If one said that Wendell Bray was without determination, then they would surely be a liar, or sorely misinformed. The intern had borrowed money from no less than every single person in his town to go to college, and was still working on paying them back. It would have been easier if he wasn't inches away from broke. Granted, the extra lab hours had been an immense help. But not quite enough. And how was he supposed to tell that to Cam? There weren't any more extra hours left to give out. Excuse me, Dr. Saroyan, I need even more hours. Can your fire one of the other interns so that I can work during then, too? Yeah. Like that would go over well.

Which explained why he was currently working at a somewhat upscale restaurant. And hating it. It was nothing like the Royal Diner or the Thai place that Dr. Brennan loved. White tablecloths, fancy attire by the patrons, a name he couldn't pronounce because it was in French and so was the menu…Wendell couldn't read French. Had he known that he'd be working at a place of this sort when he was in high school, he wouldn't have taken Spanish. And he had the vague suspicion that the manager knew it. And wanted to fire him.

The day had not been going well so far. He'd woken up late, and somehow managed to overcook a toaster waffle and set off the fire alarm. After calling the front desk ("don't evacuate the building, it's just my breakfast"), and then hitting the fire alarm until it turned off, Wendell had already been running behind. He'd skidded in just in time not to be declared late. The place opened at ten, but the hour before that was spent tidying up, getting section assignments for the day, and trying to find a spare apron because someone had accidently taken theirs home. And conveniently forgotten to bring it back. Then, of course, he'd been put in charge of the tables in the very back- the large tables, with the large parties that generally had, in addition to overzealous adults, screaming children whose parents didn't know that it was appropriate to take them outside if they wouldn't shut up and stop ruining the experience for everyone else.

"Want to switch sections?" It was Martina, one of the few friendly employees there. Her mop of blonde hair was ratty and the natural color was showing in the roots, but her face was simplistically pretty enough for her to hold onto the job. They'd bonded over the mutual need for money- sometimes they skipped lunch together.

Wendell shook his head, "The boss's already pissed off at me. Thanks, though." She offered him an encouraging smile and headed back through the kitchen doors. He watched them swing shut behind her, before turning and heading over to the nearest table, asking if they were ready to order.

Things did not go well. The eldest man (probably the grandfather) seemed to think they were at a Mediterranean restaurant. The mother of the three screaming children insisted she was on a diet and forced him to go through the lowest calorie items on the menu, before ordering a monstrous steak that he couldn't even fathom finishing. The youngest girl was adamant upon a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and the little boy wanted a cheeseburger. Wendell had half a mind to direct the two back home and towards the McDonalds down the road, respectively.

It was hard holding a tray of drinks while talking customers. Being a waiter was more work than he'd imagined.

The blonde intern was about to lose his temper with the grandmother who wanted her escargot served out of shell when his cell phone rang.

Everyone within a ten yard radius turned and stared as a familiar cell phone tune played from his pocket.

I forgot to put it on mute this morning… Wendell realized with dismay. And why the hell is it in my apron pocket? The damage was already done, might as well see who it was. He reached into the pocket and pulled out the small ringing device, staring in confusion at the caller ID. Seeley Booth. Why in the world would the FBI agent call him at a time like this, just when the lunch crowd was coming in? And why would he call at all? The hockey team had taken a break…and it was Vincent's turn at the Jeffersonian to work on the case. And there could only be so many interns in limbo at the same time.

Stifling a sigh of dismay, he flipped the cell open and held it to his ear. "Hello?"

"Vincent got shot."

He didn't talk. He didn't gasp. He didn't even blink. The shock was too much. Like being punched, the wind knocked out of him. Or collapsing and going into shock. Numbness. Frozen. Please let it be a joke. Not Vince. Not Vince.

Booth seemed to realized Wendell wasn't going to answer. "We're at the hospital right now…I know you're probably at work somewhere right now…" the agent's voice was heavy, "But I thought you'd want to know." The line went dead.

It was like a flashback to the first day. The first day they'd met, not the first day they'd been working for about a week and a half already. Wendell had been standing out in the parking lot behind the Jeffersonian. Everyone was on lunch break, and a few of the interns had begun sitting together…the annoyingly bubbly girl, and the depressed one…he hadn't known them as Fischer or Daisy yet. Just standing out there, staring at the cars passing by on the street and trying to remember when the bus home was. He didn't have a car at that point. And then that innocent British voice had come out of nowhere. "Did you know that Wombats take around fourteen days to complete their digestive process?"

He'd turned, slowly, to find one of the other new interns staring at him from behind, his mop of brown hair looking almost fluffy. "No," Wendell said, after a moment, "I didn't know that."

