"Uh, Agent Booth?"

"Yes, Angela?"

"This is the pediatric cancer floor of the hospital."

To that, Booth didn't actually give an explanation. Angela, Brennan, and I were being led by Booth down a hallway, passing several doctors, nurses, and closed doors on the way. There was the invasive sterile smell in the air that was characteristic of hospitals, and although we weren't on the same floor that I'd been kept in for weeks previously, the layout of each floor was similar. Angela had a clipboard and pen that she kept pressed to her front so that no one had to see what was on it, and she looked through what few doors were open to the children in the rooms. Some of them were playing with someone, but most of them were entertaining themselves by something they could do in the bed.

Booth hummed his agreement calmly. "Yeah."

"Right…" Angela let out a deep breath awkwardly. I don't think she wanted to have anything revolving around our cases in the presence of sick children, and didn't like that Booth wasn't explaining why we weren't somewhere more suitable. We were supposed to be meeting Cullen, Booth's boss, and I guess he was here. "Well, um, what I'm about to show Deputy Director Cullen is kinda… gruesome," she hinted none too subtly.

Brennan hadn't spoken for a wall, following after Booth distractedly while she thumbed through the pages of a forensics file, revisiting the information. "Why are we meeting Cullen here?" She questioned without looking up.

"Because he's the deputy director of the FBI," Booth told her. He sounded both matter-of-fact and a little bit warning, as if he was trying to tactfully convey that we weren't supposed to really question this too far. "And this is where he wants us to show it to him."

While Angela gave Booth's back a skeptical look, I rolled my eyes. "Oh, of course," I drawled sarcastically. "Wouldn't want to upset his Majesty, now would we?"

Booth sighed. Really, he should have known that a bad half-excuse like that wouldn't actually fly with me. "Okay, listen," he started, resigned. "About a month ago, his daughter, Amy, was diagnosed with cancer. Meso…" he trailed off, trying to figure out what it was called.

"Mesothelioma?" Brennan supplied helpfully. Booth nodded, but didn't try to repeat it.

"Oh." I felt a little bad for my comment now and flashed back to the case with the pirate bones. Hadn't I thought then that he looked unusually haggard? This would explain it. "Lung cancer…"

"Exactly," Booth agreed with the sentiments that I expressed without words. The slight slump of my shoulders gave it away for me. "So since she's not doing so well, it's a lot easier for us to come to him right now."

"Huh." Brennan said shortly, looking thoughtful.

Alarmed by that noise, Booth stopped and turned around to her. "Huh what?"

"Nothing," she assured him quickly. "It's just that… that's an extremely rare form of lung cancer. Odd for someone Amy's age to contract-"

Booth stepped quickly close to her and held up his hand, pointing at her in warning to stop right where she was. "No, no, no, no probing, okay?" He established firmly, laying down what he clearly thought was supposed to be the law. "Not to Cullen, not to his family." He pointed down to a room at the end of the hall, the door ajar, and if he had actually looked, he'd have seen Cullen stepping out. He wasn't in a suit, just casual jeans and a button-up that made him seem less like an agent and more like a hospital visitor. "This will take five minutes. We go in, do the show-and-tell relating to the case, and then we're out of there. Is that clear?"

"I think it's peculiar-" Brennan tried.

"No."

"But I-"

"No."

"You have to admit-"

"Bones!"

I looked down to the tiles underneath me and shook my head slowly, exasperated. Even Booth, who was usually conscious of the setting, was letting himself get sucked into the back-and-forth argument. Angela sighed softly and shifted, looking away from both of them like she was pretending she wasn't actually in the same group as they were.

Cullen didn't seem all that amused either and he first raised his eyes to the ceiling before he called for Booth's attention. "Booth!" He cut off both of them before they could get any further. Booth looked like he'd been caught red-handed, and Brennan didn't seem bothered by it. "Dr. Brennan. How appropriate… you two, bickering in an adolescent wing."

Embarrassed, Booth ducked his head as he hurried down the hall to the room. "Uh, sir, yes," he mumbled. I blinked and then followed, sighing. "Is it okay if we come in, sir?"

