Hello again! I just wanted to take a quick second to thank my readers for always leaving reviews that are positive, thoughtful, and considerate. I see so many haters reviewing some of the stories I subscribe to (mostly in other fandoms), and I'm so happy not to be dealing with that silliness. So thanks for going easy on me! :)

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Chapter 18

Brennan needn't have worried about sleeping through the baby's cries. She was now fairly certain that no one would be capable of sleeping that soundly. Although the baby only woke once during the night, he certainly made his displeasure known. Booth assured her that he could handle the feeding and diaper change, but Brennan insisted on watching him. The baby would be with her at the lab the next day, and she wanted to make sure she knew how to care for him. Angela had volunteered to help out, but she had a job to do as well. The daycare at the Jeffersonian was unable to watch him for legal and insurance reasons. They didn't know anything about the infant, and there was no way to find out until they identified the victim from the car.

Booth had at least had the presence of mind to set the alarm a little earlier for the following morning. He remembered all too well how much longer it took to get out of the house with a baby. Brennan was flustered, packing and re-packing the diaper bag repeatedly as she tried to predict everything the baby might need for the day.

"I never realized how much stuff they have. Do you think three outfits is enough?" she asked anxiously.

"That should be fine. If you forget anything, you can always send an intern out for it. Or I can bring it to you. Actually, maybe I could even work from the lab today if you want," he offered, pausing to make a goofy face at the baby.

"Maybe later. Angela seems excited to watch him, and babies take naps, right?"

"Uh… yeah, I'm sure he'll sleep at some point. He might need a little extra attention today though. He's in a new place, around new people… I'm actually surprised he slept as much as he did last night. Babies like their routines."

Brennan filed that information away and helped Booth carry the baby and all of his equipment to the SUV. Booth smiled each time she turned to check on him as they made their way to the lab. She'll be such a great mom someday, he mused, capturing her hand to his lips. Booth helped her set up the playpen in her office before heading to the Hoover, and after the second morning feeding, Brennan was pleasantly surprised when the baby dozed off, allowing her to get some work done. She carried a baby monitor with her through the lab as she checked in with the rest of the squints.

The team worked as efficiently as always, but Cam's workload was increased by the unexpected sight of Angela carrying a dirty diaper. The key was still missing in action, but the baby's bowel movement was almost bright pink. Cam agreed to run a test in an effort to find out the reason and promised Brennan she would let her know the results as soon as possible.

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By midday, they had a face and county of origin for their victim. The vehicle she'd been driving had come from a junkyard in West Virginia. Hodgins used isotope analysis to discover that she had lived in Tucker County, most likely in a town not far from the junkyard. Booth and Brennan decided to take the baby with them on the off chance that someone from the small town of Huntsville might recognize him. Brennan was confident that there were enough genetic similarities between the baby's face and Angela's digital reconstruction to indicate that the baby had lost his mother. She only hoped that they were able to locate his father during the course of their investigation. The last thing she wanted was to see the boy disappear into the system.

Finding someone to question in Huntsville took a little longer than they'd expected. The place was a ghost town, deserted and run down after the closure of a nearby coal mine the previous year. Booth pulled over to question the first person they spotted.

"You people from the government?" the man asked, his tone slightly skeptical.

"Yes, sir. With the FBI."

"Huh," he nodded. "Training them up young, I see." He gestured to the baby in the infant carrier Brennan was holding.

"If you could just… help us," Booth began awkwardly.

"Right. Just like the government helped us when the bridge washed out. When they closed the school."

"When the economy dies, the logical thing to do is move," Brennan said simply. The man immediately began to get worked up about wanting to stay in the place where his family had thrived for several generations, but before he could really get in his stride, his wife came out of the house to interrupt his tantrum.

"Paul, who are you hollering at now?" she demanded.

"They're from the government," he replied, as though it were perfectly normal to chastise government officials he'd just met. Paul's wife, who would later introduce herself as Dorothy, spotted the baby at that moment, and she immediately assumed that Booth and Brennan had removed him from his mother's care.

