One chapter left after this one. For maximum effect, listen to "This Woman's Work" by Kate Bush in the last few paragraphs. I can't tell you guys enough how glad I am that you like the story. Thanks for the reviews!

5 hours left

Angela set everything up as the rest of the team waited and watched with baited breath. Her hands worked feverishly to pull all the information she needed up on the monitors to present to the group. Typing in one last set of commands, the security camera footage from the FBI parking garage jumped to the screen.

"I was watching the cars enter the building, hoping to see something that would speak to me seeing as how I didn't have even the faintest idea what I was looking for, when I saw this."

The group leaned in around her to see a highly pixilated picture of a bumper sticker on the front, right bumper of the car in question. The resolution of the picture was terrible due to being blown up so much from a low resolution security camera, but the word "Vaults" was visible at the bottom of the sticker along with the same border from the state flag for Virginia.

It was the chipped upper right hand corner of the sticker that got Hodgins attention, and his eyes went wide. "Is that…?"

Angela turned excitedly to face him. "Yes."

Cam looked at them both in confusion. "Okay guys, fill me in, we're on a bit of a time crunch here."

Angela typed a few words into her computer, bringing up a picture of the shard of bumper sticker she'd scanned in. It was the piece of sticker that had been buried in Hodgins leg when he'd been struck by the Gravedigger's car a year ago.

"I took the evidence we already had, the physical shard of bumper sticker from Hodgins' leg and interfaced it with the partial image I was able to get from the security camera."

She pressed a button and the two images melded perfectly, proving that the piece from Hodgins leg was in fact from that bumper sticker. The quality of the picture was still extremely degraded, however, and no one could make out what the rest of it said. Angela went on, her words coming out in a rush. "We had initially thought it was prepaid toll pass sticker, but it wasn't at all. Once I had the image, I cross referenced it with images that can be found on public websites using minimal points of comparison to get as many hits as possible given the condition of our sample image."

Angela hit a final set of keys and an image popped up before them in a split screen with the original blurred one. This image was the same size and shape as theirs, with the Virginia state flag flowered border and the words "Vaults" on the bottom, except this image was complete. It was a logo for a company called "Alleghany Custom Vaults."

Sweets looked at the image with excitement. "Alleghany Custom Vaults. Do we know what that is?"

Angela smiled, pulling the website for the company up on her computer. "It's a company that specializes in making custom gun vaults. You contract them to build these things to your specifications and, get this, they boast on their site that they're the only ones who make their walk-in vaults out of aluminum."

Hodgins stood up straight, the pieces falling neatly into place in his head. "That explains the aluminum dust being in his trunk as well as on the ground at the crime scene." He ran his hands over his face, a scenario coming to mind. "Okay, intuitive leap. He has some of his tools in his trunk, tools that are covered in the aluminum dust from these vaults. He hits Booth with the riveter, knocking him out cold and depositing the blue paint particles in the blood residue at the scene. Brennan sees it and hits the guy, knocking the tool out of his hand so it lands on the ground, which puts the aluminum residue and blue paint there. She fights the guy for a minute, but he subdues her, probably with his high watt stun gun, and he takes them off to be buried."

Cam crossed her arms over her chest and nodded her head. "I like it, we had a why and now we have a how. Now we need a who and a where."

Angela pointed to the site. " It says on the contact page that you can hire one of their five very capable general contractors to come out and do an in home estimate."

Sweets' eyebrows shot up. "General contractor?"

Angela smiled as she watched the light bulb go off in his head. "The list includes one Mr. Pete Sanders, formerly of the FBI."

Sweets pulled out his cell phone, frantically dialing until he reached the tactical team that was on alert, advising them to apprehend Pete Sanders.

Cam looked at the psychiatrist as he hung up his phone, then directed her attention back to Angela and Hodgins. "Good work Angela. Now we just need the where, we can't trust that Sanders will talk once he's arrested."

Angela pulled up the photo gallery from the site. "I don't know about you guys, but my guess would be that they're in one of these custom gun vaults." She pulled up an example photo from the website. It was the size of a medium to large walk in closet, made completely of heavy-duty aluminum.

