Hodgins was paying complete attention to the microscope, his face pressed against the tool and absently marking crystalline; soft-cell composite on his clipboard in messy handwriting. Angela tapped her heel.

"How do we know that this confrontation idea won't blow up in our faces?" The pretty artist asked me lowly, trying to keep Hodgins' attention away so that we could still take him by surprise.

I shrugged. "We don't, but if you really want to know for sure, you probably don't have a choice."

Angela pursed her lips. "Okay, here goes nothing." Angela swiped her keycard on the panel and motioned me up, waiting a moment before following back up onto the exam space. I waited a moment for her to master the stairs. I really, really didn't want to be alone confronting the entomologist; while I highly doubted he would become violent, I did not want to step over boundaries. Somehow if Angela was with me, it wouldn't be as bad because he knew Angela personally.

I moved to one side of Hodgins while Angela took the other. Angela crossed her arms and looked down at the comfortably-sitting scientist while I dropped my hands to the rails behind me and leaned against the platform side. Hodgins didn't talk immediately, but he nodded very slightly against the microscope's glasses in acknowledgement.

"How long have we known each other?" Angela asked, opening the mild confrontation.

"Do people really ever know each other?" Hodgins returned skeptically, his voice sounding pretty normal. While on alert by the atmosphere, he didn't seem to realize he'd been caught.

"How come you never invited me over to your house?" Angela asked, moving her hands to her hips and raising her eyebrows coyly.

Hodgins smirked very slightly. "Oh, I didn't pick up that kind of vibe from you." I nearly gagged.

"I thought we were close." Angela now seemed… almost as though she was betrayed. "All of us. What else don't I know?" Hodgins just looked away from the microscope, looking up at Angela in confusion. "Is Zach from another planet?" She asked, throwing one of her hands up.

"Oh, come on!" Hodgins snorted. "That one's obvious!"

I rolled my eyes. Angela wasn't coming out with it and, if Hodgins had kept it secret for this long, he wasn't about to just give it up himself. "You're rich," I accused. Hodgins tensed and his eyes traveled back down to stare at his microscope. I continued. "You single-handedly own the Cantilever Group. And – don't deny it. We know."

Hodgins didn't react right away. His hand slowly tightened around his pen, his knuckles turning white. "Who else knows?" He asked through tightly gritted teeth.

Angela swallowed, nervous, as she noticed the same changes in the normally friendly entomologists' smarting demeanor. "Zach and Booth."

"Don't tell Brennan."

Angela sighed and touched her fingertips to her temple. "Why don't you want us to know that you're actually our boss?" She asked.

"I don't want to be anybody's boss!" Hodgins growled, suddenly harsh and abrasive. "I never did!" Angela jumped back, looking apologetic and anxious. Hodgins blinked at her, loosening his fists. "Please respect that."

Angela looked down to the floor. The coldness of Hodgins' voice seemed to have unbalanced her. She nodded and, wordlessly, went back down the stairs of the platform, crossed the large room, and to the staircase leading back up to the balcony with her office.

Brennan's heels clicked across the tile as she swiped her card and stepped up. "What's up with Angela?"

I looked down to Hodgins, my expression unreadable. Hodgins looked up to meet my eyes for a few seconds, but didn't hold the eye contact and looked down darkly at the clipboard on the table in front of him again. I surveyed him for a few more seconds with narrowed eyes before deciding on something. You're damn lucky I'm not actually offended by calling me Xena. "It's just job pressure," I told Brennan, wanting to kick myself for lying to her.

There was a heavily pregnant pause before Hodgins cleared his throat and lifted up his clipboard. "Fluoride at lower concentrations is used in toothpaste, instant tea, and is added to our drinking water," he said, going through the mild background info before bombarding everyone with more science-y stuff. "Which, I might add, can cause a range of conditions, brain damage-"

"Which has nothing to do with the case at hand," Brennan cut him off.