"You should be ashamed," she admonished them. "That girl does the best she can to provide for Andy."

"Andy? You know this baby?" Booth asked hopefully.

"Yeah… The folks up the street, Carol and Jim Grant… They take care of him when his mom works," Dorothy answered, looking only a little less suspicious of their motives.

"Is this his mother?" Brennan asked, holding up Angela's reconstruction. Dorothy thought that the picture did indeed look like the woman she knew, and she directed them to the home of the neighbors she had mentioned.

The Grants identified the victim as Meg Taylor, a former high school classmate. They knew Andy's father as well, but they reported that the man, Lou, was an alcoholic who was frequently in and out of jail. He'd left Meg before Andy was born. Brennan felt her heart sink as she listened to their account of the man, knowing that there was a very good chance Andy might be in the system for a long time. She was pleasantly surprised when Carol Grant volunteered to watch Andy for the time being, and although he would have to stay with Booth and Brennan until the key made a reappearance, she hoped that the Grants might be willing to welcome the little boy into their home on a more permanent basis.

Jim and Carol directed them to Meg's place of employment as well as her home. As they made their way across town to check out the victim's residence, Brennan took a call from Cam. The pink dirty diaper had apparently been the result of a pharmaceutical dye used to color phenobarbital. Andy had still been breastfeeding prior to his mother's death, so it was impossible to tell whether it was he or his mother who had ingested it.

"Phenobarbital is prescribed for seizures," Brennan explained once she'd ended the call. "We'll have to see if we can find a prescription bottle in the house to find out whether it was his medicine or Meg's."

When they arrived at Meg's home, the front door was hanging open, and Booth insisted that Brennan stay in the SUV with Andy until he made sure everything was safe.

"But-"

"No 'buts.' Bones, there's a baby involved. If you hear gunfire or anything like that you drive away."

"I'm not leaving you," she argued.

"Yes you will, because this is about the baby. Not me. Promise me." His eyes were intense and firm as he waited for her answer, and Brennan gave Andy a long look before she nodded.

"I promise," she said reluctantly. She watched her husband draw his weapon and approach the house cautiously, disappearing through the open door. He was inside for only a few minutes before Andy began to fuss, and Brennan climbed into the back seat to sit next to him. She rearranged his blanket a little and stroked his forehead soothingly.

"We will find out what happened to your mother," she told him. "I promise. Booth is an excellent investigator, and I don't like to boast, but I'm the best in my field." Andy continued to fuss and squirm beneath his five-point harness, and Brennan shifted tactics. "What do you want? How about some visual and auditory stimulation?"

What should I do? Sing? Make faces? He laughs when Booth makes faces at him… She decided to wiggle her fingers at him, and his surprise at the sudden movement was enough to stop his squalling.

"Phalanges!" she cooed at him happily. "Phalanges, phalanges! Dancing phalanges!" Brennan laughed along with him. "Booth thinks bones are dry and boring, but… Show me your phalanges!"

Andy mimicked the movements of her fingers, still smiling for a few moments before his expression changed. He wasn't really smiling anymore, but he didn't look upset either. Instead, his eyes became slightly glassy and froze in place while his body became completely still. It only lasted a few seconds, but Brennan was slightly concerned. When his eyes moved again, the smile was back on his face, and he seemed perfectly fine.

Brennan didn't have much time to consider what she'd seen before Booth was escorting a wild-haired man out of Meg's trailer. The man was insisting that he hadn't killed his wife and wouldn't have wanted her dead because she occasionally gave him money for bail and alcohol. He had, however, broken into his wife's home and trashed the interior in search of cash and valuables, and Booth had him picked up by the county sheriff.

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Once the forensic techs had done a sweep of the trailer, Brennan did one of her own and found a small bottle of phenobarbital with Andy's name on the prescription label. The clinic listed was more than fifty miles away from Huntsville. A calendar hanging on the wall in the tiny kitchen indicated that there had been a medical appointment in DC the day Meg had been killed, which explained why her vehicle had been found so far from home.

