Note: Down to the homestretch. Only one more to go. And it's that one. In the mean time, I bring you this odd little chunk of a section. Beats me why this part was so short. Must have wanted more opportunity to advertise for the Ford Windstar. But it's fine. This part was still all full of case activity and, for the next part, we don;t need that kind of distraction. See you again in a few hours ;)

[6] Their Hangover

Last night Brennan got fired, kissed her partner, and made a half-assed attempt at ecstasy. This morning she's paying for it all. But mostly the tequila.

The world is too bright this morning. It feels raw. She wonders if it will feel this way forever. She's not ready for it.

So. Naturally. We flank her and all try to talk at once. She's never really had that, people behind her like that. But she's too hungover for it to really sink in. It's too bright, it burns, this whole change thing. I'm trying to get her attention because they keep telling me to show up really early in the morning and then there's never anything for me to do. A sketch and flip book? Pssssh. I could have done that during a fudgsicle break. So. I made myself useful. Naturally.

She just wants coffee. Coffee is dependable and nostalgic and cathartic. And Zack has some so we're doing a little better now.

Hodgins is busy accepting the apology that she kind of made via Zack. And that's a nice little nod, a wink, that one thing is starting to go right. "Have I mentioned how excited I am to be working with you?" Hodgins asks me and that's not exactly something that's going right. Like, I've barely been introduced to anyone and the whole place kind of grosses me out so of course the slime guy is hitting on me.

Yeah, yeah. My paradigm has to shift. Rub it in.

Finally getting Brennan's attention, I clue her in to all the parts Zack and I put together—the trunk, and the latch, and the valet—take those all together and the whole thing looks a lot like a mug shot of the judge. I'm pretty good at this whole crime fighting thing. I even throw in the phrase "gaping head wound." See! I'm growing over here!

But: "We got fired," says Brennan.

What? What! What? We've been shocked right into stereo.

"Is this because you slept with Booth?" I ask.

"I didn't sleep with Booth. Why did you say that?"

And I'm like. Um. We were all thinking it?

And Hodgins is like, "Tequila vapors." See.

"What is happening?" Zack's about to scream and run into a wall. People keep shifting his paradigms, forward and back. Not everyone's always better for Booth coming on to the scene. But most of us are worse when he goes away again.

I lament Paris. So Brennan offers me a job and I accept even though she manages to make it sound steady and dependable and boring.

"You know, I've always wanted to go to Paris with an artist," Hodgins says flicking his eyes at me in a way he really needs to practice in a mirror before he tries again. On anyone. It's not even a good line. Granted, it's more honest than most lines. If I'd listened more closely back then I might have caught the implication that he's been to Paris. Most than once. And if I really listened hard I might have heard that he owns a chateau with an inspiring wine cellar and a hell of a view. Oh, well. Everything happens eventually, right?

Brennan puts on her bossy voice and sends Zack scampering over to the FBI with all our evidence. "We can all go back to our normal jobs." She snaps her sunglasses back down over her eyes.

"Ever feel like you saw something great that almost happened, then didn't?" Hodgins shoves his hands into his pockets like he's short of a few bucks and a shot or two of Bhang.

I like him better. Already.

Over at the FBI (which is a place, I guess, like there's not an actual name for the building since we're always like 'over at the FBI) Booth is pretty much face-planted on his desk, staring at a glass of water like it might save him. It's the Catholic in him.

Everything's heavy. He feels sick. He wonders if the world will be this way forever.

Zack brings him the evidence in a handy little evidence box (good thing this wasn't one of those cases where the evidence was the water from an entire lake or something). So those two meet for the first time and there's some hostility on both sides. Zack's a squint. Like her. So that explains the rudeness of his end. And Booth's the guy who keeps insisting on shaking up poor Zack's paradigms and, frankly, he's tired of the tremors. He's a little seasick over it.

So Booth gets his evidence but at the same time Zack calls him, not stupid, but immensely stupid. Which prompts him to then walk out quickly like all his vertebrae have been fused under Booth's glare. They don't take the 's' word well, our Booth and Brennan. At least Booth didn't hit him.

Cam comes in to further berate Booth but he distracts her with evidence and explains (because I guess neither the Jeffersonian nor the FBI gossip nearly enough yet) that, "Dr. Bones punched the judge right in the nose." And the way he says it is just a little childlike and you kind of get the impression that he's just decided to go ahead and get over this confusion he has about "Dr. Bones."

"They got the judge," says Cam

"They got the judge!" Oh yeah, he's over his confusion. He's totally in love with all of us.

Still Over At The FBI, but in an office this time, we see Caroline with her elbows on that conveniently sized box of evidence. She preemptivly complains about stick figures (hey!) and reminds them that it's a big no-no to go up against a Federal Judge if you have crappy evidence.

She yells at Cam about the evidence and she is like the only person who can get away with yelling at Cam like that. You know, Booth's usually all Defender of Women in general but Caroline is his chivalric Kryptonite.

Then Caroline rounds on him and she knows all about his charm. So she's like work your magic, Booth, "Reassure me!"

So Booth explains, very reasonably, once again, that he just wants a freaking warrant. Cam backs him up with how little evidence they need, pronouncing her vowels very long. Which is probably some scientifically proven way of demonstrating how teeny-weeny evidence has to be. Or maybe that's just Cam.

"Did you fire the Jeffersonian yet?" Caroline says, coming back at Booth like a school teacher who's caught a kid sleeping.

"Of course," he says loyally.

