A/N: Yes, I'm back... My sincere apologies for the delay but it's with good reason. Not a reason I can divulge at this moment in time but hopefully I'll be able to share all the juicy gossip soon enough. Anyway, thank you for waiting oh so patiently for this update and I hope you'll continue to stick with me. For those that haven't read the story that this is a sequel to (namely 'The Man In The Lecture Hall'), you may want to give it a quick look as I've decided certain characters are probably going to be integral to this one. Hence it being a sequel... Anyway, please let me know what you think. Next chapter should be up tomorrow or wednesday, fingers crossed! Thanks for reading.

Booth stared at his partner, his eyes impossibly wide as he attempted to form a coherent thought. None came.

He swallowed hard and tried to regain his composure, Brennan's words echoing around his skull.

"I'm sorry, Bones, but you're gonna have to run that past me again."

She sighed heavily, obviously understanding his shock and confusion at what she had just told him.

"It's him, Booth. He was here, right before Angela disappeared. Watch the tape."

As she ran a frustrated hand through her hair, Booth began to notice just how tired she looked.

Her complexion was a lot paler than usual and her blue eyes had lost most of their sharpness. Even with everything else that was going on, he couldn't help but worry for her.

After all, she is my partner. We're supposed to be there for one another, especially at times like this.

He took a step forward, about to reach out to her, but she turned away and returned to her desk, leaving him standing alone in the middle of the office.

And right then, that was exactly how he felt. Totally alone.

Angela's disappeared, I've snapped at Cam, Hodgins is on the verge of a nervous breakdown, I'm hiding an enormous secret from my partner, not to mention the fact that I've been sleeping with her boss basically behind her back. What the hell have I been doing? Angela needs me, just like Bones does right now.

Brennan was hunched over her keyboard as she looked up at him, her eyes red and puffy.

She tries to shut it all away, put her heart in a box, but it never stops her from feeling scared or upset. How did it take me so long to realise that? How could anyone ever think her cold?

She sighed and waved him over to her.

"Booth, you'd better see this for yourself."

He grabbed the chair from the other side of the desk, dragging it across the carpet to seat himself beside her. As he settled down in front of her computer, he realised that his hands were shaking slightly which only served to unnerve him even more.

As Brennan leant forward over the desk to rewind the footage, her leg shifted and grazed against his thigh, sending a bolt of electricity through Booth's body. He tensed up immediately, staring straight ahead as he attempted to ignore the heat of her touch radiating through the fabric of his trousers.

The strange fluttering sensation in his chest reminded him of what the taxi driver had said to him the night before, the way that total stranger had hinted at there being more to Booth's relationship with Brennan than just friendship and work.

He basically implied that she loves me and that I love her…

His heart seemed to be beating faster and faster against his ribs, causing the image of an alien bursting through John Hurt's chest to flash through his mind.

I gotta stop watching late night movies…

He glanced to his left, focusing on his partner's look of intense concentration.

She really is 'structured' very well…

He caught himself in that thought, chastising himself for his distraction. Whatever it was he was feeling right then and there was quickly replaced with an overwhelming sense of guilt.

Booth, pull yourself together! You've got a job to do. Not to mention a girlfriend… Bones is my partner and my friend. Hell, she's probably the only person in the world I trust totally, completely and without question. She's the one who makes it all make sense…

He couldn't help but notice that Brennan's hair was illuminated by the soft flicker of the screen in front of her, creating an auburn halo around her head.

So why can't I tell her about me and Cam? Why can't I admit what's being going on between me and her boss, how that's the reason the big boys upstairs are thinking about transferring me out of here and away from her? Why can't I explain that I shouldn't even be in this office right now, that I'm a liability to our cases?

Brennan turned to look at him and he was caught in her gaze. Suddenly, in the midst of all the chaos in his heart and in his mind, he understood. Suddenly, it all made sense.

I haven't told her because I can't stand the thought of her being disappointed in me. I don't think I can take Bones shutting me out, not after everything we've been through together, not now she's finally letting me in. I haven't told her because then it's all real and it's all happening. Because then I might lose her for good.

Booth realised that his partner was staring at him. Blinking rapidly, he cleared his throat and attempted a small smile.