As they were leaving the residence, Brennan called for an update from the lab. Angela had used Andy's x-rays to determine that the key had most likely been for a safety deposit box. It was an older style, and she was attempting to track down banks in the Huntsville area that still used that type of key. Zack had been working with the bones and reported that Meg had healed compression fractures in two of her lumbar vertebrae that were most likely caused by malnourishment. She also had several other indicators that she suffered chronic pain, but there was no trace of painkillers in either Meg's tox screen or Andy's.

"She was in near constant pain, but she never took anything," Brennan told her husband as they drove out to Meg's former workplace.

"Probably because she didn't want it affecting her… you know, her supply," Booth replied uncomfortably.

"You know, you can say breast milk. It won't offend anyone," she smirked, amused by his awkwardness. "Didn't you say Rebecca breastfed Parker?"

"Yeah, I just… Nevermind. Look, what I do know is that it could've caused the malnourishment. If she wasn't able to take care of her body, then Andy was getting all of her nutrients. There was nothing left for her."

"It's common with people living in impoverished conditions like this," Brennan agreed, frowning as they passed one abandoned building after another.

Meg Taylor had been employed at Fallbrook Rubber, a recycling facility that turned old tires into groundcover for playgrounds and landscaping. Her boss, Chip Barnett seemed stunned at the news of her death. He knew of her chronic pain and had offered to put her on disability, but Meg had refused because disability wouldn't have covered her expenses. Barnett didn't know anything about Meg's personal life, but a few of the employees stopped to contribute what little they'd known about her.

It was common knowledge that Meg's husband was a lowlife and a drunk, and one of Meg's coworkers suggested that perhaps he'd become jealous of a man who had recently shown romantic interest in Meg. His name was Dave Shepard, and he worked as an accountant at the corporate headquarters in DC. Shepard had been in town for a week and had been visiting the facility looking to cut costs. Most of the employees took that to mean that their jobs could potentially disappear. Meg had seemed to return the man's attention, but one of the employees insisted that the only person Meg had ever really cared about was Andy.

As they returned to the SUV, Booth was on his cell barking orders at Charlie. Brennan kept an eye on Andy as she carried him in his seat to the car, tapping her husband's arm lightly to get his attention.

"Booth… Booth, he's making that face again," she said nervously. Booth leaned in for a closer look and shook his head.

"He's probably just filling his diaper, Bones. Whose turn is it?"

"Yours, but I don't think that's the problem," she replied, still watching the baby. "He made a face like that earlier, and it had nothing to do with his diaper. I think it might be a seizure."

"What? He's not twitching or anything," Booth pointed out, confused.

"Not all seizures look like that. It could be a petit mal seizure, commonly referred to as an absence seizure. They're usually short, and then the brain returns to normal activity. Like that," she explained, gesturing back to Andy. He was grinning at them again, as though nothing had happened. "Maybe that's why he was on the phenobarbital."

"He's gonna be okay, right? Does he need a doctor?" Booth asked anxiously. "We're still waiting on his medical records."

"I think he'll be fine for now. He missed a dose of his medicine, so maybe that's the cause." Brennan removed the small medicine bottle from the diaper bag, read the label carefully, and measured a dose. Andy swallowed the red liquid without a fuss. They decided to feed and change him before getting back on the road, and when Booth opened the diaper, he was equally relieved and disgusted to see the small silver key.

Brennan donned a pair of gloves and cleaned the key with saline. They called Angela to see what information she'd come up with in regards to the key, and the artist explained that the key should be coded with a series of numbers that corresponded to a specific bank. Brennan read the numbers aloud, and Angela traced them to Green Hills Bank in Petersburg, West Virginia. They ended the call, and Brennan turned to watch Booth playing with the baby. When he held Andy up in the air to mimic dancing, she was surprised at what she saw.

"His legs are bowed," Brennan announced, stepping closer to examine him.

