Hodgins picked up the envelope and held it in his hands, studying it carefully. It was white without any markings or stamps.

"How did this get in here?"

The guard who had brought it to him shrugged. "The mailroom just told me to give it to you. We ran it through an explosives test and checked for any unknown substances. It's clean."

"How did the mailroom know it was for me? Someone had to have said something."

"Have you been to the mailroom? They process tens of thousands of pieces of mail and artifacts daily. There are hundreds of employees with their hands involved. It would be nearly impossible to track down which of them knows something."

"You know, Dr. Hodgins, I have an idea about how we can find out something about this envelope," Cam said.

"What?"

"Open it."

The security guard chuckled as he turned to leave the lab.

Hodgins glared at Cam over top of the offending piece of mail before sliding a gloved finger through the top. A piece of regular notebook paper, folded into a square, fell out and onto the desk in front of him. He and Cam exchanged curious glances as Hodgins began to slowly unfold the letter.

His eyes went wide as he read the words, then he held it up for Cam to read. "If you return Hester within 48 hours, Temperance Brennan will be returned to you immediately. Those are our only terms."

"I need to call Booth."

"Call Booth for what?" He had been walking up the lab stairs when he overheard his name.

Cam held up the letter for him to read.

His expression was unreadable. "Any chance there's fingerprints or DNA on this?"

Cam and Hodgins exchanged glances then decided that there was no reason to state the obvious. No need to say that there wasn't any way The Leader would be that careless.

Unfortunately for Hodgins, he said it anyway.

"So what are you saying? That you're not even going to try?"

"No, I didn't mean that at all."

"What the hell did you mean then?"

"Calm down, man."

"Could you calm down? Could you? If it were your wife? If you didn't know where she was? If she wasn't sitting there in her office? If some madman had Angela could you calm down? If you had no way of knowing, of truly knowing if she were even alive? If your son couldn't sleep at night because all he could do was cry for his mommy?"

Booth stared at Hodgins, nostrils flaring, face red with anger. Hodgins held up his hands in defeat and backed away. But Booth wasn't finished.

"Don't you ever dare to tell me to calm down again."

He tossed the letter on the table and headed back down the platform. His yelling had drawn the attention of everyone in the lab. They all stood staring in disbelief at the normally calm FBI agent as he retreated.

Cam gave Hodgins a sympathetic look. But he simply nodded. He understood that Booth's outrage had nothing to do with him. He took the letter from the table and said, "I'll see what I can do with this."

Cam found Booth sitting on the couch in Brennan's office. He was holding one of Christine's blankets in his hand, his head laid back against the cushions in defeat.

"She must have forgotten this here last week," Booth said as Cam walked into the room.

"Seeley." Her heart was breaking for her friend.

His glare stopped her from continuing and she changed her tactic before she spoke. "We don't know for certain that we won't be able to pull anything off of that envelope."

"They haven't slipped up yet. Why send us something that would expose them now?"

"Everyone makes mistakes. He will eventually."

"Eventually can take a long time."

"What do you want to do?"

"I want Mom to tell us where to go to get Bones back."

"She won't?"

"She keeps insisting that she can't. That she doesn't even know where The Facility is located. But Sweets talked with her earlier and he thinks that she might have more information than she's giving us. He says it's her safe place and that she truly wants to go back." His grip never left the baby's blanket while he spoke.

Cam lowered the volume of her voice before she spoke again. "Maybe it's time you let her."

"No, Cam, she belongs here with me. We're family. I need us all to be a family."

He use of need instead of want was not lost on Cam. "If you keep her here against her will then you're doing the same thing The Leader has done. You have to let your mother choose what is right for her."

"If I thought she was able to choose then there wouldn't be any question. But I can't be sure. She probably has some sort of Stockholm Syndrome."

"Did Sweets think that?"

"He mentioned it as a possibility. He seemed to back off though after he spoke with her today. Now he says she's dependent on these people. And that she's seen as a role model to the others. He thinks she enjoys her status as a care taker."

"It sounds like she was happy there."

"But how could she be happy going back there now? When she knows that I'm alive. That Jared is alive. That we need her. Why can't she choose us over The Facility?"

"The Facility has been her life for over thirty years. There are people there that she cares about. That she loves. That doesn't take away from her love for you. Not any more than your love for Dr. Brennan makes you love your mother any less. But, if there has to be a choice made your mother can't choose you over her former life any more than you can choose her over Brennan."

He didn't respond because there wasn't anything left to say. Cam was right and he knew it. If his mother wanted to return then he had to let her.

"I want the control here. I don't like the idea that Bones' safety is in the hands of this man. I want to physically go to where they're holding her and bring her home. The idea of a trade and waiting on them to keep their promise doesn't sit well with me at all."

"That's because you are who you are. You're a man of action. But sometimes the only action we have is to wait. Your mother trusts these people and she says they won't harm Brennan. That has to be some level of comfort for you."

"It is. But still," his voice trailed off and it was only when he lifted his hand to wipe his cheek that Cam noticed a tear trickling down his face. She reached out and grasped his hand. He squeezed her fingers, thankful for the comfort of an old friend. Then he chuckled through his tears. "Just when everything started working out, huh?"

"Yeah." Words escaped her so she simply held his hand tighter. The feel of his wedding band against her skin reminded her of exactly what he meant. Being married, raising his own family, correcting the mistakes his father made; it was the only thing he had ever truly wanted.

"She asked me if I wanted her to take my name."

"She did?" Cam couldn't hide her surprise. "I never would have guessed that."

"Not professionally, of course," he said as he smiled for the first time that day.

Cam smiled back, she could hear Brennan's voice saying those exact words. "Of course."

"I miss her Cam, it's only been a couple days and I miss her so much that it's hard to breathe."

"I know you do. You don't have to prove to any of us how much you love Dr. Brennan."

Booth clutched Christine's blanket closer to his chest. "I just can't wrap my head around any of this."

"You've always had faith, Seeley. Don't lose it now."

"What do you mean you can't hold him any longer?"

"We don't any evidence to keep him. I've already pulled every string I have to keep him in there as long as we have." Caroline Julian faced an irate Seeley Booth in his office at the FBI building.

"You have all kinds of strings Caroline."

"Look Booth, I'm sorry. I know as well as you do that this man is connected to Dr. Brennan's disappearance but there just isn't any evidence. No physical evidence at the airport, and there is nothing to link this man to anything illegal. Hell, there's nothing that links him to anything at all. But that is not a crime. As far as the Bureau is concerned, Dr. Brennan walked out of that airport of her own free will."

"Oh, come on Caroline, you know that isn't what happened."

"I know Cheri, but that's the way it looks right now; we can't prove anything else happened."

Booth sat down on the corner of his desk and took a picture of Brennan and Christine in his hands. He sighed as he ran his finger along the frame. "Where do you think George was going when he was released?"

"He's probably headed to your house to meet back up with your mom."

"Like hell he's getting back into my house."

"Max still there?"

"Yeah, if George shows up he's going to regret that I wasn't home."

"If the two of you murder this son of a bitch you may never see her again."

"Yeah, and Max knows that. Doesn't mean he won't need a good plastic surgeon by the time Max is done with him."