Cullen had left the door open enough to see through, even though the blinds were drawn shut over the long window. Inside, a young teenage girl was sitting upright on the angled bed, sheets pooled over her legs and a hospital gown covering her top half. Her brown hair was long and curly and pulled back in a ponytail behind her head. She seemed a bit pale, unhealthily so, and was focused on something that she was drawing, using a colored pencil to sketch something onto a piece of thick paper in a big sketch notebook on her lap. Next to her was an older woman who I assume was her mother in a plain green shirt, unzipped light blue jacket, and jeans, sitting in the chair by the bed and holding Amy's free hand.

He looked back in to his daughter. "What do you think, sweetheart?" He asked kindly. He sounded like a different person.

Amy looked up when she heard, pausing with her pencil over the paper. "Booth's cool," she answered with a small smile. She leaned a little to the right to see Brennan, Angela, and I all through the doorway. She seemed to not have a problem with us as she smirked at Booth. "Most of the time," she amended.

I smiled and decided right then that I liked her.

Cullen turned back to Booth and stepped to the side, holding out a hand towards the doorway in invitation. "You heard the lady," he said dryly. "You're cool."

Booth grinned, embarrassment forgotten, instead pleased and proud with Amy's assessment. He hummed in agreement, walking past Cullen and into the room.

"Yeah, right," Brennan whispered to him, bursting his bubble and following directly behind him. I snickered quickly, following them in, and Angela came in after me, remaining quiet and choosing not to comment on Brennan's snarky remark.

Angela pulled up a chair by the wall to the side of the room, while neither Brennan nor Booth seemed at ease enough to relax and sit down. I, on the other hand, wanted to meet the director's daughter. I get he doesn't like me, alright? But he has to know that I'm not going to bother or harm his kid, and so far, I've been behaving better than Booth and Brennan.

I stepped up to the side of Amy's bed. Her mom looked up at me curiously, as if she was trying to place me. "Hey," I greeted friendlily. "Amy, right? I'm Holly."

Amy looked up from her drawing – it looked like she was adding shading to an incredibly detailed meadow landscape. The mediums used looked like a mix between light charcoal, watercolors, and colored pencils. She was a gifted artist. I imagined that the finished product could be mistaken for published art. "Yeah," she said with a smile. Her brown eyes were bright in spite of her situation. "Kirkland, right?"

I nodded and mock bowed to her.

Amy giggled. "Dad didn't used to like you very much," she said with a grin, nodding over to her father. "I heard about you. Did you really rescue that boy from the kidnappers?"

Kidnappers. Huh. She was obviously talking about Donovan Decker, but she must not have realized the entire context, or the gravity of the situation. Donovan and his mother had been abducted by mercenaries because his father was testifying against a company for mass producing defective body armor and shipping it to troops overseas. The mercenaries were a lot more than just kidnappers.

Still, if she didn't know, then it was probably because her father wanted it that way. She was clearly younger than me.

"Sweetheart," Cullen tried, giving his daughter a look. He couldn't manage to make it very stern. Amy had her father wrapped around her finger, whether or not he liked it.

"Yeah, I did," I answered her. Whatever the reason for Cullen interrupting, it couldn't hurt to let her know the end result – especially since it was a happy one. "Agent Booth, myself, and a SWAT team got him back to his father."

"That's really cool," Amy praised with a grin. It fit her; she should look happy more often. She's a beautiful girl.

"Let's see what you've got here, Angela," Cullen prompted as soon as Amy let the topic in question drop for a moment. Since that was what we were here for, I looked over to Angela and nodded slightly, letting her know I was done.

Angela bit her lower lip and looked over at Amy uncertainly. "Are you sure it's alright for me to do this here?"

Amy looked back down, either more interested in drawing or trying to help Angela feel more comfortable by showing she wouldn't look or give it her full attention. "Nothing I haven't seen before," she assured the other artist, before looking up to me. She pulled her legs further up and adjusted her drawing pad, then pat the bed in invitation. Since Cullen didn't look about to rip my throat out, I sat down by her legs on the edge of the mattress.

Brennan shifted her attention entirely to the deputy director and the forensic artist. "Note the estimated time of death is mid-June," she started. "Extreme humidity combined with insects and precipitation accelerated the rate of decomposition." She motioned to the graphs on her own papers, which she then passed over to the Amy's father.

