I woke up quickly and to the sound of an engine, which was surprising on its own. It wasn't like I was dazed from waking up. Rather, I was quite clear-headed and remembered everything up until I collapsed, so I knew that there shouldn't have been a car for me to be in.

The second thing aside from the engine that I actually managed to notice was that I was being held – not cradled, but kept in one place against someone else. I opened my eyes, decided that the sun needs to screw off, and then saw Angela's shoulder in the passenger's seat. I recognized Ben Dawes's uniform by the sleeve and shoulder that I could see. My head was resting on Booth's shoulder, one of his arms around my back and keeping me leaning on him instead of on the window.

Since I'd actually passed out rather than just fallen asleep, there's no guarantee that I would have woken up from being jostled, so I suppose I should be thankful that he didn't let me repeatedly hurt myself while I was out.

Ugh, I thought mentally, feeling a slight stinging in my wrist. I must have hurt the sprain when I fell, but by now the pain had dulled significantly, which was at least a little bit of a bright side. I tried to sit up, lifting my cheek from Booth's shoulder and blinking, looking around the FBI agent to see the anthropologist on his other side.

"Dawes," I said, careful with my tone, because hadn't he ditched us? "Find Dhani?"

He didn't seem too startled by the sudden note of my voice. I wondered if he'd seen me waking up in the mirror. "No." He sighed, and that was answer enough. "But you should be a bit more concerned about yourself."

If it weren't for years of trying not to outwardly express emotion, I would have scowled and glared. That almost sounded like a threat, but then I remembered – right, I blacked out in the middle of the desert. Booth shifted, and though he didn't move his arm, he lessened the light grip on my side.

"Oh, right," I said, taking a moment to recollect my memories. "What happened?"

"You passed out." Booth answered before the sheriff could, and I turned to look to him. Relief and agitation warred on his face – relief that I seemed okay, but agitated that I hadn't been. "You've been out for a couple of hours. Do you have any idea how bad that is?" He demanded, and maybe without knowing it, he was beginning to stress himself – and me – needlessly. "Why didn't you say something?"

I just really wanted him to stop before he started to get overbearing. He was already inching closer to the line. "I tried," I defended myself. "Either you didn't hear me or you weren't paying attention. It's not like I just decided to take a nap," I said, snarky, and letting my eyes fall down to the back of the sheriff's seat.

There was only a heartbeat of silence invoked by my snap, and then Angela optimistically said while craning her neck to look over her shoulder, "Well, at least you're okay. You're well enough to be annoyed."

That broke the tension that had quickly dispelled, and even I laughed a bit. Brennan smiled and Booth chuckled, rolling his eyes.

"You had heat syncope," Brennan started, leaning forwards to talk around Booth. I leaned forwards, too, not feeling quite as achy as I could have expected, and besides, it made it easier to converse. It seemed like she was going to explain, since Booth had been a bit busy being dramatic. "You should be fine now, but you should be sure to drink extra. You didn't give yourself the time to get used to the climate, and you must have gotten dehydrated."

Well, it explained the dizziness, lack of focus, and odd cease of sweating that had clued me in before I'd fainted. "Heat syncope," I repeated, before snorting crassly. "Figures." I shifted further to the side, away from Booth and closer to the window marginally. It seemed rude to try to distance myself after he let me sleep on him, but I decided a long time ago that while I don't want these relationships to end badly, I'm not going to pressure myself to mold to their sensitivities. "How far out are we?"

"Still a few hours," Dawes answered vaguely. If we'd been in D.C., I would've demanded he give me a more precise answer, but it's not like there are map references for him out here.

"There were Humvee treads going out to the landing strip," I recalled from the confusion that my head had been swimming in. "You should have Kellogg brought to the station. We could interrogate him as soon as we get back."

"I've already sent someone to pick up the Humvee," Ben assured me, before adding, "But unless you can get something off of that, we can't hold him."

I bit down lightly on my lower lip and tried to consider what irrefutable evidence could be in or on the Humvee. We know for sure Kirk had been shot and bleeding, so… blood? In which case, even if he had scrubbed until his hands were raw, there should still be chemical traces. "Dr. Brennan, do you have any luminal?" Luminal is a chemical drug that had come in liquid form and be used to see traces of blood under ultraviolet light.

"Not with me," she shook her head but she continued, undeterred. "But there's some-"

"Whoa, wait a second," Booth interrupted firmly, shooting Brennan one of his what do you think you're doing? looks for a fraction of a second before he turned back to me as well as he could in the car. "You passed out!" He reminded me fiercely, pointing at my chest to drive the point home. I arched an eyebrow, curious as to if his entire argument would be a reiteration. "You had heat syncope. You shouldn't just get up and go off solving murders again!"

So he was going to do this. "Syncope is the medical term for fainting," I said with a sigh and an exaggeratedly dramatic roll of my eyes. "I fainted because of heat and a lack of water. My temperature's down, I can see straight, there's air conditioning, and I can focus. I'm fine now," I insisted flatly. It's hard to be invested in a conversation like this, especially when I'd be more comfortable if people just didn't care about anything less than blood being spilled. I'd be a bit pissed off if I was hurt and no one bothered to check on me, but at least that way I wouldn't have people being overprotective.

