Thanks for all of the reviews, feedback, and well-wishes! They are greatly appreciated! This chapter is another longer one, but don't get too spoiled, okay? When I'm writing, once I get to 5K, I just look for a good cut-off place. So most chapters will be under 7K.
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Chapter 2
Booth delayed his first appointment with Dr. Sweets for as long as possible. He spent his working hours catching up on paperwork and running the Major Crimes division, and his evenings were spent with his wife. They had decided to start at the top of her list of former foster parents and check into the current whereabouts on each. It was bound to be a lengthy process due to the fact that Booth couldn't call upon his staff to help. The research would have to be completely off the books.
Brennan was eager to help, of course, but he'd been having a difficult time getting her out of the lab. She claimed that she needed to be there until she could find a suitable replacement for Zack, and Booth had found himself pulling her off the platform at mealtimes on more than one occasion. They'd had one email from Zack since he'd left for Iraq, but his location apparently made communication difficult. Booth knew that Brennan was worried, so the fact that she was throwing herself into her work came as no surprise to him. He greatly hoped that she would be able to settle upon a new assistant sometime soon.
Booth rescheduled his appointment with Dr. Sweets twice, but on the third attempt the man's secretary had warned him that Sweets would most likely show up at Booth's office if he canceled again. So, with grumbling reluctance, he presented himself for the appointment. When he got his first look at Dr. Lance Sweets, Booth laughed out loud in surprise.
He'd been expecting another Gordon Gordon type, but Dr. Sweets was the polar opposite. He looked like a teenager fresh out of summer camp, and Booth wondered if the kid had even started shaving.
"You've got to be kidding me," Booth chuckled.
"Agent Booth, I'm Dr. Lance Sweets. You can have a seat."
"You're the shrink."
"I'm an FBI psychologist, yes. It's nice to meet you...finally."
"Yeah, look, some things came up, okay? I have all sorts of grown-up responsibilities-"
"Agent Booth, I'm aware that I look younger than I am, but there's no need to patronize me. You're here because Deputy Director Cullen wants you evaluated for your anger management issues."
"I manage my anger just fine, kid. I've been through this before." Booth was practically growling, and Sweets swallowed convulsively before pressing forward.
"Yes, with Dr. Wyatt," Sweets nodded, flipping through Booth's file to find Wyatt's previous assessments. "Last time you were triggered by the accidental death of a serial killer you were pursuing and ended up discharging your firearm at a clown?" He read the last word with a note of incredulity, and Booth rushed to defend himself.
"A clown speaker on top of an ice cream truck. It was playing ridiculously loud music, and I was on the phone trying to talk to someone about a new case."
"I see," Sweets replied, making a note in the file to clarify the ambiguity. "You continued to see Dr. Wyatt for several weeks following your reinstatement. Why did you stop?"
"Because I got better. I talked to him a couple of times after that when I wanted his input on something, but I didn't need regular therapy. I still don't."
"What happened to your hands?"
Booth glared at him, thoroughly frustrated with his boss in that moment. Did Cullen really think that he was going to open up to this quack who was sweating bullets and looked like he was twelve years old? Yeah, right.
"I had an accident. I'll be all healed up in a couple weeks, and everything will be just fine."
"I have no doubt that your hands will heal, but you won't be going back into the field until we've talked about how they got hurt in the first place." Booth rolled his eyes, and Sweets continued, "Deputy Director Cullen mentioned that it had something to do with your partner? Dr. Brennan?"
"No, it had to do with my wife, Dr. Brennan. Meaning that it was a personal issue and not at all related to my ability to perform my job."
"You're married to your partner?" Sweets asked, checking the file to see if he'd somehow overlooked that information.
"Yeah, what about it?"
"I wasn't informed of that," he said distractedly as he scanned Wyatt's notes. There was mention of Dr. Brennan and of Agent Booth's protective behavior toward her, but Wyatt had only referenced a 'personal relationship.' He hadn't clarified that it was in fact a romantic relationship. "I apologize for the misunderstanding. What was it that angered you?"
"It's none of your business," Booth replied brusquely. "It's a family thing; it's got nothing to do with my job. I didn't shoot anything, I didn't harm anyone-"
"You harmed yourself."
"Not on purpose. And trust me, if you knew my reasons, you'd understand."