Cullen only skimmed over it, but he had learned to mostly trust what was being given to him by the Jeffersonian. "So, based on this, the victim's body was not mutilated after death?"

"The effects were totally environmental," Brennan confirmed.

"Murder doesn't fit the suspect's profile, sir," Booth added helpfully with a respectful nod of greeting to Cullen's wife.

Angela nodded knowingly, a little more at ease since Amy didn't seem at all bothered. She was still working on her drawing without looking up. Either she was trying to ignore it or she honestly had no interest in learning any details. "Yeah, it's not nice to fool Mother Nature."

Cullen gestured down to the paper Angela was carrying and holding out for him to see. "I'd like to see this again."

"Knock yourself out, sir," Brennan invited, and then added more seriously, "Eighty-six times is our limit."

"Can I see your drawings?" Angela asked softly, getting up from her chair and leaving her clipboard with the director. She came closer to the bed while Amy set down her pencil on the bed next to her, then held up the drawing pad proudly, turning it around to prop up against her chest. "Wow," Angela praised aloud. "These are beautiful."

"Have you done that all by hand?" I asked appreciatively. Amy brightened and nodded, her cheeks turning pink at the embarrassment of all the attention on her. She still seemed delighted.

"Our artist in the making," Mrs. Cullen said fondly, stroking her thumb across the back of her daughter's hand.

"Right now I'm doing landscapes," Amy explained to Angela. As she talked about it, her entire demeanor changed; she sat up straighter, her face became more animated. "I'm really into this French dude – Rousseau?"

Angela nodded as she recognized the name. It rang a bell, but I couldn't have recognized or remembered any of his work. "Yeah. There's a lot of Rousseau in Paris," she told the girl with a smile. "Have you ever been to the Louvre?"

Amy frowned slightly, shaking her head in the negative. "No… not yet. But it's on my list," she added eagerly, then went back to smiling. "Right after 'fall in love' and 'learn to drive.'" I chanced a little look to see how Cullen was taking it; he seemed disappointed, but he was plastering on a fake smile for his daughter's sake. Probably because they don't think she'll have the chance.

"Well, you've got a great eye," Angela told her sincerely.

"Thanks!" I think Angela really just made Amy's day. "I think what you do is pretty awesome, too. I mean… computers are not for me," she emphasized and laughed. "But I get it."

"How old are you?" I asked her. My guesses could only be so accurate.

"I turned fifteen a couple months ago," she responded.

I grinned. That makes this easier. "You know, you can get your permit so you can drive," I pointed out, shifting on the bed to angle myself more towards the other teenager. "I could probably get you some books from the nearest DMV if you wanted to start learning," I offered. Having my own license didn't seem like much of a privilege to me, but I'd always had to focus on different priorities. Amy has her parents providing for her and she wants to learn to drive so that she can have more independence and grow up. If I could help her with that, I'd like to.

"You'd do that?" Amy asked with wide, excited eyes. She was leaning forwards further. "That would be really awesome!" I nodded in agreement, silently promising to drop by and get her some driver's training manuals.

Angela pointed to the sketch pad as a whole, meaning all of the pages and not just the top one that Amy was drawing on. "Can I see what you're working on?" She asked, the excitement genuine. Flattered, Amy smiled and blushed a bit, handing it to Angela, who gingerly used the edges of the pages to turn each and see what was before each. I could see several different mediums. Her parents were clearly supportive of her interest.

"She's amazing," Brennan complimented with a smile to Amy's parents.

Mrs. Cullen beamed like a praise to her daughter was a praise straight to her – maybe it is, since Amy is her daughter and it's good to be proud of your child. "Amy's been very brave this week. They're trying an experimental viral chemotherapy, and we're very optimistic."

Oh. Chemo. That explained Amy's sickly skin color. I swallowed, suddenly lost for words. It's one thing to know that cancer exists; it's another to look at a person and know they have cancer, that they very well might die, and be able to pick out individual signs of it or things that go with it – like the small bruise on the outside of Amy's wrist, that she could have gotten accidentally hitting her hand on something. How long had she had it?

