Sorry for the long wait, and thanks for all of the reviews and alerts and favourites! Here's chapter 3!

Chapter 3: Moods and Mumblings

"Booth!" Brennan hissed, poking her partner lightly (or what she thought was lightly) on the arm.

"Ow, geez, Bones, what'd ya do that for?" the FBI agent whispered back, massaging his injured arm. He looked around the room; nothing much had changed since he had drifted off into Dreamland. The meeting had been going on for what seemed like forever, though the yellowing clock at the front of the room told him it had only been two hours.

"Dr. Wyatt's going to speak now." she answered, gesturing to the psychiatrist who had gotten out of his chair and walked up to the front of the room. "You fell asleep; I didn't think that you should miss this."

"Yeah, I really want to hear half an hour of stuff about why the guy can't stand scented tissues." Booth grumbled, turning his attention to the front.

"I don't see what his tissue preferences have to do with anything."

"I was just- never mind. Let's listen to Gordon Gordon."

"That's what I've been trying to get you to do, Booth."

"Yeah, whatever." he mumbled. A few more hours, he thought, and I can sit and have a nice drink with Bones. He didn't know if he could make it through any more pompous speeches. He really hated briefings, especially when he didn't need to do anything except sit and listen. At least he had Brennan to keep him company. Lately, he found there were more and more things that just weren't bearable without her. A sure sign that he had fallen for her, he thought, and nearly groaned aloud. She was going to drive him crazy.

He was startled out of his thoughts by the sound of Wyatt's voice, so British and strikingly different than all of the American accented voices that just seemed to blend into one monotone bureaucratic drone that went on and on and on.

"So, we've heard the strategies and plans for Mr. Fredrick Walker's escape and subsequent killing sprees. We've found one set of bodies, and another set is just now being examined by Dr. Temperance Brennan of the Jeffersonian Institute." He looked over and popped her a small smile before continuing. "Very little, however, has been said about the mind of the man we're trying to recapture. That is where I come in. Though I do so with great reluctance, as many of you have been experiencing over the past few months, having been dragged back into this miserable business of mapping the minds of America's most maniacal, I am going to give you a brief overview of what we knew before about Mr. Walker and what I've discovered since the new bodies were identified.

"This is a man obsessed with faults and the minute details, the connections between the people in our society. While he was incarcerated, he spoke as little as possible to the other inmates, the guards, the various professionals who came to speak to him. However, I did get a chance to talk with him at length a year before he escaped, after he had been in prison for half a decade. He believes wholly in the evil of our society, and the power of wrongful deeds. The things that he has done, the various tortures he has put his victims through, mean nothing to his conscience, because he believes he is doing right. This is a man who will have no mercy on anyone who gets in his way, for he believes that they will have no mercy on him. Many people, when first looking at his victims, see no common thread, nothing that links the sets of bodies he stores together, nor anything between the various victims. He does not target blond women, or obese men, or African-Americans, or any obvious group. At first glance, he seems to be a random killer. The killings are done with very little time in between, and so, at first glance, it seems they were simply picked off a list, perhaps seen on the street and followed home through a dark alley.

"This is not the case, once in depth profiling is done on the victims. Every set of victims has a common thread. These threads deal with the dark underbelly of our race; the skeletons in our closets, the deep, dark secrets that we wish to keep to ourselves. Fredrick Walker discovers them all. He chooses an element, and through his careful detective work, finds three people who share this common theme. His first set of victims all were on antidepressants. His second set had lost their parents while teenagers. His third were parents to children born with debilitating diseases. He plans each of these in advance, searching through databases to find vulnerable people to stalk and kill. Fredrick Walker himself had a bruised childhood, peppered with all of the elements he looks for in his victims…" Booth's mind started wandering. He had been paying attention simply because it was Gordon Gordon, his friend, and he wanted to give him support, knowing this was the last place he wanted to be. But the cup of coffee he had had early that morning on the drive over had long ago worn out, and he fought hard to keep his eyes open. The little taste of sleep Brennan had pulled him out of didn't help either.

