Bones – NCIS
vol 5.

Sarah gathered all her strength, although, she felt herself weaken with every single step she took. Her thoughts were running in circles around the endless possibilities of Vance's reason to call her into his office, which in turn made her dizzy. He is definitely going to fire me!' she thought. She disobeyed Gibbs' orders; that was a serious issue in itself!

She turned the knob of the office's door with shaking hands. Cynthia Summer, Vance's assistant nodded towards the director's door and Sarah went through it slowly.

"Director Vance." Sarah said announcing her presence then quickly closed the door and walked in front of Vance's desk.

"Agent Bryce. I suppose you know why you are here."

"I think I do..." Sarah managed to get the words out.

"Gibbs wants me to fire you. You didn't follow his direct orders."

Sarah nodded silently, not feeling strong enough to speak.

"And in most cases I do fire disobedient agents. But you are a fine agent, Bryce, and I'm not letting you go. Not to mention, I, myself authorized the joint investigation so I would have to fire Gibbs too, which is obviously not going to happen." smiled Vance.

"So if you don't fire me, then...?"

"You are suspended" Vance said.

Sarah knew this was her only chance to stay at NCIS and she didn't want to screw everything up.

"How long?"

"Until further notice. And you are off this case until you come back to work. Go home, Bryce."

Sarah nodded, said goodbye and then went down, back to her desk. She was about to pick up her coat when Tony's arrival stopped her in her tracks.

"Everything's okay?" Tony asked, his voice full of concern.

"I'm not so sure" Sarah shaked her head. "I gotta go home now."

"He fired you?" Tony looked at her with worried eyes.

"No, he didn't..."

"See? I told you!" Tony smiled at her.

"Instead he suspended me and I'm off the case, for now. Which I guess means I have to spend at least a week at home." Sarah managed to say while putting on her coat. She put her gun and her badge onto Gibbs' desk and then practically ran to the elevator. Tony wanted to say something to her, anything that could make her feel just a tiny bit better, but he didn't have the chance. He decided to call agent Booth, letting him know that his liaison was off the case.

"Booth" he heard the man's voice as he answered the phone.

"Houston, we have a problem."

"What happened?"

"Where do I start? You want the bad news or the worse news first?" Tony asked while he put his gun into the upper drawer of his desk.

"Uhm... start with the worse" Booth said going out from Brennan's office to go back to the FBI.

"Sarah's off the case and suspended."

"You kidding?" Booth stopped at the Jeffersonian's back entrance.

"No, I'm not. She went home a few seconds ago. Director Vance suspended her for not following Gibbs' orders."

"Great" Booth turned around facing the lab again "And what's the bad news, DiNozzo?"

"We've got another dead marine, under the name of Sophia Dullen.

"Brilliant!" Booth sighed and he really wanted to punch something at the moment, but then he remembered Sweets asking about his anger issues and decided to let his left arm fall back to his side. Thinking through the possibilities, he found only one scenario that could help Sarah.

"You've got any ideas, Booth?"

"I've one in mind. I'll go talk to Hacker, he's the FBI's assistant director. He could hire her as a consultant till we close this case; I mean for God's sake that director of yours allowed the joint investigation..."

"Great idea, Mr. FBI! Call me when you are done talking to that assistant director. I'm gonna go to Sarah's place and show her the crime scene photos, maybe she can see something I missed..."

"I'll call" with that they hung up. Booth walked out of the Jeffersonian, jumped into his car and headed straight to the Hoover.

Tony re-attached his gun to his waist, picked up his coat and went down to the garage. 10 minutes later he stopped his Charger at Sarah's place. He picked up his camera and its USB cable then went to knock on her door. After a few knocks and bell rings later Sarah opened the door.

"What's so urgent?" Sarah asked a bit angrily, but when she saw that it was Tony she took a deep breath to calm down.

"It's just me and I brought you something." Tony showed her the camera.

"Come in" Sarah nodded pointing towards the living room. "My laptop is on the desk."

Tony smiled, dropped his coat on the small table in the foyer then headed straight for the laptop in the living room. He connected the camera to the computer then it started synchronizing. Meanwhile he waited for the computer to recognize the camera and actually open the photos he put his phone on the desk in front of him. He knew Gibbs could call him at any minute to ask where the hell he was. After the computer finished synchronizing, he opened the folder which contained his crime scene photos and waited for Sarah to sit down next to him. When she did, he clicked on the first picture and Sarah immediately recognized the victim.

"Tony! You should NOT have brought this here!" she snapped at him "You could get suspended for this!"

"Look, Booth is arranging things with his assistant director to hire you as a consultant. You won't be able to wear an NCIS badge, but at least you can work the damn case. That's more than sitting at home..."

"No, you can't do this. No..." Sarah interrupted "Both of you are risking your careers and..."

"Stop." Tony put his right hand up to silence her "You would do the same thing for me, or for anyone on the team."

Sarah stood up without saying a word and went to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of water. She couldn't see the glowing spot on the roof of the house on the other side of the street, and the rough weather somewhat silenced the shots. All three shots were directed towards Sarah's kitchen window. The first bullet was only good enough to shatter the kitchen window then its course changed and stopped in the wall. The second came so fast after the first that Sarah had no chance of running away. The third came a few seconds after and it stopped in the middle of a picture on the wall.