"I'd like to understand. You don't have to give me a lot of detail-"
"No." Booth's tone was firm, and his serious expression didn't change as the cell phone in his pocket began to ring. He ignored Sweets' request that he not answer the call. "Booth. ...Sure, I'll see you there." He snapped his phone shut and gave Sweets a strained version of his charm smile. "Looks like I've got somewhere to be. I'll see you later."
"Agent Booth-"
But the agent was already out the door, waving a quick goodbye to Sweets' secretary as he headed toward the elevator.
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Brennan was waiting for him at their usual table at the Royal Diner. She'd ordered for him, but the food hadn't come out yet. He thanked her as he sipped his coffee.
"How'd it go?" she asked. Booth snorted.
"He's a damn kid. Looks like he should be tuxedo shopping for the prom."
"I thought you said he was a psychologist."
"Supposedly he is. I don't know what the hell Cullen's playing at, sending me to a damn twelve-year-old to talk about my 'anger issues.'" His fingers mockingly sketched quotation marks around the air, and he rolled his eyes in exasperation.
"You can't do fieldwork until he clears you? Like last time?"
"I don't know. Cullen didn't specifically say that. Just that he wanted me to talk to one of the Bureau's shrinks." Booth frowned, realizing that he was going to have to come up with something to tell the kid in order to get him off his back.
"Well… I know you don't enjoy talking about personal issues with strangers, but in this case, you'll probably have to cooperate," Brennan said hesitantly. Their waitress appeared and placed their meals on the table in front of them.
"I'm not giving some adolescent kid all the ugly details of your past, Bones. It's none of his or the Bureau's business."
"I didn't mean that you had to tell him everything," she pointed out. "Just tell him enough to satisfy his curiosity, and leave it at that." Booth sighed and took a large bite of his cheeseburger, silently thanking God for comfort food.
"I'll figure it out. Let's not talk about it anymore, alright?" he pled. Brennan gazed at him thoughtfully and nodded before changing the subject obligingly.
"Does Parker still want us to take him to school on the first day?"
"Yeah, it's next Monday. Rebecca said she's got an early meeting anyway, but she would've canceled if Parker had asked her to come too. He said he's fine with it being just you and me though."
Brennan smiled and took another bite of her salad. She'd picked Parker up from school a number of times, but she'd never dropped him off in the morning. Booth had explained that the first day of school was a big deal with Parker. There would be lots of picture-taking, meeting his first grade teacher, and so on. She was looking forward to the experience.
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Parker stayed with them that weekend, and the three of them headed to his school first thing Monday morning. The building was noisy with the comings and goings of other children and their parents, and the hallways were chaotic. They made their way to the first grade area of the building and quickly located Parker's locker outside of his classroom. Booth snapped a few pictures of Parker standing in front of his locker and again in front of the doorway to his classroom.
His teacher, Mrs. Owen, was a pleasant young woman who greeted them warmly. She showed Parker what to do each morning when he arrived and pointed him to a desk that was labeled with his name. Brennan helped him sort out his school supplies while Parker chattered about his favorite lunch foods and what he'd done over the summer.
"...And this is my stepmom. My dad calls her Bones, so I do too. Cause she works with bones. She's a genius. She knows everything." Mrs. Owen smiled indulgently at Parker before drifting off to welcome another student, and Brennan felt her eyes stinging. She and Booth hugged Parker goodbye and left the classroom.
"You okay, Bones?"
"Yes. It's just… That was the first time he's called me his stepmom." She gave him a watery smile, and he slipped an arm around her waist, still cautious of his healing hand.
"He loves you, Bones. Almost as much as I do," he winked. She laughed and leaned in to kiss him lightly.
"I know. I love him too."
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Booth glared irritably at Dr. Sweets and was slightly vindicated by the sight of the young man shrinking inward. His hands were now healed, with the exception of a slight residual ache in his knuckles, and he was finally free of the cumbersome ace bandages. He had already returned to field duty, but after three sessions' worth of dodging Sweets' probing questions, Booth was more than ready to be rid of him.
"Agent Booth, you've got to give me something to put in my report that will justify releasing you from therapy. Because right now all I can say is that you're uncooperative, and that won't go over well with Deputy Director Cullen."
"I've told you repeatedly, Sweets. It's private."
