**Gracias for all of the reviews :) They make me very happy! This chapter has more of the case they're working on, and are we getting close to what happened to Brennan after Booth left? Hmmm... Review and I'll be sure to update soon :D
Don't own them..sad day :( **
Booth strolled back into the lab, his eyelids heavier than before. It was pushing 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and aside from that two hour nap, he had been up for over thirty hours. "Hey, stud muffin," Angela greeted him as she crossed paths with him.
Giving her a smile and slight chuckle, he waved. "Hey, Ange. Find anything yet?"
"The two faces that we have correspond with the two arms that were identified, DNA wise. So other than that, I'm pretty much just stuck here for team support," she laughed lightly.
"Ah, gotcha," another chuckle escaping his throat. "Where's Bones? I need to talk to her."
"Uh oh…is everything okay?"
Smiling again, he nodded. "Yeah, it's just about the case and I can't really say anything to anybody else."
"Ah, gotcha," she mocked. "I think she's in her office."
"Thanks, Ange," he told her. "Actually…can I talk to you for a second?" he asked, retracing the few steps he had made.
She smiled and motioned for him to follow her into her office. "What's up?" she asked, sitting down on the couch. Booth plopped down, resting his head in his hands as he sighed.
"What's going on with Bones?" he asked her, his voice softer than normal.
"What…what do you mean?" Angela knew what he was talking about, but she tried to play innocent for the couple of seconds she knew she could get away with it.
"Ange," Booth said, looking towards her as he leaned back on the couch, "There is something different with her. And I absolutely LOVE the fact that she's so…so open to her and me and…us…but there's something that isn't making a connection to me."
Angela bit her lip, not wanting to rat her best friend out, but knowing she had to help him out if she wanted them to stay together. "Booth," she slowly shook her head. "I know I don't have to tell you, but when you left…you took most of Bren with you." Her brown eyes looked into his, filling with sadness all over again. "After she got over the initial shock, dealing with it in her own Brennan way of course, I convinced her to go see Sweets."
"Sweets told me she talked to him voluntarily, which is red flag number one," he said with a slight chuckle.
Nodding, Angela smiled sympathetically. "She loves you, Booth. She has for years, and that terrifies her more than anything, as you know. But after you left, something else happened." His heart stopped and his eyes widened, not wanting to miss a word. "And it's nowhere near my place to tell you what happened. But know…" she said with a smile, placing a hand on his, "That she will tell you in time. It's nothing absolutely life threatening," she said with a chuckle, "But it did change her life and the way she views things. Majorly…even for Brennan."
Booth took a deep breath as Angela squeezed his hand. "So, it's nothing too horrible to worry too much about?"
"Right," she confirmed.
He smiled and nodded, standing up from the couch. "Thanks, Ange. It's good to know that someone's on my side."
She let out a soft laugh and stood up beside him. "Not a problem, Seeley," she told him and hugged him briefly. "Go talk dead-bodies with her now."
"Right," he laughed, putting his hands in his pockets and leaving. Knocking on the door as he approached Brennan's office, his heart dropped to his knees.
"Come in," she weakly called out.
Booth entered her office, shutting the door behind him. "What are you doing, Booth?" she asked, spinning around in her chair and standing up. Without any words, he walked to her desk and pressed his lips into hers.
"Booth!" she gasped, pushing her hands against his chest with a slight smile on her face.
"Door is closed," he mumbled, reattaching his lips to hers. He felt her body give in slightly as he slid his hands around her waist and pulled her closer to him. After their lips had set each other on fire, Booth pulled away as he cupped his hand against her cheek and stared down into her blue eyes.
"Wha…what was that for?" she asked, her eyes fluttering.
"Can't a man kiss the woman he loves?" A smile crept across his face, followed by one spreading across hers as she bit her bottom lip.
"Of course, he can." Booth wrapped his arms around her shoulders, squeezing her slightly, as she snaked her arms around his waist.
"Bones?" he whispered, resting his chin on the top of her head.
"Hmm?"
Booth took a deep breath. "You would tell me if anything was wrong, wouldn't you?"
Brennan pulled away from him, raising an eyebrow as she surveyed his facial expression. "You think something's wrong?"
"No…no, that's not it," he said with a smile as he brushed a thumb across her cheek. "I just feel like all of this has been too easy, like it's a trick," he admitted.
