In Booth's office, I found myself laughing alongside Brennan when I saw the FBI agent. I was unable to help but recall how Brennan had told me Booth had a lawyer lady friend named Tessa who he'd been… in bed with when she went over to tell him about the report while she drove me over. "Okay, what is so funny?" Booth demanded, miffed.

I covered my mouth, not doing much else to try to cover up my mirth. Brennan managed to say, "I just never figured you'd be in a relationship," through her giggles.

"Why?" Booth demanded, standing up from his chair in indignation. "Do you think something's wrong with me?"

"Not wrong," Brennan hurriedly corrected him. "You just have alpha male attributes usually associated with a solitary existence."

"What? Me! You're solitary!" Booth accused.

"No, I'm private," Brennan edited his sentence. "It's different, and we weren't talking about me."

"Well I was!"

"Well, I wasn't," Brennan shot back. "Look, I'm happy for you! Relationships have anthropological meaning. No society can survive if sexual bonds aren't formed betw-"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Booth demanded, his cheeks coloring slightly.

A burly officer popped his head in the office. "Booth."

"Yeah?" Booth asked, glad for the distraction from Brennan.

"You got that ID?" He asked gruffly, apparently incapable of speaking in whole sentences.

"Yeah," Booth replied. "It was Masruk."

"Oh, that's too bad," the guy said emotionlessly.

"He allegedly killed four people and injured another fifteen," Brennan pointed out, looking at the officer in horror, not understanding why he was disappointed a supposed mass murderer was dead.

The officer came into the room slightly, extending the file in his hand to Booth, who took it gingerly. "The report came back from ballistics. Now the explosives were planted under the car with, with the trigger connected to the odometer. Masruk was murdered."

"So Masruk wasn't a terrorist," I declared triumphantly. "I totally guessed it!"

"But someone sure tried to make him look like one," Booth sighed heavily. "Any leads on who did it?"

The other officer sneered at him. "That's why we're paying you, Booth."

"We're very, very sorry, Mrs. Masruk," Booth said emotionally.

Sahar didn't seem to care that she was being recorded. The interrogation room's cameras aren't secret. She was scared and hurt, and that made her angry. "I told you Hamid was the victim, but you wouldn't listen," she fired the insults steadily. For her part, she wasn't repeating and she wasn't threatening or cursing, so we couldn't do anything. "You couldn't imagine an Arab who's a peace-loving man."

"That's not true," Booth started, but was interrupted by the broken-hearted woman.

Sahar tilted her head in disbelief. "No?" She scoffed. "We must investigate everything, Mrs. Masruk. We must turn your house upside down, because we believe your husband was a good man. Is that the truth?"

"No!" Brennan declared loudly, her jaw dropping slightly at the woman's misinterpretation of the investigation. "They searched your house because Muslim extremists have declared war on the United States. Preliminary findings made your husband a suspect, which we are required-"

"It's not FBI policy to target or profile any ethnic group," Booth interrupted, trying to keep the atmosphere on our side relatively calm. "It wasn't our intention. I can understand why you may feel offended."

"I can't," Brennan disagreed stubbornly.

"Bones!" Booth hissed.

"What?" I asked, going to the anthropologists' defense. "She's been a part of a criminal investigation, that's all. Her rights as a citizen haven't been violated. Yes, it's unfortunate that her husband's ethnicity is a factor, but to say it isn't would be lying. This isn't a perfect world and after 9/11, our security has to encompass everything that's a possible risk to the country."

Booth frowned in frustration, his jawline becoming more pronounced. "I'm going to have to apologize for Dr. Brennan and my ward," he told Sahar apologetically.

"It's fine, Mr. Booth," Sahar said, sitting back down in her seat across from us with a sigh. She was calming down. It seemed that admitting that ethnicity had been a factor had been what she needed to understand that we weren't against her culture. "Honesty is always a welcome relief. So when can I bury him? When can I give him peace?"