"And I can appreciate that, but I assure you that doctor-patient confidentiality will protect your personal affairs. I don't have to report on the specific details. I can just say that you discussed the incident and the trigger with me. The higher-ups simply want due diligence; that's all."
Booth regarded him warily for a few moments before heaving a sigh of frustration. The kid's right, he fumed inwardly. He'd given some thought to which vague details he might be able to reveal, but he'd have much rather avoided the whole thing altogether. He wouldn't want some peach-fuzzed kid to know the sordid details of his childhood, and he greatly wanted to protect his wife's privacy.
"Fine," Booth spat. Sweets' brows lifted in surprise.
"Okay. So...what made you angry enough to injure yourself on a punching bag?"
"I came across some information regarding my wife's childhood."
Sweets sat up a bit straighter and tried to mask his surprise. It wasn't the answer he'd been expecting. He hadn't met Dr. Brennan yet, but in the weeks since his first encounter with Agent Booth, Sweets had asked around about them. The partners had the highest solve rate in the Bureau, which was the primary reason they'd been allowed to remain partners even after entering into a romantic relationship. Sweets had his reservations about the advisability of the arrangement, but Cullen had made it quite clear that Booth's partnership with Dr. Brennan was to be safeguarded.
"I take it this information you 'came across' was disturbing?" Sweets asked. Booth glowered at him again. "Sorry. What I meant to say was… Why did the information make you angry?"
"It…" Booth faltered as the images flooded his mind the way they'd been tormenting his dreams. After reading the file, he'd had nearly a week of sleepless nights. His wife had eventually forced a sleeping pill upon him. "It was the sort of thing no one wants to happen to their loved ones."
"And you were angry on her behalf."
"Yes."
"To the point that you basically blacked out while hitting a punching bag."
"Yes," Booth growled.
"What finally stopped you?"
"She did." His tone was thick with suppressed emotion.
"Her voice?"
"I don't… I don't know. I felt her arms around my waist. I'm not sure if she was speaking before that."
"And then?" he pressed. Booth rolled his eyes and sat back in his chair.
"And then she cleaned up the mess and drove me to the emergency room."
"That must have been frightening for her."
"What?" Booth leaned forward again, successfully intimidating Sweets once more.
"To see you in that state. It must have scared her."
"Bones is tough. She was worried, but...she didn't look scared." Booth frowned, trying to recall the exact expression on Brennan's face when she'd found him. Had she been afraid? Of him? The idea troubled him now, and for a moment he forgot that Sweets was in the room. The younger man studied Booth's features quietly, seeing the shadows of fear and anxiety in his expression.
"What could you have done differently?" Sweets asked, pulling Booth back into the present.
"What do you mean?"
"Well… What could you have done to deal with your anger rather than letting loose on a punching bag until you injured yourself?"
Booth sighed again, disgusted and wanting nothing more than to leave the kid's office that very minute. He forced himself to remain seated, however, and tried to come up with a suitable answer. He should've taken her up on her offer to stay with him while he read the file. He'd been trying to protect her from having to look at it again, from seeing how the information would affect him. He'd known that it would make him angry, but in this case, being forewarned had not forearmed him.
"Usually if I get angry, I count in my head. Breathe through it, that sort of thing. I should've tried harder to do that, but I couldn't focus."
"Do the counting and breathing exercises generally work for you?"
"Yes."
Sweets pursed his lips thoughtfully. It was obvious that this mess went much deeper than a black-out round with a punching bag, but they were missing the key element. Dr. Brennan.
"Agent Booth, I think we can end it here for today. I have enough for my report in regards to your outburst and subsequent injury." Sweets signed his name to the bottom of Booth's release form and handed it to him. Booth looked pleasantly surprised but confused as well.
"Uh… Thanks. That's it?"
"That's it. I'll let Deputy Director Cullen know that you've fulfilled your anger management requirement. Obviously, if there is another incident, you may be required to see me again, but-"
"No, that won't be necessary, Sweets," Booth interrupted him, standing abruptly and shaking his hand. "Thanks. Take care."
Booth was out the door before Sweets could say another word, and for a moment he considered following him to finish his earlier thought. He had been about to warn Booth that he might need to speak with the two partners together at some point, but Sweets had a feeling that Booth wouldn't be happy to hear that. He decided to save that conversation for another day and sat down to write his report for Cullen.
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"What killed him?"
"The sternal ribs were subluxated...at both the spine and the sternum."
