Chapter 1

"In the flesh," Sully responded, a grin spreading across his face, showing off the teeth that Booth had always thought were just a tad too white.

"What are you doing here?" Booth questioned.

"I'm back," he replied needlessly.

"You're coming back to the Bureau?"

"No. I'm finished with that life. Actually, I recently acquired a piece of property not too far from here. I was thinking of opening a sandwich shop."

"So what are you doing here, in the Hoover?" Booth asked, trying to sound happy when in truth his brain was screaming for him to get rid of the other man as quickly as possible before Sully ruined the wonderful life he had built for himself.

"I'm just here to see some old friends, catch up with some of my buddies at the Bureau," he said, his eyes roving around the room.

"And you were hoping to run into Bones," Booth guessed.

"You two still work together?"

"We do."

"She still doing all right?"

"She's great. Look, Sully-" Before he could say anything, however, his phone rang. Holding up a finger, he answered it. "Booth. . . Yeah. . . Okay, we'll be there in about thirty minutes." As he hung up, he turned back to Sully. "Look, it's great seeing you again, but I've got to go. I've got a case. We'll catch up some other time."

"Okay. Some other time."

Thirty minutes later, Booth and Brennan were following a police officer through the forest, pushing branches of trees out of their way as they walked along. Booth had tried to keep Brennan out of the field since learning of her pregnancy, but she, of course, refused to remain behind, claiming that the pregnancy in no way affected her ability to process a crime scene and that Booth was being overprotective. Booth knew she was right, but he could not stop himself from worrying.

"A couple adventurous hikers got pretty far off the beaten path and ended up tripping over what they thought was a log in the woods," the cop explained. "They took a closer look and realized that it was actually a human hand. They got out of there pretty quickly and called us. We took one look at the hand and called you two in. I'm told you're the best at. . . these cases."

"If by these cases, you mean decomposed remains, then yes, the Jeffersonian is one of the top institutions for that field. We have a success rate of nearly 90% which is-"

"I think he gets it, Bones," Booth remarked irritably. He was still thinking of Sully's return, wondering how they were going to handle it. He supposed that he should have told Sully about his and Brennan's relationship that morning, but he could not help but have an irrational fear that mentioning the relationship would somehow jinx it and could cause him to lose the best thing he had had in years. He knew Sully and Brennan had been fairly hot and heavy for the short period they were together, and he could not help but wonder how he could measure up. Sully was accomplished, intelligent, and he could pick up any skill in a matter of days it seemed. Of course Brennan would jump at the chance to be with a man like him. He certainly was more her match intellectually.

"Booth, are you even paying attention?" Brennan questioned.

"What? Uh. . .yeah, I'm listening."

"I was just saying that this fall was unusually hot and rainy, so it could have significantly sped up the rate of decomposition."

"But won't Hodgins still be able to get time of death with his bugs?"

"He should be able to narrow it down, yes." They ducked under a final branch, and the cop leading them stopped, pointing to the ground in front of him. It did not take long for Brennan to notice the skeletal hand poking up from beneath the leaves, closed tightly as if making a final, desperate attempt to hold onto its life. Kneeling beside the body, Brennan carefully removed the top layer of leaves, exposing a skull with only a few remaining shreds of flesh still clinging to it. She swallowed the wave of nausea which rose in her throat; though the smell of corpses still bothered her sometimes due to the pregnancy, the corpse was fairly decomposed, and the stench had lessened somewhat. On top of that, she had taken the anti-nausea pills that morning.

Booth obviously noticed her green tinge, for he became instantly concerned. "Hey, Bones, are you okay? Do you need me to get your medicine?"

"I'm fine, Booth," she said quickly as her nausea dissipated. "The skeleton is female. African American." Carefully, she removed the remaining leaves, exposing the entire skeleton. "She was in her late thirties. Likely dead two to three months."

"Cause of death?"

Brennan let her eyes travel over the remains in front of her. "Hyoid's broken."

"Strangulation. Okay."

"Booth?"

"Yeah?"

"The tissue is fairly decomposed, but you can still see evidence of deep lacerations to the face, so deep that they cut the bone."

"So she was beat up before she was killed?"

"From the size and number of the lacerations, I believe she was beaten fairly extensively. And though I can't say anything for sure until we remove the tissue completely, I also see evidence of other injuries on other parts of her body."

Booth nodded shortly, taking a deep breath. As much as he loved his job, there were some days when he absolutely hated it.

Two hours later, the body was lying on the central examination table at the Jeffersonian. Cam, Brennan, and Mr. Nigel-Murray were standing over it, finishing up the preliminary examination before they removed the flesh. Booth stood to one side, watching with his hand pressed to his lips. "Uh-oh," Cam remarked.

"What? What uh-oh?" Booth questioned, his hand dropping to his side as he straightened to see what Cam was looking at. Unfortunately, all he could see was a picture with a rainbow of colors in no discernable pattern.

"Photometric evaluation indicates that there is a hematoma in the decomp tissue," Cam explained. "It shows there's bruising to the vaginal wall."