"Heat syncope doesn't usually have any lasting effects, Booth." Brennan chimed in her knowledge in my defense, returning Booth's glance at her with a somewhat patronizing one to match the rudeness. "As long as she stays hydrated and someone stays with her, she should be fine."

My shoulders fell from their defensive rise out of relief to have someone on my side. I know I should want Booth and I to agree, but being completely honest, I've always gotten along best with Brennan. She's emotional, but she can operate empirically, so even though I know she's compassionate and caring, she doesn't unnecessarily bear down on me or act protective when there's really no need. She's an authoress and scientist that I've admired for years, although now that admiration is a much healthier level of respect rather than idolization. She and I have just always seemed to get along and click, even if we don't have labels to define our roles in each other's lives. I respect Booth, and I truly do want to have that same easy means of interaction, but between my willingness to martyr myself for others and his desire to protect me, we already had enough to make us disagree.

"Look, thanks for the concern," I said to Booth, taking another route and being thankful and earnest rather than just plains stubborn. "But Angela's problem-" I pointed to the artist in the passenger's seat. "-Has become our collective problem," I gestured with a wide circle, meaning everyone in the car. "-And it's staying that way until it's no longer an active problem." I dropped my hand back down to my lap. "Please don't make me explain that part to you again, because I've said "problem" so many times that it doesn't even sound like a real word anymore."

The sheriff's deputy, Sandy, had her blonde hair pinned up in a bun behind her head and otherwise wore an outfit very similar to Ben's. With a light brown hat to block the sunlight, she had Kellogg's Humvee confiscated from the local artist and pulled his car around into the back garage of the station, where we could kill the lights and see the luminal's flare with a black light.

My eyes had adjusted to the fair darkness already. It wasn't as if we could cut all light from outside; the windows still filtered some of the natural sun rays into the room, and Booth, Angela, and the sheriff all had flashlights to help them navigate without hurting themselves, and they were sharing the wealth of artificial lighting with Brennan, Sandy, and I. Sandy stood by the back window of the Humvee, a bottle of luminal in hand, finger on the spray trigger.

"Any bloodstains should flare bluish-green when the luminal hits them," Brennan explained to presumably everyone other than myself, seeing as I was the one who had suggested the luminal in the first place, so clearly I understood how it worked. I leaned through the open window across from Sandy and pointed at the seats, then to the floor in front of the back seats in case the body was shoved down there as an extra caution.

Sandy nodded her understanding and she sprayed a generous coat of luminal over the seats and stretched down through the window to reach the floor of the car. It was harder to aim where it was harder to see, but I could tell she got enough of it on the ground.

The luminescent bloodstains were a no-show, even after several seconds were given to allow the chemical reaction to occur. The sheriff held out a paneled ultraviolet light through the window, but there was no sign of blood on the inside of the car. "Nothin'."

Booth shook his head in denial and countered the resigned sigh. "We know that Kirk's body was put into the Humvee. Tire treads match." He walked up from the back and up towards the front. The hood was wide and long, with a small emblem at the front center.

"It's clean," Dawes overruled, not listening to Booth. He made a gesture to Sandy. "Give Kellogg his truck back. Tell him sorry for the inconvenience." In his voice, I could hear how little he liked that and how disappointed he was. Well, if you'd listen…

"Try the hood," Booth called to Sandy, ignoring Ben's dismissal.

The sheriff stared at Booth incredulously over the front of the Humvee. "You think they tied Kirk's bloody, dead body to the hood like an elk, then drove him two hundred miles before dumping him for coyotes?" Damn. For a nice guy, he seems to be easily forgetting that said victim's girlfriend is listening in. "Even out here, people might notice."

Booth ignored the cynical response and he lifted the beam of his flashlight onto the center of the hood, waving it around. "Right there," he said to Sandy.

Sandy glanced at the sheriff, but Booth was insistent so Ben just waved his hand like he was saying to go for it. I guess he didn't think it could do any harm. There was already luminal on the back half of the car; might as well go all-out.

It only took a few seconds before the edge of the UV light caught onto a light aquamarine glow on the paint, which spread to develop into what looked like the form of an actual human body. Booth hummed in approval and the sheriff's eyes went wide. "I'll be damned," he whispered.

"Got him," Booth said with an unnecessarily pleased smirk.

Smug, I raised my eyebrows at Ben. "I think you overestimate your peoples' observation skills." He squared his shoulders, bothered and still disturbed by the way Kirk had been transported. On the car, the luminal had made the glowing shape of a man with his arms tied to either side, head on one shoulder.

"Zach," Brennan said suddenly. A quick look around at her showed that she had gotten out her phone, which explained it. "We need to know if Kirk's bones show more damage than can be explained by animal activity."

"Then again, maybe he wasn't driven," I said slowly, almost unsure whether or not I wanted to make the connection out loud with Angela able to hear. I know not to treat her like she's fragile, but I also know that even if she's able to hear it, that doesn't necessarily mean we should be as blunt as we usually are. If Brennan was thinking of other injuries, then there has to have been a third trauma other than coyotes and gunshot. The shot came from the killer and was an execution, and afterwards they drove to a landing strip that wasn't even in the same direction as the original finding site.