Brennan met Sahar's eyes respectfully, keeping her voice low as another sign of respect. "There are certain body parts that I'm still examining. Others are still seared to the surface of the wreckage…"

Booth's leg moved and Brennan inhaled quickly, looking at Booth in indignant confusion. "I'm sure Mrs. Masruk doesn't really need to know the details," he said carefully.

"If we can retrieve more remains of her husband, Muslim law requires that we do," I told Booth earnestly. Just because I don't practice religion doesn't mean I can't respect it.

Brennan looked to Sahar again after nodding at Booth in agreement with me. "I spent some time in Iraq identifying bodies. I'll give you whatever I can so that he can be purified for burial."

Sahar nodded, swallowing back a sob. "Thank you." She turned her piercing gaze to Booth. "Is that all?"

"One last thing," I said gently. "A few calls were made to his cell phone from your house, only minutes before the blast."

Sahar looked down at the table, blinking rapidly. Ah. Guilt. I'd recognize the old companion anywhere. "Yes, we argued. It was a family matter. My final words to him were words of anger."

"I'm very sorry," Booth said sincerely. "It must be very painful." Sahar said silently for a moment, and when it became clear that we were done here, she stood up and collected her purse from the back of the chair. "If there's anything else you know that you can think of, just give us a call," Booth advised as she left the room.

As the door clicked shut behind her, I heaved a sigh and stood up laboriously. "Well, between the three of us," I said casually. "I think she's having an affair." I shrugged. "That's my opinion."

"She was having an affair!" Booth exclaimed again as he took a seat at the bar. Brennan pulled up a chair next to him and I hung back for a moment before climbing in one on the agent's other side. Booth agreed with me on my affair theory, so I'd rather not push Brennan to be in the middle of the conflict – literally.

While Booth and Brennan ordered expensive martinis with little alcohol content, I waved off the bar tender's offer of anything to drink. I didn't have much money to spend on restaurants. As it was, until I got back out of FBI protection, I'd be unable to resume my job at the bar, and therefore wouldn't be paid. I'd have to dig into the envelope where I stashed the extra dollar bills just to buy the groceries I'd need for the upcoming month.

"I'm sorry, but that's an offensive assumption!" Brennan declared, not sounding sorry in the least.

"Well, all the signs are there," Booth shrugged.

"You can't make wild accusations about somebody's personal life based on a feeling!" I was really starting to regret bringing up my suspicions.

"It's more than a feeling!" Booth pushed. "The photographs of her and her husband are evidence just as solid as the markers you squints pick up looking at your little bones!"

"The evidence that I find isn't empirical. What you consider evidence is merely conjecture!"

"She dyed her hair, lost weight – you know she shoved a little Botox in her forehead. She's still feeling guilty over the last fight she had with her husband," Booth tried to reason with her, but his efforts were fruitless.

Brennan groaned, her elbows knocking on the table as she put her head in her hands in frustration. "You are an insufferable – arrogant… man!"

"Oh!" Booth puffed in disdain. "So only a woman could know a woman. Holly's the one that said it first!"

I cringed, drawing my arms back across my chest protectively. "Please don't bring me into this. I'm a minor. My words mean nothing."

Booth slapped the bar table with his hand, exasperated. "I thought women wanted us to understand them!"

Angela appeared on my other side practically out of thin air. She pulled the chair out and set her champagne glass on the countertop, tapping her manicured red nails on the surface while she leaned forward to see all three of us at once. "Not really," she explained. "A magician never wants to reveal her tricks."

Booth gave her a look, his eyes narrowed. "We're having a private conversation."

Angela raised her hands up, shaking her head with wide doe-like eyes. "I'm not here."

"I'm not either," I agreed, making the same gesture as Angela.

Brennan wasn't ready to give Booth a rest. "So you think you know women just because you live with some sexy lawyer? Unbelievable!"

Booth scoffed, but Angela's eyebrows flew up to her hairline and threatened to disappear. "You live with a sexy lawyer?"

