They just stood like that for a few moments, eye-to-eye, the only thing separating them a plate-glass window.
Booth's neurons were firing furiously, debating about the next course of action.
Arrest her!
But I came here to talk to her.
She's a thief!
Well, she didn't kill anyone. That's more than can be said for Delaney and Harper—who are both dead.
Your personal relationship is messing with your views!
I don't care.
Arrest her!
Talk to her!
It's unethical!
She could help me.
She could shoot you.
She's not going to shoot me.
You didn't see the criminal thing coming either.
His secondary brain cells paused for a moment before thinking up another response, Yeah. But she still didn't shoot me.
A mental eye-roll and his logical side went mute.
The synapses passed, and his mind cleared.
Brennan was standing opposite him, her hands still tucked inside of her tan trench coat. A turquoise necklace was framed by a swirl of auburn hair, the silver chain catching some of the light and throwing it into her eyes. She was still frozen in the position she had been in since seeing him, but her eyes had changed. The shock had gone away, and he could see defiance and irritation beginning to burn through those cool gray irises. But behind those two overpowering emotions he glimpsed something else. It almost looked like sadness.
That third emotion bled through her actions as she slowly lifted a hand from her pocket and reached for the door.
In only moments she was beside him once more, for the first time in several weeks, and Booth knew he wouldn't do anything. If she were to run, he wouldn't chase. No matter how illogical, he wouldn't be the one to pull out the gun.
She looked at him, her jaw clenched ever so slightly, and opened her mouth to speak, "What are you going to do with me?"
He met her eyes and paused, "Nothing, Temperance. I won't do a thing."
--
Brennan stared into the dark depths of Booth's eyes, slightly taken aback by the use of her name. Her real name. The one that seemed to define who she was. She could read the pain in his features, as she was sure he could read it in her own, but wasn't sure what to say.
So instead they just started walking along the street—shoulder-to-shoulder—a stream of gray bursting from their mouths whenever they took a breath. Snow began to catch in their hair as they walked, and the nearby streetlights lit the white of the ground, creating the effect of wandering through an old winter painting. A horse, with a carriage trailing behind, trotted by as if to complete the image, no doubt on his way to a warm stall somewhere far away.
After long minutes of silence, Brennan began studying the man walking beside her. His back was hunched to the cold, and a red scarf mingled tastefully with his charcoal-gray coat. Both his hair and shoulders were powdered white from the snow, and slowly the original color was starting to disappear under the mass.
She stepped on the edge of large pile of snow and her foot sank in, throwing her off balance. Booth caught her as she fell, but quickly let her go when she regained her footing.
"Thanks," she said, shivering from where her hands had come in contact with the cold.
"It's no problem," Booth replied as he looked her over; after a moment he took off his scarf and draped it around her neck. It was warm from his body heat, and her involuntary shivering ceased.
"Thanks," she said again, for she did not know what else to say.
A smile lit his lips for a moment as he continued to study her, but it was gone just as quickly as it had appeared. After a beat, he spoke, "What happened to you, Temperance?"
She looked up at him and met his eyes, deciding to just tell him the truth, "I don't know." She paused and shook her head, "I just don't know."
Booth remained mute for a moment, as if considering his actions, before stepping forward and engulfing her in an embrace.
--
Brennan sorted through the files on Booth's hotel desk, thinking to herself.
Some of this information was familiar, but most of it was not. When she was only a little over twenty, her parents had revealed their history to her, as well as her real name. It had been quite a lot to digest at the time, but now it was just a part of life.
What was interesting was how scant little they had actually said. The files before her contained a lot of information on the strong-arm crew—a subject that neither Max nor Ruth talked of much. Some of the names were familiar from overheard conversations between the ex-cons, but other than that most of these people were new.
She flipped back to the FBI code name list, and saw once again that Booth had highlighted her parents' names. Columbus and Fremont. Max and Ruth. It was strange—like gazing into a parallel universe only thirty-seven years in the past.