"All babies' legs are bowed."

"Not like this. How could I have missed that?" She went back to her phone and sent a quick text to Zack, instructing him to run a P ratio test on the victim's teeth.

"What's the big deal?" Booth asked, still making a fool of himself for Andy's amusement.

"Maybe nothing. We'll see. Ange sent the address for that bank. It's in Petersburg, which is one town over from Huntsville."

"Great. I'll request a warrant, and that'll give us time to go to Family Services in-"

"What? No! Not yet," Brennan said in alarm. Booth gave her a commiserating look.

"Bones, I know this is difficult, but we both agreed that we'd keep Andy until we got the key. Now that we have it…"

"No," Brennan said firmly. "You can't leave him with Family Services in the middle of nowhere. Cam still needs to review his medical records." She lifted the baby from his arms and put him back in the infant carrier, strapping him in with an efficiency that contradicted her lack of experience.

"Oh, well… Bones, there are doctors there," he reminded her.

"You have no idea what that place will be like, Booth. Med students, underfunded, understaffed-"

"Bones-"

"His mother is dead, and his father is a felon. I'm not turning him over until I'm satisfied that he's somewhere safe where he'll get the care he deserves."

"Fine," he surrendered, smiling at her stubbornness and her heart. "He can stay with us for now."

"Thank you," Brennan replied in a softer tone, her own lips curving upward as well. He leaned in to kiss her lightly, and his grin stayed in place as he reorganized the mess he'd made of the diaper bag. He stifled a laugh of pure joy as he watched his wife blow a giant raspberry on Andy's cheek, eliciting a fresh round of giggles from the little boy.

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That night, Brennan woke with a start, her gaze flickering this way and that through the darkness of their bedroom. She wasn't sure what had awoken her, but something compelled her to check on Andy. She slipped from the bed, noting that Booth was still asleep, and crossed the room to the playpen. Andy grinned up at her, kicking his feet happily.

"You're supposed to be asleep," she whispered, leaning down to lift his small body into her arms. He patted her cheeks with his tiny hands, and she kissed his forehead affectionately. She glanced once more at her sleeping husband before heading downstairs. Brennan changed Andy's diaper and prepared a bottle, finally settling into the rocking chair in the living room. The room was dark, lit only by the dim lamplight from the next room, but it was sufficient to see the delicate features of the baby in her arms.

"You know, this is the first time I've sat in this chair," she told him conversationally. "Booth insisted that he needed a new recliner when we moved here, and Parker wanted one that was able to rock. I think he enjoys the sensory stimulation. Looks like you do too." She smiled as she watched Andy battle with his drooping eyes.

She began to hum quietly as she looked at him. Brennan had never really bonded with a child this young. Even in the foster homes she'd shared with infants or toddlers, she'd been unable to connect with them in any real way. Her own life had been such a nightmare in most of those homes that there had been little energy left to spare for worrying about someone else. In the more violent homes, she'd done her best to shield the younger children from the brunt of the abuse, but she'd never had much of a relationship with any of them.

Her bond with Parker was the first of its kind in her life. She enjoyed her nieces as well, but her stepson held a unique place in her heart. Their connection had been so easily formed, nearly instantaneous, and the bond with Andy had happened almost as quickly. Once she'd gotten past her anxiety over being responsible for an infant, she'd learned how to take care of him fairly quickly, just as Booth had predicted. Now it seemed incredible that they'd found him only a little over twenty-four hours ago. He seemed to fit so perfectly into their lives.

Did this mean they were ready for a child of their own? Up until this point, the idea had always intimidated her a little, even though she was certain that she did want children eventually. They'd decided that before they'd even moved in together, but they hadn't really discussed it in quite a while. Brennan wondered curiously if Booth was ready to be a father again. Or perhaps he'd always been ready, and he'd just been waiting for her to catch up…

Her eyes had lost their focus while she'd been lost in thought, and when she turned her attention back to Andy, he was sleeping soundly. She gently removed the bottle from his mouth and placed it on the end table next to her, carefully shifting the baby up to her shoulder. He burped after only a few gentle pats to his back, and Brennan smiled when he released a sleepy sigh that tickled her neck.