"You think…you think I'm lying about caring for you?"
"What? No! That's not what I mean, Tempe…" His eyes narrowed as he took her hand in his and lead her to the couch. As they sat down, Booth faced her, keeping her hand in his. "I'm just worried that this is all a "haha just kidding" type of situation. It's too good to be true." His voice, which was usually strong, sounded weak and shaky.
"Booth…" Brennan started, her eyes watering up. "I understand that I'm not…psychologically the same person that I was when you left. But over the last year…I had a lot of time to think, and a lot of things changed in my life. Especially when I wasn't around anybody I knew for nine months. When I say that I love you…I love you."
He sighed, realizing how horrible of an idea the conversation was. "I know you love me, Temperance. I see it every time I look into your eyes." As he looked down at her, she noticed his eyes were more of a clear brown than their usual dark brown. "I just want to make sure this is what you want and that I'm not rushing you into anything." Reaching up, he grazed a finger across her chin. "I just love you too much to push you away."
Brennan reached her hand up and touched his cheek, her fingers trembling as they dragged across his skin. "YOU are what I want, Booth." She smiled bashfully. "I'll tell you if I'm feeling rushed," she told him, "And right now, I'm not." She pressed her lips against his temple, pulling back afterwards with her lips genuinely curving upward. "I love you, Seeley Booth."
"And I love you, Temperance Brennan."
Pressing her lips into his once more, she stood up. "Let's go solve this case so we can get out of here," she told him, taking his hand and leading him towards the door. She got on her tippy toes, kissed him just once more, and opened the door, letting go of his hand and smiling back at him as she left her office.
"Maybe I can get used to this different Bones," he told himself out loud, running a hand through his hair as he smiled.
"Dr. Saroyan, have you decided how you want to deflesh the bones?" Brennan asked, swiping her card as she entered the platform.
Cam, who was leaning over one of the bodies with a large pair of tweezers, sat up and pursed her lips. "I think the best way is just going to be to boil them. We have taken every sample imaginable. We're running DNA of each part now to see if any hits pop up in the system." She took a deep breath. "Miss Wick is supervising those tests now."
Brennan nodded, leaning over one of the legs. "Have you noticed the strange pattern on the exposed bone right here?" she asked Cam and pointed.
Dr. Saroyan leaned over, tilting her head to get a better look. "No…what is that?"
"It's a tumor inside the tibia. And above it is a fairly fresh fracture, probably just out of a cast."
"The length is unusually long, too," Cam noted.
Brennan nodded. "Booth!" she called out.
Walking out of her office towards the platform, he pulled his card off of his jacket to swipe through the machine. "Whatcha got, Bones?" he asked, turning his head away as he approached the body parts.
"The person that this leg belonged to was probably a basketball player. There are fractures in the exposed bone," she pointed.
"That really narrows it down," he replied, rolling his eyes.
"If you'd listen to me," she nearly snapped. "This leg belonged to a male that was 16 to 18 years old. And recently, he had to have been off the team due to a fracture. And not only did he have a broken tibia, he had a tumor inside the tibia."
Booth's eyes widened. "Nice work, Bones!" he awarded her with a smile as he pulled out his phone. Brennan and Cam both rolled their eyes, returning to examining more of the bones. "Jones, it's Booth," he said as he walked towards one of the platform corners. "I need you to do a search for me for a missing kid." Booth leaned against the railing as he waited for the go-ahead.
"He's going to be a 16 to 18 year old male, basketball player, recent broken leg, and he might have known about cancer in his leg. Yeah, I'll wait…" Yawning, he spoke again, "Yeah, what'd you find?" He jotted a few things down into his notebook before he stood back up straight. "Thanks, Jones," he said as he shut his phone.
"Got a hit," he announced. Cam looked up but Brennan stayed focus on the other leg of the same 'victim.'
"And?" Cam asked, wondering if they were getting anywhere near solving this giant homicide case.
"Anthony Randle Scott, 17 years old, basketball player for a high school in New Jersey. Reported missing two weeks ago, leg was broken three months ago, and they found the cancer about a month ago."
Brennan looked up and nodded. "Do you have to return to New Jersey?" she asked, knowing he couldn't make it on the little sleep he had had.
"Nope, thank God," he mumbled. "The agent in Jersey is going to take care of getting a DNA sample, entering it into the system, sending it to us, and informing the parents if everything checks out."
