Hello everyone :) I know; it's been quite a while since my last update. This chapter was a struggle, but it's rather long, so maybe that will make up for it. What with school starting up, I've been really pressed for time. I'm hoping to have the next chapter up in less than two weeks, but I can't make any promises. :(

"Let me tell you, this is just... weird."

"Yes, you've said that three times now," Brennan said rather testily, casting him a glance that clearly said she didn't think much of this man's intelligence.

He opened his mouth to tell the man to move on already, but he was already speaking again.

"You have to understand, I remember Sampson very clearly, and he wrote countless stories, all of which I rejected, about you. He had tons of pictures... used to bother the other reporters about which ones they thought went best with which story. They were creeped out. I was creeped out."

"Mr. Wright, could you please just... show us to you office so you could answer some questions we have?"

"What? Oh, err, of course, of course... Here, right this way." He waved them down the row of cubicles, and Booth watched with dull humor as all the heads which had been peering over the tops of them immediately popped out of sight and the air filled with the sound of rustling pages and typing. He was never so grateful of how much field work he did for his job; this place reminded him of the office building where the woman's body had been found crushed in the elevator shaft.

The boss's office was a small and untidy room with dirty glass walls and a desk that took up too much space. The computer was sleek and shiny; quite obviously the favorite possession in comparison to the other dingy items that surrounded the workspace. Bones was looking around with her lip curling up in unrestrained disgust as she eyed the overflowing trashcan and a sludgy brown stain that was steadily being added to by the drip from a tipped coffee cup.

"Mr. Wright, could you tell us a bit about Mr. Sampson before we move on to questioning your employees?"

"I... yeah, sure." He looked like he wanted to make another comment about how strange the situation was—his eyes kept darting back and forth between the two of them, staying a fraction of a second longer on her each time—but he wisely kept it to himself. "He kept to himself a lot of the time, but he had these... moments, I guess you'd call them, where he'd surprise all of us."

"In what way?" Bones piped up, breaking her eyes away from the dying plant on top of the filing cabinet.

"Well, he'd do all his work, and sit in his office and just... y'know, act like he was invisible... and then he'd show up in my office with this great idea for a story, or he'd offer something up in a meeting that would just blow us away. That's part of the reason we kept him around for so long, really. I mean, great worker... but he had his quirks. Couldn't work with anyone, for one. I had one of my columnists... Greg Stewart was his name—he moved to another paper a year ago—ask Tim if he'd do a bit of a collaboration with him... and he totally freaked out. Threatened to quit, you know."

"So he was socially inept?" Brennan questioned, frowning.

Wright looked just about as confused by her question as she was by what they were learning about Sampson. He considered intervening, but then just chose to let it play out.

"I... what?"

"He didn't know how to act around his coworkers?" she rephrased, now tilting her head and drawing her eyebrows further together. Her tone had taken on her familiar incredulous tint, as though she couldn't understand how the person she was speaking with could possibly not understand what she was saying.

"Oh. Well, I guess you could put it that way... it was really his whole obsession with Tem— I mean you—that threw us for a loop, though. I mean, I told you, he was pretty damn isolated before that whole thing started up. After he got hooked... he'd freak out if anyone questioned him about it, started hiding his notes... taking more and more of his stuff home with him. I thought he might actually be getting ready to quit, and to be honest, I was pretty relieved. I've never liked firing people, and it was starting to get towards the point where he was becoming a liability to the paper."

Booth wasn't surprised that the guy didn't have the guts to fire anyone. How he got to be head of the newspaper was something he was really starting to question. From the look on Brennan's face, the same thought had already crossed her mind.

"We never found any parts of an article," she said suddenly, turning to face him directly.

"Did he leave anything behind?" Booth immediately asked Wright.

"Just his office supplies... we did eventually have to let him go, and he cleaned out everything of his. He was pretty thorough with it, too. Not a trace of him in this place... he even vacuumed his cubicle's floor."

"How about a laptop?" Brennan queried, unhindered by the disappointing news.

"Oh yeah, he had one. He practically lived on that thing. That's where you'd find all of his articles... never printed out anything unless it was done. He kept all his notes in a notepad, though. I think he organized longer articles on bulletin boards, too..."

"Yeah, he did," Booth said shortly. "I think that'll be all... we'll just take some of your employee's time now, and see if they know anything else. They might have known more, working alongside him and all."

"I doubt it, but you're welcome to try. I'm still just a little... shocked. I mean, first you show up, after seeing so many pictures and reading so many articles by Sampson about you... and then you tell me he's dead..."