Booth sucked in a breath. Great, this case kept getting better and better. "So she was raped," he concluded. All three scientists nodded.

"I'm afraid so, Seeley," Cam told him.

"After you finish the initial examination, I want you to clean the bones," Brennan instructed. "I'll be back shortly." Stripping off her gloves, she started for her office, Booth trailing after her. Once inside, she headed directly for the computer.

"Sully's back," Booth said without preamble, shutting the door behind him. He had been debating how to tell her since they had returned from the crime scene, and he had eventually settled on the most direct method, knowing it was the method which Brennan would prefer. She turned to him quickly, her blue eyes searching his.

"Why?"

"He said something about opening a sandwich shop."

"Sausage and onions," she remembered, an involuntary smile crossing her lips.

"What?"

"Sausage and onion sandwiches. One of his dreams was to open a place where he could sell them," Brennan explained.

"Oh, of course." How did she know that? And why was she smiling? Shouldn't she be angry that Sully was back? Hadn't he left her? "So, how do you feel about this whole thing?" Booth questioned after a few seconds of silence.

"I really have no strong feelings about it. I mean, I might run into him from time to time, but I doubt I'll have any interaction with him beyond that."

"So you don't plan on getting back together with him then?"

Brennan looked at him, genuinely confused. "No, of course I don't plan on getting back together with him. Why would I? I told you that I wanted to be in a monogamous relationship with you, and I still do."

Booth let out a breath that he didn't realize he was holding. "Good."

"Wait, were you jealous of him or something?"

Dammit. Of all times for her to be perceptive, why did it have to be now? "No, of course I wasn't jealous," Booth said quickly. Unfortunately, she picked up on his falsehood immediately.

"You were jealous. Why would you ever be jealous?"

"I wasn't jealous. It's just. . . Look, Bones, the guy does like fifty different things, and he does them all well. He's smarter than me, he knows the bone stuff. It's just, well, it seems like you have more in common with him."

"Angela told me a phrase once. I believe it was 'jack of all trades but a master of none.' I think that kind of applies to Sully. I mean, sure, he does a lot of stuff, and he does it well, but there's not that one thing that he's really good at, the one talent he has that nobody else can match. But you have that. Your ability to read people is incredible, and you are a highly-skilled investigator, better than Sully can ever hope to be. If you ask me, I think he was jealous of you for that." Booth smiled slightly at this, and she took his cheeks in her hands to force him to look at her as she continued. "Look, Booth, I've told you before that there is more than one kind of intelligence. Sure, Sully might have a higher IQ than you. But when it comes to interacting with people, when it comes to investigating, your intelligence is far greater than his." She dropped her hands to her sides, but Booth reached out and took them in his own, entwining his fingers with hers.

"Thanks, Bones, that's exactly what I needed to hear," he told her, squeezing her hands gently. He was tempted to kiss her, but he kept his distance, knowing they were at work. His thumb brushed lightly over the back of her hand.

"Besides, Booth, he left. Just like everyone else. You stayed."

Booth grinned widely now. "You're damned right I did. And I'm going to continue to stay, too, for the rest of my life." They remained standing there for a few more seconds, their hands still locked together. Eventually, Booth dropped her hands with a sigh. "I'm going to go look through Missing Persons for anyone fitting our victim's general description," he told her.

"Okay. I have a couple things to finish up here, and then I'm going to help Mr. Nigel-Murray clean off the bones. We should have a face for you by this afternoon."

"Sounds good. I'll see you in about an hour for lunch?"

"Take-out. I don't really have time to leave the lab."

"Take-out it is." And with a grin and a wink, he was gone.

Brennan swiped onto the platform thirty minutes later, snapping on a fresh pair of latex gloves. "What else have we learned?" she asked.

"Evidence of numerous other subdural hematomas all over the body," Cam announced. "She was basically one big bruise."

"Torn ligaments in the ankle and shoulder," Mr. Nigel-Murray added. "There also seems to be evidence of multiple bone fractures though it's hard to tell before we remove the flesh."

"All the injuries are consistent with torture," Cam said, her voice wavering slightly.

"Okay. Let's clean the bones and see what else we can discover. We need to get Booth a face as soon as possible."

Twenty minutes later, Brennan heard a familiar voice behind her. "It's nice to see you again, Tempe," Sully called from the main lab floor.

"I don't really have time to catch up right now, Sully," Brennan told him without turning around. He chuckled slightly.

"Booth told you I was back, didn't he?"

"How did you know?" This time, she did turn so that she could face him fully.

"Because you don't seem at all surprised to see me," he answered. "So, why don't you take a short break and we can go grab some lunch somewhere?"

"I don't have time to take a break," Brennan informed him, turning back to her bones. "Besides, Booth is bringing me take-out soon."

"Come on, Tempe, you're going to work yourself to death."

"I'll be fine. You're beginning to sound like Booth."

"Who's beginning to sound like Booth?" Booth asked as he joined the group, carrying two large white bags. When he saw Sully, he cocked his head to the side. It seemed the man did not waste much time. "Sully, I didn't expect to see you here," he remarked.

"I was just trying to see if Tempe wanted to have lunch."