"Hire it back," she says definitively.

"Okay." He's like yeah, ok, sure. And it's a good thing he's better at change than Zack or he'd be hella seasick all over Caroline right now.

Caroline tells them she'll get the warrant in an hour because she's scary and awesome, which is why they let her walk on them like that. Then she boots them out quick like Booth really did get sick in her office.

"You're back baby!" Booth says by way of greeting, busting through the door to Brennan's office. And he's all smug like he had anythig at all to do with it.

And, wow, that man just bounces back. Last night he was in limbo, he was all Dante plunked down right in the middle of something big.

Now he's the one who's back. Also, wearing the same tie. He must just have the one.

Brennan's decidedly less back. Actually, she's pretty annoyed. See, she just packed up everything in that conveniently sized evidence box and sent it Over to the FBI. She was done with it. She'd put it away and came back to her real life where everything is comfortably dead and no one baits her into shots at ecstasy.

And now there's Booth, popping out of the box all, back baby!, and chop-chop, and calling ancient remains a monkey skull. He's seizes command of the room and of her. Like what she used to do and who she used to be just doesn't matter. He's right in her face with all the parts of him she wasn't sure about in the first place: he's excitable and bossy and not her kind of smart.

And she could put up with that when it was just the one case and when she was fired from the one case and when it was just one night between passing strangers. She'd been relieved when it worked out how it did. The build had been there, alright. Then she'd said good-bye in the nick of time and avoided the smash.

But he came back.

So she's fuming, almost breathing smoke. And he's like, "Get your coat!"

Then it's Over to the FBI Chop Shop where the boys going all are Tony Stark on the judge's car. It's looks a lot like a parking garage and you have to wonder if our boys realize it'd be a lot easier to take the car to an actual shop than drag all their equipment to the parking garage Over at The FBI. I mean, since cars have wheels and all ….

Booth's taking care of some paperwork or something while Brennan stares off into the middle distance. "Something wrong?" He asks. Finally.

I mean, isn't he supposed to be good at people? And Brennan's been making furious-fucking-mad faces ever since he showed up in his office. For once, she's acting like people! I guess it's the lasting effects of the Caroline Kryptonite. So, not his fault.

But Brennan doesn't know that. "I find I'm annoyed with you." Isn't it cute how she does that? Like, well I laid all the little pieces and parts of me out on the table, dumped them in a vat of acid, and checked them out with a black light and, know what I found? Annoyance! There it is!

My guess would be that she's pissed because he dragged her out to Ye Olde Chop Shop. I mean what are the chances that there are going to be extraneous bones lying around. Why is she there?

But Booth thinks it's about her being fired and re-hired so he totally blames it on the government. And if anyone else takes shots at the government he totally loses it and Brennan has to do tricks with pudding but Booth's allowed to say what he wants.

But she's still pissed so it doesn't work and there's no pudding. That's called a double whammy.

Actually she's figured out his plot to get her drunk before firing her. Also, before having sex with her.

He flips it back on her like he does. "Whoa, no. I got myself drunk so I could fire you because, right now, I'm still kind of wuss and didn't want to deal with firing the beautiful scientist. Then you decided not to have sex with me. Which I accepted gracefully after I stood in the rain staring off after your cab for like an hour."

Okay. Some of that I might have embellished a little. It's not easy to remember these long stretches of tense dialogue.

"So you regretting that decision?" Booth's trying to be cute but the man's really hung up on regrets. He has a lot already. You can tell by the way he's always joking about them.

Brennan says she stands by her decision and she's just refusing to get in on the joke. She doesn't regret the decision, she regrets that she almost didn't make it. She regrets that he almost brought her to that point and that she almost let him. She's regrets just how much she was lost in the build, how close she came to losing control. She's just waiting for the smash, knows it's coming. And that makes her angry. Angry and sad.

This whole scene feels all sorts of wrong and messed up. We're hungover, seasick, stuck in this awkward place between bliss and heart-break. And here, Booth's totally on our side. He already knows her well enough to know she doesn't act this way. "What's going on Bones?"

That really does it. "Don't call me Bones!"

See, it already feels too familiar, too permanent. She wonders if the world is going to be this way from now on. She taught him how to be a rebel and now he's broken out of the box she had him in. A rebel's has a place in anthropology. You can always count on rebel to do just that, rebel. But Booth's already becoming something different. Something to her. Something dangerous.

The Chief FBI mechanic (as designated by the official FBI backward cap) tells Booth that the car's pretty much been gutted and everything replaced. Almost like someone wanted to cover the fact that he'd been driving around with a body in there.

Brennan wants to give the squints a stab at it and Chief Mechanic's all offended which results in Brennan backhandedly calling Booth stupid. And that's the third time that's happened to him in like three commercial breaks so I'll forgive for the fact that he retaliates by insulting Zack.

Brennan starts making demands and Booth tells her she's bring rude which results in some fairly creative bickering and they're all quick on their toes with:

"Get a soul!"

"Get a brain!"

And if they could only dig up some courage they could skip off down the Yellow Brick Road or into that Yellow Cab and then it would have been even odds between the Emerald City and ecstasy.

But that's not the way it went.

Instead, Chief Mechanic found an ear bone and even though those things are super fragile, it's still intact. Which is why Brennan needs to run some tests. And Booth wants to skip that part because even though he thinks Hasty is evil and a moron, he doubts the guy collects ear bones as a hobby.

Brennan blows that popsicle stand and Booth can't do anything to stop her. So he arrests the judge instead.