"Dr. Brennan!" Daisy called out, yet again running onto the platform, this time setting the alarm off. Hodgins, who was right behind her, slid his card through the machine, and entered the group on the platform. "There are only four bodies, not six."
"How do you figure that, Miss Wick?" Cam asked, taking a step back and crossing her arms in front of her.
"Okay, let's call them A and B," Daisy started. "And I'll label the parts – each head, arm, leg, and torso – with numbers, one through four." Brennan tilted her head as she watched the intern move around the tables. "Body A has head 1, right arm 1, left arm 4, torso 2, right leg 2, and left leg 3. Body B has head 2, right arm 2, left arm 3, torso 1, right leg 4, and left leg 1."
"What?" Booth asked, his eyes narrowed towards the intern and the body parts. "How the hell are we supposed to follow that?"
"The head and right arm of body A and the torso and left leg of body B are from the same person," Brennan pointed. "Head and right arm of body B and torso and right leg of body A are the same person. The left arm of B and left leg of A are the same person. And the left arm of A and right leg of B are the same person." She looked over at Booth as he rolled his eyes.
"I should've figured you would have got that," he chuckled. "And how did we figure out that they're from the same body?"
"I ran DNA tests of all body parts and matched the ones that I could," Daisy told him. "Body 1 is Charlotte Riley," she said as she pulled a picture of the first victim up. "Body 2 is Patrick Riley," she pulled up a second picture. "Body 3 is probably the basketball player. And body 4 is still undeclared."
"Very good work, Miss Wick," Brennan praised the intern.
Cam pulled another pair of gloves back on as she resumed her place at the exam table. "So we need to focus on the right leg of B and the left arm of A," she said, pulling the magnifying scope over the leg bone. "Dr. Hodgins, did you find anything?" she asked, glancing towards him.
"Yeah-" he was interrupted. Brennan nodded, also pulling another pair of gloves on. "Booth, can you look for any relation between these victims?" she asked, looking up to realize he was already walking off of the platform.
"On it, Bones!" he called out behind him.
"Yeah," Hodgins said after stopping to let Brennan talk. "The flakes of metal on the clothing are aluminum."
"What's made out of aluminum?" Cam asked, going back to pushing flesh out of the way for her to examine some of the muscle around the leg.
"This particular kind of aluminum is used primarily for small fishing boats," he said with a strange look on his face.
"So they were on a boat?" Brennan asked, pulling flesh away from the bone of the left arm.
"It looks like they were put on a boat to be transported or something."
"That warehouse was beside the water, wasn't it?" Daisy asked.
Hodgins nodded. "Yeah…and that explains why there weren't any tire tracks at the warehouse other than ours. I'm going to go work on what kind of boat it was," he told them and left the platform.
"I've noticed that Charlotte and Patrick both had multiple fractures on their arms and legs, like they were athletes. Miss Wick, pull the medical files of Charlotte and Patrick Riley." The intern scurried off, following instructions.
After a little while of focusing on the arm and leg, Cam sat up. "Dr. Brennan…I figured out the link," she announced.
"What? What is it?" Brennan asked curiously as she looked up and walked to where Cam was standing.
"The fourth body's bones were in severe stages of osteoporosis."
"Bone diseases and problems," Brennan connected all four cases together.
"Here, Dr. Brennan," Daisy told her as she held out two files.
Taking them from the young intern, Brennan flipped both of them open. Before long, she looked up with a nearly evil grin on her face. "The Riley's went to an orthopedic surgeon in New Jersey two years ago. There's a comment in Patrick's file about him complaining with the work that this Dr. Jack Rodgers did."
Brennan walked to a computer and clicked a few buttons. After typing in a name, she pulled up a file. "Anthony Scott has been seen by Dr. Jack Rodgers twice for broken legs. Once last year, and once again three months ago. But there's no record of any payment being made to Dr. Rodgers this last time," Brennan announced.
"There's our link," Cam said and pulled her gloves off.
"I have to go call Booth," Brennan announced as she ran off of the platform and headed into her office. She grabbed her cell phone off her desk and pushed a few buttons, finally holding it to her ear after the correct buttons were pushed.
"Miss me already, Bones?" he answered with a chuckle.
"Booth, we have the connection between the victims," she told him.
"That's great…what's the link?"
"We need to go back to New Jersey, Booth."