"Congruent with a fall?" Brennan asked Zach, to be sure of what she was now thinking. Zach must have answered positively, because her expression twisted into sadness and she looked to Booth, her eyes flickering to Angela, still conscious that her friend was within hearing distance. "He wasn't driven two hundred miles. He was driven a couple hundred yards."

Booth sighed, turning back to face the Humvee. "Loaded his body in the airplane and then tossed it."

"Zach, I'm not happy with how long it took you to get back to me on this," Brennan told Zach crossly before she ended the call. I winced. Zach is absolutely great at his job; I can remember when he was getting angry at himself for being unable to piece an exploded skull together in a few hours. It's probably not his fault; knowing Hodgins, the two boys probably had a dispute of authority over who got the bones for particulates or analysis. "We'll talk about it when I get back."

We all went back into the station except for Sandy, who separated from us to close the Humvee into the garage and put the luminal bottle somewhere for safekeeping. I pushed the door open and held it open until Ben caught it with his hand and let me go on inside past the threshold.

"If they dumped Kirk's body from the plane, then they could've done the same to Dhani." Dawes pointed out, creases on his forehead giving away the stress. Even though he sounded casual, he was absolutely terrified for his sister. He rubbed his temple to try to ward away a headache.

"Well…" Booth struggled with how to respond appropriately to that for a second. "Kirk was dead when they tossed him, right?" He asked Brennan.

Brennan was quick to nod her confirmation, bobbing her head rapidly. "Absolutely," she emphasized with certainty. "And I saw no evidence of a second murder at the site."

If anything, this should have bolstered the man's spirits that his sister wasn't dead, but he instead sighed deeply, his shoulders falling and his thumbs catching on the belt loops of his pants. "…Which leaves me hoping that either my sister was kidnapped by drug dealers or is dying somewhere in the desert."

I glanced at Booth and sort of shrugged. To hell with it. We know this is about drugs and drug trafficking across the border, and that's already enough to let the sheriff know he could use help; when it's his sister's life at risk, he must be desperate enough to take whatever assistance he can get.

"Kidnapping is a federal offense," I said softly to Ben, taking a step in his direction and watching him for a reaction intently. I had pretended not to hear, but I knew from what he said to Booth that he respected me; or, at least, he respected my judgment. "It's an FBI matter. I get that you don't want your people thinking the bureau is going to stomp all over you, but we can help."

Ben swallowed and he nodded; but he didn't look at me, and I suspected his mind wasn't quite all with me at the moment, instead with his sister.

Brennan answered her phone when it received an incoming call, walking away from our small group and off to the side, getting far enough away to have privacy and not be rude. "Brennan… Kellogg said it was a commissioned work," she answered to someone's quick start to a conversation.

I looked away from the local sheriff and to Brennan curiously. Kellogg's engraving plates had seemed familiar somehow, but even if they hadn't, they didn't look like the rest of the artwork that he had designed. Since his Humvee had been used, he had probably been involved with the drug scandal, and if that's so then who knows what other felonies he's currently committing?

"For what?" Brennan wondered aloud. There was another long pause before she repeated in surprise, "Dyes?" Counterfeiting? "Counterfeiter's dyes?" Brennan asked a second after for confirmation, and Booth's head snapped around when he heard the word "counterfeiter."

"The engraving plates," I said, looking back to Ben Dawes and grinning. "Get Kellogg down here. We've got him, as well as his SUV. He's been styling engraving plates for counterfeiting."

Kellogg sure knew when it was his time to lawyer up, and so he did. An hour after he was officially under Sheriff Dawes's arrest, he had already had a lengthy, unsupervised conversation with his lawyer, a Larry Stansfield who had driven out from Albuquerque in a grey pinstriped suit and a characteristic and stereotypical brown briefcase. He and Kellogg must have known each other for quite a while beforehand, because the artist seemed completely comfortable as he was next to him, sitting at chairs pulled out to the center of a holding room, Wayne with his legs and arms crossed arrogantly and Stansfield with his briefcase in his lap.

Booth unfolded a paper warrant from his pocket, pulling it smooth and handing it a little less politely than he could have to the counterfeiter's lawyer. "I've got a warrant here to search your client's studio for engraving plates." He stared down from his standing height to Kellogg, who was already shorter when he was standing up.

Stanfield laughed merrily. Either he didn't know the full story of Kirk and Dhani's disappearance and, in Kirk's case, murder, or he was just naturally a douche who didn't care. "Well, as Mr. Kellogg's attorney, I can advise you you're certain to find some!"

Kellogg raised his eyebrows at Booth challengingly. I disliked him even less. It was like he was taunting Booth without giving him anything to actually use to pin him down. "I'm an engraver," he said slowly, putting painful emphasis on it and rolling his eyes like we were just plain pathetic.

Ben narrowed his eyes, locking his jaw, tipping his head. It reminded me of… huh. Damn. I looked away from Dawes, because I didn't want to see what reminded me so much of myself. That was the same expression I tended to use on people when I was angry, trying to intimidate them into bending to my will, and it was… it was upsetting to see something I recognized on me on someone else, and seeing how it appeared to another person. He just seemed mean and cold, even though I know that he feels.