Cam nodded again. "Okay, so if we are to assume they're in a vault, he would have had to bury them somewhere relatively secluded due to the size of the digging operation he would have to do." She turned to Hodgins. "Do any of the particulates pin it down for us in light of this new information?"

Hodgins leaned against Angela's desk, his eyes wide with trepidation. "You saw the list, it was a bunch of disparate items, nothing that could pin a single location down for us."

"Go through them with me again. They have to add up to somewhere."

Hodgins' frustration was beginning to grow. "With all due respect Doctor Saroyan, I don't see how they could. Albumin, Apple core, banana peel, pulp from a variety of types of paper, scraps of cotton, cigarette butts. The list was endless."

Sweets sniffed behind them, lost in thought. "Sounds like stuff you'd find in my garbage can."

Cam and Hodgins whipped their eyes to each other, their thoughts perfectly in synch. Without a word, Hodgins ran from the room, Cam fast at his heels, leaving Angela and Sweets to look at each other in bewilderment for a second before they followed suit.

"I've been looking in all the wrong places to find an origin for the sphaerotilus. I thought it had something to do with a waste water treatment facility or sewage somewhere, but there's another place it would flourish quite nicely."

Hodgins slammed the keys of his keyboard, his eyes darting to the monitor as pure joy came to his face. "I know where they are."

Everyone crowded around his computer, their faces alive with anticipation as they saw the website for the Kim-Stan Landfill in Alleghany County, Virginia.

Hodgins pulled up a page outlining the current status of the landfill. "Due to an excess of leachate drainage into the groundwater the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality had to close the landfill for environmental clean up that has yet to happen due to lack of funds." Everyone crowded around a picture of the abandoned landfill.

He looked down quietly at his keyboard and whispered something that only he could hear. "King of the lab."

Angela looked utterly confused. "I don't understand, how did we get to this specific spot from that microbe thingy?"

Hodgins gestured to a picture of a drain with yellow, viscous fluid coming out of it on the website. "Leachate is caused in landfills when rainwater runs through decomposing waste, contaminating it. The resulting sludge that runs off it is a perfect place for microbes like sphaerotilus to thrive. Take that this place is abandoned and add that we know this microbe is the reason why, you have a place where a psycho can dig until the cows come home baby."

Everyone erupted into action as they realized that they had done it. They had found their friends. Sweets was on the phone again, alerting the team to the location as the group grabbed keys and coats and ran out the door.

It was time to get their friends back, they just hoped they weren't too late.

Less than an hour left

Booth and Brennan lay on their sides, gazing into each other's eyes. They'd put their clothes back on, written notes to their families just as Bones and Hodgins had done a year ago.

They had readied themselves for death.

Booth reached out and took her hand, bringing it to his lips as tears misted his eyes. Brennan let hers fall at will, felt them drop hot and wet onto the arm that her head rested on. The oxygen in the room was so depleted that she lacked the energy to wipe them away even if she'd wanted to.

Booth closed his eyes for a moment. "I'm so tired."

Brennan's heart was broken. They weren't getting out this time. She knew that someday her luck was going to run out, but that didn't make the reality of it being today any less tragic.

"We won't have to worry for much longer. It's all going to be okay very soon."

He opened his eyes and she watched as a slow tear trickled from the corner. He managed a weak smile. "It's already okay Temperance."

Using the last of her strength, she dragged herself close to him so he could wrap her in his arms. His heart beat strong and true as she buried her face in his chest. She felt the rise and fall of his breathing, knowing that the body continued to try and draw breath even if the life sustaining elements in the air around them were gone.

He kissed the top of her head gently. "I'm going to close my eyes. Just for a little while."

She squeezed her eyes shut as grief ripped her up inside. If she did believe in a God, if she had thought that some divine entity was real, she would have to wonder why he'd chosen to give them this gift of love just to have it yanked away as soon as it was given.

She pressed her devastated lips to his chest. "You rest now."

They were silent for a moment as Brennan felt the lack of oxygen starting to pull her seductively under into that oblivion that waited warm and welcoming for them.

"I love you Temperance Brennan." His words were far away, so far away.

"I love you Seeley Booth."

And then there was silence as they lost consciousness.