Booth twitched. "She has her own place, okay!"

Brennan leaned around Booth and I leaned back so she could see Angela better. "He thinks that just because Masruk's wife started working out and had a little make over, that she was having an affair!" Thank you, Brennan. I appreciate not being included. Sincerely. Really, I do.

Angela hummed to herself. "How long were they married?"

"Eleven years," I supplied.

Angela winced and looked back to Brennan, jerking her thumb at Booth. "I'm with him."

"There is no concrete proof!" Brennan shouted slightly but her voice was lost in the naturally loud volume of the bar. "I don't believe this! If you're so sure, then why didn't you confront her?"

"Because if she or her boyfriend were involved, she would warn him," Angela said instantly.

Booth nodded sideways at her. "Very good."

"I'm a constant surprise."

Brennan got up, leaving her only half-finished martini on the bar. She slapped down a ten dollar bill next to it and snatched her purse up and hitched it over her shoulder. "Great. I will be in the lab, getting us some real data."

Booth sighed and Angela smirked coyly. "So, how many nights a week does Sexy sleep over?"

"Ha, ha, ha," Booth laughed sarcastically, not dignifying that with an answer.

I loomed over Zach's shoulder curiously, watching him carefully attempt to fit the cranium back together. I rocked back and forth on my heels as Brennan joined Zach, Hodgins, and I on the platform. Brennan looked to Zach as she deftly swiped her security card. "How's it coming?"

Zach's sigh seemed disappointed and mildly miserable. "The ethnoid and sphenoid fragments won't fit together," I supplied. "I'll tell you what, give the guy a thousand piece puzzle and it'll probably be done in fifteen minutes. A cranial reconstruction? It's three-dimensional, horribly disfigured, smashed into bits, and he got over half of it put together in half an hour. And now he's complaining because he's having a bit of trouble," I said in amusement.

All we'd actually really accomplished this morning while Brennan went over files was talk a bit while Zach and Hodgins worked. Seeing as no one knew exactly how large my intelligence was in forensics, Booth had mostly just dropped me off in Brennan's care again for the time being and more or less demanded the squints to entertain me. Of course, Brennan wasn't the only person watching over me. I was with one of the scientists at all times, although usually it was Zach or Hodgins. I'd talked to Angela for a while, and I'd done some basic translating from Arabic over Brennan's shoulder for her, passing it off as another unorthodox hobby. During which time I learned that Zach lived above Hodgins' garage, which was cool. They were good friends. Zach had also said that, instead of awkwardly pointing speech at him, I could call him Zach. I'd been unsure what an appropriate (but also respectful) title of address would be. He was a scientist, yes, and he was working towards a doctorate, but he wasn't technically a doctor yet. So, that cleared things up.

Actually, he made the whole conversation a bit weird because he said that his current friends insisted on calling him Zach 'for some reason' aside from Zachary, and said that he saw no reason for me not to jump on the bandwagon. He didn't use that expression, of course, but it's a loose translation.

Brennan sighed in mild irritation. "Zach, I would like to return the remains to the widow before her demise."

"I'm doing by best, Dr. Brennan," Zach defended himself weakly, looking up at his mentor with big puppy dog eyes of confusion. "The integrity of the bone seems to be compromised. I don't know if it's the metal fragments from the blast…"

"I examined the chemicals used in the explosives," Hodgins pitched in helpfully. "The perchlorates I found can have a degenerative effect."

Brennan denied the easy explanation. "Not this quickly. Excuse me." Hodgins rolled his spindly chair away from his microscope to let Brennan look through. "Unusually soft bone tissue," she said in a slightly distant tone of voice that I was quickly beginning to learn meant she noticed or realized something. "You know, this has nothing to do with the blast. I owe you an apology, Zach." Zach brightened up and his posture became less slouchy. Aw, he was like a puppy trying to please his mistress. Cute. "Do you have his medicals? Stiff joints, facial disfigurement. There's a disorganized trabecula pattern here that his doctors wouldn't have been able to see. It could have been a degenerative disease."