The chair was hard and entirely too small, and the small bowl of macaroons was staring tauntingly at him, mocking the racing heart and sweaty palms he had been met with when his partner had reached for one at the same time and touched his hand. It seemed that now, more than ever before, their bodies seemed to unwittingly gravitate towards each other, which could mean something, everything, or nothing at all.

He was tired of having to go over every little thing that happened between the two of them, first with the conviction that some sort of mysterious next step had been taken, then with the heavy-hearted thought that he was, once again, reading into things too much. It was annoying, really, to be thinking about her every second of every day. It would be much simpler if he was simply with her every second of every day. Oh yeah, that would solve everything. If it were that simple, he would have asked to be his girlfriend a long time ago. With her, he had to wait for her to be ready, whenever that was.

He would do anything for her, and so naturally, he would wait for eternity for her to realize that he was what she had been looking for her entire life. But it would be really nice if she would hurry up and figure it out. During their trip would be nice.

"And so, in conclusion, we must not think of Fredrick Walker as a typical serial killer, but a man with a twisted sense of goodness and justice, with motives that go beyond a cold desire to kill; in short, he has a desire to 'ease' the suffering of his victims, by drawing their attention away from their hardships while he tortures and rapes them, and then finally ending their lives, cutting them off from their problems once and for all. He sees them as a kin, of sorts. He knows that what he is doing is considered morally wrong by most people, and so knows to hide his deeds as best as he can. He mustn't be thought of as a normal human being, but as one of the exceptions that must be treated with extreme caution and forethought."

Booth blinked his eyes a couple of times. Was the talk over? Hell, was the meeting over? It sure seemed like it, because everyone seemed to be filing out, Brennan included.

"Booth!" she hissed, trying to get his attention for the third time that hour. He had been drifting in and out of consciousness, and she was getting tired of reminding him to pay attention. She had been listening the whole time, though she often disagreed with the conclusions that the speakers had come to. She supposed it was rather difficult for FBI agents to properly grasp complex anthropological concepts, but it was rather dull to listen to them sometimes. But she would never let her reputation get stained by falling asleep when she was supposed to be listening attentively. Then again, Booth was probably quite tired from the drive over and the examination of the remains. She, of course, had offered to drive part of the way, but being his usual alpha-male self, he wouldn't let her. If he would just let go of the outdated notion that females weren't as competent as males, he wouldn't have been asleep for half of the briefing. Then again, if he wasn't his usual alpha male self, she likely wouldn't have managed to fall in love with him. I wish there was another term for what I feel about him, she thought. There's so much more to what we share than the general definition of romantic love. If we share anything. I wouldn't know romantic love from whatever other couples have, in any case.

"I'm coming, Bones, uh, just let me grab another macaroon." her partner answered, pushing himself out of the chair, but not before reaching into the bowl and taking out a treat. "These are really good!" he exclaimed upon biting into it. "We don't even have snacks at our briefings!"

"Booth, Dr. Wyatt is waiting for us outside the door. I'm sure he doesn't want to be late meeting Dr. House. Perhaps you should stop indulging in epicurean delights and get yourself out of the room."

"Right you are, Bones." he said, picking her jacket off the seat and putting it on for her. The action had become so familiar over the years that Brennan didn't even think about the anti-feminism of it.

"Do you know where we're going?" he asked, as they walked to the door.

"I don't know any of the bars in this area, so no; we'll have to follow Dr. Wyatt." The psychiatrist smiled at them as they walked out of the room together, Booth's hand on the small of her back.

"Ah, there you two are. I was getting worried; I thought perhaps Agent Booth had fallen prey to the beast of caffeine withdrawal."

"Drug withdrawal is not an entity, Dr. Wyatt." Brennan said. "I know there are several theories out there regarding the nature of addiction, but surely you don't believe in any of that hodgepodgery. You are a highly intelligent man, even if your intelligence is wasted on a science that is so fraught with guesswork."

"Thank you for your concern, Dr. Brennan, but I was simply employing the services of the device metaphor." He winked at her, and she nodded in understanding. "Now, if you two wouldn't mind walking with me, the bar is just down the street. We walk back to the parking lot afterwards, although I suspect that the amount of drinking we will do tonight will not be conducive to safe, lawful driving!"