He forced himself to relax just enough to appear casual, but I could still see the minute traces of an irate temper underneath it, between the slightly unnatural rise in his shoulders and the rigidity of his spine. "Larry, did you tell Wayne about how, when someone dies during the commission of a felony, everyone involved in that felony is charged with murder?"

I waved a finger at Kellogg, scolding him. I get a lot more joy out of patronizing criminals than I probably should. One day it's going to come back and bite me in the ass. "Counterfeiting is a felony," I told him in a cheerful tone.

Stansfield and Kellogg both knew what position that the artist was in and I smirked, watching the two communicate nonverbally while I gave the end of my ponytail a little tug to loosen it. As the client looked to his lawyer and sighed deeply, reluctant, and the lawyer just gave him a little warning shake of the head.

Kellogg nodded his head and kept his chin down, staring at his knees.

Stansfield cleared his throat before making the official stated response. "My client will confess to the counterfeiting charges in return for immunity from the murder charge," he said, tapping his fingers twice unthinkingly on the side of his briefcase, as his own little method of closing the discussion to negotiation.

Too bad for him that Kellogg is the only guy that's going to agree.

Dawes swallowed tensely, his jaw clenching, and he shook his head fiercely. "Not good enough," he decided almost too quickly.

Stansfield only gave a moment of pause before he added another compromise. "He will also provide the time and place of the next pickup out in the desert." Kellogg grumbled his discontent almost inaudibly, but Stansfield heard and sent him another warning look. "You'll be able to arrest the actual murderers."

Booth sighed. Out of the five of us, he was doing the best job keeping irritation in check. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked over Kellogg. "When Sheriff Dawes says 'not good enough,' he means his sister, Larry."

Stansfield offered an apologetic smile and he shrugged. The two actions contradicted. It just made me angrier that he made it seem like he cared before just proving that he actually didn't. "My client doesn't know anything about Dhani Webber."

I exhaled deeply and I pushed myself away from the wall with my good hand, stepping away from the easy escape. I'm ready to push back, not just snap for my pride, and if anything is worth getting back a tough edge for, this is.

I leaned over a few inches – not much, but enough to take down my height enough to loom over Kellogg. "Yeah, well, you must have known something about Kirk Persinger being executed and tied down to the front of his car, so I'm willing to take my chances of being a bitch and being right when I say that I'm not inclined to believe that to be the entire truth for a second, and believe me when I say that I'm going easy on you." Outwardly he didn't express any sign of actually being intimidated, but that didn't mean that he wasn't. Counterfeiters and drug dealers – they have to be good at hiding fear, and if they can't suck up their own issues, then they may very well get executed just like Kirk was.

"I don't like it when people screw with my friends," I said lowly, a threat in the delivery, but not one in the words. This was the same anger and danger that I had seen in Ben. Being kidnapped and attacked had knocked down a lot of my confidence, but I had been building it back up again. This was a good boost; it made me feel powerful, secure.

"So now you're going to tell us whatever it is you know that could lead us to Dhani Webber… and if I find out that there's even two. Words. That you didn't say, then I will find you, and I will break your delicate, precious engraving plates over your head." I hissed it as a promise and I straightened my back, returning to my full height, and I raised my voice back to the normal volume. "And I don't think there's a single person here who would try to stop me, even if they thought they could."

Kellogg rolled his eyes, but not to my face, and he continued to look off in the other direction with his eyes narrowed. His left leg bounced in agitation. I let my hands visibly clench into fists – my right hand tighter than my left - and I arched an eyebrow at him, waiting for his response to the pressure I'd put him under.

"One week ago, I arranged to meet some associates at an airstrip in the desert to pass on some commissioned artwork." Kellogg sighed and confessed. If this was a bad move for him, then his lawyer didn't pick up on that. Counterfeit plates, I corrected mentally, rolling my eyes at the pointless avoidance. "As the plane landed, my… associates… noticed two people spying on them from a vantage point above the airstrip. They became very agitated. They commandeered my vehicle and they drove up the hill. I got in my Humvee. Then I drove up there. But I didn't see anything."

"So you didn't notice the macabre pint of blood stained to your car?" I challenged harshly, glaring furiously. "Or did you just assume it was a thank-you present?"

Stansfield could see when things were beginning to take a turn for the worse in the questioning and he rose to his feet quickly, clearing his throat loudly. The sound and action made me snap my eyes to him and my glare transferred to him, as well. "Well, the fact remains that agreeing to this deal is the only way that you're going to catch the actual murderers," he reminded us very decisively, lifting his briefcase with him and making it very clear that he, and his client, were done. "You know where to find me," he added with a courteous tip of his head to Ben.

Dawes intercepted Kellogg on the way outputting his hand on the other man's shoulder and forcing him to pause in his steps. "Wayne," the sheriff implored, appealing to the sense of community that tied his people together. "I need to know if they loaded Dhani on that plane."

"I never saw Dhani," Kellogg answered, managing to sound annoyed and evasive. He started to raise a hand to brush Ben away, but he didn't get the chance.