Hodgins paused for another moment, recollecting his bearings. He's having a tough five minutes. "The concentrations found on our victim might come from wood preservatives, paint thinners, car wax, or various other industrial products." Hodgins yanked a piece of crisp, white paper out from under the clip and held it out to Brennan, who took it and clipped it neatly to her own clipboard.

Brennan nodded, satisfied. "Okay." She hesitated for a second. "Did Angela say anything about quitting her job?"

Hodgins shook his head. "No." Brennan inclined her chin to him before turning around and starting off again. Hodgins moodily stared back at the microscope again. "But we hardly know anything about each other."

I placed my hand at my forehead and pulled back, pulling my hair back out of my face. How could someone so small be treated so miserably? I mean, I'd been treated pretty hellishly at Charles' age, too, but I hadn't ended up dead in a Medico-Legal lab. Turns out, being alone in a bone room with a sterile exam table and a child's skeleton isn't the best way to search for mental peace.

Booth rapped on the threshold of the room. "Hey," he greeted softly. "Look, I thought you'd like to know that Shawn and David are in emergency care. I pulled some strings, you know, to make sure that they get to stay together."

I blinked several times. Letting my guard down around Shawn had reminded me how difficult it is to keep those walls up all of the time. "That's good. Thanks."

"It's the best I could do," Booth added.

"Yes. I understand."

"No." Booth shook his head and came into the room further. I took a step back. I felt okay being familiar with people and with locations; alone, with an armed man who was taller and more built than I was, well, familiar place and person or not, it's not the best for the safety instincts. Booth, if he noticed, didn't comment. "You say you understand, but you don't. Not really. I mean, if you don't like the rule, you ignore it, right? That's how it works in the ghetto."

I crossed my arms. "I care about the laws. I understand that you've done all you can in your position. I also understand that kidnapping is a felony. In order for the government to work without collapsing in on itself, we must follow through with legal process. Therefore, Margaret must answer for her crimes, and Shawn and David have to suffer through going back to the foster system. I do appreciate, though, that they won't have to do it alone."

Booth sighed, leaning on the side of the table and twisting his hands to push his palms against the table edge. "If you want to do this-"

"Do what?" I interrupted.

"Work on cases," Booth hastily elaborated. "You know – with me. With the lab, outside of the lab. If you want to do that, I need to know that you will respect the law."

I threw my hands up. "What does it matter?" I demanded. "This here? This is your life, okay? For me, it's a child's story. I can't keep working cases, even though I do enjoy it. I won't lie; I enjoy catching murderers and bringing them to justice. But I can't do it for forever. I have to keep it real for myself." I stopped. What was I doing, baring my soul? No, I was just antagonizing myself and the situation. "But," I added. "For the moment, if I can't respect the law, I'll at least try to abide by you."

Booth's eyes widened, taken by surprise. "Well, yeah, that'll work. I mean, it – kind of comes out of nowhere, but-"

I held out a hand to him. "Stop." I'd heard the miniscule snap. Booth, not expecting the sudden order, leaned back. Under his hands had been a yellow No. 2 pencil. It was now snapped into thirds, the wood splintering and the led inside shining in the light. "Look what you did."

Booth, perturbed, shoved his fists in his pockets. "It's a pencil. I'll get you a new one."

I looked from the pencil to the skeleton nearer the middle of the table, lifting my hands to my chest, backing away. The breaks in both were similar. I pointed at Charles' skeleton. "The victim's cause of death was chest trauma, however the ribs are broken in two places, not just one."

Booth nodded, his eyebrows furrowing as he tried to make the same connections. "Because of the brittle bones. Because of his disease."

I nodded, moving over to start going to the door. "Yeah, that was what everyone thought. But there's another explanation to it."

"Yeah, okay. What's the other explanation?" Booth asked, falling into step slightly behind me. I was half jogging down the hallway back to the domed lab entry.

"Compression." I tried to gesticulate, although when you're talking about a skeleton, it's hard to do that in great detail. "Charles Sanders was crushed to death. The evidence supports that. There are vertebral and sternal greenstick fractures, much resembling the breaks sustained by the pencil when you crushed it against the table."