"Got a lot to talk about with your old buddy, Gordon Gordon?" Booth asked, as they exited the building together.

"Well, when one hasn't seen someone in thirty-five years, and that someone has recently stayed in a psychiatric facility, there is generally a lot of ground to cover."

"Whoa, psychiatric facility? Is this guy unstable or something?"

"Oh, undoubtedly. Like I said, he's a bit of an ass. A more extensive history would likely take longer to explain than it will to reach the bar, however, so I'll let you figure things out about Greg for yourselves. I think it's just down this street, actually. Ah, there it is!" Wyatt pointed to a bar about a block down, neon signs winking in the darkness.

"Well, this place looks cheerful!" he exclaimed as he held the door open for Booth and Brennan. "Certainly lots of holiday décor left!" Indeed, upon entering, Booth could tell that the manager hadn't bothered to take down the Christmas decorations, though it had been several weeks since the holiday. He could see a large wooden Santa peeking out of a storage box by the door, though, and was happy that the more glaring ornaments had been removed. Snowflakes peppered the windows, and large boughs of holly lined the mahogany bar.

He looked around for someone around the age of fifty but the only person he could see was a scruffily dressed man with a cane sitting on the far side, and he didn't look very doctorly. Sure enough, though, Wyatt made his way over to the curmudgeonly man and gestured to a table a few feet away. The man reluctantly got up and limped over to the table, heavily favouring his left leg. It seemed as if this man's life story would take a long time, after all.

"I wonder what happened to his right leg." Brennan whispered from his side, gesturing to the cane.

"Bones, don't point!" Booth hissed, pushing her arm down.

"Why not? It's a very effective way of identifying the object that I want you to see."

"It's rude, Bones, didn't your mother ever tell you that?"

"She might have." his partner replied, in a strange voice that he couldn't quite identify. He guided her over to the table and took her coat off as she sat down, placing it on the table as he shrugged his own off.

"Agent Booth, Dr. Brennan, this is Dr. Gregory House. Greg, this is Dr. Temperance Brennan, of the Jeffersonian Institute in D.C, and her partner from the FBI, Special Agent Seeley Booth."

"I've heard of you." House said, looking at Brennan. "But I didn't think you'd be this hot in person. That picture in Scientific American doesn't do you justice at all."

"Greg…" Wyatt admonished, giving House a warning look. He rolled his eyes.

"Man, Gord, you're just like Wilson. Be nice to women, don't objectify them, make me tenderloin with au jus, blah blah blah."

"You cook?" Wyatt asked, looking surprised, completely forgetting about House's earlier comments. Booth scowled. Give the man something vaguely related to food, and he forgets about everything. Hadn't they been going in the direction of berating the man for being so insensitive?

"It's okay, Booth." Brennan said quietly, correctly guessing why his face had gotten so dark. "I'm quite used to men judging my physical appearance, and it doesn't bother me. Actually, it's rather flattering."

"Bones, you shouldn't have to hear that you're a beautiful woman from some slimy guy like that." Booth said, grasping her hand. She smiled her small smile at him, and his heart lifted just a little bit.

"Did I just hear you call me slimy? That's a very nice thing to say about someone you've just met, you know." House sarcastically. "I feel so moved."

"Being labeled as slimy actually isn't a good thing, Dr. House." Brennan told him. "I believe being referred to as 'slimy' means that you're loathsome, vile and untrustworthy, which are not generally good things for a person to be."

"Is she for real?" House asked Wyatt, raising his eyebrows.

"Yeah, she is." Booth said defensively, grasping her hand protectively.

"Calm down, Macho Man, I'm not taking a crack at your girlfriend."

"We're just partners." the two said at the same time, earning a chuckle from Wyatt which he hastily covered up as a cough.

"Right." the diagnostician said. "Point me to a set of professional partners who hold hands and take off each other's coats. Oh wait, there aren't any. They're all sleeping together."

"Dr. House is a heavy user of sarcasm, correct?" Brennan asked Wyatt, ignoring House's remarks. "That may pose some problems in our conversations, as I am not very apt at that particular speech device."