Maybe I could do this, she thought. Maybe I'm ready…

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Booth woke at the sound of his early alarm, realizing after a few moments that the baby seemed to have slept all night. He smiled into his pillow and reached for his wife… only to find her missing. He sat up quickly, his eyes darting from the bed to the bathroom and then to the playpen. Empty. Booth crept quietly down the staircase and through the lower level until he reached the living room, grinning widely at sight that met his eyes.

His beautiful wife had fallen asleep in the rocking chair, holding a slumbering baby in her arms. The image made his chest ache with pride and longing, and his eyes stung from the unexpected rush of emotion. Booth quickly retrieved his cell phone and the digital camera from upstairs and took at least a dozen pictures of them from various angles. The relentless clicking caused Andy to stir, which in turn roused Brennan.

"Morning," Booth whispered, bending to kiss her softly.

"Hi," she smiled back sleepily. "He woke up around four. I must've dozed off."

"Why don't I get him changed and fed again while you take a shower?" he offered, extending his arms toward the baby. Brennan nodded in agreement and kissed Andy's forehead before lifting him upward toward her husband. She watched as Booth ambled off into the kitchen, dancing a little and making more ridiculous faces to make Andy laugh.

As she showered, Brennan became contemplative once again, turning over the question of parenthood in her mind. She felt ready, and she hoped that Booth was too. She knew, however, that now was probably not the right time to bring it up. Max's trial was due to begin next week, and they both had enough to worry about at the moment. Brennan's stress and anxiety over the potential outcomes of the trial were still in high gear. Surely it was better to address the possibility of having a baby once their lives had settled a little bit.

Because one way or another, her father's fate would be decided in a little over a week.

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The case progressed quickly that day, but the majority of the legwork fell on the shoulders of Booth and the rest of the squints. Brennan spent hours in her office, taking care of Andy and making phone calls to the Congressman who represented the Huntsville area. When that avenue was unsuccessful, she called the offices of every government official who had ever received her monetary support. It seemed to her that what the town of Huntsville really needed was a new bridge. It would put the town back on the scenic route and ensure that the local economy could recover. If Carol and Jim Grant were willing to become Andy's parents, then they would need stable jobs in order to provide for him.

Meg Taylor had secured only one item in her safety deposit box: a gun. The serial numbers had been filed off, but with a little science and a little more investigation, Booth and Brennan were able to track it to a pawn shop that had long since closed its doors. There were shards of bone inside the gun barrel, and Cam was able to trace the DNA to Dave Shepard. The man had been shot point blank in the forehead, and remnants of skin on the grip and trigger indicated that Shepard's assailant had been male.

A homeless man had discovered a blood-stained canvas bag near the abandoned coal mine in Huntsville, and the credit card inside had belonged to Shepard. The FBI was able to locate the man and the bag through credit card receipts, and they were able to confiscate the bag and its contents. The only item of potential help was a crushed USB drive that Angela was working to repair.

Hodgins was able to retrieve particulates from the gun that suggested the weapon had been at the tire recycling facility at some point, and Booth decided that another visit to Huntsville was in order. Brennan reluctantly left the baby in Angela's care and accompanied her husband back to Tucker County. A small group of FBI forensic techs followed them in a van, and the manager looked less than pleased to see them when they arrived. They spoke with Barnett briefly, showing him the search warrant and dodging his questions efficiently. Booth and Brennan were standing quietly, observing the routines and processes of the facility, when Brennan's attention was caught by the machine that was being used to shred the deflated tires.

"Where're you going?" Booth shouted as his wife took off toward the large machine. "Bones!" She didn't answer but quickly climbed the stairs of a scaffold that stood next to the mouth of the machine. A long conveyer belt moved the tires up from the ground and dumped them steadily into the opening.