Booth cleared the security sensor and mounted the platform steps, hoping that Brennan's eighteenth interview for Zack's replacement was nearing an end. He'd been called to the type of crime scene that definitely required her expertise, and he knew she would probably argue about coming with him. Brennan had been out to a handful of crime scenes with him since Zack had left for Iraq, but dragging her out of the lab was no easy task. He listened passively as Cam questioned a young man in a lab coat about the cause of death for the skeletal remains currently occupying the exam table. Brennan asked the newcomer to clarify his statement as Booth sidled up to Cam.
"This the guy Bones is checking out to replace Zack?" Cam nodded and smiled politely at the young man.
"Clark Edison, meet Special Agent Seeley Booth."
"Hey, what's up," Clark greeted him. "Bones? Hey, that's funny. That's what all my friends called me back in college." His smile was warm and pleasant, but Brennan seemed unaffected by his attempt at bonding.
"Yeah, I like him," Booth announced before turning to his wife. "You got a minute?" Brennan nodded and followed him from the platform.
"Crime scene?"
"Yup, I've got your field kit in the SUV, all ready to go. I really need you on this one."
Brennan gave him a guilty smile and went to her office to exchange her lab coat for her jacket. She knew, subconsciously at the very least, that she was being overly sentimental about selecting Zack's replacement. She instead passed her sensitivity off as extreme caution, claiming that she wanted to find the best person for the job. Unfortunately, the best person for the job was thousands of miles away at the moment.
Booth escorted her from the lab with the customary hand to her lower back, wondering why she'd agreed to come with him so easily. It wasn't until they actually reached the scene that she began to question him. Brennan glanced around the area, which was teeming with police officers and rescue workers.
"Why am I here?" she wondered aloud. Booth frowned, feeling slightly petulant. He'd been missing his wife lately. Although they still spent plenty of time together outside of work, their partnership had become a focal point in his life. He knew she was having difficulty with Zack's absence, and he'd come to the uncomfortable conclusion that his wife was going to need a bit of a push in order to change the status quo. Booth had let her do it her way for as long as possible, but he knew it was time to speak up now.
"You know, you used to like to come out into the field with me."
"I still do, Booth. I just don't see any of the obvious indications of a crime scene that requires my presence. Not yet, anyway. No car fires, no tanker barrels full of acid, no explosions…" They wove their way through the maze of emergency vehicles and past an eighteen-wheeler lying on its side.
"Trust me, Bones, this is your kind of crime scene. That kid you were interviewing seemed pretty good with the sublixcated sternacallum thing…"
"Subluxated sternum," she corrected him reflexively, her lips curving upward as she slipped her hands into a pair of gloves. Booth smiled at the welcome familiarity and pointed in the direction of a vehicle with a shattered windshield. At first glance there didn't seem to be anything unusual about it, but closer examination of the windshield from inside the car revealed a human skull lodged in the broken glass. Brennan settled herself carefully on the front passenger seat and eyed the skull with interest. "Male. Caucasian. Late teens, early twenties. Completely devoid of flesh and odor," she announced. "How did this skull get here?"
"Let's ask our eyewitness. Come on!" Booth said eagerly, shoving his note cards back in his pocket and leading her toward a group of people standing on the side of the road. The eyewitness turned out to be a panicky young man whom Booth pulled away from a local cop. "Let's go, buddy…"
"I am not high!" the teen insisted. Brennan frowned in confusion.
"Neither am I. Why is he telling me that?" she asked, glancing at Booth.
"Yeah, the car reeked of dope," Booth explained quickly. "So, tell her what happened…"
"I was driving behind a dump truck, and that came flying off the back." He pointed at the skull, looking increasingly anxious.
"Do you think the rest of the skeleton is still on the truck?" Brennan asked.
"No."
"Why?"
"It didn't come flying out; it came flying off. It bounced."
"Oh, bouncing skull!" Booth said with mock excitement. Brennan bit back a smile and addressed the witness.
"Perhaps you thought that because you were under the influence of tetrahydrocannabinol?"
"What?" The young man was flummoxed.
"Weed," Booth translated proudly.
"I wasn't high! I'm the designated driver, alright?!"
The teen offered to submit to a urine test, but Brennan was already tuning him out. She began to postulate aloud on the circumstances that might have caused a skull to bounce off of a dump truck, but Booth interrupted her, pointing at the overpass behind her.