"I don't get it. How does his medical condition figure into the murder?" Hodgins groaned in frustration, throwing his hands in the air.

"Now it's a murder," Brennan pointed out decisively. "Before it was terrorism, because we didn't have all the fact. You don't overlook anything when you're looking for the truth."

"Could you check for lupus?" I asked the entomologist. "Is there enough tissue? It was in the records that his doctors were testing, but the results didn't come back before his death."

Hodgins nodded slightly. "Yeah, there should be enough tissue to manage it."

"Also check for pagets," Brennan requested. "If those come back negative, he might have been exposed to a toxin which would mean his brother was, too."

"The facial scarring was similar," I recalled. "I can call Booth and ask him to pull Farid Masruk's medical records."

"Good idea," Brennan praised. She gave praise to me more than her other colleagues, likely because I was an adolescent who technically had a very good excuse for not knowing (namely, not going to college), but I would take it anyway. "Tell him to fax them to my office." Shoes clicking, she sped back down the stairs and off the hallway that shot down towards her office.

Hodgins sighed deeply, shaking his head. "I graduated top of my class, Rhode Scholar, youngest member inducted into the Academy of Physical Sciences, but she still makes me feel like a cretin," he shared with an exasperated frown.

Zach looked up to Hodgins with a light smirk. "She apologized to me," he stated. It was matter-of-fact, but I had the distinct feeling that Zach was bragging as best as he could. Judging from the dirty look Hodgins sent the grad student, I wasn't the only one who felt that way.

Farid lived in an apartment not far from the center of town. His apartment was spacious even though it was small, mostly because his belongings were organized. Other than furniture, there wasn't really anything on the floor, and everything was put where it belonged. The furniture was all dark colors, so it was easy on the eyes. The only thing that seemed a little weird to me was a candelabra on the dining room table, but it looked cool anyway.

"Yes, I am a Christian," Farid nodded, verifying Booth's clarifying question.

"Yet Sahar and Hamid were Muslim." Although it was posed as a statement, the message of the question beneath went through.

"I converted," Farid said with a half-shrug. "Hamid could never accept it. Religious differences caused too many problems."

Brennan nodded, accepting the answer. "It seems to be a consistent fact throughout history."

Farid didn't seem to know quite how to respond for a moment before settling on, "I tried to make peace with my brother, but it was difficult. There was more than religion between us."

"Sahar mentioned that there was some family problems," Booth prodded.

"Yes."

"I can understand how delicate it can be."

"Did she tell you any more than that?" Farid worried his lower lip in anxiety.

"No, but if you have any other information that could help us in the investigation, it could speed things along," I pushed slightly, but he really shouldn't be concealing information like that from the FBI.

"It's not my place," Farid excused, looking chastened.

"We're just trying to find out who killed your brother," Booth declared.

Farid swallowed nervously before confessing, "Sahar was seeing another man, but I can't believe she'd hurt my brother." Oh! If it wouldn't be incredibly insensitive, I'd fist-pump because I was right.

Brennan sent Booth a sideways glare when he smirked at her. "Do you know who this other man is or is it just a… feeling you have?" Ouch, that hurts.

"I've met him," Farid said, blinking at the obvious tension. "Ali Ladjavardi. He worked with Hamid at the friendship league. I wanted Hamid to confront Ladjavardi." Somehow that doesn't seem like a very good idea to me. At all.

Brennan leaned forward, now interested as she believed now that the affair was factual. "Did both you and Hamid have contact with Ladjavardi?"

"Yes, once," Farid nodded, looking over to his bedroom door. His gaze flickered back to us as soon as he realized what he was doing. I squinted at him for a moment; that was weird… then again, he probably would want to retreat to his bedroom and take a Tylenol and a nap as soon as we left. "Hamid, my brother brought me to meet him. Sharing a meal is a gesture of peace. I was trying to save their marriage, but Sahar and Ladjavardi were not going to stop their affair. So I told Hamid to repudiate her."