I gained a lot of respect for Amy in that moment when I came to the realization that her disease frightened me, and I wasn't even directly affected by it. Her own body had literally turned against her and made her lungs a war ground. If one simple malignant cell passed through the bloodstream to her brain, it could metastasize and kill her, and she probably wouldn't have any warning. It could to the same to her heart. Depending on how the cancer cells were multiplying and located they could shut down any number of vital functions. I was about to flip out in my own head over how terrifying that must be, but Amy was just sitting there calmly drawing the whole God damn time.

"Since asbestos exposure is the primary way people contract mesothelioma, how do you think-" Booth cleared his throat pointedly to try to interrupt Brennan before she nosed her way back onto his boss's bad side. I was still internally shocked that I seemed to have made it off. Brennan glanced at Booth, but continued. "How do you think Amy got it?"

It turned out that Booth didn't have anything to worry about it. Cullen wasn't offended, and he answered normally. "We don't know, Dr. Brennan." He shrugged, looking over at his daughter. "The first place we looked after she was diagnosed was all her previous schools, the house we lived in – nothing."

"Has there been a history of illness?"

Instead of clearing his throat, Booth coughed. Loudly.

He was ignored again, this time by Mrs. Cullen. "Hardly," Amy's mom responded with a slight scoff. Amy was focused on Angela as the artist looked over her work with bright eyes, but she let her mother squeeze her hand. "Apart from breaking her leg snowboarding a year ago, I can't remember the last time she was sick."

Well, that could be… I swallowed, trying to dispel the negative energy I felt creeping up on me. "Do you remember what kind of break it was?" I asked Amy. It was her body, and while I respected her parents enough, I wanted to talk to her, not them. "And how it happened?"

"Compound fracture, left tibia," Cullen supplied before Amy could. It was like he knew it as well as he knew his own name.

Amy turned pink, rolling her shoulders up in embarrassment. She looked away while she was explaining, "I was boarding with some friends and I… I hit a tree." She laughed at herself. I guess it seemed silly in hindsight, but stupid accidents like that happen sometimes. She shouldn't feel bad about it. "Pretty dumb, huh?"

"And that required surgery?" Brennan prodded, searching for the bigger picture.

"A bone graft," Mrs. Cullen confirmed.

Booth finally found fit to intervene rather than to just make noises and hope that we'd take pity. He put his hands on Brennan's shoulders like he was planning on steering her out. "I hate to drag these lovely squints back to the lab, but, you see, we… have another case," he lied. It was obvious that he was just trying to get us out of there as quickly as possible.

I frowned and looked up at Booth, outing his plot to the Cullens. "Actually, we don't."

His voice was just a note or two too high. "Oh, yes, we do," he disagreed.

"I think we'd know if we did," I maintained.

Brennan found her way out of Booth's chauffeuring and turned back to the director. "Could I see Amy's graft x-ray?" She asked hopefully, seeming intrigued and honestly curious about the prospect.

Booth seemed like he was actually, physically pained. "Sir, I apologize-"

Cullen cut him off by rising quickly to his feet. "Of course!" Where he used to doubt Brennan's abilities, now I think he was trusting her to give answers. I just hoped he knew that, even if we did find something, that didn't mean we could cure Amy, or even necessarily prolong her life. If he didn't realize that up front, then he was setting himself up for a bad ending. "If you think they'll tell us anything."

We blew up the x-ray from the graft and stuck it on a backlit board to see the details of the bone, and it took less than a second for me to see that what we'd gotten from Amy's file was definitely not what was supposed to be in Amy's leg. "No," I said flatly, staring at the portion of the graft that was almost more grey than white. "This is not right."

"What?" Brennan asked, stopping to look at the image for the first time.

Hodgins made a face at the x-ray, standing on the other side of me. "Pardon the fromage reference," he excused. "But what's with the moldy Gruyere in that leg?"

"The lighter color is evidence of demineralization," Brennan explained patiently, although I'm sure Hodgins had to have already known that. I recognize osteoporosis when I see it; it's one of the simplest bone conditions to recognize barring complications. The reason Hodgins and I were so stunned was because a fifteen-year-old girl should not have extensive osteoporosis in her leg.

"I'm not the bone expert here, but… yuck." Hodgins decided, staring in perturbed distaste at the x-ray.