"Booth, look at this." He had followed right behind her and peered over the railing of the scaffold to watch the gears and teeth of the machine as it methodically shredded the rubber. She shouted down at an employee to turn off the machine. Booth was following her logic effortlessly.

"Yeah, if I were a dead body, and I needed to disappear-"

"This would be a pretty thorough way to do it," she nodded, finishing his sentence. Booth asked the employee how often the mulch was shipped out, and the timeframe indicated that Dave Shepard's body might still be at the facility.

The rubber mulch was collected in giant plastic bags that were nearly as tall as Brennan. The helpful employee guided them to an area of the warehouse that was used to store the bagged mulch, and she ran to the SUV to grab her kit. Brennan used a simple method to figure out which bags contained the remains of Dave Shepard. Although all of the mulch had been cleaned thoroughly before being bagged, she knew that the bones would still be there. Booth dropped a handful from each bag into a plastic beaker of water, and they watched as the rubber pieces floated while the shards of bone sank. While Booth ensured that the plant was shut down immediately, Brennan took a call from Angela.

"Brennan, it's me. Turn on your video stream," she instructed.

"Is Andy alright?"

"Yeah, Cam's pediatrician friend is examining him right now. The baby's fine," Angela assured her, inwardly tickled at her friend's display of maternal instincts. As soon as the video connection was live, Angela sent over the data she'd recovered from the flash drive. "Take a look at this. I recovered most of the memory from that flash drive. Dave Shepard's internal audit showed a completely different set of numbers than those reported to corporate headquarters."

"Somebody was doctoring the profits," Booth surmised, having followed Brennan out to the SUV to look over her shoulder.

"Siphoning money into a private account," Brennan agreed. "Dave would've figured it out while he was in Huntsville. That's probably what got him killed."

"And if Meg knew about it, then the killer would want her dead too. Come on." They closed the video feed and returned to the warehouse. "Where's Barnett?"

"Chip left," one of the workers replied. "Said he had an emergency at home."

In seconds, Booth and Brennan were back in the SUV, speeding toward Barnett's home with the siren blaring. They were able to cut him off at the end of his driveway, but Barnett attempted to flee on foot. He was an older man in poor physical shape, and Booth caught up with him easily.

"Chip Barnett, you're under arrest for eluding a federal agent. I'm sure we'll be throwing in a few murder charges as well. You know your rights, yeah?" Booth pushed the man roughly into a chain-link fence as he cuffed him.

"Yeah," Barnett grunted in response, and Booth spun the man around to face him. "It was only a matter of time before they closed the plant."

"So you embezzled from the company," Booth accused. Brennan stood just behind him, scowling in disgust.

"A man does what he has to for his family."

"So that justifies the killing of two innocent people?" Brennan shouted.

"Shepard was gonna turn me in."

"So you shot him. Meg witnessed it, got a hold of the gun…" Booth filled in.

"She wanted money to keep quiet, take her kid to some doctor in DC."

"So you knew where she was headed," Brennan concluded. Booth was growing angrier by the second.

"Yeah, you followed her out of town so you could kill her with no one around."

"I didn't want to kill her," Barnett denied. "I went to her trailer to look for the gun first, but you do what you have to-"

"There was a baby in that car," Brennan snarled, pushing past Booth to grip the neck of Barnett's shirt. She pushed him forcefully into the fence. "You son of a bitch."

"Bones," Booth interceded, grasping her shoulders gently to pull her away. She shrugged him off and stomped back to wait in the SUV, leaving Booth to detain Barrett until the county sheriff arrived.

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By the time Booth and Brennan returned to the lab, the workday was drawing to a close. Booth dropped her off and went to check in at the Hoover before returning to the Jeffersonian. He found her in her office, entertaining Andy with his stuffed elephant. The forensic techs had turned up a letter in Meg's trailer, and Booth hoped that Brennan would be satisfied once she'd read it. Before he could tell her much about it, however, they were interrupted by Cam.

"Hey," she greeted them. "So it turns out that Andy has a genetic condition."