"Alright, and Shawn Cook outweighed Charlie Sanders by, what, thirty pounds?" Booth shook his head negatively. "How could he have managed to crush him to death?"

I broke out of the corridor and into the main room. Angela was standing up on the balcony by her office, watching Hodgins work meticulously with Brennan as they went over more test results. "Angela!" I called, waving my hand up in the air for her attention. "We need to run some scenarios through the computer!"

"Holly! Booth!" Hurried footsteps came up from behind as Angela turned and entered her office again, preparing to warm up the computer programs. I did a one eighty. Hodgins was looking at us both pleadingly. He was slightly out of breath – he was very nervous and worried. "Zach has been informed that if he tells anyone who I am, I will kick him out on the street like a stray dog. Angela heard, and she already agreed to it, for Zach's sake, but I have a feeling that won't work with either of you. Sadly, there is nothing I can threaten you two with."

Booth and I exchanged a look. "Oh, yeah. That's a shame," I drawled sarcastically.

Hodgins sighed, bringing his hands down to his sides and repeatedly making fists, calming himself. The rubber band around his wrist was getting loose – someone's been working on their anger management a lot today. "What I want out of my life is to come in here and sift through slime and bugs." Hodgins's voice was strained, but he was determined. "Unfortunately, my family is one of those who secretly run the world."

"Paranoia and delusions of grandeur, all in one package," Booth remarked, snarky.

"You call it paranoia, I call it the family business." Booth turned back to the direction we'd been going. "Please, could you just stop!" Hodgins' breath was labored. He was really torn up about this. Booth stopped in his tracks and spun back again. Hodgins took another deep breath. "The reason that I do not want to go to that banquet is that the other members of the ruling elite will make a big fuss about seeing me. My secret will be out, and my life, this life that I love, will be ruined. I'm asking you both, please, please just let me be Jack Hodgins, who works in the lab."

"Charlie was three feet, four inches tall, and weighed fifty-eight pounds," Angela dictated as she entered the data for a holographic recreation. "Shawn Cook is 1.4 meters tall and weighs thirty-one kilograms. Shawn's brother, David, is five foot eight and one hundred fifty pounds."

Brennan faced Angela and Booth, while I stood beside her. Brennan was taking it upon herself to explain the change in the game. "At first, we thought the break to Charlie's sternum was caused by blunt trauma because it only ran along one fault line. But when Booth broke the pencil, we realized that there is another way to cause the same type of injury – compression."

Angela set up so that the holograph projected a small body lying on his back. "Hodgins found no particulates that suggested crushing."

"Body weight," Brennan said, answering even though it hadn't been a direct question. "There has to be enough weight on the victim to stop the abdomen from moving so no air can get into the lungs." The holograph's figure turned translucent as another figure of the same transparency appeared on top of the first's chest, legs bent and pushing down. "Prolonged pressure caused the sternum to snap in half, and the ribs to break." Angela sped up the recreation and, with a soft snapping sound, the digital ribcage snapped.

Angela flinched. "Sorry… I entered real-world variables, taking into account Charlie's size, and the amount of pressure that was required to break Charlie's sternum in the way that it was broken."

"Well, what did you end up with?" Booth asked, urging her on.

"86.2 kilograms."

Booth looked at me. "What's that in American?"

I thought for a moment. I never did like the metric system that much, but I did learn it. "Roughly one hundred ninety pounds."

Angela frowned down at her touchpad. "That's way too much for either of the Cook kids or Margaret Sanders."

Booth shifted his weight to his other leg. "I'd put the neighborhood kid, Skyler, at about one sixty, so it can't be him, either."

I crossed my arms despite the relief I felt. I'd have a much easier time emotionally charging an adult with murder than I would a vulnerable child in the foster system. "We should be looking for a fully grown adult male."

Brennan looked at Booth. "You have to get Shawn to tell you where he took Charlie when they left the mall."

Booth sighed. "He won't talk to me."