"Why would anyone throw a skull off an overpass?" she asked. Booth had no answer for that, and by the time they had finished processing the scene and were ready to go home, it was nearly midnight.
"Thanks for coming out with me, Bones. I've missed that."
"I have too, Booth. I'm sorry. The fieldwork is still important to me too, it's just been harder to get out of the lab lately."
"I understand," he assured her. "I really do. I think it's time to hire someone though, Bones. You're not going to find another Zack, but surely one of the people you interviewed can do a decent job. Whoever you get will have to be trained on how you do things, so figure out which of them is the most promising, and go from there."
"I know," Brennan sighed. "I'm being silly."
"No, you're not, Bones. It's important, and I get why you've delayed things. But I think it's time to move on." Brennan nodded, pursing her lips as she stared at the passing landscape.
Booth watched her surreptitiously as he drove. He truly did understand, probably more than Brennan realized. He knew that she was compartmentalizing her feelings for Zack as well as the discoveries they'd made in Chicago. She needed a way to feel in control of things, and her lab offered a perfect environment for that. It was how she coped, and although Booth had tried to leave her to it for as long as possible, he was starting to worry that she might never get back out of the lab unless he gave her a little push.
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Booth smiled at his wife's caller ID picture and answered his cell in the usual manner. He bit off a small portion of the hot dog he'd just purchased as he returned to his SUV, listening to her recite her initial findings on the skull they'd recovered the night before.
"There's scoring on the skull."
"Scoring?"
"Yes, scrapes."
"Yeah, I know what scoring means," he chuckled, taking another bite of his lunch.
"The scraping is uniform in spacing but not depth, which suggests an ungual pattern," she elaborated. The unfamiliar term made him frown.
"What's an uncle pattern?"
"No, ungual. With a g." He could hear her asking someone else how to explain it in layman's terms, and Cam joined the conversation a half second later.
"Something chewed on the skull, Booth."
"Oh. Like a bear or a dog?"
"Human, Booth. Dr. Brennan is saying human." He paused in the act of climbing into the SUV.
"In the vernacular, our victim's face was chewed off by a cannibal," Brennan explained. Booth glanced down at the food at his hand for a brief second before tossing it into a trash can on the sidewalk.
"Great," he replied with weak sarcasm. "Look, I'll stop by later to touch base, okay? I'm meeting with Caroline in a little while, and I've got Charlie tracking down that dump truck."
They said their goodbyes, and Booth made his way back to the Hoover. Charlie had determined that the driver of the dump truck was the same person who called in the accident when he'd seen it in his rearview mirror. The trucker had then taken his load to a municipal landfill. Caroline agreed to get a warrant to shut down the landfill temporarily so that it could be searched for body parts. By early evening, the FBI forensics team had delivered a fair number of bone shards to the Jeffersonian, and Booth arrived to find Brennan on the platform once again with Clark Edison.
"Bones, I brought dinner," he greeted her, lifting the takeout bag in his hand to show her. She glanced at him and nodded before continuing her study of one of the bone shards.
"Okay, I'll be right there."
"We get anything human?"
"Not yet, but I'll have to go through them and see."
"Well, I could do that, Dr. Brennan," Clark suggested.
"Yeah, Clark could do that," Booth agreed eagerly. "Come on, I'm setting up in your office." Brennan followed him after another few minutes and found him on her couch, digging into a carton of mee krob.
"Hey, save some for me. You always take it all." She jabbed him playfully with her elbow.
"Do not."
"Do too." Brennan smiled as he handed her the container and gave him a quick kiss of thanks.
"So do you guys have any progress on an ID?"
"Some. The victim had an osteoma, which is a bone spur that grows from the skull down to the sinus cavity. It was large enough that it would've caused headaches or sinus problems, so we're going through medical records from local ENTs to find a match."
"Angela can't just do a reconstruction and search the usual way?"
"She could, but we have no time of death yet. She wouldn't have any parameters to use as filters for the search. This way should be faster. She's been a little distracted today anyway."
"Why's that?"
"She and Hodgins met with a private investigator about her...husband. To track him down."
"Ah. Any progress yet?" They swapped food cartons again, and she shook her head.
"No, but that's to be expected. She doesn't remember his name or anything about him. Just that he was tall and black."