"We get it; you haven't quite caught up to reality yet. Thank you for your cooperation."

"Not a problem, not a problem at all."

They were just stepping out the office door when Brennan turned back and quipped one last comment, "I might suggest an air freshener."

"Y'know, I don't think that was entirely necessary," he said, half-chuckling despite himself, as the office door shut on the surprised face of the office manager.

"On the contrary, I think it was entirely necessary. He might be completely acclimated to the stench, but he's running a bad business by not thinking about what other's are forced to endure by simply stepping into that office."

He couldn't avoid a short bark of laughter, which sent the peering eyes shooting out of sight once more as they rounded the corner.

"Alright, he said that this was Sampson's workspace..." Booth said as they stopped in front of a cubicle right in the middle of one row. An Indian man with thinly framed glasses turned away from his computer, staring up at them in surprise and then pulling out his iPod headphones.

"Can I... help you?"

"Clearly he isn't one of the nosy, gossipy types," Brennan commented, earning a confused stare from the man, who's cubicle label informed him was named 'Neville.'

"She just means that... you know what, never mind. Are you aware of who used to occupy this cubicle?"

"Some guy... Sam, I think? I don't really socialize much, but that's what they told me when I first got the job."

Before Brennan could point out the similarities between him and the former occupant, he hurried to pose a new question.

"His name was Timothy Sampson. We're here investigating his murder." He pulled aside his jacket to reveal the badge clipped to his belt. Neville's eyes widened. "Did you find anything... out of the ordinary when you moved your things into this space?"

"No, everything was perfectly clean... shining, even. I'm sorry, did you say this man was murdered?"

"Unfortunately, yes," Booth said with a firm nod. "Can you maybe tell us which of your coworkers is... the most likely to have poked into his business?"

"I'm not sure I understand what you-"

"Oh, sure you do," Booth said with a wave of hand. "There's one in every office... they dig into what everyone's doing, talk about their personal life way too much..."

Neville's eyes flicked side to side, and then he hastily stood up and peered over the tops of the cubicles before leaning forward to whisper.

"Donna. Donna Holmes."

"Right, and where might we find her?"

"Across the row, at the far right."

"Alright, thank you very much."

He turned to tell Bones where they needed to go... and found himself alone. He groaned to himself, and turned back to the man at the computer.

"You didn't happen to see..?"

"To the left," Neville provided helpfully.

Brennan was no where in sight when he stepped back into the main row. Trust her to disappear in a maze of cubicles without bothering to mention it to him.

"Bones?" he hissed, striding to the left and peering each way into the cubicles he passed on his way. The workers' made very little effort to hide the fact that they were watching him.

He found her down the end, talking with a tall blonde woman in one of the corner cubicles.

"Bones?" he asked, getting her attention. She turned towards him, as if surprised to see him. "What were you thinking, just wandering off on me?"

"We're in a secure building," she defended with a scowl. "Besides, it clearly didn't take you long to find me."

"Is this your partner?" the woman asked.

"Special Agent Seeley Booth. And you are?"

"Jenna Hapsburg. I went to college with Tempe."

He stared back and

forth between them for a moment, blinking in confusion and wondering if he'd heard her correctly. "Wait, you went to... college together?" And how did you end up as a writer in a shabby newspaper office, and her as a top forensic anthropologist in a reputable lab?

"We had an English class together," Brennan filled in for him. "We helped each other study; our dorms were down the hall from each other."

He'd never really imagined meeting any old friend's of Brennan's, to be honest. Angela had sort of come with the original ensemble, and he'd never questioned that they were close, or that Brennan hadn't been very good at making friends except for her. And the last thing he'd expected was to find one of them in such a place as this, as a coworker to a creep who had been one half of a duo of crazy stalkers that had been, and were still partly, after her.

So, yeah, he was a bit skeptical.

"I can't believe I'm seeing you again after all these years, Temp. I mean... wow, college was ages ago, wasn't it? And I've read all your books... I just figured you wouldn't even know who I was anymore."

"I very rarely forget acquaintances," Brennan said. She was wearing that cute lopsided smile that meant she was much more pleased than she was letting on. It was because of that that he chose not to point out the fact that she very rarely remembered anyone. This Jenna must have been important to her... probably one of the few friends she truly cared about through college.

"Okay, I've got a proposal. How about me and Bones here go and finish asking questions... and then you can come grab some lunch with us?" He would have much preferred to spend a nice quiet lunch alone with her, but it was evident she wanted to catch up with this old friend of hers, and he had a million questions buzzing around in his mind. Not the least of which was how much information did you dish out to Sampson when you found out he was interested in your old college study-buddy?