Dawes was overtaken by the blinding terror that he'd been avoiding for the majority of the week, arms both snapping up to grab and clench at Kellogg's shirt. With a strength I hadn't really thought that he would have, the wiry man shoved at the artist, turning a pleading gesture into a full-out assault and slamming him against the nearest wall.

"Sheriff!" Booth exclaimed in shock. He and I both lunged forward to the sheriff to break them both apart before Ben was facing legal retribution.

"That's my sister!" Ben screamed at Kellogg, who looked shaken by the sudden attack. He stayed against the wall. "My sister!"

Booth forced himself in between the two other men and planted a hand on both of their chests, pushing them in opposite directions. There wasn't much of anywhere for Kellogg to go, still against the wall, but the sheriff was breathing heavily and not sure he was willing to really give up the chance to beat Kellogg into next month. I grabbed at his shoulder, keeping my injured arm defensively behind my back, and pulled him backwards and away from the civilian.

"Ben!" I snapped, tightening my grip into a hard squeeze. "We will find your sister, but you will not be any help to Dhani if you're incarcerated for homicide!" I yelled to get through to him and I could see his eyes starting to calm, returning to complete lucidity. I nodded tersely to Kellogg. I doubted it would be safe for the artist to stay around much longer. "Get him out of here," I commanded.

With Kellogg running after his lawyer, Ben wandered further into the room. I let him. If he wanted to attack a wall next, then fine. I had no issue with Dawes going after Kellogg, but if we're being rational, it's only going to cause more problems than it would solve, no matter how good it may feel at the time.

Dawes threw himself down onto one of the chairs vacated by the two men who had just walked out unscathed, his hands covering his face and his elbows on his knees. I looked at Booth, who seemed just as innately aggravated as the sheriff, but the FBI agent knew how to handle it better.

"I guess we're gonna have to take that deal, right?" Dawes asked through his hands, his voice coarse and slightly strangled. I imagine it tore at him to let the bastard get away with part of what he'd done, but he was willing to hang up his Justice Hat in favor of grasping at any potential straws to save his sister. And I know how hard it can be to let something like that go. His devotion to Dhani is admirable. I'd like to think that I could do something like that for someone I loved, if I ever let anyone close enough. But the problem with compassion is that it can make or break a person; if I loved someone and then lost them… there's no way of knowing that I'd be able to persevere.

Booth rubbed slowly at his right forearm over his white sleeve. He must have gotten hit by accident when we were trying to break the sheriff away from the shady counterfeiter. "I was trained as an army ranger," he told Dawes solemnly. "That mean anything to you, Sheriff Dawes?"

Ben looked up with red eyes and he nodded. "Yeah," he said softly.

Booth clapped the sheriff's shoulder lightly with one hand, a companionable, supportive sentiment. "I'd be more than happy to go back out to that crime scene and see if there's anything we haven't missed."

"Me, too," I volunteered immediately, sitting down more slowly in the other chair, about three feet away from the sheriff. "I mean… I'm not gonna say I'm particularly skilled at tracking or hiking, but there's still a chance Dhani's alive. And if there is that chance, then we have to take it. All of us. You, and Booth, and Angela, and Brennan and I."

"So, you say Dhani knows the desert pretty well?" Booth asked the sheriff again more in revision than in not knowing, and he turned to look around. We were back at the rock formation that the photographs had been taken at, standing in the same place that the sheriff dropped us off at last time, except now Ben was sticking with us so that we could all look for her. Ben Dawes may not exactly be my best friend, but I respect him. Hey, he's going up there on the list of my Top Ten favorite people.

Not that I get along well with all that many people, but hey, it's the thought that counts…

"That's right," Ben answered, fixing his hat and pulling the brim down so that his eyes were more shielded from the sun. If it were any hotter, I think I might have been able to fry bacon on the ground. While far from sanitary, I'm pretty sure it would be thoroughly cooked.

"Dhani grew up with you. She learned from you. If you were stranded here, where would you go?" I asked reasonably, trying to go about this as logically as possible. Covering ground is important, but so is doing it in a way that makes sense. If Dawes taught her how to navigate, then Dhani would probably use the same methods.

Ben pointed off to the far right of the rocks, going to the east. "Highway's about a five-day walk that way," he estimated, before twisting and pointing south or southwest. "Mexico's three days that way." He made another half turn to point to the north. "And that way's two days to a ranch," he finished. "She might find some stock water, but I wouldn't count on it, and the terrain is rougher."

Booth ran a hand over his face, preparing himself for a long, difficult search. "So it all depends on how much water she had."

"Is there any way to find out?" Angela asked hopefully in the off chance that maybe for once we'd get lucky. Of course that wasn't going to happen – Dawes shook his head in answer to her.

Booth sighed. "Alright, look. We'll all take a point off the compass, alright? Holly stays with someone in case she passes out again. Walk out in a straight line for fifteen minutes, and we look for tracks. Good?" He looked around the small group for any protestations, but there were none. As far as plans went, that one was pretty good – aside from the part where it cast me as prone to fainting, but now wasn't the time or place to argue an actually legit point.