"Well, didn't he sign his name on the marriage certificate? I'm sure that can be tracked down; the State Department didn't have any trouble finding it."
"He signed with an X." Booth faltered, chewing more slowly for a moment as he met her gaze.
"Wow."
"Yeah. Don't say anything to her though. She seems a bit sensitive about it," she said quietly. Booth was slightly taken aback at her words. Brennan wasn't typically one for advising others on how to avoid offending people.
"Of course not, Bones. I wouldn't say anything. I don't blame her for being that way; we've all done things we regret." Brennan smiled and kissed him again.
"Thanks for bringing dinner."
"Of course. Making sure you eat is practically a second job lately," he teased her.
"And you do it so well," she grinned, standing up to help him clear away their mess.
"I've got this. You can go. I'll hang around for a while. Think you'll be done soon?"
"Yes, I just want to finish the batch of shards I was analyzing. I can keep working through the rest of them tomorrow." They shared a long kiss, losing themselves in the moment. When at last they pulled apart, Brennan was left wondering why she'd been returning to the platform rather than insisting he take her home immediately. Booth smirked knowingly.
"Go. I'll be here." He watched her leave and cleaned up the mess of food containers before going to find Cam. She was at her desk in front of a sizeable stack of paperwork, and Booth winced sympathetically.
"What can I do for you, Seeley?"
"You could start by not calling me that, Camille." She smiled and waited for him to continue. "I wanted to see how the search for Zack's replacement is going. I've talked to Bones about it a few times, but…"
"I don't know. I'd hire Clark, but it's not my call."
"Of course it is. You're the boss. Just hire the guy."
"He would be her assistant. And sure, I'm the boss, but you and I both know whose word carries more weight around here. I've made my peace with that, and I've encouraged her to make a selection, but there's only so far I can push her." Booth sighed and gave a nod of agreement. Clearly any hope he'd had for intervention from Cam had been wasted.
Brennan rejoined Clark on the platform, and the two worked in silence to sift through the pieces of bone that had been recovered from the landfill. Most were from animal remains, and some of the shards weren't bones at all but rather pieces of pottery or plastic. Brennan pursed her lips in distaste for the FBI forensic team.
"We've got a match on the x-ray," Angela announced, swiping her way onto the platform. She crossed to one of the computer terminals and pulled up the x-ray of the skull. Brennan texted Booth to join them, and he appeared moments later with Cam at his heels. Angela handed him a missing persons file.
"This is the skull from the windshield," Brennan told them. She then pointed to another image of a skull and said, "These are x-rays from an Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist on M Street." Angela laid the images over one another and rotated them until they lined up perfectly.
"Gavin Nichols?" Booth asked, reading the file in his hands. "We're sure this is him?"
"Well, the osteoma is a perfect match. It's him," Cam assured him.
"Prodigy violinist disappears, and a month later, his skull winds up bouncing off a garbage truck."
"Obviously we are looking for someone who really, really hates classical music," Cam said dryly.
"Look at this. Final performance was at the Library of Congress." He handed Brennan a photograph out of the file. "He met with well-wishers, arranged to meet with his girlfriend for drinks at the Hay-Adams, never showed, and nobody ever saw him again."
"And a violin worth three million dollars," Brennan added, skimming the top sheet of the report. Cam's brows lifted incredulously.
"A twenty-two-year-old willowy kid, walking around with three million bucks under his arm?"
"Hey, I'm telling you...easy pickings," Booth said. Brennan wasn't convinced.
"A cannibalistic violin thief who eats faces?"
"Yeah… It's a stretch," Booth admitted. "We can talk to the girlfriend tomorrow. It's getting late, Bones." Brennan nodded and gave the large pile of bone shards a rueful glance before following her husband off the platform.
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Brennan insisted on returning to the lab the following morning rather than accompanying Booth to interview the victim's girlfriend. Booth refrained from pushing her about it, but he failed to keep his disappointment from his expression as they got dressed for work. Brennan watched guiltily as his face fell, and she stepped behind him to wrap her arms around his waist.
"If you get any leads about the crime scene, let me know. I'll come with you to check it out," she promised. Booth turned in her arms and pulled her against his still-bare chest, pressing his lips into her soft brown hair.
"Thanks, Bones."