"Oh God, do you remember our RA?"

At once, Brennan burst into a fit of most un-Brennan-like laughter, pointing her empty fork at the other woman as she answered, still half-chuckling, "With those glasses?"

"And the high reedy voice?"

As they burst into another round of laughs, Brennan's eyes sparkling, Booth stabbed a piece of chicken on his plate with a bit more force than was absolutely necessary. It had been like this every since they'd arrived at the Founding Fathers. It wasn't that he wasn't glad that she had a friend from college. In fact, he was quite happy to learn that her life prior to the Jeffersonian hadn't been entirely miserable. Brennan rarely spoke of her past, so it wasn't surprising that the tidbits he had heard about were mostly negative in nature. For this reason, he was grateful for the joy that lit up her face as they two women reminisced. For his own selfish and undeniably normal human reactions, though, he was starting to feel quite a bit left out of the situation. She'd barely even acknowledged him since the two of them had started up their little stroll down memory lane.

"He had such a crush on you!" Jen proclaimed. That was enough to get Booth's attention back on track. He perked up immediately, letting his fork drop onto the side of his plate and leaving his food unattended as he turned to Bones to watch her face as she answered.

She scoffed, "No he didn't! If anything, he was interested in you, and he was using me to get closer."

Jenna's mouth popped open, as though she couldn't believe that. To Booth's credit, he was sure his face looked just as surprised. Brennan had been insightful about relationships in college? What?

"Oh, come on; there's no way. He couldn't take his eyes off of you."

"And after the incident at that... party... he kept his distance."

Booth's eyes narrowed. "What happened at this... party?" he queried. For the first time, both of them turned to him, as though they'd forgotten he was even sitting there.

"Oh... that party," Jenna said with a sudden nod. Their gazes connected, and they shared one of those looks that he often saw passing between her and Angela. Female understanding or something of the like. He had no clue.

"What party?" he requested again, trying not to sound as interested as he felt, because he knew that that was likely to be what clammed her up. But it didn't seem to have worked, because she cast him a quick look that asked him not to push any more, and he respectfully fell silent, picking up his fork again.

As if this were a cue, Jenna began speaking again, pulling the conversation in a new direction.

"You never did tell me what happened between you and tall 'n handsome."

She groaned, and he raised an eyebrow. This time she caught the look on his face as she shot a cursory glance in his direction, and then sighed in defeat.

"Michael and I didn't work out."

"Yes, that's what you told me after you broke up with him. But you never did spill the why on that."

He wasn't entirely in tune with how deep this friendship between them ran, but he could see that Jenna was most certainly testing the boundaries with this line of questioning. Despite his own curiosity, he was beginning to dislike her for the way she was making his girlfriend so uncomfortable.

"Is this the same Michael that I know?" he broke in while Brennan struggled with a response. He wasn't exactly sure if involving himself, and supplying more details, was such a wise decision... but for now he was just going to go with it.

"You met him?" Jenna asked in surprise, leaning closer. Clearly she was aware of the relationship between him and Bones. He could tell from the way she'd been asking the questions, and from the way she was eyeing him now. And clearly, Bones hadn't made that connection yet, because she was casting Jenna a rather unpleasant look as she saw the way her 'friend' was leaning closer to him.

He couldn't avoid a grin. God forgive him, but he couldn't help but like it just a little that she felt tinges of jealousy just the same as he did.

From Brennan's first reaction to his statement, he'd been able to tell that the answer to his question was yes, and so he felt safe to continue, "He was a complete scumbag. Good riddance, if you ask me. Right, Bones?"

She nodded, but her eyes were still dancing between her boyfriend and her old college study partner, sizing up the situation and failing miserably.

"Shame, he was hot. So, how're things going now?"

Oh, she was just being cruel. But in a light sort of way... almost like what Angela would probably do in this situation. He could understand why these two had gotten along so well, and probably why Brennan had forged such a powerful friendship with Ange since then.

At that, Brennan finally allowed a smirk, as if she had the upper hand. "Oh, things are going quite well, actually."

"Really?" Now Jen leaned more towards her. "Do tell."

Brennan cast him an amused look. "You know how I always said I didn't believe in love?" she asked, her eyes returning to her friend.

"Of course. You practically preached it to anyone that would listen."

"I think I've... proven myself wrong."

Jenna's eyes widened, "Well then, that's an improvement. Who, pray tell, is the lucky man?"