Brennan and I started going east and Angela went north, the men of the group taking their own directions west and south.

The slope the anthropologist and I were on was slightly upwards, going up to a higher ground at a subtle incline only noticeable when compared to the point the Jeep was parked at when I looked back over my shoulder. After a moment of silent walking, I looked away from the ground in front of me (which was beginning to blur from either heat rays or too much staring) and to the left, at the authoress walking a couple feet away from my side.

"Do you think we'll find Dhani?" I asked, not going to the trouble of keeping my voice down when she was the only one close enough to hear. I didn't want to be coddled; I wanted an honest answer. Booth was openly compassionate and Angela and Ben were both way too close to the case to give me an objective evaluation, and that was discounting the fact that both of them seem as stubborn as mules. And yes, I know that's the pot calling the kettle black or whatever the phrase is.

Brennan frowned at the question and she slowed down. Subconsciously, my pace decreased to match hers. "I think we have to," she answered me carefully and with consideration, which was just enough to tell me that she was somewhat skeptical. "…If we don't, Angela will be crushed."

I looked back forward and sighed, but this time I kept my eyes upward in the direction we were going in. I hated the odd fuzziness in my vision from where the temperature made the air seem to shimmer, but I was gradually getting used to it from so much time in the open. "I don't get why so many bad things have to happen to this team," I voiced aloud, sighing and scoffing a shoe on the ground on one step. "Angela lost her boyfriend. You were nearly assassinated. Booth was blown up."

"You were nearly murdered," Brennan pointed out to me, and yeah, I suppose it's valid to bring it up, because while I'm griping about how unfair the universe is being, any sane person would expect me to be pissed off about my near-death experience, too.

"Yeah, but I try not to think about that part," I explained with a dark grimace, trying to write it off as nothing when I added calmly, "Besides, it doesn't bother me quite as much as it probably should."

"How do you not?" She asked me curiously, but there was something else in her voice that I couldn't quite identify. She wasn't trying to keep her feelings exactly secret. Anything I wanted to know about her emotions, I could tell just by listening. She was sad, and confused, and worried. "Almost every time I see the cast on your wrist, I think about how you were almost taken from us. If we lost you, we would all suffer."

And that felt like a blow to the heart. It's one thing to want to mean something; it's another to allow myself to be attached. But to think that I somehow managed to worm my way into this closely-knit, strange, odd, but amazing family was more than I had thought that I could hope for, and hearing the total honesty Brennan was offering drove home the fact that no matter how I handle my situation with Booth, there's no way I can give this all up.

There may be times when I hate the situation, or when I hate certain parts and love others, or just want it all to be over, or wish that it had never been started or found out, but how could I ever want to go back to being some barmaid when now I've got all this? I have everything I'd ever really wanted – a place like home (Brennan's apartment is close enough, and it feels more like home than mine ever had), and friends to care for, and a family (even if I only think about them as that in my head), and things that I don't – the fame from the media, and the gain that ended up coming with it, and the satisfaction of knowing I've been doing good for people, and the best job I could have ever wanted, even if it can be stressful.

How many other people can say they've recovered a priceless vault of national treasures? How many other people can say they've rescued a family from a gang's clutches? How many other people can say that they've stopped an abusive husband, or rescued a child from mercenaries, or gone against a psychopath?

I've gotten it pretty good, all things considered, and if the worst thing life's throwing at me now is a nonviolent maybe-stalker and a man I trust, who I feel safe with, who actually wants to know me and keep me safe and be my father, then I really have no reason to be complaining.

She's still glancing at me, though, looking more and more concerned every time, and I finally realized that, sudden epiphany with the subtlety of a brick to the face aside, she was waiting for an actual, verbal response.

"Kenton tried to kill me." I stated it calmly, and matter-of-factly – because that's what it was: a fact. "I trusted him and he betrayed me. And… that was hard to accept," I admitted. Maybe I didn't have to tell everything, but talking to Angela had honestly made me feel better, and I can trust these people not to use anything against me. "But there's nothing anyone can do to change it. I survived. Kenton is never going to get the chance to hurt anyone ever again.

"I was terrified," I confessed, blinking quickly to eliminate the stinging behind my eyes. Crying is the last thing I need. "I remember being so afraid… I was shocked that I could even move." I took a deep breath and continued. This was something that needed to be said. I'm not invincible. Pretending I am only got me hurt. "But I just kept letting myself get angry again. I let myself remember he tried to kill you, tried to kill Booth – if he'd had the chance, he may have tried to kill Angela, Zach, or Hodgins. And that just made me so furious that it gave me the energy to fight."

Brennan looked at me, and since we were walking in a straight line in the desert, there wasn't anything for her to trip over. "You're very protective of us," she took note, a smile creeping up on her face somewhere between pleased and surprised.

I just shrugged. "Yeah, well…" I looked back to her and afforded her a small but honest smile. "You're the first people I've met in a long time I've actually felt like I can trust. And so far, you're all still here. That goes a long way." That probably meant more to Brennan than it would anyone else, and that just made the communication more meaningful – both of us had been abandoned by people who were supposed to be parents, and both of us had an older brother who left us. The similarities were actually eerie if I thought about it too long.

