She had been dreading work, ever since she'd opened her eyes this morning, she'd taken longer than usual in the shower, longer than usual flicking through her daily paper and tried to spend longer than usual queuing in the early morning rush. When her car pulled into the Jeffersonian parking complex she sighed. The morning seemed to end quicker than usual, and she knew that it wouldn't be long until her unwelcomed body would come through the lab doors, and she knew that the body would probably bring Booth with it. She hadn't been looking forward to confronting Booth, but she knew that it was inevitable.

An hour or so later, the body arrived, and as she feared so did her partner. As he watched her expectantly she knew that she had to bite the bullet and lay down her ground rules. So with him hard on her heels, she turned and walked towards her office. She closed the door behind them and tried her best to avoid his eyes, his body language was already showing how defensive and cagey he was being. He crossed his arms and waited for her to speak. She allowed her eyes to flit to his quickly and then walked over to her desk.

"If I am going to do this, which seems likely now that the body is here, there have to be some rules."

She watched his jaw clenching and knew that he was trying to keep his anger in check. "Go on."

"Firstly, no one here knows, or will know, that you had a personal relationship with this woman, I would prefer to keep it that way... the last thing I need is Zack or Jack getting distracted, I want them to be focused 100 on this evidence. " She watches him cautiously for a reaction.

"And secondly?"

"Secondly... I can't have you hovering over me when I'm doing this one Booth. I want to help catch whoever did this, but on this occasion, I need you to keep your distance from the lab. I'll update you just as soon as we have any information, and you know that even then I shouldn't be... I know what this woman meant to you, and that, more than anything is my reason for needing you to stay away from here."

She could see the anger and the hurt that was storming behind his eyes, but he said nothing. Instead he shoved his hands in his pockets and nodded curtly. "When do you think you'll know anything?"

She smiled sympathetically and took a step towards him, as her hand reached out to touch his arm he flinched and recoiled from her slightly, it was barely noticeable, but enough to make her retract her comfort. He glanced towards the door and then refused to meet her eyes. "I'll see you when I see you then Bones." He was already out of the door by the time her exasperated sigh had dried up, already halfway out of the lab before she had a chance to go after him, so she didn't.

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Zack was busy piecing the skeleton together as Brennan helped Jack to collect samples from the victim's clothing, Jack was talking, more for the sake of talking than anything else.

"So why do you think someone hacked this poor woman to death... I mean, she's probably not much older than you.. what kind of life do you think she was leading before this one?" Brennan continued to stare at the clothing in an attempt to locate more evidence.

"I'm not sure Jack... the same as all our victims... leading a life, loving, working... I don't know." She nodded at the clothing "I think that's everything visible. They are all yours."

"Oh goody, I love a good slaughter victim's clothing." He started placing the items in a plastic bag to transport them to his office.

She was ready to pull him up on his comment, but in an attempt to maintain a distance from the victim, a distance from Booth's ex girlfriend's body that was lying on her table, she let it slide. Instead, she moved over to Zack who was placing the final bone. "Good work Zack... any thoughts?"

Zack looked to his mentor and then back to the body pointing to the cadaver's neck... "There are marks on C1 and C2 vertebrae... some sort of blunt rubbing perhaps? I'm not entirely sure yet but it doesn't seem consistent with the way in which this body was hacked, for the lack of a better term... I'll run the hack marks through the system and see if I can come up with an instrument that might have created this type of trauma and I'll compare the rubbings to this... All I can say for certain is that she was hacked post mortem."

Brennan nods solemnly... "Have a look at the skull Zack, tell me if there are any fractures or sign of trauma, I want to get that to Angela as soon as possible." He nodded as she exited the platform and headed to her office, once inside she closed the door behind her and closed the blinds. Closing her eyes, a sigh escaped her lips. She moved to her desk and lowered herself into the chair cautiously, the manila folder in front of her would contain all of the information that she needed regarding the crime scene and how the body was identified as being that of Claire Massey. She rubbed a hand over her face before flicking it over and leaning her head on her hand as she perused the contents. Found with all personal effects... shallow grave... parents identified clothing...There was a picture of Claire inside the file, young, blonde, beautiful and happy.. standing outside her college in her graduation gown. A sadness had filled her, knowing that Booth had lost another person that he loved. She laid her forehead on her desk and closed her eyes knowing that she had to focus, for Booth's sake, and because she shouldn't be with holding details of the case from the rest of her team... they had every right to know that Booth and this woman had been involved, and while it may have motivated them to work faster, she knew that she couldn't risk that speed equalling a mistake that could lose the bastard that did this. Her head hurt.

It was Angela's gentle shake that woke her, and as she raised her head slowly from the desk it was Angela's gentle smile that had startled her into realising that she had slept. "You okay sweetie?"

"What time is it?... I can't believe I fell asleep, I just had a headache"

"It's a little after four thirty.."

Brennan jumped to her feet and looked at her watch as if to ensure that Angela wasn't wrong about the time. "The skull... I need..."

Angela held a sketch pad out to Brennan and smiled. "We decided to leave you sleeping, Zack did the markers... he did a good job, I don't think I've ever done a face as quickly as this one." Brennan stared at the face in front of her before cautiously taking the sketch from Angela. Angela watched her curiously. "You ok Bren?"

"Yeah..." She cleared her throat. "It's definitely our victim." Angela nodded. "Thanks Ange, I'll be out in a second."

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She'd told them all to go home early, expecting to stay on herself, but it wasn't long until being alone in the same room as the skeleton of Booth's past that she decided she too would leave the office behind her for the day. When she got home though she regretted her decision immediately. Angela called and told her to turn on the news, it wasn't long until she understood why.

She watched the reporter standing in the dark, blue and red flashes in the background and rain pounding on his umbrella "A young lawyer was found dead in a hotel room earlier this evening, sources state that this woman was under the protective custody of the local authorities as a result of an ongoing murder investigation, Tessa Banks' body was discovered when her bodyguard entered her room to make a routine check. An FBI spokesperson has advised us that the bodyguard never once abandoned his post according to CCTV footage, and investigation is taking place."

She closed her eyes and sank into her chair. Angela asked after Booth and Brennan advised that she would take care of it as she heard the knock at her door.

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What are you thinking so far? I know it's kinda slow just now, but I need to build the background up a little.