"I can try," Brennan offered.

Booth scoffed. "Um, no. You know, people are not your strong point, Bones. And besides, he's not going to care how many facts you put in front of him."

I looked down at the floor. "Let me do it," I implored quietly. The tiles under my feet were suddenly very interesting. Facts were facts; Shawn had been more inclined to Booth after Booth had shown him how he'd been hurt, and if you're looking for physical evidence of injury, well, I'm a hotspot. And also a complete package; I mean, not only am I scarred, but I can really relate to Shawn, having been in the foster system for almost as long as I can remember. I didn't want to let these people around me know about all of the abuse; they treated me like an equal, and knowing that would almost certainly tarnish that. But an innocent child's murderer would walk if I didn't at least try.

All three of them were surprised. Even though I was paying more attention to the linoleum, I could hear the silence. "Alright." Booth consented after an eternal moment.

I'd tried a different tactic this time with Shawn than I had last time. I drew a chair up to the interrogation table next to him and diagonal from the advocate, angling the chair so that I would be facing the child. The static I heard through the earpiece was distracting and only reminded me that whatever I said in here, it wouldn't be secret. It served to remind me that I was being watched and recorded, which made my heart beat faster than normal.

"Do you remember me, Shawn?" I asked, keeping my voice down so I didn't intimidate him on accident.

"You fixed my game and our bike. You're smart," Shawn said, in an innocent, small voice.

"Yeah, I am pretty smart," I agreed.

"And very modest," the prosecutor sarcastically said. I heard through the earpiece.

Booth probably crossed his arms. "Oh, believe me, she is being modest." I didn't know how to react to the compliment, so I just pretended I didn't hear.

I set my hands, palms-down, on the table and leaned forward, closer to Shawn. "I'm smart enough to know that you didn't kill Charlie." I let that sit for a moment in the air. Shawn tensed and turned in his chair so his back was to me. "You don't have to say anything, Shawn. Just listen." Shawn didn't say anything or move, but I knew he would hear me. I clenched my hands into fists as I tried to recall everything horrific about the system that was normal, and not just my foster families. "They give you a garbage bag to carry all of your things, like they're telling you everything you own is garbage. They won't buy you new clothes or shoes, thinking the next family will do it for you, but they don't say anything so your new parents don't know you need it. You go to school and you're teased and insulted for tearing shoes and too big or too small shirts. And you never feel like you belong, because everyone in your new home knows each other when they don't know you, and you don't know them."

"All the regular kids know you're a foster kid." Shawn sniffed. I paled slightly; I hadn't meant to make him start crying! "How do you know what it's like?" Shawn turned a little bit, closer to me.

But now that I'd started hitting buttons, I couldn't just stop. "They bounce you from place to place, and it's never really home. Sometimes the foster parents are mean, or they don't try to understand. Sometimes they really hurt you. I've been burned with cigarettes, too." Shawn peeked at me and I slowly started to roll up the sleeve of my sweater just high enough to show the first of the scars. There were a couple of burns that were darker than the rest of the skin, and a few thin, silvery scars from thin blades. It was so plain to see that I'd been hurt several times. Shawn's eyes widened and a few tears began to fall down his face. The advocate on the other side of the table visibly paled.

What I hated more was the reactions of the people on the other side of the one-way mirror, which I heard through the earpiece. The prosecutor gasped loudly.

"Oh my God," Booth exclaimed. "She never told us about this! She never mentioned…" his voice trailed off in horror and I blinked, seeing my vision start to cloud over as tears formed in my eyes. This was exactly what I'd been trying so hard to avoid. I wanted to go curl up under a rock and die. But now that I'd gotten this far, it would be stupid to stop.

"But sometimes they do try, and they care about you. Sometimes they're nice." I wish I'd known that firsthand.

"Like Margaret?" Shawn asked, lifting his hands to rub at his tear-filled eyes.

"Yeah," I nodded, blinking back my own emotions. "And sometimes when you do get friends in the system, they separate you. It must have been really nice with Margaret, because they let you stay with David."