"Good," the anthropologist decided firmly. "You should feel safe with us, because you are. And we're very protective of you, too," she added quickly when she seemed to remember that she hadn't expressed that sentiment yet. I tried to hide the glow I was sure was on my face by looking down to my feet. Brennan chuckled happily. Even though we were searching for Dhani – a raindrop in the ocean, pretty much – she was still able to see humor, which was a great thing. "You should have seen Booth when the paramedics took you out of sight," she recalled with a fond grin. "Nurses tried to make him go back to his room. I thought for a moment he would rush them."

I laughed. "Now that I would have loved to see." I paused where I was and turned around to see where we were, compared to where we had started. I could see Angela standing on one side of the rocky outcropping, standing completely stationary and looking out in one direction. I frowned. "Hey, look," I called to Brennan, raising my arm to point to the artist. "What do you think's wrong?"

Judging by the concern on Brennan's features, she had no idea.

We abandoned our direction and hurried back to Angela. Looking for Dhani was a priority, but if something was wrong, then we had to be responsible and be aware of that, too. The goal is to get everyone home safe, not half of us hospitalized.

"Angela!" I called when we were a few yards away, jogging.

"You alright?" Brennan asked, slowing and stopping closer to her best friend. Angela looked at the both of us. We had to look worried about her – I had been afraid maybe she'd gotten ill, or heat stroke, or something else serious.

Angela raised one arm, pointing up a steeper hill dotted in sparse, brown bushes covered in small green leaves and a couple of short, prickly cacti. "Dhani went that way," she said simply, without any further explanation. She stared in that direction so insistently that it made me pause before I asked how she knew.

Brennan nodded slowly, watching Angela carefully for anything wrong, but she seemed to find none. "Okay," she said in answer. Really, what else could she have said?

The helicopter's wings blew up gusts of sand and wind as they were still turning around and around, slowly coming to a stop. The motor was left on for quick transport.

Dhani lay across the ground, her upper body pillowed by a steely grey rock, the lanyard of her canteen wrapped around her wrist, fingers lightly holding on over her stomach. Her other hand lay open, palm-up, at her side. She was already a skinny woman, but now she was too thin and starved.

I ran to her almost as fast as the sheriff did, and I went around her prone body to kneel at her other side, dropping down to my knees so quickly that I could feel my legs scraping through the soft material of my sweatpants. Her long black hair was oily and dusty, tangled from a week in the desert, and her skin was sallow and pale. I pressed my fingers to her throat while Ben unscrewed his water canteen and as soon as I found a staggering pulse, Dhani's brother lifted her up with his arm underneath her upper back, tipping his water into her mouth. With his hands busy, I leaned over Dhani and massaged her neck gently to help coerce her to wake up and swallow and rehydrate.

Angela cried in relief while Brennan hugged her tightly.

Brennan sat down lightly on the couch next to Angela as the artist ran her fingers delicately over the frame of a photograph of herself and her boyfriend. "Ready to go home?" She asked gently.

Angela nodded. "Yeah," she whispered.

I looked up from the kitchen island and watched the other two. Brennan scooted herself closer to Angela and put her hand on the other's knee. "You're not coming back again, are you?" She asked sympathetically.

Angela shook her head quickly. She'd made her decision a long time ago that this was it. "No. Never." She didn't have Dhani's safety to distract her now, and that was something that had allowed the floodgates to open. "He loved me."

Brennan nodded her agreement. "For three weeks a year."

Angela's voice broke and became choked. She finally just couldn't keep herself from crying anymore. "No," she corrected, her shoulders shaking. "He loved me all the time. I was the one who could only manage three weeks a year." I bit down on my lower lip and stepped across the small room and sat down silently on the other side of Angela, reaching forward without thinking about it and putting my hand on her shoulder. We should have really gotten some Kleenex… The crying had to happen. It was an inevitability. "I'm afraid that I – I'm just afraid that I don't have a generous heart," my friend cried. It hurt me to see her in so much pain. I could feel pressure building behind my own eyes in reaction to her tears. "I'm afraid that I won't have the chance that I had with Kirk ever again."

"You will," Brennan and I said at the same time, looking around Angela and at each other in surprise for a moment before we wrote it off. We'd probably said it for different reasons, but the point was that we both meant it, and we were both being supportive.

Angela rubbed at her eyes to clear her vision with one hand, her eyes read and tear tracks already apparent on her pale cheeks. "How can you be so sure?" She was so brokenhearted…

"Because you're one of the best people I've ever met, Angela," I replied fervently, giving her shoulder a light squeeze. "And there's no way that only one man can see that."

"Nothing in this universe happens just once, Ange. Nothing." Brennan took Angela's left hand in between both of hers, pulling their clasped hands over her thigh. "Infinity goes in both directions. There is no unique event, no singular moment."

Angela nodded just to show she was paying attention before she had to shrug helplessly. "I don't know what that means," she laughed weakly. I laughed, too.

Brennan's expression softened. "It means you will get another chance," she promised, rubbing circles into the back of Angela's hand.

Angela sniffed. "You promise?" She asked softly, like a kid seeking reassurance. Brennan nodded, smiling sincerely, and Angela raised her eyebrows. "From your heart?"

