a group of mostly men shouting in Spanish. Said it might have had something to do with the Cuban embargo. Anyway, a few of them got too close to the monument and started a shoving match with Police."

Brennan's eyebrows creased into a frown. "Were they taken into custody?"

"No. One of the men from the group talked the protestors and the Police down. It took a little while but they cleared it up peaceably. The group left a little after 8:00 p.m." Booth creased his eyebrows, "Wait, do you think that group was sent in intentionally to serve as a distraction while our crime was being committed?"

"I don't know," Brennan replied, but when Booth looked at her face he knew she thought exactly the same as him.

"Should we try tracking the group down?"

"No. It's a waste of time. If they were there intentionally as a diversion they're long gone by now."

"How do you know?"

"I just do. The people we're up against are very good at what they do."

"So are we, Bones," Booth said gently. "So are we."

Temperance swiped her card through the security post and climbed the steps up to the lab platform, fastening the last button on her blue lab coat as she did. Booth wasn't far behind her, and went over to one of the rails, leaning against it as he watched his partner approach the remains. It was one of his favourite times to observe her because she was so oblivious and so serenely beautiful at the same time. This was her home turf, the place where she was most comfortable and in control, and it enhanced her already natural beauty.

Brennan stood over the table where the bones lay and gazed at them with her own eyes for the first time. They were no longer black and charred, but instead an immaculate white that shone up brightly at her. She had always found first impressions to be the most important and accurate and as her eyes roved over the remains she took in all the obvious indicators. Male, mid-thirties, Hispanic, just as Zack had said two nights before. She also noted the signs of minor malnutrition, probably in childhood. A healed broken wrist, about seven years old. One of his ribs was cracked, perimortem. Finally, she picked up the skull in her hands. It grinned up at her inanely as she looked closer at its features. He had been handsome, with strong, broad planes to his face. Of course, the bullet hole through the centre of his frontal bone detracted from what would have been his good looks. The parietal and occipital bones were fragmented, indicating that the man had been shot at close range and that the projectile had exploded out the back of the skull. It had been a quick death.

"Dr. Brennan?" Zack said tentatively behind her.

She turned to see that her entire team had assembled quietly on the platform. All of them were looking at her with some level of concern. Looking over at Booth, she saw his expression matched those of the squints. She wondered what she could have possibly done to illicit such looks. Glancing at the clock on one of the nearby computers, she immediately realized why. She had been examining the remains for over half an hour without speaking once. Unusual behaviour for even her. She gave the group before her what she hoped was a reassuring smile.

"So what have you learned so far?" she asked.

The Jeffersonian employees exchanged glances and then Cam, after a silent group decision spoke first.

"As you know there wasn't much flesh left for me to work with. Fingerprints were impossible, but I did manage to collect enough material to test for DNA if we ever get anything to test it against. I did a tox screen and found traces of chloroform. At the very least our victim was subdued before he was killed. He might even have been abducted."

Hodgins spoke up next, "There was very little trace on the remains. Some burnt fibres from what was left of his clothes. The best find was the traces on our victim's wrists and ankles from the rope that was used to tie him into the C-shape in which Zack found him. It was a high-quality nylon climbing rope. I managed to narrow it down to a certain manufacture but unfortunately it's sold in over a dozen climbing stores in and around the D.C. area so it's going to be difficult to track down where our murderer might have bought it. Plus, we have so little left that even identifying the colour pattern on the rope is going to be tough."

Brennan nodded, "What did you find at the scene?"

Hodgins rubbed his hands together in growing excitement.

"That is where I found the best stuff. Old Abe had some great secrets in his lap. I collected some samples from the burn pattern on the marble and the accelerant used turned out to be kerosene. That's why the remains had such a distinctive odour."

Brennan arched an eyebrow, "Anything else?"

"I found some soil that I'm analysing now. So far nothing out of the ordinary but we might still get lucky."

Zack spoke up next, giving Brennan all the information she herself had noted in her examination of the remains. He also noted that the teeth had had some work done and that a gold cap on one of the anterior molars had been made with poorer quality metal than was typical for the United States, indicating that it had been done elsewhere.

Brennan stood silently for several moments, staring down at the remains. Finally she took the skull back in her hands and gave it to Zack.

"You can attach the tissue markers now and then give it to Angela. Call me when you've got a face. I'll be in my office."

The group watched as Brennan left the platform, walked over to her office, and closed the door. The blinds were still drawn from the day before and she didn't open them. The squints exchanged looks but Zack, Hodgins, and Cam quickly dissipated to their own work stations, leaving Angela and Booth alone on the platform.

"Is she ok?" Angela asked quietly.

"It's hard to tell."

"She's not as strong as she seems you know."

"I know. I'll watch out for her."

"Good."

Not much in the way of drama, I know, but I promise there will be more soon. At any rate, drop me a line and let me know what you thought of this chapter. Good or bad, I'd love to hear from you.