"And did you know that a typical worker in Haiti makes the American equivalent of two dollars and seventy five cents a day?"

That had made Wendell laugh, unexpectedly. The other intern…he couldn't quite remember his name right then, had looked a little surprised, and then hurt. Seeing his expression, Wendell had hastened to explain. "Makes our pay look pretty good, doesn't it?" Working at the Jeffersonian, they certainly weren't being cheated of money. But interns only made so much.

The British intern…he had to be British, that, or he spent all his time practicing an impeccable accent…didn't say anything for a moment. Then he tilted his head to the side. "Why aren't you eating lunch with the others?"

Wendell had almost said why aren't you? Almost, but not quite. Instead, he'd raised and lowered one shoulder. "I'm close to broke, actually." He ran a hand through his hair. "And skipping a meal every now and then doesn't hurt anyone." The second sentence was almost a defense.
"I'll buy you lunch," the other had offered, suddenly, a small smile on his face. "I was just going out, anyway." Wendell could have said a lot of things. But he'd just nodded. And they'd gone out to some inexpensive sandwich place and true to his word, his companion paid. And then they went back as though nothing had happened.

When he'd left that day, Wendell realized he didn't even know the other intern's name. When he'd admitted that the next day, Vincent had just smiled, "That's alright. I can't say I know yours, either."

Everyone was still staring. Staring at him as he stood there frozen, phone still up to his ear. And staring at the tray that lay on the ground, and all of the smashed glasses. He must have dropped them while Booth was talking...that broke Wendell out of his thoughts. And now the manager was standing there staring, glaring at him, too.

The grandmother cleared her throat, "Clean up that mess, why don't you?"

It wasn't fair that they were sitting in a fancy restaurant, probably working well paying business jobs, earning more than he was working at one of the best anthropology institutes in the world. It wasn't fair that they were acting like that, prissy and disrespectful and thinking they could get away with whatever the hell they wanted. But most of all, it wasn't fair that Vincent had just been gunned down by a sniper, intelligent, quirky Vincent, and they were sitting there like nothing had happened. Wendell lost it.

"Take the shells off your own damn escargot." He practically snarled it, a voice that shocked even himself. Wendell was practically running for the door by the time he had his apron off, shoving it at the manager. One hand still gripped his cell phone as he pushed past the patrons out of the glass doors. I just lost that job.

Currently, it was the least of his worries.

Lance Sweets considered himself to be a somewhat accomplished individual. At twenty three years old, he had a master's degree and two doctorates. So why wasn't that good enough for one Daisy Wick?

He'd been to visit Zach Addy earlier that morning and the former lab assistant was still stubbornly refusing to let him tell Dr. Brennan. Sweets had left feeling extremely discouraged, as always with the genius in the mental institute. If only Dr. Addy would let him tell someone. There had to be some way to get him off the hook, some way to come up with some sort of thing that would allow Zach to be back at the lab and competing for the title of king.

In his car, he'd started to dial Daisy, and that was when he'd seen her text. Her 'im breaking up w/ u' text. A quick phone call had confirmed that no, she had not been a drunken stupor, no, it had not been hormones, and yes, they were so through. The young psychologist currently sat in the Royal diner drinking a cup of coffee, not having the nicest thoughts about life in general.

The waitress offered him a sympathetic smile as she walked by. The team dropped by the diner often enough that everyone who worked there could recognize all of them. "Can I get you anything else?"

"No, thank you." He faked a smile. There was nothing to be happy about at the current moment. Addy was as stubborn as ever. His girlfriend had just broken up with him. Brodsky was still out there. And Sweets had just looked down to realize that he was wearing mismatched socks.

That was when his cell phone rang. Booth. Either the FBI agent was mad at him, or wanted something. He never just called for the sake of calling. Rather than answering, Sweets tossed to cell phone onto the table and checked his watch. Booth could wait. The Founding Fathers opened in two hours, and he had every intent of being there right when it did. The breakup had bothered him more than he wanted to admit. Things had seemed on and off, shaky and uncertain, and without a clear path for a period of time. But then it seemed as though they were back to normal.

Until today. And Sweets had every intention of taking 'drown sorrows at a bar' as literally as possible, without dunking his head in a bucket and having someone hold it under.

Author's Note: This chapter is a bit shorter than I wanted, partially because I couldn't get as much as I wanted out of the scene with Sweets, and also because there was supposed to be another section in this chapter including Cam and Michelle, but it made it a bit too long. Next chapter should also be getting back to Bones and Booth, and one or two more of the interns.