Shawn choked, his eyes squeezing shut. "We got bunk beds," he shared, his voice pitching higher in his distress. "At night, I knew David was there. Like he was guarding me. Margaret's nice."

I sympathetically smiled at him. "You'd do almost anything to stay with Margaret, right?" Shawn nodded immediately, almost frantic. "The man you took Charlie to – the man who hurt him – he knows that. You didn't know that he'd hurt Charlie, but he did. And then he told you that Margaret would blame you and hate you." I reached out, attempting to quell my own nerves as I placed my hand softly over Shawn's smaller one. "This man is lying to you, Shawn. I can make sure that you go back to Margaret."

"How?" Shawn was openly crying now. Point gotten through, I dropped my sleeve, letting it fall back down to my wrist.

I looked straight at the one-way mirror. "I have a friend at the FBI." My voice was cool and even, despite the raging whirlwind of depression threatening to cloak me. "If I ask him to, he will make sure that you and David get to live with Margaret again."

The advocate started to shake his head warningly. "Miss Kirkland, you can't make promises that."

"Yes, I can." I argued stonily. "He will do it. My friend will make it happen."

"Oh, man," Booth groaned.

I turned back to Shawn, trying not to seem aggressive like I had with the advocate. "But for that to happen, Shawn, you have to tell me who hurt Charlie."

Shawn stared down at the table. His tears dripped down his face and onto the wooden surface. If the situation wasn't so demanding, I'd hate myself for making such a sweet kid cry so hard.

"I'm gonna need your help to keep the promises she made to that boy," Booth said, presumably to the prosecutor.

The prosecutor was caught off guard by his seriousness. "Hey, I – I can't promise-"

"Mrs. Johnson, my people and your people are going to have to make this happen."

"What if Margaret doesn't want me anymore?" Shawn asked, doubling over and hugging his knees as he brought his heels up to the chair. "Charlie was her real son."

"Charlie wasn't her biological son, either," I corrected him gently. "Charlie was just like you; someone that Margaret chose to love. I don't think we should let that man take you, and David, and Charlie away from Margaret… do you?" Shawn shook his head fiercely. "We should stop him. You and I should stop him together."

Shawn didn't say anything for a long moment, hugging his knees close to his chest while tears raced down his cheeks. Finally, Shawn reached his arms up and let his feet fall off of the chair, sliding off and moving the few steps to me. The child used the table and the back of my chair to heave himself up into my lap, and then, while I was still totally stunned, he wrapped his arms around my neck and clung to me, pressing his face against my shoulder and crying.

I tensed up. Too many memories of my neck being touched while I was being assaulted flooded back, but this was… this was just a little boy. A scared little boy who just wanted his 'mother.' I forced back the nauseous feeling in my stomach and wrapped my arms around Shawn, holding him close to me while he sobbed.

"She's hugging. It's a miracle," Booth said, though his voice was drained, still in shock of my injuries.

Shawn's small frame was wracked by intense sobs. I pushed back the waves of my irrational fear of human contact and tried harder to comfort him. I mean, his brother was killed, he played a part in it, and he thought his mother hated him and was scared he'd lose his only other family. The guilt must be overwhelming for anyone, let alone a child. I swallowed dryly, trying not to focus on the arms around my neck and rather the sound of sniffles and tears. I raised one hand up to the back of Shawn's head, petting his hair softly for a moment before rocking him. Studies have proven that a soft, steady rocking motion is calming to children during an overflow of stimuli.

Shawn took a moment to lift his head from my shoulder and whisper in my ear, his voice cracking as he trembled before he went right back to hugging and crying and trying to hide away from the rest of the world.

"She did it," Booth breathed, his voice dumbstruck. "She got his name."

I speed walked over to the exterminator, going straight past Skyler and slamming my fist down on the side of the truck. The bang successfully got the attention of Skyler's father, who turned around to look at me with narrowed eyes. "Was it fun?" I demanded, spitting the words with venom. "Was it fun for you to assault and murder a kid?"