She sat back and kneaded her temples. What bothered her was the amount of deaths. Almost everyone in the crew was dead or presumed dead. Only her parents and another man named Simon Holt a.k.a. 'Cabot' did not have a small 'D' by their names.
She had glanced through some of the other files on the desk. Death certificates for many of the members were present as while as a few ME reports. She had immediately flipped through them, reading everything her eyes came in contact with and absorbing every piece she understood. Now the cause of death readings were bouncing around her head: drug overdoses, shootings, one poisoning, and a few with severe head trauma—which the medical examiner had attributed to something similar in shape to a tire iron.
Sighing, she shifted gears in her mind, pondering the man who had brought her to the hotel in the first place.
His behavior was a mystery to her. He hadn't arrested her and had yet to show any inclination of doing so. It seemed as if he had forgone policy in favor of her—a concept that was alien to her. And he had given her access to quite a few of the Bureau's official files. When she asked why, he had said this investigation was off the books.
And that he needed her help.
Continuing to massage her aching head, she pondered why she had complied with Booth's wish. Because he hadn't arrested her? That was one definite possibility. She was interested in knowing about her family's history? That may have been a thought originally, but now she wasn't so sure.
Because she enjoyed his company?
With a loud exhale, she pushed out that thought and reached for a notepad, deciding to work out a time-line. The files were not organized and she needed to have something that would make everything linear enough to understand. She wasn't good at the psychology of the murders, but she could handle the facts.
Clicking a pen, she started to write, effectively distracting her mind from any further thought.
--
Booth watched as Brennan took notes, her hair fanning out to her left as she wrote with head slightly cocked, mouth slightly ajar, eyebrows crimped in thought. Her eyes betrayed a feeling of pure concentration, although every once and while she would stop to rub her neck or temples—obviously battling a headache behind those clear irises of hers.
She was completely oblivious to his watching of her, or at least she gave no indication that she knew. He realized that she was even more like a squint than he had originally thought. She was completely absorbed with puzzles, and the files in front of her presented quite a complicated one. Just as she would tackle locks and security codes to break into houses, she was using lists and words to sort through her thoughts.
What he also found interesting was that she had agreed to come here and look through the files. He had figured it would be a battle to get her to cooperate. He didn't catch an intimidation vibe from her; rather, she just seemed interested.
And something had changed between them as they had stood together in the snow in each other's arms. He couldn't identify what it was. It was just out of the reach of his subconscious. In any case, he couldn't bear the thought of being the one to cage up such an independent and fascinating individual.
"Booth?" her voice called him back.
"Yes?" his eyes snapped up.
"Why are you watching me?" her own eyes were still glued to the papers in front of her and her pen had not paused for a moment.
He smiled sheepishly, "You're hard not to watch."
"Why is that?"
He paused, slightly taken aback by the natural response to his own statement. God only knew how this woman would take a compliment. Instead of trying to sort out a response, he got up from the hotel bed and stepped toward her, clearing his throat, "So what have you found, Brennan?"
She looked up at him, "Why do you assume I found something?"
"You just look like you found something."
"How can you tell?" she looked curious.
"Intuition," he returned his old line, tapping his forehead.
She smiled at him and shook her head.
Booth was struck by how easily they had slipped back into their old relationship. It was as if while everything may have changed factually, nothing really had on the grounds of feelings. He liked that.
"So what did you find?"
She exhaled and pointed down at the notepad, which was shockingly linear. The words were all neatly arranged, bullets present for each member of the crew describing his or her histories and under them a time-line—all in her mixed cursive and print handwriting.
It looked very different from his massive scrawling word webs which connected people based on motives and actions.
Upon closer inspection he realized that there were small side-notes next to each name and initials to the people they were connected with. Under the time-line and stuffed into the margins were questions which had apparently occurred to her as she had written. Some were crossed out and had small arrows to their corresponding answers, but many had remained on the page.
But two of her questions caught his attention: Coincidence that both Delaney and Harper were working the case at TOD?
M/R changed to M/C in 1978. D/H murder in 1978. Connection?
