A/N: I own absolutely nothing. Thanks for all the reviews and please keep it up!

Chapter 6

"Booth."

"Oh, hey, Bones, I got a new idea for the case," Booth ranted, looking up at his partner standing in his office door and smiling. "We should ask the boyfriend if he bought her the earrings that the Squint Squad found on the body-"

"Booth," she interrupted him, biting her lip, but he continued ranting.

"And whoever killed her probably didn't notice while they were killing her that she lost an earring, so it'll probably still be at the scene of the crime-"

"Booth!" she finally cried, glaring at him. "Shut up and listen to me."

"What?" he asked softly, looking shocked at her outburst.

"There's someone at the Jeffersonian to see you," she told him, once again biting her lip.

"Well, who is it?"

"You're not going to like it." She looked genuinely concerned, and she hung her head slightly.

"Just tell me, Bones."

"It's Jared."

TSTLTSTLTSTL

"Jared, what are you doing here?"

"It's nice to see you too, Seeley," Jared said, hugging his brother. Booth reluctantly returned the hug, awkwardly patting his younger brother on the back. "Can't a man visit his older brother?"

"Yes, if that man were any man but you," Booth retorted. "What are you doing here?"

Jared sighed. "You know me far too well, Seeley," he said. "There are some… charges that have been laid against me that I'm going to need your help in order to get dropped."

Booth looked at his younger brother suspiciously. "What kind of charges?" Jared hung his head and muttered something incoherent. "Sorry, what was that?"

"I said, 'sexual harassment,'" Jared repeated, glaring up at Booth.

"Jared!" Booth said scathingly. "Are they justifiable charges? Because if they're not, of course I'll help you get them dropped."

"Well…" Jared said.

"I cannot believe you!" Seeley hissed. "You have no shame. Were you drunk?"

"Yeah, I had been drinking earlier that night," Jared replied. "I didn't mean to, Seel, you've got to help me."

"Yeah," said a voice. "Just like you didn't mean to hit me." Both Booth boys whirled around to face the speaker.

It was Emma.

She was standing a few feet away from the entrance to Dr. Brennan's office, where the Booth boys were arguing, holding bags of take-out. Presumably, she had been bringing over lunch for her brother and his partner. Kegan and Drew were with her, both looking poised for a fight.

"Emma, come here!" Jared said, heading for his little sister, his arms outstretched for a hug.

"No," she snarled, jerking herself backwards.

"Come on, you're not going to give your big brother a hug?" Jared teased, grinning and stepping toward her again.

"Get away from her, Jared," Kegan said, stepping in front of his girlfriend.

"You're not going to touch her again," Drew added, also stepping in front of Emma, both of them closing ranks.

"I'm her brother," he protested. "What are you two little punkasses going to do to keep me from her?"

"You're not my brother," Emma told him forcefully. Turning her glance toward Booth, she said, "Seeley is my brother. You are not my brother."

With that, she stormed out of the room, Drew and Kegan both hot on her heels. Jared snorted and turned to Seeley. "What the hell was that all about?"

TSTLTSTL

"Is Jared still here?"

Kegan hesitantly approached Booth as he left Bones' office, looking wary of how the FBI agent would react. "Unfortunately," Booth replied, running a hand through his hair. "I haven't quite decided how to deal with him."

"What do you mean?" Kegan asked, looking curiously up at the eldest of the Booth children.

"I'm not sure if I should go with gentle but stern or just plain furious," Booth replied. Looking down at Kegan, he said, "I'm jealous of you, actually. It's obvious which reaction you should go with: just plain furious. Because she's your girlfriend, and your best friend. But for me… it's different."

"He's your brother," Kegan said. "I understand. Even though you're beyond mad at him, that doesn't make it any easier for you to be so angry with him."

"Right," Booth said, cocking his head at the teenager. "You're a pretty smart kid, Kegan."

"Well, I've only been Emma's best friend since seventh grade," he replied. "It's about time you noticed." He offered him a grin to show that he was joking, and Booth returned it.

"Look, I'm sorry for being so strict on you about dating my sister," Booth told him. "It's just… I still kind of see her as the little sister I have to protect all the time. I mean, I spent most of my childhood protecting Jared or Emma. You know our father was abusive, right?"

"Yeah, I know," he replied. "Emma doesn't like to talk about it much."