Sarah's reflex made her right hand go for her gun as soon as she was on the floor, unfortunately, she didn't have her gun. It was on Gibbs' desk. Her next instinct sent her under her kitchen table and she tried not to pay attention to her aching left hand.

Tony ran into the kitchen at the sound of shattering glass and when he saw Sarah on the floor, he got his gun out and knelt next to Sarah.

"Are you okay?" he asked, but his attention was on the window, or what was left of it.

"Sort of..." she answered, finally taking a look at the wound. Her blue blouse turned red under her left shoulder.

"Call 911, I have to check outside." Tony said dropping his cell into Sarah's lap and crouching he went back to the front door, looking out the window next to it. While talking to 911, Sarah grabbed a dish towel from the table under which she was hiding and tried to stop the bleeding.

Booth came out of the Hoover building after talking to Hacker and jumped into his car just in time before a huge thunder brought pouring rain with it. This meant he could only get to Sarah's house in 20 minutes, instead of the normal 10 minutes it would take. Pouring rains meant insane traffic jam all around the city. When he arrived into the street of her house, he saw the police cars, two Chargers and a CSI van with an ambulance parked next to it on the driveway. Booth not knowing what had happened parked his car as close as he could, got out and got into the crime scene by showing his badge to three officers. He was about to walk to the driveway when he saw two guys bringing out Sarah on a stretcher, her left arm bandaged.

"I can walk just fine, thank you." Sarah said as she tried to get out of the stretcher which made Booth smile. Just like Brennan, he thought. Brennan wouldn't allow him or anyone else to see her weak. If by a rare chance he could see her weaker side, something terrible was going on. Booth stood next to DiNozzo at the front door.

"What the hell happened here?"

"I don't know, she went into the kitchen for a glass of water and then I heard glass shattering. I started from the couch when I heard the shots. I think it was three shots all together, but it was hard to tell with all the noise coming from the storm."

They walked into the kitchen, carefully, trying not to disturb the scene. Booth stood near the remains of the window. The huge glass was in millions of pieces on the floor. He turned around and took in the scene. There was a bullet in the nearest wall and another in the furthest which stopped in the middle of a picture. The picture was of the NCIS team, posing for a funny picture in their favourite bar. The bullet stopped in the middle, where Sarah stood laughing and it stopped right at her chest. Booth went closer and carefully examined the bullet; it was surprisingly familiar to him.

"We are looking for a sniper. This is a military grade sniper bullet." Booth said turning back to DiNozzo.

"How do you know that?"

"I was a sniper before the FBI."

"Now that is quite a coincidence! Gibbs was a marine sniper before becoming a special agent." DiNozzo smiled, but Booth just nodded and thought it was time to get out before Gibbs sees him and questions him for being at his crime scene. With that thought, he said goodbye to DiNozzo, went back to his car and saw that it was late enough to go back to the FBI Hoover building, get his belongings from his office and then head home and call it a day.

Brennan in the meanwhile after finishing the examination of the bones of Corporal James Wayhne in the Jeffersonian finished her notes and decided to head home. It was almost 8PM, meaning the Jeffersonian was ready to close its doors very soon. She was heading towards the parking lot when Hodgins caught up with her.

"Dr. B!" Hodgins waved as he ran up next to her. For a while they walked without saying a word, but then Hodgins decided to ask the question that has been bothering him all day.

"Aren't you afraid, Dr. B?" he looked at her, trying to see her reaction.

"Do you mean because of the Gravedigger?" Brennan asked to which Hodgins nodded "I don't know, Hodgins. Fear might not be the proper word to use to describe my emotions, but..." Brennan stopped for a second as they reached the Jeffersonian's huge back door, leading to the parking lot. "I... I just can't stop my brain from replaying what happened to all of us."

"Well, I'm afraid. I'm afraid that the past will repeat itself." at Brennan's confused look Hodgins corrected himself "I mean, metaphorically, Dr. B."

Brennan nodded, she sort of agreed with Hodgins, even if her logical mind knew that physically the past couldn't repeat itself. With a deep sigh she said goodbye and headed towards her blue Toyota Prius, which she only used on days she started in the lab and not at a crime scene. She waited until Hodgins' car left her sight then followed, by the time she turned onto the street, Hodgins was far away. It was raining heavily; visibility was barely over 50 yards, which meant Brennan had to sit in traffic jams half the way home and she let out a deep sigh when she finally turned onto her street 25 minutes later. Her street was empty except for a small van on the other side of the road, visibility was starting to get worse and worse, which must have been the problem for the van too, as it turned into Brennan's lane when there was no chance to avoid collision. Brennan hit the brake but to no avail, the two cars collided with a huge crash. Luckily Brennan fastened her seatbelt when she left the Jeffersonian, but she still felt dizzy and felt some warm liquid running down slowly on her neck. She felt dizzy and breathing was also painful. Her analytical mind immediately assessed the situation, concluding that she most probably had a concussion and either a broken or a cracked rib. Before she could pull her phone out from her jacket, the driver's door was opened; someone cut her seatbelt and pulled her out of the car. But instead of sitting her down or putting her onto a stretcher, that someone pulled her into the back a black van, blindfolded her and handcuffed her hands in front of her. She couldn't believe what was happening to her. She was being kidnapped. Was it Taffet, the Gravedigger? Was it happening all over again? Was Hodgins right and the past was about to repeat itself?