A/N: Don't own, don't sue. Please review! Ha, that rhymed. :D

Chapter 3

"Hey, Bones," Booth said, calling his partner on his cell phone.

"Hey, Booth," she said. "Did you find something on the case?"

"Actually, no," he said. "This is a personal favor that I'm calling in." He was playing absentmindedly with one of the boys' baseballs (probably Kegan's, he was far more into baseball than Drew was), and he could only think of his sister's plight at the moment.

"Of course. What do you need me to do?" Bones said immediately.

"It's Emma," he breathed softly into the phone, lowering his voice so that Emma, who was in her guest room with Kegan and Drew, wouldn't hear him. "I'm worried about her."

"What's wrong?" she asked, sounding alarmed.

"No, no, nothing's really wrong," he replied quickly. "It's just… she loves someone. And she doesn't want to tell me. Probably because I'm her protective older brother whom she thinks will beat the shit out of any boy who goes after her."

"Which sounds pretty accurate to me," Bones commented.

"Not helping," he said. "I think she needs someone to talk to her. Another female."

"Oh," Bones said, finally catching on to what he was saying. "Why me? You know I'm not good with people. Why not Angela?"

"She doesn't really know Angela," he told her. "And I know she just met you a few days ago, but she really looks up to you and she admires what you do. She'll listen to you."

"But Booth, I don't understand the inner workings of the mind of a teenage boy!" she protested. "And you do!"

"Please, Bones?" he pleaded. "I really need your help on this."

She sighed audibly on the other end of the line. "Sure, I'll do it, Booth. I'll be over there to pick her up and take her to the diner or something in about twenty minutes."

He grinned into the phone. "Thanks, Bones, you're the best."

TSTLTSTL

"So… I don't really understand what I'm doing here," Emma said, grinning at Brennan over her Diet Coke. "I mean… I know that you know that I really look up to you and admire what you do, but I have a feeling that that isn't the reason you brought me out to dinner."

"You're right, it's not," Brennan told her.

"So, Doctor Brennan-" she said, but Brennan cut her off.

"Please, call me Brennan or Bones," she told her.

"Well, Seeley seems to the be the only one who calls you Bones, so I won't ruin that. So, Brennan, why are we here?" Emma asked her.

"Booth asked me to talk to you," Bones told her, stirring her straw in her glass of water. "He says you love someone."

Emma blushed a furious red color. "Um… yeah. I kind of alluded to that with him earlier. But I refused to tell him."

"You do trust him, right?" Brennan asked. "I'm just trying to get my facts straight, but as far as I can tell, you trust him a lot."

"I do," she said, nodding eagerly. "I just don't want to tell him because he's my protective older brother. He'll probably kick the ass of whatever guy goes after me."

Bones smiled softly. "Yes, he figured that out," she said. Sighing, she told the teenage girl in front of her, "Look, I'm not really the right person for this stuff. I'm not a good person to have a girl-talk with. I'd recommend Angela, but you don't know her, and Booth says you really look up to me."

"That's fine, I understand," Emma grinned. "I don't really need advice… I just need someone to listen with judging and without being biased."

"Now that I can do," Brennan said. "Go on ahead."

"It's Kegan," Emma said.

"Kegan," Bones mused aloud. "He has the light brown hair, right?"

"Yeah, that's him," she replied. "And I don't want to sound like I'm gushing over him or anything, but… he's just incredibly intelligent, and good-looking, and he's such a great friend. I can always talk to him about anything. And we can do anything together and just have a great time no matter what."

"That sounds like a good connection to have with someone," she told her. "Most of my relationships are purely physical, but the ones that had lasting quality were intellectual as well."

Emma raised her eyebrows, thinking about her brother, but said nothing. "So. That's about it."

"Do you have any plans to make Kegan aware of your feelings?" Brennan asked, cringing at the fact that she was relying on emotions rather than facts.

"Nope, no plans as of present," Emma shrugged. "I think I'm just waiting to see what happens. Especially with homecoming this year."

"Homecoming," Brennan sighed reminiscently. "I never actually went while I was in high school."

Emma nearly choked on the piece of her burger that she had been swallowing. "What?" she gaped, after she finished her coughing fit. "You never went to homecoming while you were in high school?"

Brennan shook her head. "I never really fit in, and I never saw the point in going to a meaningless social function."

"That's a shame," Emma said, shaking her head as she ate a couple fries. "Even if you don't fit in, homecoming is part of the high school experience. The past two years I've gone with Kegan and Drew." Looking up at Brennan, she asked, "My brother told me that you were a foster child, so I know high school must've been extremely hard for you, in terms of socializing and moving all the time. Do you ever wish you could experience a normal high school?"

She nodded. "All the time, Emma. All the time."

TSTLTSTL

"It's a shame the family wasn't able to tell us much about their daughter," said Bones. Booth and Bones had questioned the parents of the dead Riley Evans, but they admitted that neither of them were close to their daughter and they would most likely be unable to provide any useful information. The next day, Bones and Booth went to poke around in Riley's high school. The secretary at the front office pointed them in the direction of the principal's office.