"Yeah," I agreed, and then turned halfway around to glare at him halfheartedly. It was hard to actually be flippant or agitated when I'm also reigning in aggravation that someone did Amy's graft so wrong. "And, thanks to you, that's also now my opinion of French cheeses." Cheese is a wonderful food, and Hodgins just had to go and make that comparison, didn't he?

Hodgins shrugged apologetically. He didn't actually seem very sorry.

"Osteoporosis," Zach stated, looking over the image sadly.

"Basically," Brennan agreed, her voice softer than usual and a bit more flat in tone fluctuation. I think we were all bothered by it, but Brennan and I in particular because we'd met Amy ourselves. "The bone has become porous, something that happens with age. Zach," she said to her intern, "See if you can isolate the grafted portion and enlarge it."

Zach didn't outwardly reply to that, but everyone knew that he understood. Zach isn't the kind of guy who has to acknowledge everything; thanks to his incredible memory, there's very little that can get past him when it comes to instructions. "Amy Cullen's file states the donor of the bone was twenty-five years old."

"Um…" I tried to see it, I really did, but it just couldn't happen. While it was worse in a fifteen-year-old, it was also awful for a twenty-five-year-old. "No. Just… Just no."

"What about the aging disease?" Hodgins suggested, trying to help come to a conclusion rather than the more daunting idea that the hospital screwed up. That brings with it a whole slew of possibilities that I, for one, would rather not think about; whether or not it was done on purpose, who was responsible for the grafts, if someone's negligence had led to anyone else's harm.

"I've seen Progerian skeletons," Zach stated with a definite quality of certainty to his voice. "This isn't one of them."

"This bone is significantly less dense than a person in their twenties, that's for sure," Brennan ruled decisively, making the call even though it meant we had to trace the graft back to its roots. I sighed, shutting my eyes. How would we tell Amy that this had happened? How do you tell someone that there's pretty much a biological time bomb in you because someone else screwed up their job? Regardless of her cancer, the bone degradation is a threat all on its own.

"How old do you think the donor really was?" Zach asked his boss, squinting at the x-ray as if he might actually be able to do the math of the percentage of demineralization and figure it out for himself.

Brennan paused for a moment and surveyed the blown up image closely. "Judging from the reduction in bone mass… at least sixty."

I swallowed, shaking my head, and then opened my eyes, glaring at the x-ray as if it had personally affronted me. In a way, I felt like it had. "This isn't right," I all but growled, turning off the backlight. "She must have gotten mesothelioma from the real donor, and then it metastasized to her lungs. Whoever screwed up this graft is going to be held accountable."

We agreed to go back to the hospital and talk to the doctor in charge of transplanting harvested grafts into living people in the hopes that he might be able to provide answers or be the guilty party. Whichever. Except going back to the hospital meant seeing Amy again, which I was all for, but I had a promise to keep. I took a taxi from the Jeffersonian to the DMV to pick up driver's manuals for the fifteen-year-old and hurried to the hospital.

"Sorry!" I called in a hushed voice out of courtesy to patients and working doctors, running down the hall to Brennan and Booth, who were waiting outside the office of the transplant surgeon. I had a yellow book in hand and several smaller pamphlets for Amy that went over anything from laws concerning driving to insurance over the risk factor. "Taxi hit a few too many red lights!"

"Why didn't you ride with Bones?" Booth asked, gesturing to Brennan while he frowned at me. I haven't spent too much time in taxis since Brennan got a new car from her publisher; her car and Booth's SUV sort of became my go-to modes of transport when I wasn't walking, and I don't think he liked that I was switching that up.

"I promised Amy I'd get her some driving manuals from the dealership," I reminded him. He'd been right there, so surely he hadn't forgotten that. "So I went to the dealership and got the driving manuals. See?" I lifted the stuff in my hands and turned it over so he could see part of the book cover and the top pamphlet. "There's specifics on teen driving laws, driver's safety in general, road signs, and a bunch of other stuff that's good to know, like the lowest potential speed for hydroplaning, and when the road's most dangerous." I tipped the book down and shuffled the pamphlets to make them look more orderly and easier to hold onto. "Oh, and assuming her parents have a "Grade C" vehicle, then if she gets straight A's in school when she applies for a license next year then she gets a good student discount, which takes a good percent out of the monthly insurance rate… What?" Both adults were watching me closely, like either they thought something was wrong with me or that I had an agenda.