"Sorry?" Booth asked, making a face like he thought Farid must have misspoken.

"It's a divorce method called Talak in Muslim law," I explained to him under my breath. At the time I had hated the social studies class in my school system when it wanted us to learn about the Middle-Eastern country's culture; then again, when I went through that unit four years ago in 2001, it had been at the end of the spring semester. Tensions had been high from the terrorism attacks on the WTC, and even I'd been still getting over 9/11, and still visibly showing the trauma I'd been dealt when the plane hit the tower I'd been in. However, now the information was benefitting me well.

"I still respected his traditions," Farid agreed with my statement.

Brennan scooted forward on her chair to observe the Muslim-turned-Christian. "You and your brother seem to share a medical condition."

"Yes," Farid supplied amiably, then asked, "Why is that important?"

Booth cringed at Brennan's abrupt change in topic. "We don't mean to embarrass you, but Dr. Brennan is just trying to figure out the condition. That's a routine part of the investigation."

"Have you seen a doctor?" I inquired.

"Yes," Farid confirmed. "He believes it's a genetic disorder we shared. He was going to call Hamid's physician to discuss it."

Brennan tilted her head. "Would you mind if we saw your medical records?"

"Of course not. If I could be helped, I welcome it."

"Something about Farid Masruk seems off," I confided in Angela, Zach, and Hodgins later while Brennan and Booth got the interrogation room ready.

"Yeah? Would that be the torturous emotional agony or the genetic disease that scars his face?" Hodgins asked sarcastically, like I'd made a rather pointless observation.

I shook my head, not in the mood to get temperamental. "No, I mean, Hamid only died a couple of days ago, and Farid found out even later than that that it was a positive ID. But he's already talking about his brother in the past tense."

"That's what happens when someone dies," Zach said smartly, going back over the skeleton of Hamid Masruk, which was on the exam table. "Their consciousness becomes no longer existent, and therefore it existed in the past, hence it is referenced in past tense."

I rolled my eyes, not really irritated. It was mostly for show. "It takes a while for people to come to grips with the deaths of people close to them. As a general rule, for an indefinite amount of time, people will still talk about their deceased as if they were still alive. It's a way of mentally shielding themselves and giving themselves time to adapt to the change and mourn. Farid was already directly addressing his brother in the past tense without a stitch, like he'd known before we told him that we had a positive ID. Something seems fishy about that to me," I explained.

Hodgins snorted, bemused. "First you're a scientist, then a junior federal agent, now you're a psychologist? What's next? Instrumentalist?"

"Yes, actually," I said, completely serious. "I play violin." That was true; one of my few permanent belongings that I always loved was my violin. It needed to be retuned, because I hadn't really had time to play it recently, but I was proud of myself for keeping it in mostly-pristine shape. I got a deadpan look from Angela and Hodgins and I shrugged. "I read a lot and since I graduated early, I keep myself sharp by signing up for online college classes sometimes." It's informative and good for keeping myself entertained at an intellectual level, but it's not like they actually qualify me for anything.

"Right," Angela said, smiling at me. "Totally normal, sweetie." Totally not, but thanks anyway, Angela. She circled around to Zach, trying to indulge him in gossip once more. "Apparently, Booth and Sexy live together a few days a week, but he was very clear that she has her own place."

"Should you be intruding into their lives like this?" Zach asked uneasily.

"Oh, yeah," Angela said, her expression completely serious. "Absolutely."

Hodgins looked back from the reports that he got scanned to his computer. "We're negative for lupus and pagets. When you're done, I'll do a scraping for environmental contaminates," he added to Zach.

Zach looked to the equipment table next to him before lightly picking up a Petri dish. He passed it over to the entomologist. "I found these. Shiny flakes that caught onto the torn patches of bone."