Once they reached it, Booth rapped his knuckles on the door. "Principal Sommers?" he called. A blonde woman in the room who had been leaning over the desk, stood straight and whipped her head around. Booth pulled out his badge and flashed it at her. "I'm Special Agent Seeley Booth with the FBI. This is my partner, Dr. Brennan, and she's a forensic anthropologist. We're here to investigate the murder of Riley Evans."

"Oh, of course," the woman said. "I'm actually not Principal Sommers. I'm the vice principal here, and my name is Karen Thompson. Jane is speaking to janitor at the moment. I'll let her know you're here."

"Thank you," Booth said, and Karen left. Turning to Bones, he said, "We're just going to do some standard questioning. Ask her about Riley Evans in general, if she had any enemies. Stuff like that."

"Okay," Bones said, using the spare time they had to quickly glance over the principal's office. "She's married… and she has… three kids, by the looks of it."

"How do you know all that?" Booth asked, looking startled.

Bones pointed at a picture that was on the desk, depicting a brunette woman and a black haired man and three children. "The picture," Bones replied.

"Ah," he said simply, feeling foolish. "How long does it take to find the principal now?"

"Here? Not long," said a voice. Both Booth and Bones turned at the sound and found themselves face to face with a tall brunette woman, the one from the picture. "Hi, I'm Mrs. Sommers. I understand you're here to investigate the murder of Riley."

"Yes, that is why we're here," Booth said, flashing his badge. "I'm Special Agent Seeley Booth, and this is my partner, Dr. Brennan. She's a forensic anthropologist."

"It's nice to meet both of you," Mrs. Sommers said. "Of course, not under the circumstances."

"Right, so let's get down to business," Booth said. "Can you describe Riley Evans for me?"

"Physically or personality-wise?" she asked.

"Personality."

"She was a cheerleader, so naturally, she was very popular," Mrs. Sommers said. "But she wasn't the bitchy kind of girl. She was so sweet to everyone, and it was a genuine sweetness. She wasn't any sort of genius, but she was a straight B student. She was excellent in chemistry."

"Did she have any enemies?" Booth asked, looking intently at the woman in front of him.

"None that I know of," Mrs. Sommers replied. "Like I said, she was so sweet to everyone. I can't think of a single person that would want to kill her."

"Can you give us the names of any of her friends?" Bones asked, speaking up. "Perhaps they'll be able to give us more information."

"Of course," Mrs. Sommers said. "She had plenty of friends, but I do remember one girl that she was particularly close to. Her name is Jennifer Smith."

TSTLTSTL

"So any breaks on the case, Seeley?"

That night, Kegan, Emma, and Drew joined Booth and Bones at a Wong Foo's for dinner. "Nothing much," Booth replied. "We visited the family and the high school today and talked to the principal. We're going to talk to her best friend tomorrow."

"She was a cheerleader," Bones added.

"Ugh," Emma said, wrinkling her nose. "I hate cheerleaders."

"Em, don't generalize," Booth said.

"I meant I hate the stereotypical cheerleader, Seeley," Emma replied, rolling her eyes. "You know, the bitchy kind on television."

"I find it fascinating that you don't chastise her for her use of foul language," Bones mused aloud. Glancing at Emma, she said, "Not that I think you should be, necessarily. But I pegged Booth for the protective sort of older brother."

"I am," Booth said. "But I also realize that she's sixteen, and she's naturally going to curse. She's growing up. I have to let her do so."

"Then why are you so damn protective of me all the freaking time?" Emma demanded. "You freak out when I so much as get kicked at karate."

"Whoa, simmer down there, Emma," Kegan said.

"Yeah, this conversation just took a turn for tension, party of five," Drew chimed in.

Ignoring the boys' comments, Booth said, "Because I don't want you to get hurt, Emma. You're my little sister, it's a natural instinct."

"Yeah, well," she muttered, looking down. "Apparently not for Jared."

The table fell into an awkward silent. "You sure know how to kill a mood, Emma," Kegan commented dryly. Booth opened his mouth to tell Kegan that this was no time for sarcasm, but then he saw the smile spreading across his sister's face. He may be her older brother, but they were her best friends. And Kegan knew that she needed someone to crack a joke, so she could pretend like it was nothing and they could all move on with their lives.

"So, Seeley," Emma said, spooning some of her soup into her mouth. "What exactly is in this soup? It's the best damn thing I've tasted in years."

"Trust me," Bones told her quickly. "You probably don't want to know. But Sid knows what he's doing."

"Do I want to know what's in mine?" Kegan asked, poking at what looked like beef.

"All you need to know is that what you're tasting right now can taste you back," Booth said, a smirk spreading across his face. Kegan frowned down at his meal for a moment.

Then he shrugged. "Whatever," he said. "Food's food."

"I will never understand boys," Emma said, shaking her head.

"It's an anthropological phenomenon," Bones said helpfully. "It's a shared trait of every culture that the two genders have difficulty understanding one another."

"That's fascinating," Emma said earnestly.

"You know, Bones," Booth said, "I have a feeling Emma's the one person outside of the lab that you can talk to about anthropology without boring to death."

"Actually, Booth, it's scientifically impossible to bore someone to death," Bones informed him.

Drew grinned apologetically at Booth. "I pity you, Seeley."