Booth's expression was hard to read, although that may just be because I don't think he's ever looked at me like that before. "You're… really invested in helping her drive, aren't you?" Was that sympathy? I don't want sympathy, nothing's wrong with me.

"Why wouldn't I be?" I asked defensively, gearing up to protect myself against an argument. "She's fifteen, she should be out playing soccer or going to arts and crafts parties at Hobby Lobby, not stuck in a hospital bed getting pumped full of chemicals." Okay, I sounded bitter. How bitter must I have sounded to hear it myself? It's just not fair. To Amy, to her parents, to her friends, to anyone – her body screwed up and betrayed her and she has to die because someone else fucked up the donor records?

"Kid." Booth reached out to put his hand on my upper back, but I moved away – not in the way he'd worked out, to reach where he didn't want me to go in order to shepherd me, but I actually moved away from him, watching him warily. I didn't like his tone – tired, resigned, empathetic. He pulled his hand back, realizing I wasn't cool with that at the moment. "You know, even if you figure out where the graft came from, her cancer's not just going to go away."

He was serious, and not trying to be mean; even I could tell that. He was warning me, trying to keep me from setting myself up for disappointment, which I would have appreciated if I knew how to communicate my feelings like a normal person. I was glad Brennan was staying out of it – she was paying attention to the interaction but wasn't adding her input, and that helped because I didn't feel like I had to put up the same front to her.

"I know that, Booth. Contrary to what a lot of people might think, I'm not an idiot!" So it was heated and irritated. At least he should get the message to drop it.

The door was pulled open, the doctor summoned by the noise outside of his door. He was wearing white hospital scrubs, a paper mask with an elastic band around his neck still. "May I help you?" He greeted, looking over the three of us. He was confident, but unsure what we were there for, and the tall, short-haired doctor may as well have stepped into a mine field, judging by how ready I was to snap at him.

Brennan quickly answered to him, effectively cutting short what may have been becoming an unpleasant exchange between Booth and I. Dutifully, I shifted my attention from the agent to the medical doctor. "Doctor, you performed Amy Cullen's graft, correct?"

I suppose she must have called ahead, because the surgeon didn't take very long to recognize the name and recall the answer. "Yes." He stepped back and waved an arm inward, holding open the door. Brennan stepped forward into the office and I followed, Booth trailing a few steps behind me. "But I just do the procedure, Miss Brennan."

"Dr. Brennan," Booth and I both corrected in synchrony.

The surgeon blinked. "M.D.?" He asked Brennan, looking to her with a new level of consideration.

"PhD," she responded, looking around the plain office. It even had a green, leafy plant in a plain clay-orange pot to one side of the desk, and there were filing cabinets against the walls in steel grey.

His polite smile became somewhat condescending and he gave a small, yet pointed, cough. "Well. Those who can't do, do research," he said casually. Brennan's eyes narrowed, catching the insult, but before she could do anything about it, I interrupted with a spiteful glare.

"How long did it take you to come up with that cheap shot?" I asked coldly, cocking my head and fixing him with an unappreciative glower. "Because I can think of a few ways I can turn this around on you and make you regret ever insulting her where I can hear." I really am not in the mood to deal with people like him today. I then offered him a mockingly sweet smile. "I'm up for crossing 'make a conceited surgeon cry' off of my to-do list."

Disgruntled, the doctor took a step back. I'm not sure he was even aware that his leg was moving until the action had already been done. Booth stepped further into the office. "Okay-"

"Holly, Booth," Brennan said calmly. I suppose she had been willing to let the offense slide, and it must be pretty irritating to have a couple of people aggravating situations when she's cool with it, but it's not something I would ever find myself regretting in the future. I hate people like this surgeon, who think they're so much better than anyone else just because of their degree.

Still, her gentle warning calmed down Booth into dropping the subject, and I looked down to show that I wasn't going to push it if the surgeon didn't provoke it. "Okay, fine. If you're just the mechanic, then who's responsible for all the parts that you install?" The agent asked the surgeon, using a metaphor that was easy to understand.