"You don't say." House said drily.

"Yes, Greg is very fond of sarcasm." Wyatt said. "But, like you, he also sets great store in logic and reason."

"Perhaps we will be able to communicate properly, then."

"I'm sure we will." House said, waggling his eyebrows. Booth scowled still deeper, and Wyatt smiled at him knowingly.

"The eyebrow movement was meant to emphasize the fact that our communication could be of a sexual nature, correct?" she asked. "That's generally what rapidly rising and falling eyebrows means, right Booth?" His only answer was to mumble something incoherent, which Brennan wisely decided not to expand on.

"Yes, I'd really like to get into your pants." House said, after a long pause. Brennan looked at him puzzlingly.

"I was answering the question." he explained, gesturing for a waitress. "Can we get some drinks for my bar companions here?"

"Unfortunately, I think your crouching tiger of a partner would likely rip me to shreds if I so much as asked you out on a date." Brennan smiled, having been briefly reminded of Tony. If only they could have stayed in Vegas for a bit longer, maybe things could have gone a little farther between him and 'Roxie'.

"And I'd really like to keep my hidden dragon in one piece, thank you very much."

The forensic anthropologist pondered his comments for a few moments. Booth always was very protective of her and didn't like her going on dates, but she had always seen that as a need to protect her, a very 'partnerly' thing. But maybe he was jealous. In that case, maybe she could…

"What d'you want to drink, Bones?" Booth asked her, snapping her out of her thoughts.

"I'd like a scotch, please. And I'm paying for it, Booth. You picked up the tab last time."

"They're seriously 'just partners'?" House asked his old friend in a stage whisper, looking at the pair of them, wide-eyed.

"Yes." Wyatt answered, smiling. "Professional to a tee, these two, Greg, You won't find a higher conviction rate anywhere else in the country."

"What happened to your right thigh?" Brennan asked, out of the blue. The mildly amused look was frozen on House's face. Great. Ms. Literal was going to start asking him questions, completely unabashed.

"Bones!" Booth hissed. "What'd you go and ask that for?"

"I knew it wasn't from a skeletal problem or a congenital defect, and I wanted to know why he limped, so I thought I'd ask." his partner answered innocently, her whisper about as quiet as a stampede of elephants.

"Well, there's something called discretion, Bones, and it's used when there are certain things that are best left untouched."

"Like sex, religion, and politics?"

"Yeah, like those things."

"Well, I've never really understood the need to taboo certain things. Was it a sports injury?" she continued, unaffected by the looks that both Booth and Wyatt were giving her.

"Yeah." House answered sarcastically. "I used to be a champion sword thrower, and one day one got lodged in there, so…"

"That is facetious. An injury like that wouldn't cause that kind of limp."

"It was an infarction." House mumbled. "An aneurysm clotted in my right thigh, leading to infarction and it wasn't discovered for three days. There was muscle death. They wanted to amputate, but I… wasn't willing to lose my leg. So they did a bypass, and I went under to sleep through the pain. Then my girlfriend, who had medical proxy, decided it would be much better just to remove the muscle and leave me a cripple in chronic pain for the rest of my life, so she and my doctor, who, coincidentally, is my boss right now, cut it out while I was in the coma. I wake up with half a leg, story time's over."

"That explanation is much more likely." Brennan said, oblivious to Booth's meaningful stares. Well, duh, it was the right explanation, the look on the doctor's face and his subdued tone gave it all away. It seemed that the callous middle-aged man did have a weakness.

"Alright, now that we've all gotten to know each other, why don't we all leave?" Booth asked.

"Agent Booth, don't be such a party pooper." Wyatt said, smiling at the morose look on the FBI agent's face. He obviously did not enjoy the attention Brennan was paying to House, and the reason seemed to be obvious to everyone except her. "We haven't even finished our drinks, for Heaven's sake. We've only been here for ten minutes."

"Booth, we don't even have any paperwork to complete at the moment. The bodies are being shipped back to the Jeffersonian right now, so there's no evidence to go through." Brennan said, wondering why Booth was in such a hurry. There certainly wasn't any explanation she could come up with.