"Sorry Bones, what did you say?"

She appeared to be resisting the urge to roll her eyes as she turned back to the screen in front of them.

"Just watch."

Booth pushed his fears to the back of his mind and focused at the job at hand.

We've got to get Angela back. And I swear to God, if anyone's so much as laid a finger on her head, I'll tear out their -

Booth felt his jaw drop as he registered the figure crossing the Jeffersonian decked out in the standard blue lab coat with an ID tag boldly fastened to the breast pocket.

Brennan hit the pause button, leaving the man frozen in the middle of the screen with one eye closed as he audaciously winked at the camera. Something tightened in the federal agent's gut.

"But it can't be…"

He felt his partner's eyes burning in to the side of his face but he couldn't look away, he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

"It is, Booth. He was here."

"Do you think he… Did he take Angela?"

There was a long pause before Brennan let out a heavy sigh. Booth turned to her, his brows knitted together in a deep frown. Eventually, she shrugged a little.

"Honestly, I don't know because I don't know what he's capable of. All I know is that right after he winks at the camera, five minutes has been wiped from the secure database. During that timeframe is when Angela disappeared. I'm not the one who jumps to conclusions, Booth, I just examine the evidence. But right now, he certainly seems to be a primary lead."

He nodded slowly, his palms clammy.

This isn't happening. None of this is happening. I'm gonna wake up in a minute and find that this has all just been some kind of nightmare. This just isn't happening.

"I thought Nate had gone."

Brennan's eyes flashed with something close to rage.

"Well, he's back. Just like he promised. And I don't think he's done messing with us yet, Booth."

Staring at the image of his former mentor, the man that trained him, the agent he had respected and essentially revered for so many years, Booth felt sick to his stomach. Finally finding the ability to speak, his voice was barely above a whisper.

"Something tells me he's barely even started."

oo00oo

Zach stared down at the bones laid out in front of him on the examination table, his mind calculating possibilities and probabilities at break neck speed. Not a single one was about the case.

He was thinking about Angela.

The grad assistant was well aware that he lacked social skills and that he could often make 'regular' people feel uncomfortable in his presence by simply being himself. But never Angela.

She is an artist and I'm training to be a forensic anthropologist. They are two highly dissimilar fields yet they compliment each other well, which perfectly reflects the relationship which I share with Angela. I don't feel as awkward around her as I do around most people. I find her comforting.

Zach knew he had to work on the remains of the pair they had uncovered in the park but, for the first time in his long and detailed memory, he couldn't concentrate. He was sure that Doctor Brennan would probably cast down some sort of reprimand for his lack of progress and he decided it would be well deserved considering his inability to focus.

Not that his certainty of such an event occurring helped him work in any way. Instead, he found his gaze constantly wandering back in the direction of Angela's office. He could see Hodgins sat on her sofa, his hands wringing in his lap as he just stared off in to space. He looked scared.

Why would anyone want to hurt Angela? She's a nice person, kind and considerate.

Zach was beginning to find his lack of concentration highly disconcerting so he focused on the second skeleton with renewed vigour.

Doctor Brennan was right, the results of this person's extensive cosmetic surgery have drastically altered the underlying architecture of the skull meaning identification is going to be problematic at best. I need to ask Angela to run a facial reconstruction programme based on the mathematical probabilities of various genetic features for -

Zach's stomach lurched.

I can't ask Angela. She's not here.

His latex-gloved hands hovering above the bones, Zach swallowed hard as he realised exactly the kind of impact the kooky artist had had on his life. Raising his eyes to see Hodgins's hunched and shaking shoulders, he knew he wasn't the only one.

I have to do what Doctor Brennan does, I have to put my heart in a box. If Angela was here, she would say something artistic about making sure that these victims were identified and their stories were heard. So that's what I have to do.

He adjusted his position on his stool and turned back to the remains, focusing on the inconsistencies of the bone markers across the skeleton.

I'm going to identify this body, I'm going to find the answers as to how they died and then ended up buried in the park. And when Angela gets back, she can listen to their stories and help figure out why it all happened, because that's what she does. She's Angela.

She'll be back.