"The lucky man is feeling rather neglected," He piped up at last, and both sets of eyes latched on to him once again, more surprised that he had spoken than at his presence this time.

"Well then. And here you had me thinking this whole time he was just your partner," She said exaggeratedly, making no attempt to hide her appraisal of his figure this time, and then shooting Brennan an impressed look. "FBI, huh?"

"We've been working together for five years now," he said proudly.

"Booth likes to claim that we're the best crime solving team in America," she pointed out. "And I tend to agree with him, actually, except he doesn't have any actual data on which he bases his belief."

"Somehow I really don't doubt that. Mind if I ask when you're expecting?" she added nonchalantly, as though she was asking if Bones could pass the ketchup.

For a moment, Brennan looked flustered, and then finally she blushed and asked, "How did you know?"

"I can just tell. Three of my friends have had kids, and I've just developed an eye for it, I guess."

"I'm due in mid-August," she supplied with a half-smile gracing her face. She turned to smile warmly at Booth, and he couldn't avoid grinning infectiously back at her. He had to admit, it felt good to share the news with someone. They still hadn't told many of the people they knew yet, and he was rather looking forward to when that time came. "You knew, didn't you, that Booth and I were together?"

Well, she'd picked up on that much faster than he'd been expecting.

Jenna chuckled. "Yes. It was rather obvious."

Brennan gave them both a look that he recognized well; she had no idea what this all meant, or why Jenna would pretend not to know. Instead of pursuing the point, though, she chose to move on, shaking her head slightly as if to clear it of that entire thought line.

"We have reason to believe that your former coworker, Timothy Sampson, was involved in criminal activity." He was impressed with how she skirted the fact that he had been stalking her, and he kept silent about it. He fully intended to question Jenna on his own time later. For now, he'd see where Bones took this.

"Tim? You can't be serious. Quietest guy you'd ever see. Kept to himself, never got in anyone's way... oh, God." Her eyes widened. "That would explain all that, wouldn't it?"

"No, we think that was just his personality, regardless of anything he was trying to hide," Booth piped up. Brennan nodded her thanks to him for filling in that blank, and then spoke again.

"Did you ever see anything... suspicious? Did he work projects that he wasn't assigned to? How well did you know him?"

Jenna blinked a few times, and then stammered, "I really... I have no clue, Temp. Like I said, he kept to himself. I didn't talk to him any more than anyone else in the office... just about work stuff if it was necessary... he didn't really respond if you tried to make small talk, and as far as I know he brought his own coffee in every day. I never saw him in the kitchen getting any out of the pot."

Just like that, he knew that their little lunch-date was over. He didn't need to hear anymore to know for certain that she was hiding something. Probably a very large something. Her next words sealed the deal for him.

"Did something happen to him?"

"He was murdered," Brennan said bluntly.

"Oh my God..." Jenna choked out, her eyes huge. "Did he... what happened?"

"We aren't sure quite yet," Booth said firmly, placing a hand on Brennan's arm as he turned in his seat, making it clear that he was ready to get the check and leave. All of their dishes were cleaned of food by now anyways; he'd finished his last few bites of chicken during the last part of their conversation.

She looked at him oddly, but didn't confront him out loud, thank God.

"We really should be going, Jen," Brennan told her friend regretfully. "Here's my number, though..." she pulled a pen out of her purse and scrawled it on her napkin, sliding it over to her. Jenna motioned for the pen and then wrote her own number on another scrap of napkin for Brennan to take. "I'd very much like to get together again sometime soon... I had no idea that anyone from college had moved here. It was... it was very nice. Catching up and all."

"It was," Jenna agreed emphatically.

They made small talk about sports and the weather after the waiter took the check, and parted ways outside after they got their change back and Brennan forced him to let her pay for the tip.

"What was that all about?" she asked him, her breath coming out in white puffs in the chilly air. The temperature had dropped steadily since that morning, and the clouds were now promising a fresh bought of snow.

"Nothing," he said, waving her off. "I just figured we should get back to work. I want this case out of the way, and then you can go back to socializing with your college friends. If you actually want to find out where they all moved on to, you should really just get a Facebook."

"A what?"

He laughed, and just like that, he was off the hook as she pestered him about what that meant. For now, at least, she'd forgotten his haste to leave lunch. In his pocket, he squeezed the phone number coated napkin scrap that he'd slipped out of her coat.

Today was going to get a heck of a lot more interesting pretty soon, and he wasn't looking forward to what he'd be facing once she figured it out.

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