"I'm just tired, that's all." Booth muttered, sipping his drink. Wyatt was the odd one out in the group, being the only one without a glass of scotch. He instead was nursing a dry martini, earning many chuckles from House.

"Bodies?" the diagnostician asked, semi-interested. "How many are there?"

"Three, as is usual for the killer." Brennan answered. "All three are in late-stage decomposition."

Booth's mind wandered once again as his partner discussed her work with the cranky doctor, who seemed to be pretty damn interested, although he couldn't tell if the interest came from a desire to sleep with her or not. Men like him were extremely hard to read, but gave off a heavy air of assdom wherever they went.

Well, great. She had found someone who actually could stand more than five minutes of her squint-speak, and he wasn't bad looking or ancient to boot. Just when things were starting to look sunnier between them, a big, fat raincloud came and rained on his day. Well, maybe now was a good time to catch up with Gordon Gordon.

"So, Gordon Gordon, how have you been?" he asked, taking another sip of his scotch.

"Oh, alright, despite the fact that I haven't cooked for anyone in fours months. This case has been rather weary, but I suppose it will get better, having you two around, and Greg, of course."

"Yeah, loads better." Booth mumbled, giving House a dirty look as Brennan showed him the spot on his arm that the woman's arm had been fractured. The doctor gave his partner a flirtatious smile, and he was forlorn to see it returned. His Bones never gave him practical demonstrations of injuries to the victims, she just rambled on in technical terms, forgetting that he rarely had more than a clue about what she was saying. His Bones never gave him such a blatantly seductive smile; she didn't even feel that way about him. His Bones didn't giggle loudly at the jokes he made, she just pointed out the inaccuracies in everything he said.

Well, if she wanted to be the woman she had never been for him with this guy, then that was just fine with him. He would just sit in his hotel room and mope for a few hours. That should fix everything.

"Greg was always a lady killer." Wyatt said, reading Booth's mind. "Never kept any of them around, though."

"Yeah, well, all it takes is one bad relationship, and poof!, she's back in her shell again." he mumbled.

"I don't think you're giving Dr. Brennan enough credit, Agent Booth." the psychiatrist said. "She's grown a lot over the past few years; she can do normal people things, all thanks to you."

"That's what I'm afraid of." Booth muttered.

"Of course; you wouldn't want the fruit of all your hard labour to go to another man, would you?"

"I just don't want her to get hurt, and this guy doesn't seem the most delicate."

"Why don't you let her reach out and explore on her own? Perhaps she'll discover something she didn't know before."

"Like what, that I'm…" He looked at his partner, who was so deeply engaged in conversation that he was sure she wouldn't hear him if he whispered in the loud bar. "In love with her?" he finished.

"Perhaps, perhaps she'll discover that she really doesn't just want sex anymore. Perhaps she'll figure out that you've been there, waiting for her, the whole time."

"If only." Booth muttered. "If only…"

"I suggest, once again, the remedy of time. When she's ready, she'll be able to do what she's been-" Wyatt stopped abruptly in the middle of his sentence.

"She's been what, Gordon?" Booth asked. "Gordon?" The psychiatrist had gone pale, paler than he had been before, and that had been pretty darn white.

"Uh, Doc?" Booth asked House. "I think something's wrong with Gordon Gordon."

"He didn't choke on his martini, did he? Those girly drinks can be pretty nasty, let me tell you."
"No, he just stopped talking in the middle of his sentence." Booth said, gesturing to Wyatt, who hadn't resumed his talking or returned to his normal colour.

"Booth, you better move, I think he's going to-" House's warning had come too late. As soon as the words had come out of the doctor's mouth, Booth was covered in vomit. He spat some out of his mouth, then looked at his fingers.

"That tasted like… blood." the FBI agent said, showing House. The diagnostician examined it for a second, then yelled to the bartender.

"We're going to need an ambulance in here!" he shouted, looking to where Gordon Gordon Wyatt had been just a few minutes earlier. "We've got an unconscious fifty-two year old male vomiting blood!" Booth looked down at his friend. He felt concern, of course, and fear for the man, but he couldn't help but wonder: what exactly had Brennan been wanting to do?