"Excuse me?" He asked, with a slight suburban inflection. "I have no idea what you're asking."

I moved closer, stepping up into his face. "You manipulated Shawn Cook into bringing Charles Sanders to you, where you then lied to Shawn and emotionally tortured him by telling him that his mother would hate him! You sexually assaulted Charlie before crushing him to death, and then you dumped him in a field like he was garbage! Did you have fun hurting little children who couldn't fight you away?" He was still bewildered but his looks were getting angry, so I allowed myself to continue. "Did Charlie's screams turn you on, you sick, twisted bastard? Were you getting off on his pain while he was violated and injured? How the hell would you like it if I compressed your chest, huh? Maybe we should try! Get on the ground! I'll put the truck keys in the fucking ignition while you do that, and maybe I'll have fun crushing you, you rotten son of a bitch!"

"I never touched any kid!" Ellie's husband shouted back at me, denying it.

That was it for me. I reached up to his neck and scratched my nails on his skin while I fisted the collar of his shirt. With both hands, I yanked him around and slammed him up against the side of the vehicle. I kicked out with one foot, hitting his shin and disabling him from trying to run away. My vision started to blur, but at this point I was beyond self-control. I let go of his collar with one hand and balled my hand into a fist, slamming it straight into his stomach. If I hadn't been practically holding him up, he would have crumpled. He went nearly limp.

"This is what it felt like," I hissed at him. "Crippled, injured, scared, intimidated, and too hurt to run away, let alone fight back. That little boy trusted you, and you used him." I dug my fist against his bones. It had to hurt like a bitch. "You know what I think? I think you're just a pathetic pervert. You can't revel in your own perverse fantasies because even your own wife knows that you're sick. You can't get a woman bound to you to sleep with you, so you took it out on a child! You know, if I were like you, this would be scratching the surface of what I'd do to you. I'd make you suffer like you made Charlie suffer. Except, unlike Charlie, I'm not a sixty-pound child who didn't know how to fight. I'm fully capable of killing you, right now, and if I had no morals, like you, I'd do it, too."

I let go and moved back, freeing him. His legs gave out and he fell to the floor, hunching himself over and moaning. I sneered at him. "Luckily for you, I'm not a cold-blooded monster. My compassion tempers my anger, even when children are hurt. So I'll have to settle for this." I unchained the handcuffs from my belt loop. I'd nearly forgotten they were there in my rage. I'd asked Booth if I could arrest this one, just so I could fly off the handle a little bit without anyone stopping me from inflicting a fraction of the pain this monster had caused.

"Edward Nelson, you are under arrest for the sexual assault and murder of Charles Sanders. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed to you, free of charge."

I held Shawn in my arms for the second time as David, Shawn, and I waited for Margaret to be released from booking. Shawn had been so nervous that he'd raised his arms up in a silent question, and since he was just so much like I used to be, I'd consented, pushing away the irritating nerves. Physical contact, which I'd deprived myself of for years and years, was soothing, as humans are naturally social creatures, so aside from the instinctual fear of being hurt, it wasn't a bad thing to hold up the child. Besides, that it was just a child made it less scary for me. Make no mistake, I'm not about to start hugging everyone.

David stood next to me, eyeing his little brother protectively, although Shawn was happy where he was. Finally, the thick grey door opened and Margaret ran through, a uniformed officer behind her. "Boys," Margaret cried in relief.

I shifted Shawn and set him down on his feet and he ran to his mother. David hurried over to her, too, although he tried not to seem as enthusiastic as Shawn, even though it was obvious he'd missed Margaret just as much. "Mom!" Shawn exclaimed, hugging Margaret tightly.

"Are we gonna be a family again?" David asked hopefully, hugging Margaret and Shawn at the same time.

"Oh, you bet," Margaret replied, ruffling his hair affectionately.

I held up an envelope and Brennan pushed the papers inside, taking the folder and sealing it tightly. The Charles Sanders case was completed, and we were just cleaning up after ourselves.