"What is it?" Booth asked promptly, frowning in concern.

"Vitamin D-resistant rickets. The test Zack did confirmed that Meg had a mild form with very few symptoms. She probably didn't even know she had it."

"But males are prone to more severe cases than females," Brennan nodded. "So Andy would have exhibited more extreme symptomatology."

"Including the seizures. The clinic probably prescribed him the phenobarbital without searching for underlying causes."

"Well, is Andy going to be alright?" Booth asked.

"Absolutely," Cam assured him, smiling when he sagged in relief. "It's very treatable. My friend can treat him as an outpatient. Andy's going to be fine."

"Thanks, Cam. Really," Brennan said sincerely, relief clear in her features as well. As Cam headed back to her office, Booth and Brennan turned simultaneously to Andy and began to talk to him.

"Yeah!"

"You're going to be fine," Brennan grinned at him.

"Looks like our little guy's going to be just fine," Booth said happily. When he caught his wife's eyes, he belatedly realized what he'd said. "The little guy," he corrected awkwardly.

"Andy," she smiled back. They communicated silently for several long moments, and Brennan saw something flash in his eyes.

Maybe we can have that talk sooner than I thought.

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The letter found in Meg's trailer turned out to be a letter to Carol Grant, begging her to take care of her son if anything should happen to her. The Grants traveled to DC the following day and met with Booth and Brennan at the Hoover. Brennan swayed unconsciously with Andy in her arms as she watched the Grants sign the adoption papers, and she handed him over to Carol with a watery smile.

Part of her was relieved that Andy would have parents who obviously loved him very much, but a smaller part of her ached to see him go. In such a short time, this tiny person had shifted something within her, and she knew that there was no going back. She was ready. She wanted a baby. Maybe not right away, but soon.

As they drove home, Brennan flipped through a report Carol had given her before leaving with Andy. The government officials she'd reached out to hadn't been able to help, so Brennan had decided to seek another solution.

"What's all that?" Booth asked, glancing curiously at the thick document in her hands.

"It's information Carol gave me, from a structural engineer," she replied. When he raised his brows questioningly, she continued, "The congressmen couldn't help, so I was going to talk to you about rebuilding the bridge into Huntsville. I want to hire Carol Grant as the project manager; it's what she did before the local economy crashed."

"I thought you said the people were better off just moving away," he reminded her with a smile.

"Yes, but sometimes it only takes one thing, like a bridge, for a town to start recovering. If the town is back on the scenic route, the gas stations could reopen, restaurants, maybe a bed and breakfast for people wanting to stay in the area…" As she spoke, her expression became gradually more excited until she was beaming at the possibilities.

"So I take it you want to use your book money for the project? Will it be enough?"

"Well, there's still a lot left over from my previous books, and my publisher actually mentioned selling movie rights-"

"Whoa, movie rights? Wow, Bones. That's incredible."

"Yes, well… I wasn't sure about it, but now that I have a use for the money, I'm leaning toward a yes. I wanted to discuss it with you though. People occasionally recognize me, and I know it makes you feel awkward sometimes. I can only assume it would be worse if any of my books were made into films. I didn't give them an answer either way yet."

"Bones, don't worry about that. If this is what you want, then I'm with you. Plus, I'm in complete agreement with the bridge idea. We don't need the money, and these people need the help." They shared a long smile before Brennan nodded and went back to reading the report.

Booth glanced at her repeatedly as he drove, still a little shocked that she had come up with a plan to save an entire town. She was without a doubt the most generous and selfless person he'd ever known, and he was proud of her on so many levels. He hoped that he could convince her to visit Huntsville someday, maybe even stay in that bed and breakfast she'd imagined.

It would be nice to see Andy again too…

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I just loved this episode. *warm fuzzies* But hang on to your butts, cause Max's trial is next. Can't believe this is almost done! I'm sad and relieved at the same time. :)

Reviews also give me *warm fuzzies* Just so you know. ;)