"Bottom line, I still think Brennan has a shot with Booth," Angela finished, still trying to get people to talk about Booth and Brennan's social lives with her.

"But she says she's not interested," Hodgins reminded Angela dryly.

Angela raised her eyebrows challengingly. "Me thinks the lady doth protest too much."

"Maybe she protested just enough," Zach countered loyally, trying to imitate Angela's Shakespearean style.

Angela rolled her eyes. "Please. She's been sleeping alone for months! She has enough pent-up sexual energy to power a small mid-western city!"

I sighed. I really didn't need to hear this. "I'm still here, and I'm still legally a kid."

"This looks like gypsum," Hodgins interrupted Angela for all of our sakes. My hero! That wouldn't cause any organic damage. It's probably used to insulate the explosives. I bet the FBI doesn't know that yet." Insert cocky smirk here.

Angela pursed her lips, frustrated that no one else seemed to care about Brennan's bedroom habits. I'm not entirely sure why she's surprised. "I'm going to go check out this girlfriend," she stressed, picking up her purse from where it hung on the railing.

I sat in the backseat of Booth's SUV. Brennan had come back to get me while Booth was interrogating Ladjavardi, only for us to come back and find that the same rude agent as before had completely burned us! He freed Ladjavardi, even though he had admitted to the affair (a good motive for murder), just because he worked for Homeland Security. Homeland Security is really starting to piss me off. Now we were going back to the lab – we still needed to go through Farid's med records and cross check them with Hamid's. As the light turned green but the cars ahead still stayed stationary, Booth honked his horn, hitting the steering wheel violently with his fist. "C'mon!" He shouted.

"Do you want me to drive?" Brennan offered, a concerned look gracing her features.

"No, why?" Booth asked, quickly questioning her.

"You're angry," I stated truthfully.

Booth laughed, but it was forced. "I'm not angry!"

"You're furious. You might kill somebody," I said, not really serious about the last part.

"I'm not angry." Even though Booth said he wasn't, he was gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were white with the lack of blood circulation. "Believe me, you do not want to see me angry. That is the last thing you want to see."

"Okay," Brennan agreed simply.

"This is me, accepting reality."

"Okay, my mistake," I surrendered.

"My superiors, they make the decisions. Alright? They don't think them through, well, that's really not my problem."

"If I were you, I'd be mad," Brennan observed. "Homeland Security is preventing you from doing a proper investigation of a murder case."

"I'm a grownup," Booth continued in his tirade. "I'll deal. You know that thing where you ask for the strength to change the things that you can and the wisdom to know the difference?"

"Not really," Brennan and I both replied in accidental synchrony.

"Well, it's a good thing," Booth said decisively, taking a deep breath and starting to calm down.

"Who do you ask?" Brennan questioned curiously.

"For what?"

"For the strength and the wisdom."

Booth gave her a look of disbelief, like he seriously thought she should already know the answer to that. "God."

"And that works?" She prodded skeptically.

"Can we talk about something else?"

"Sure!" I said happily, eager to get off of the topic of religion. I leaned forward as far as I could while still wearing the seatbelt. "So how did you meet Tessa?"

"Tessa!?" Booth exclaimed, surprised, before quickly getting over it. "No! Why do you want to talk about Tessa?"

"Why not?" I countered. Booth tensed, and I rolled my eyes at his stupid behavior. "Alright, fine. We won't talk about Tessa."

"I prefer if we would just stay on point and talk about things that you like to talk about. Like, dead people. Dead bodies?"

"Sure, sure," Brennan nodded, finding a way to turn this against him, too. "You've killed a lot of people, right? When you were a sniper?"

"Maybe we shouldn't talk at all," Booth muttered.

"Right, because you're angry," I triumphantly repeated my earlier sentiments.

"Not angry!" Booth corrected. "I'm not."

Brennan's eyes softened in sympathy. "We'll find out who killed him, Booth. We've got Hamid's body." She paused and sighed. "You can always count on the dead."