"We have him cold," Booth said from the doorway. "The insecticide he was using on the termites matches the fluoride concentration perfectly. Skyler's dad admitted everything." Booth looked at me with a deadpan expression. "Curiously, he kept holding his sides, and when we had a medic check him, the bone in his lower leg was bruised and one of his ribs had a small fracture."

I held up my hands. "He yelled and approached me. His expression was totally psycho. Self-defense all the way."

"Don't tell me," Brennan said, sighing at the predictability. "And let me guess, he said crushing Charlie to death was a mistake."

"What about Shawn?" I asked before Booth could answer. I know I probably sounded like I thought I was Shawn's mother, but the way I related to him and how he had trusted me to protect him drove me to make sure he was okay, going above and beyond what was considered 'above and beyond.'

Booth inclined his head and made a 'calm down' motion with his hand. "He never abused Shawn Cook, he just used him to get near Charlie." I took a deep breath. That wasn't okay, but at least he'd never touched Shawn. After what he'd done to Charlie, maybe killing the boy was merciful in the long run. "It played out just like you said. He had Charlie out in that field. Some teenage kids, they come by, so he knelt on Charlie to keep him from crying out. Shawn got scared and ran back to his brother."

"Charlie was small, and weak. His sternum collapsed." Brennan sighed, shaking her head, her hair falling from behind her shoulders. She looked up. "Do you think he abused any other kids?"

"Probably his own son," I guessed, remembering how Skyler had seemed both rough and was quiet at the same time. Speak out? You get beaten. Don't shield yourself? Getting beaten hurts a thousand times more.

"Yeah," Booth said softly in agreement. "I reported it to Child Services. They'll get the kid some help." Brennan nodded to herself, satisfied, and then lifted several folders up and walked out of the office, presumably to gather more information to finish the paperwork. Booth remained with me. He paused for a moment, like he was weighing what he was about to say. "Look… I'm sorry."

"For what?" I asked evenly. He'd done what I wanted; Shawn and David Cook were back with Margaret.

"You have personal experience in the system."

I stared at the ground and tensely smiled softly. "Yeah. You knew that, though."

"Hm… When you said, 'they take you away from your brother,' I kind of had the feeling you weren't talking about David Cook."

I looked up at him, my expression haunted. "Yeah. I was adopted and had an older brother. But some stuff came up, the parents left, and he enlisted. The foster system is the easiest to blame because they were threatening to take me back by the time he left." I laughed harshly. "It doesn't matter now. I don't know him. He left me."

Booth shifted his weight, exhaling slowly. "Look," he said, obviously uncertain of himself. "Those wounds…"

I knew this would come up eventually. With Booth's alpha male behavior, there was no way this could have been pushed back too much further. And now I knew I had no choice but to talk about it. "Those wounds are old. They don't hurt." Not physically, at least.

"But they're there," he disagreed. "Those scars… How did you get them? I don't suppose there was a chance it was a freak accident, and you just implied abuse so Shawn would trust you?" He seemed really hopeful. I felt tears stinging my eyes and shook my head.

"No. Abuse. Well, one's from a fight when a couple of drunks followed me on my way home. But it's mostly abuse."

"Are there more?"

This was what I'd really been dreading. This line of questioning was getting too close to home; I held these secrets very close and I didn't like revealing them. "Yeah. It's not too bad, though," I lied.

"How old?"

"Sorry?" I asked, not sure what he meant. I tilted my head in confusion. Did it really matter how old the scars were?

Booth coughed. "How old were you when the abuse started?"

I looked down at my shoes. I wanted to lie and say it was just in the past year or so, but… I couldn't. The scars and burns were obviously older than that. Several traced back to when I was still Charles Sanders' age.

"That bad, huh?" My silence was taken as an answer.