Booth released her so that they could finish getting ready for work, inwardly chastising himself for making her feel badly. It wasn't that he was feeling needy or neglected; he was simply worried about her. Booth could read his wife better than he could read anyone. He knew when she was upset, stressed, frustrated, distracted, happy, aroused… But he couldn't read her if they were apart, and she had a bad habit of downplaying the things that bothered her.
In the weeks since he'd read her foster care file and begun a sideline investigation, they'd only spoken about the matter a handful of times. He'd been able to determine that her first foster parents, the Andersons, had both been killed in a car accident in the late nineties. They had reviewed the police report together and agreed that there was nothing suspicious about the accident. Booth was still in the process of tracking down the second set of foster parents. The Carters had subjected Brennan to severe neglect, and Booth wondered if Max knew about that...or about any of the other nightmares in that file.
Brennan seemed content to let Booth handle tracking down the information in his free time, and unless he brought it up, she wasn't interested in discussing it. It also hadn't escaped Booth's notice that Brennan hadn't visited Max in prison since before the wedding. He certainly couldn't blame her for feeling unsure of her footing as far as her relationship with Max was concerned. She and Booth had briefly discussed the possibility of a private visiting room a while back, and Booth decided that he would talk to Caroline at some point and see about getting that set up. It might help Brennan feel slightly more comfortable seeing him again.
They drove themselves to work that morning after promising to keep each other updated on the progress of the case. Booth's interview with the victim's girlfriend didn't lead him to a crime scene, but the young woman did point him in the direction of another suspect. Gavin Nichols had apparently been having an affair with the wife of the Deputy Director of the Secret Service.
Considering the man's position, Caroline joined Booth to talk to Leo and Rona Sumner. The interview was a dead end, however, as it quickly became obvious that the couple had played no part in Gavin Nichols' death. Rona had indeed been sleeping with him, but Leo had known about it the entire time, effectively eliminating the jealous husband angle Booth was pursuing. They proved it with a video recording captured by Leo from inside a closet as his wife was having sex with Gavin.
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Shortly after concluding the second interview, Booth got an email from Hodgins regarding particulates he had recovered from the victim's skull. It was pink syenite that had been quarried in British Columbia, and there were very few recorded shipments to DC. Hodgins had sent a short list of locations, and Booth attempted to narrow them down, deducing the most logical place to start before heading to the lab to pick up Brennan. Cam fell into step with him as he passed her office.
"Where's Bones?"
"You arrested the Deputy Director of the Secret Service for voyeurism?"
"Yeah. Bones in her office?"
"That is awesome and really, really stupid. You've got to love a self-destructive man with values."
"Where's Bones?" he asked again.
"Right behind you," Brennan answered. Booth turned on his heel and smiled at the sight of her.
"Oh, great. Look, I checked into all those places with the red rock-"
"Pink syenite," she corrected automatically. Booth plowed ahead.
"There's only one place that uses the pink rock in its foundations. It's an old, deserted bank on the Anacostia River."
"Bingo, baby," Cam said approvingly. A tiny crease of confusion appeared on Brennan's forehead.
"Why 'Bingo, baby?'"
"I checked into the ownership of the place…"
"Why 'Bingo baby?'" Brennan repeated, encouraging him to continue.
"Shell companies owning defective titles and so on?" Cam guessed.
"I don't get the significance."
"It's deserted, isolated," Booth explained. "It's a fortress."
"Serial killer heaven," Cam translated.
"And you want to check it out?" Brennan surmised. Booth grinned at her eagerly.
"You said you'd come if we got a lead on a crime scene," he reminded her. She smiled back and nodded.
"I'll get my bag."
Capital Mutual Bank was a stately-looking building with a cavernous interior. The architecture was impressive, and Brennan admired it with interest it as they were led across the main level by a security guard. His voice echoed throughout the large, empty room.
"Bank's been closed for years. Door's always locked. Never a light… Nothing."
"No squatters?" Booth asked. The guard shook his head dismissively.
"They made them sturdy back in the day. I mean, look at this place."
"It is," Brennan agreed. The place was immaculate. "No dust, nothing."
"DC Building Conservancy is fighting to keep the place as a historical site. Maybe if you told me what you were looking for, I could help you out," the man offered.
"Ah, you know… Blood stains, butcher instruments…" Brennan stifled the urge to roll her eyes toward the decorative metal ceiling tiles and held a hand up to stop him.