He looked up at Brennan and began wondering the same thing.
--
Brennan walked into her small house and draped her coat over the coat-rack near the door, sighing as some of the snow followed them in.
"You didn't have to come with me, you know," she said to Booth, scooting some of the slush back outside.
"How could I be sure you weren't going to run?"
She looked up at him, "I wouldn't do that."
"You did once before."
"Not this time. I'm in now, Booth." It felt weird that she was being so frank with him.
He made eye-contact, "I'm glad you are, Temperance."
Again he used her name. Part of her wanted to know why such a moral person was treating her so nicely, but part of her was glad for it even without a reason. She didn't want to run. She was tired of running. For all she enjoyed her game of wits, just as much of her wanted normalcy. This man seemed to be the answer to her wishes.
With the ghost of a smile on her lips, she lead her newfound company to the couch in her living room.
He settled at her gesture and she looked at him for a moment before offering a hot chocolate—craving it herself. He accepted and she left him to work in the kitchen, insisting that he stay put.
Awkwardness bled through her actions as she set the mug before him and he simply looked at it for a moment.
Scenes from crime books flashed through her mind and she realized her potential mistake, "I'm sorry. I didn't do anything to it. I swear it. I—"
He interrupted her rambling with a slight smile and a raised hand, "Relax. It just looks hot. I trust you."
"You do?" she said the first thing that popped into her mind. Why?
He chuckled slightly, "You don't seem the type to drug people."
She blushed and covered it by taking a sip from the mug. The liquid definitely would have scalded her tongue had she attempted to swallow anymore of it. Even so, it left a very hot feeling inside her mouth.
"So..." he leaned back a little and pointed at the rows of bookshelves covering most of the walls in the room. "What's with all the bone books?"
She blinked, the segue catching her off guard, "What?"
He read off some of the titles, "The Anatomy and Biology of the Human Skeleton, Photographic Regional Atlas of Bone Disease, Developmental Juvenile Osteology—Not exactly normal reading material."
She paused, "I don't know. I've been asked before but it would seem that at some point in my life I developed a fascination with the skeletal system and just never had any real chance to pursue it. I suppose it could have something to do with the murder mysteries I used to read when I was younger and always enjoyed whenever the author would take the time to explain how they came across a finding. Or maybe it was the segue into anthropology from my interest in evolution which lead to my discovery of the field..." her voice drifted off as she realized she was rambling again.
"How much have you read anyway?" he was watching her with a bemused expression on his face.
"Oh, I've read everything I can get my hands on. The books can be expensive, but I've found that the libraries can import them when I need their information, but after awhile I realized I needed the reference material."
"For what?"
She paused again, feeling slightly crest-fallen, "I don't know. I never found an appropriate application."
He patted her arm, though not unsympathetically, "I'm sorry, Bones."
Brennan looked over at him and met his eyes, "What did you just call me?"
--
Angela Montenegro walked hand-in-hand with Jack Hodgins through the small gardens of his estate, simply enjoying the night for what it was. It had occurred to her twice to grab her easel and paint on the patio, but the draw of her entomologist had been stronger.
Unfortunately, her entomologist was in one of his conspiratorial moods.
"Okay, so through one of my buddies I found that the art piece that was stolen from me was somewhere in an art gallery three states away about two weeks ago, but the piece was bought only a few days later. Now, if I can just—"
"Hodgins," Angela said and stopped in front of him, "It's been way over a month. Just let it go."
"Ange, it was a priceless artifact."
"And as an artist, I can appreciate that. But, Jack, there are times to let things go. Let someone else enjoy it."
"But it was stolen from me."
"I know, sweetie," she said and rubbed his arm.
They resumed walking.
"Where is Booth anyway?"
She shrugged, "I think he went on vacation."
"Why didn't he stay to work the case?"
"Hodgins, you know as well as I do that he took the case as a personal favor. He works homicides. That hunk of a man doesn't know how to track thieves." She kept her opinions about a cold case to herself.
"Ange," he gave her a slight look.