"Better," Brennan assured her. When Angela looked skeptical about that, she explained, "From my head. And yes, Ange. I promise from my heart." Angela pulled Brennan into a hug. It was kind of awkward because of how they were sitting, but it meant a lot to the both of them, and I knew that Angela needed it. I let my hand slide off of her shoulder to give them their moment. "You will get another chance."

Booth opened the door suddenly and it made me jump. "Well, Dawes and his deputies, they caught the counterfeiters- whoa." Brennan, Angela, and I were all giving him looks for interrupting what had been a very personal moment, and he held up his hands like a deer caught in headlights. "What did I do?"

It reminded me a lot of what Hodgins had done when he'd walked in on a sensitive conversation between the women of the Jeffersonian. I raised my eyebrows and used the same phrase Hodgins had when I told Booth, "You interrupted a female moment."

"Geez, you should put a sign on the door or something," he complained. It made Angela smile, and that made the glares lessen. Booth had gotten himself back into the safe zone, but he turned more serious to finish the thought process he'd been on before. "Dhani gave a statement saying that it was Kellogg who pulled the trigger on Kirk." That vile bastard. I knew I didn't like him for a reason. I was glad he'd be going down. "Dhani knows that you saved her life. You pointed that helicopter in the right direction," he said to Angela with more sensitivity and a quieter volume.

Brennan shifted so that she was facing Booth more than she was facing Angela. "Obviously, you subconsciously sifted through the rational facts of the case and processed the most likely scenario," she enlightened Angela helpfully, trying to rationalize the way that Angela had just seemed to know where Dhani had gone.

A small smirk pulled at my lips. "Absolutely, Dr. Brennan," I said sagely, nodding slowly in complete agreement.

Angela joined in, peacefully adding, "I'm sure that's it." Her sarcasm was sneaky and subtle.

Booth shrugged, grinning playfully. "Yeah, I mean, what else could it be?"

"Well, it's the only rational explanation," Angela teased, glancing at Brennan to see if the anthropologist was going to take the bait.

She did. Frowning, but not seriously bothered, Brennan narrowed her eyes at Angela. "Are you guys making fun of me?"

Booth distracted her from it before she could press the issue. "You know, let's go back home," he suggested quickly, making a grand gesture out the door. "Where there's water, shelter, and living things. Come on!"

Brennan and Angela both got off of the couch. I followed suit but then paused and pointed towards the open door leading to the bedroom Angela had been using. "I'm just going to go get the suitcases," I excused, heading off to the bedroom.

Angela had already made the bed, tucking the blankets and sheets in with the pillows somewhat fluffed and orderly at the head of the mattress. A dark blue duffle bag was already packed and zipped up on the edge. I bent down and grabbed my backpack from where it rested on the floor to the side of the closet and carried it back over to the bed.

It's hard to know when to give up the fight, two things you want will just never be right. I hummed absentmindedly, not putting much thought into it. No one was there to hear me, and besides, it was relaxing. I couldn't pinpoint exactly where I'd heard the song, but I thought it was strangely fitting – and ironic, considering we were in the desert and the song was called "Rain." I pulled open the door to the closet and found that the hangers were left on the bar, but the clothes were all packed away in Angela's duffle. It's never rained like it has tonight before. Now I don't wanna beg you, baby, for something maybe you could never give, I'm not looking for the rest of your life, I just want another chance to live.

I pulled out on the handle and rolled the wheels out of the closet. "Strange how hard it rains now, rows and rows of big dark clouds, when I'm holding on underneath this shroud, rain." I carried out the word 'rain' for several beats. Even without hearing the instrumental music with my ears, I could still remember it, imagine it playing as I sang. "Strange how hard it rains now, rows and rows of big dark clouds, when I'm still alive underneath this shroud, rain. Rain, rain, rain."

"Hey." I jumped, spinning around. Booth stood in the doorway, smiling happily. I sighed, internally cursing my luck. The one person to have found me singing is the same person to whom I insisted I don't sing. To my surprise, he didn't mention it, instead just grinned as he entered and picked up the straps of Angela's duffle from what had been her side of the bed. "Thought you might want some help with these." I didn't want to be outdone, luggage-carrying-wise, and I was embarrassed, feeling only a minimal amount of color beginning to return to my face. I picked up my backpack quickly and slung it on over my shoulder and then grabbed at the handle to pull Brennan's luggage.

"Thanks," I mumbled, dropping my eyes down and heading for the door. As interesting and as uniquely beautiful as the desert was, I don't think I'm going to miss it. In the main room of the cabin, I had to stop and pause as I sighed and opened the screen door.

"You're good at that," Booth said earnestly. I paused and looked around to him curiously, unsure what he'd meant.

"Thanks," I replied quickly, my wit still intact. "I've been opening doors for a while now. It's an acquired skill. I'll admit I haven't always had the straightforward "do as I say" relationship with doors that most people have."

Booth rolled his eyes at that, but it was true. I just sort of shrugged.

"Maybe you should sing out loud more often."

A/N: The song used here in the end is "Rain" by Patty Griffin. It's the same song as was used in the TV episode.