"I started protecting her the day she was brought home from the hospital," Booth said, lowering his voice and leading Kegan back into Bones' office, which was empty. "I was fourteen when she was born, and I was a freshman in high school. It was her first night at home. It was a little past eleven o'clock at night, and I was up finishing a biology assignment. Our father was drunk, as usual. Emma had been crying for about ten minutes, and I could hear our dad yelling at her from the living room. I figured everything was okay, as long as he was in a different room." Booth sighed, rubbing a hand over his face, and continued his story. "But then I heard him moving toward her room. I debated my options for a few seconds, then I ran to the room as well. He had picked her up and he was screaming at her. He was so drunk that he didn't even notice me in the doorway. Then he started shaking her. Back then, I knew nothing about Shaken Baby Syndrome. I had no idea that the blood vessels in her head would detach easily and she would die in about five seconds. But I knew that it could not be good for her, and that he was going to hurt my new baby sister. So I yelled, 'Dad, it was me. I was the one crying.' He was so drunk that it worked. He put her back in her crib and came over to me and started beating me, telling me that I was far too old to cry. I had bruises on my abdomen for weeks." He smiled wryly. "After he stumbled back into the living room, I took Emma from her crib and brought her to my room. When I went to sleep, I laid her on the bed next to me, and I promised her that I would never let our father hurt her. Every night she slept next to me on my bed. If I had plans with my friends, I would either make sure I would be home shortly after she was put to bed or I would take her along. My friends understood, and that's why she's so close to some of them. When I left for college, she took it real hard. She was only four, but she seemed to understand that I was leaving. She cried and cried and cried, and no matter how much I promised to come back and visit frequently, she kept her arms locked around my neck, begging me not to go. It broke my heart to leave her." He shook his head. "Jared never protected her like I did. He was too busy looking out for himself. She took quite a few beatings from Dad, until she got into karate right before middle school. Things changed."

"Right," Kegan said quietly, as he had been silent throughout all of Booth's speech. "She started fighting back, and your dad didn't like that. During our freshman year of high school, Emma talked her into leaving him."

"She did?" Booth said, looking surprised. "No one ever told me that." He smiled crookedly. "That's certainly my little sister, though."

"I never knew that," Kegan said. "That you let her sleep in your room. No wonder she's so close to you."

"Yeah," he said. "She's my little sister, and my best friend."

"I know," Kegan said softly.

After a few moments of comfortable silence, Booth said, "You know what, Kegan? You're a good guy. There's no one else I'd rather have date my younger sister."

TSTLTSTL

"Dr. Brennan, I found something."

Hodgins stood in the doorway of Brennan's office, looking as excited as he could possibly be. "What is it?" she asked, glancing up from her computer screen.

He walked toward her, file in hand, and said, "Since we found evidence of a struggle, but no solid cause of death, I had a sudden inspiration. I took a swab from the mouth of the victim shortly before the bones were cleaned, and I discovered that she was killed my carbon monoxide poisoning."

"Good job, Hodgins," she told him. "However, it would be relatively easy to kill someone with carbon monoxide, all you really need is a car and a garage."

Hodgins held up his hand to interrupt her. "I'm not done yet. She was killed by pure carbon monoxide."

"Meaning that she wasn't breathing in atmospheric air," Brennan said slowly. "She was just breathing in pure carbon monoxide." She bit her lip, thinking hard. "Where could someone get pure carbon monoxide?"

"I have no idea," Hodgins said.

Just then, Brennan's cell phone rang. "Sorry, you'll have to excuse me, Hodgins," she said. He nodded and left. Answering her phone, she said, "Brennan."

"Hey, Bones. It's Booth."

"Hi, Booth," she said into the phone. "What's going on?"

"I talked to Tony Ansley again, Riley's boyfriend," he told her.

"And…?" she asked, waiting for him to finish whatever he had to tell her.

"He says that he didn't buy the earrings for Riley," he said.

"Well where did she get them from then?" Bones asked. "Perhaps her parents gave them to her, to make up for being so strict on her or to make up for their distant relationship."

"Yeah, I thought of that too," he replied. "I already talked to the parents; no such luck. They didn't buy the earrings for her, or so they say. But as far as I can tell, they would have no reason to lie about it."

"Would Tony have a reason to?" she asked.

"None that I can think of," he said, "but hey- murderers are surprising me more and more everyday."

"Booth," she said suddenly, working out the details in her head. "What if she stole them?"

"That would be motive for murder."

TSTLTSTL

"Kegan, come on, tell me where we're going!"

Emma begged her boyfriend in the backseat of the cab at almost ten o'clock that night, but he merely grinned and shook his head. "I'm not going to ruin the surprise for you, Em," he told her firmly.

"Can you at least tell me what suddenly made you decide to take me out tonight?" she asked. "You kind of sprung this on Seeley. I got the impression that he wanted to be there to monitor and censor every moment of our first date."

"Don't worry about Seeley," he told her. "I talked to him, and we're cool." Sighing, he ran a hand through his hair and said, "As for what brought this on all of a sudden, I figured with Jared showing up out of the blue… you could use a distraction."

She grimaced and grinned. "Thanks," she told him, pecking him on the cheek. Finally, the cab stopped, and she jumped out of the car excitedly. "This is amazing, Kee!"

"I thought you'd like it," he said, taking her hand in his and squeezing it. They were at the Lincoln Memorial, and the lights were shining off of the Reflecting Pool.

"It's beautiful," she told him, glancing up at him. "Thank you."

"It's no problem," he shrugged and pulled her into a hug. "You had a rough day. It was the least I could do."

Grinning, she lifted her head so that she could kiss him on the lips, her tongue slowly slipping into his mouth so that he could taste the sweetness of her.

Kegan had never been so happy in his life.