She laughed, "No harm in looking. And besides," she smiled seductively, "There's only one man for me."
"Oh, please say you're talking about me."
She smiled again and let her lips elaborate on her point.
--
The wheels of Brennan's old Mazda steadily worked through the light dusting of snow on the road leading to Booth's hotel.
"What's the next course of action?" she asked as they rocked to a stop in the parking lot, his hotel located only a few dozen yards away.
"I figured we could try to talk to your parents," Booth said.
She raised a brow, "I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be received too well."
"But I'm in your company."
She shook her head, "They don't know you."
He ran a hand through his hair. "Will you talk to them?"
Brennan looked over at him. "Yes, I will inquire."
"That doesn't sound too promising, Bones."
She pursed her lips, "I told you not to call me that."
"And I told you not to steal my fries. That doesn't mean you stopped."
She scowled, "That hardly compares with a nickname."
"Can't we just agree that there are some things that never change?"
Instead of dignifying that with a response, she rolled her eyes. It was amazing how easy this was, talking with him. He was right. Some things really never changed. Certainly their time apart had only changed their external views, but emotionally it was becoming more and more obvious that their "careers" weren't having much bearing on their relationship.
He smiled, "So we'll talk later, Bones?"
Resisting the impulse to remind him about the nickname, she nodded, "Dinner tonight?"
"If you know a place."
"I know several."
"So I'll see you then, Bones." He grinned at her and climbed out of the car, to do whatever it was that he would do in this situation.
Smiling at his rather audacious personality, she turned the car over again and drove off to congeal back into the main road and its slight traffic.
After working well past midnight the night before, he had fallen asleep on her couch. Being the kindly person that she was, Brennan had endeavored not to wake him and had instead draped a nice thick quilt over him. A few minutes later, she had also retired to bed and slept many an hour away, only to wake up to the smell and sound of frying eggs. Oddly enough, it felt almost normal that he was there in her house, cooking breakfast for them as if they had always been.
With a slight snort, Brennan took note of the fact that she was so shocked by the normalcy of the relationship. Maybe it was because everything was out in the open with Booth. No vague notions about importing and exporting a variety of goods, no quick plots to think of an excuse why she couldn't meet up with him the next night. Although she still wasn't entirely convinced he wouldn't pull the cuffs out at some point in time, part of her didn't feel threatened by his presence. And he had said that he trusted her.
Certainly if there was a minimum of distrust, that could be the root cause of the shared feeling of contentment.
Feeling no further need to dissect the relationship, she concentrated her attention on weaving through the traffic of I80 to get to her appointed destination.
Twenty minutes later, she was passing through the wooden doors of her parents' home, immediately banishing the chill of the outside air and replacing it with warmth. She was struck with the smell of bacon, and her long exiled predator inside nudged her for an opening. However, her control prevailed, and she walked through the kitchen without even a glance at the stove.
Temperance indeed.
With a smile at her own pun, she stepped into the living room where—only two nights before—she had been sitting on the hearth, completely unaware that her trip to DC would be more than just a memory.
"Hey, honey," Max said. "How was dinner at Scaletta's?"
"How's John?" Ruth asked.
Brennan stepped forward and settled on the hearth again, then regaled them in the night's events—excluding her run-in with Booth. As she talked, her mind constructed a logical way for her to come up with a reason for asking about the Keenan history. Her parents generally avoided the topic, and the dropping of a federal agent's name wouldn't change their minds.
However, she discovered that there was not a legitimate reason for her to ask without the case files, so when her short saga was completed, she reached into her purse and pulled out the envelopes.
"What's this?" her mother asked as she placed the file onto the coffee table.
"Something I discovered." She looked up and met Ruth's eyes. "Mom, what really happened in 1971 through 1978?"
With a weary look, both of her parents leaned back into the couch.
"It's a long story, honey."
She settled across from them, her legs hanging over the edge of the table, "Start from the beginning."
With only a slight sigh from her father, and only a little more prodding, the story unfolded.
And it was one of the strangest she'd ever heard.