"I'm used to it." I shoved my hands in my pockets. "I've gotten over it." I saw an open case file with an evidence back of silt. I read it from upside down on Brennan's desk. It was marked a priority. A small smile graced my features as I lifted up the evidence and a file. I gave Booth a definitive look and my next words were soft, but firm, leaving no room for argument. "I have to go get ready for a banquet I don't want to go to. And you should stop thinking about it."

"That is most certainly not formal wear, Miss Kirkland," Dr. Goodman said in a slight scold as I approached the small congregation by the entryway. What surprised me the most was that I was holding evidence and a case file, and no one commented. It almost made me feel like my presence was welcome.

I looked down at my attire – old sneakers, denim faded jeans, and a baggy, oversized sweatshirt that served the purpose of covering all of the scars. Then I shrugged. "I told you before – I'm not wearing a dress. I'm technically a civilian, so you have no leverage over me. I either dress like I normally do, or I'm not going."

Well, Dr. Goodman couldn't argue with that. Instead, he turned on Hodgins. "That is not a tuxedo, Dr. Hodgins."

Hodgins smiled, at peace with his decision. "I am not going, Dr. Goodman."

"You are going," Dr. Goodman disagreed, not raising his voice. He stepped forwards and neatly tucked Hodgins' black-bordered nametag in his lab coat's pocket. "When we arrive, the donors will all be wearing nametags."

"What do we talk about?" Zach asked, frowning down at the nametag he received.

"Your work, of course," the doctor said, exasperated, as he moved to hand one to Angela.

Angela didn't reach to take the item. "Zach's work consists of removing flesh from corpses and Hodgins dissects bugs that have been eating people's eyeballs."

"Leave me out of it," Hodgins requested. "I'm not going."

Dr. Goodman ignored him pointedly, instead narrowing his eyes at Angela curiously. "And how do you see your job?"

Angela nodded her head to the side grimly. "I draw death masks."

"Is that really how you see it?" Dr. Goodman inquired, surprised.

"Don't you?"

Dr. Goodman let the hand holding Angela's nametag fall to his side. He was clearly feeling very strongly about his point. "You are the best of us, Miss Montenegro. You discern humanity in the wreck of a ruined human body. You give victims back their faces, their identities. You remind us all of why we're here in the first place – because we treasure human life."

As Brennan came out of the bathroom, soft traces of makeup on her face and wearing a grey, soft formal dress without sleeves, Angela went teary-eyed and stepped forward suddenly, wrapping her arms around Dr. Goodman in an embrace without warning. "What happened?" Brennan asked, taken aback.

"Oh, for God's sake," Dr. Goodman muttered.

Zach raised his eyebrows and told Brennan his blunt observations. "Apparently all Angela needed was to hear her job description in a deep, African-American tone."

"Hear, hear," I murmured.

"Mr. Addy," Dr. Goodman remarked, scolding, as Angela stepped away from him, rubbing her eyes briefly.

I looked down to my hands and then abruptly remembered what I was holding. As Booth joined the weird party, I held out the evidence bag of brown dirt to Hodgins, who took it skeptically, giving me a 'what is this' look. "Dr. Goodman, we need Hodgins to stay in the lab tonight." I held up the file and flipped open the front cover triumphantly. The inside was marked with a priority tag and had tomorrow's date written on it in red pen. "The FBI needs that analyzed by morning."

It dawned on Hodgins and he gave me a smile of relief and gratitude. "I'll get right on it," he said, locking eyes with me. Thank you, he mouthed.

Dr. Goodman held up his hands for everyone to stop. "Wait a minute, what case file is this?"

"Am I supposed to know about it?" Brennan asked, narrowing her eyes.

"Booth mentioned it to me earlier today," Angela lied, catching on to my intentions.

Brennan took Angela's word for it and nodded in acceptance. "That's good enough for me."

Outnumbered, Dr. Goodman had to concede. "Fine," he said, not very thrilled with the new game plan. "You're off the hook, Dr. Hodgins." He motioned Hodgins away. On the way back to his lab, Hodgins gave me a last smile of thanks. I put my finger over my lips in a 'shh' gesture and smiled back. "Let's not keep the limo waiting."