"Any place where human remains would've come into contact with granite."
"You're not gonna find nothing like that up here," the guard replied, shaking his head again.
"Up here?" the partners echoed in unison. The guard motioned them onward and led them down a granite staircase into a subterranean level. They came to a stop in front of a massive vault door.
"Old vault. Cut right into the foundation of the place."
"Hermetically sealed… Insect proof… Constant humidity… It's ideal," Brennan announced.
"Yeah, well, we've got to get inside," Booth said.
"Heh, you want me to kick down the door?" the guard chuckled.
Booth pursed his lips and fished his cell phone from his pocket. It took the FBI techs nearly an hour to open the massive door, and when it finally swung open, Booth and Brennan entered the vault alone. He stepped ahead of her, his gun in one hand and a flashlight in the other, and she followed him with a flashlight of her own. The vault seemed to be made up of several smaller sections, each partitioned with metal bars that reminded Brennan of prison cells. Booth pushed one of the gates open, and his attention was immediately caught by a beeping sound. His eyes snapped upward to see a blinking red light, and he immediately assumed the worst.
"Get down!" he shouted, tackling Brennan to the ground and covering her body with his own. He braced himself for an explosion, but none came. Instead, he was surprised by the touch of Brennan's lips against his, soft but commanding.
"Why were your eyes closed?" she asked, chuckling breathlessly.
"I thought we were going to get blown up," he said sheepishly, belatedly registering the feeling of her body beneath him. He felt himself harden and couldn't resist the urge to push his hips forward slightly. "Not exactly the kind of explosion I was expecting, but I like this one better."
"That's an odd place to keep your firearm, Agent Booth."
"That's not my gun, baby," he flirted back. She kissed him again but then shook her head.
"We should get up."
"Oh, come on. How often do we get this kind of opportunity while we're working?" he smirked. Brennan laughed at his implication.
"Well, let's see, we've had sex in my office, your SUV, Bone Storage, various supply closets-" He cut her off with another steamy kiss that nearly convinced her to add 'deserted bank vault and possible crime scene' to their list.
"Yeah, okay, I get it." He grinned and lifted himself off of her, pulling her to her feet. She aimed her flashlight toward the blinking red light that had alarmed him.
"It's just a transmitter."
"Well, now whoever owns this place knows we're here," he replied, proceeding cautiously through the vault once more. "Now, be careful. We don't know what else is in here."
"There's a phrase in ancient Greek burned on the back of the vault door."
"Well, what's it say?"
"I don't know; it's in ancient Greek." Her voice implied that he'd asked a rather stupid question, but Booth merely smiled. He'd become so accustomed to his wife 'knowing everything,' as his son liked to proclaim, that he'd temporarily forgotten which languages she knew.
The vault was filled with an odd assortment of items, and Brennan catalogued them aloud as they continued to investigate.
"Dead languages. Egyptian art. Pythagorean mathematics…" She paused, shining her flashlight into the darkness. "Hebrew scriptures, gnosticism, Kabala, alchemy, druidism, astrology… Angela can tell us for sure, but I think these artifacts are museum quality." Her light fell upon a familiar object. "Whoa. Bingo, baby. I found Gavin Nichols' violin."
"Bones!" His voice came to her from another part of the vault, and she followed it curiously. When reached him, her intuition prickled at the sight of his frozen form.
"What, Booth? What did you find?"
"I… I don't know." She traced the path of his gaze to where the beam of his flashlight was focused. On the far wall stood a massive circular shield, as large as the vault door they had passed through a short while ago. Curved oddly against one side of the shield was a skeleton, but it looked like nothing Booth had ever seen on Brennan's exam tables. The bones gleamed back at him in the light. "What is it? ...Silver?"
Brennan crossed the room and studied the skeleton at a closer proximity. The arms of the skeleton were raised upward, and mouth of the silver skull hung open slightly as if crying out in despair. The image was chilling.
"Not all of these bones are silver," she noted. "It's possible we just found more of Gavin Nichols."
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So we're off and running with our first case of season 3. Hopefully my Sweets is different enough to not be annoying while still being in character. I tried to write him as the older, more mature Sweets we grew to love later in the series. And don't we wish they'd done some making out on the floor of that vault? ;)
Chapter 3 will be posted on Saturday!
Reviews make me happy!