"She has it." Booth held up the take-out bags. "Come on, Bones, food's here. Eat up, and then you can get back to your bones."

"I don't appreciate being ordered around like a small child," Brennan complained though she did join him on the main floor of the lab. When the scent of food reached her nostrils, however, her stomach rumbled, and Booth smiled.

"See, Bones, I knew you were hungry. Now, eat up, I brought Thai, pie, peanut butter crackers, and two cucumbers." Booth had decided to cover her four main cravings, figuring that he would at least have one right then. Brennan reached for the bags which he happily passed to her, and she disappeared into her office with them.

"I hope those aren't all going to be eaten together," Sully remarked.

Booth shook his head. "Nope. But you know Bones; she has strange tastes." He decided to hold off on explaining exactly why her tastes were strange until he discussed the matter with Brennan. They needed to decide between the two of them exactly how much they wanted to tell Sully. Besides, the only person besides the two of them who knew about the pregnancy was Angela (and probably Hodgins as a result), so he did not know if they should ever tell Sully.

Booth made his way to Brennan's office, noting with some irritation that Sully followed behind him. "I also brought over some Missing Person's files that fit the general description of the woman you found," Booth told her, holding up the files as he walked into her office. "I need to finish searching, but this should give you a place to start. I'm working on having the dental records sent over."

Brennan swallowed quickly and reached for the files. Booth passed them to her, taking a seat beside her on the couch. Sully perched on the arm on her other side. As she continued to eat, Brennan flipped quickly through the files, setting two of them aside when she finished. "These aren't her," she informed Booth, indicating the two files. "One of these women had disk replacement surgery on her back, and the other one had a knee replacement. I see no evidence of either surgery on our victim."

Booth nodded. "Okay. Well, I'll keep checking Missing Persons. It would be nice to have a face though."

"We're working as fast as we can, Booth. These things take time."

"I know, I know." He grabbed a pair of chopsticks and leaned over to steal a bite of her Pad Thai. She slapped his hand away, but he still managed to close the chopsticks over some of the noodles, and he brought them quickly to his mouth.

"Didn't you get your own food?"

"You're eating it," he told her, taking another bite.

"There are two more boxes in there. Take one of them."

"I don't want one of them." A third bite found its way to his mouth.

"You're just doing this to annoy me."

"So what if I am?" He smirked at her, reaching for her food again. She smacked his hand harder this time, but he was relentless. Sully was watching the entire exchange with interest, somewhat surprised at how playful Brennan seemed.

"Fine. I'll get more on my way back to the Hoover. You sure you're fine?"

"Yeah, I'm good. Go." Brennan waved him away with her chopsticks.

He watched her for a minute, unsure. Finally, he said, "If you find anything, call me. And make sure you take care of yourself." Resisting the urge to kiss her (for Sully was still watching them intently), he left the office.

"You sure you're going to be able to eat all this?" Sully inquired once Booth had left, peering at the large amount of food in the bags.

Brennan shrugged. "Probably. And if I can't, I'll just throw it in the fridge and warm it up later. I tend to get hungry about mid-afternoon. Why? Did you want some?"

"No, no. I've never been a big fan of Thai."

She shrugged. "Your loss."

He was silent for a few seconds before taking a deep breath. "Listen, Tempe, I was wondering if you wanted to have dinner with me tonight. You know, for old times sake. We could catch up. I'm curious what's been happening here."

"I'll have to see how the case goes," Brennan told him noncommittally.

Sully smiled. "Same old Tempe."

"Not as much as you'd think, Sully," she countered enigmatically. He opened his mouth to respond but could think of nothing to say. Instead, he said goodbye and left her to eat in peace.

When Booth returned two hours later with the remaining Missing Persons files, Brennan and Mr. Nigel-Murray had finished cleaning the bones. "Angela has the skull," Brennan told Booth, her eyes focused on the screen in front of her as she moved the camera over the body. "She should have a face for you soon."

"Great. Then I can try to match it." Booth swiped onto the platform and walked up behind Brennan, watching as she carefully maneuvered the camera. "Whatcha got for me, Bones?"

"Multiple fractures of the metatarsals, tarsals, ribs, metacarpals, and phalanges. Shallow grooves on the bones of the arm and leg seem to be knife wounds. These injuries are consistent with the previous conjecture of torture."

"So whoever did this tortured and raped her before strangling her?"

"That is what the evidence points to, yes."

"Bastard," Booth breathed vehemently.

"I agree," Hodgins added, joining them on the platform. "Insect activity places your victim's death between nine and eleven weeks ago. I'm still working on analyzing the clothing. Or what's left of it anyway."

"I've got a face," Angela announced, emerging from her office. "And you're not going to like this one, Booth."

"Why?"

"Recognize her?" Angela passed him a picture which showed a woman in her late thirties with dark skin, rounded cheeks, and a fairly prominent nose.

"It's Emma Kelly," Booth muttered, staring at the picture.

"Wait, Emma Kelly? You mean the federal prosecutor who went missing about three months ago?" Hodgins questioned.

"That's the one," Booth answered. "But she's not missing any longer."