7
One Month Later
" Booth?" Brennan called as she rounded the corner toward his office with her nose buried in a report from sweets. She evaded several agents as best she could till she came face to face with his glass door. It was ajar and his lights were on, but Booth was missing in action. His suit jacket was slung over his chair and soft music flowed from somewhere, yet Brennan could not place it. She used a little deductive reasoning to guess that he was still in the building, probably out getting coffee, so she took her usual seat. She needed the break anyway. Her body was exhausted.
Things between the two of them had been icy at best lately and she was not sleeping well. Instead she stayed at her office most of the time, working on limbo cases well into the night to avoid the fact that she could not figure out what had changed so suddenly.
The truth was that his distance was starting to worry her. He used to stop by her apartment every night, even stay with her on occasion. As of late it had only been once a week if at all. The last time she had seen him smile was two weeks ago at their sonogram. She was right, they were having a little girl. He had laughed and made a joke about keeping her away from Sweets.
That had been the end of their happiness though, he had slipped right back into the distant persona. She had attributed their caseload to his distance, but they had put their last one to bed not even three days ago. Something else was wrong though she could not get close enough to figure it out.
"Tempe?" A deep male voice called out in surprise, causing her to turn at the sound of her given name.
Her eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. Her voice left, her throat felt dry all of a sudden. The drama with Booth was momentarily forgotten as she took in the bronze figure standing in the doorway.
" Sully?" She managed to squeak out, in what she hoped was her most adult sounding voice.
" My God Tempe, how have you been?" He seemed to float through the room, time seemed to blur for a moment. She was sitting there looking at his silhouette her mind a confused mess. The last time she had seen her ex-lover was the day he had sailed into the sunset. She had been so enamored with him, contemplating sailing to the ends of the earth with him. She had not been able to though. She had stood on the dock watching the boat with her namesake sail away with her one chance and love aboard, and then when the sun blocked her view and waves had engulfed him, she had turned to Booth. She walked out of the harbor with his arm around her thinking that she would be ok, as long as he was there.
She had never expected to come face to face with him in Booth's office of all places. She had no words for just a split second, the feeling of ambush seizing her rationality.
" You look good." He smiled at her, taking the pressure off of her for an answer.
"You look good as well. That Caribbean sun agrees with you." She took in his appearance for the first time, he seemed more muscular. His dark brown hair was streaked with blonde from the sun, his eyes held a relaxation she had only ever dreamed of. He was like Adonis standing before her, and she was well, sort of fat. There was a certain sense of inadequacy that she was not used to setting in. She was not used to being on the down side of running into and ex-lover, and she hoped this was the closest she would ever be to the experience.
" Some things change in a big way when you give up reality." He said nodding towards her bulging stomach. She instantly rounded her arms around it to protect it from him. Suddenly there was a sense of unease she had not really ever felt around him before. She hoped it was just that inadequacy flaring up again.
" Some one is a very lucky guy." Sully said his eyes sparkling. For just a split second Brennan wished that he would not take the high road. She wanted to see jealousy turn him green instead of genuine well wishes making him seem like the champion.
" I am." Booth said from behind the two, his tall stocky form leaning against the doorway. That spark was back in his eyes, just like at the doctor's office. He seemed to enjoy getting to tell Sully that more than Brennan would have liked. She was a trained anthropologist, well versed in culture and human behavior. In short she knew a power struggle when she saw one.
"What are you doing here?" She asked Sully, hopping to avoid any more displays of blatant testosterone.
"Ask your man in the suit. He called me in." Sully smirked at Booth who was making his way silently around the room to his desk.
" Booth?" Brennan looked on questioningly. Her curiosity was piqued. Not only had Booth called in her ex-lover without informing her but he had done so for a case she had yet to hear about.
" There was a body found in the reflection pool last night. A very upset class of kindergartners will have nightmares for a very long time." Booth said bowing his head slightly.
" Oh. I see. I get it, I do, but I can't help you." Sully's demeanor did a one eighty. He got up, feeling the rampant claustrophobia set in. He needed to go, this was not his life and not his problem.
" You were there Sully, you can help us." Booth called to him.
Brennan just sat there in confusion. Why was Sully a sudden expert on the reflection pond? Why was Booth so desperate to keep him here? Why had no one stopped to fill her in? Her already short patience snapped.
" Sit down!" She yelled finding her voice once more. The men turned to her, startled. Sully dropped into the chair he had been occupying his full attention of the woman to his right.
" Now someone had better tell me what is going on here, right now." She snapped.
" I was going to fill you in later, I wanted to get Sully on board first." Booth said by way of an apology she was not buying.
" Just tell her Booth." Sully's voice had a hard edge to it, one that Brennan had never heard before.
" It's your story to tell, not mine." Booth kept up the cryptic speak, only irritating Brennan more. One of these men had better get it together or she was going to have both of their hides.
" My Partner," Sully began. "His name was Larry Carter and he was a real firecracker. There was no man out there that he wouldn't catch. About a year before you and I worked together we were hot on the tale of this serial killer. His name was Michael Lorenzo and he was a real sick son of a bitch. He used to abduct women, rape them, and leave them to bleed out in the reflection pond. We tried to keep the media out of it, sent in recon missions, I mean this guy was good.
" Somehow, Carter managed to get the one up on him. He got to his latest victim before he killed her. He saved her life. All we had to do was locate him quickly enough and we would have him on death row before supper.
"It was two days later I came into my office. There was a package addressed to me, inside it were two bones with carter's name, birth and what later turned out to be his death year carved into them. I found my partner two days later floating face up in the reflection pool. Lorenzo was long gone by then."
" I'm sorry, Sully." He looked up to see Brennan's eyes looking onto his own. She had a kind look on her face, much like the one she wore the day he left her. It was bad enough that he had to face the death of his partner all over again but to have to see the woman that he loved, pregnant by someone else, it seemed like to much to bear.
" It's alright. Okay, it's not alright but if we could just catch this guy I would be able to put a huge part of my life to rest. It would be the closure that I think I need." He said keeping Brennan's gaze. She looked at him with pain in her eyes for him. It was that gaze that triggered his epiphany in a spit second. Working with her would be to hard, have to many consequences for his emotional well being. He needed to put her to rest as well before he could ever hope to function with them.
"Where do we start?" Brennan asked pulling Sully out of his own pity party.
" Where we always do," Booth said for the first time in what seemed like eons.
" Let's go to the crime scene then." Brennan said starting to stand.
" I had everything you need shipped from the crime scene to the lab." Booth answered without looking at her. She looked up surprised as she fell back into her chair.
"Why wasn't I with you at the crime scene?"
" I took Cam." He stated.
" Oh, I see." She stood again, this time waiting till she was in the doorway before she spoke. " Sully, It was good to see you though I wish it were under more pleasant circumstances. I'll be at that lab if you need me call me." She turned on her heels and was gone. Her hostile attitude did not go unnoticed by either man.
"She'd become and even bigger firecracker." Sully said watching her walk away through the glass.
" It's been almost unbearable as of late." Booth said looking away. He hated to see the pain on her face. There was still a part of him that wanted nothing more than to reach out and hold her.
" Trouble in paradise?" Sully countered knowing full well that he had no right to ask, but feeling like he was owed at least that much.
" You have to get to paradise before the can be trouble in it." Was all Booth said in response.