"You'll have to check with the hospital's transplant coordinator," the surgeon said, now measured and careful as he realized that there was an issue with the surgery in question. "Why? What's going on?"

Ever the direct one, Brennan had no constraints to prevent her from explaining why she was asking. "There are indications the bone graft you implanted in Amy Cullen gave her cancer," she explained.

The surgeon looked at Brennan, amused if anything, and shook his head like it was a particularly funny joke. "No, that's impossible," he corrected, eyes mirthful. "Every graft we get has been tested and irradiated." Meaning that everything is tested for harmful agents and then exposed to radiation to kill off any hiding risks.

"Oh, well, if you're sure," I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes, shifting the driver's manuals in my hands and beckoning to Brennan to hurry up and come on. "Let's pack up and go home, I'm sure the people who actually knew about the tainted graft will own up to it sooner or later."

"There's… one way to know for sure," Brennan started, shifting her weight and crossing her arms, picking up a stubborn attitude somewhere and preparing to exercise it for all it was worth. "Assuming significant remodeling hasn't occurred, do a trans-iliac crest core biopsy on the donor bone." I stopped, blinked, and then processed the word biopsy. Poor Amy… That would hurt. "Then we'll have age and pathology."

The surgeon snorted, showing quite clearly what he thought of the idea. I don't think he realized that it was less of a suggestion and more of a command. "And who's going to perform that biopsy, doctor?"

Brennan smirked, pleased that he'd asked. "You are."

I leaned to the side to poke my head into Amy's hospital room, slipping unnoticed past her parents, both of whom had their backs to me while they talked in hushed tones to one of the attending oncologists.

I had temporarily parted ways with Brennan and Booth in favor of finding Amy again before her time became occupied with the biopsy that was being planned – if I had to guess, then that's what the doctor was currently trying to explain to her parents, as it required their consent to go through with the procedure. I had made a promise to her, and I know I'd be anxious for a biopsy, no matter how well it was explained to me.

"Hey!" I said, uncharacteristically cheerful. Amy had another book out, but this one was smaller, the size of a normal paperback, and her pencil was resting lamely against the side of her index finger. She was watching her parents and the doctor through the window, and she looked apprehensive and sad. She hadn't been letting her parents see the way she really felt. "I brought driver's manuals, as promised," I said, letting her pretend that she had been alright the whole time. If she needed to feel like it was a secret, then that was okay. I could sort of relate. I set the books and papers down on the table by her bed and then sat down in the chair next to her. "The doctors already filled you in, I guess."

Amy shifted, letting her pencil fall onto her sketchbook that flipped closed without her holding it open. The pencil rolled down the cover and stopped when it caught in the sheets. She pushed herself further upright in her bed. "Yeah. They came by just a few minutes ago to say they wanted to do a biopsy." She looked past me and nodded towards her parents through the window. Her mother was wringing her hands. Cullen rubbed his forehead tiredly. "They're explaining it to my parents now."

Serious conversation time, then. I leaned back in the chair, angled so that it was facing the door rather than Amy, and crossed one leg over the other, turning my head to look at the fifteen-year-old. "Do you want to let them do the biopsy?" Although it technically wasn't Amy's decision – as a minor, that fell to her parents – if she didn't consent to it, I'd try to stop it from happening. No matter who it is, I'm a strong believer that if someone is coherent and capable of understanding the procedure, then it should be their decision if it's followed through with. "Because it's not going to be easy, or fun."

Amy opened her mouth, but for a moment she had no words, setting her arms over her lap and picking at her fingernails subconsciously. "I mean, I don't know what they're looking for." She looked over at me instead of the window. "I don't think they want me to know until my parents veto it. What do you think they're going to find if they do it?"

"You know, there is a thing called case confidentiality. I'm not supposed to tell you what's going on in our cases unless I have permission from your father." While I had planned on apologetically using that, when Amy's shoulders slumped slightly but she didn't complain, I threw it out the window. What the hell. It's not like I work for the FBI, anyway. I set my hand beside her leg on her mattress. "Luckily for you," I continued. "I don't believe that something important to you should be kept from you. We looked at the x-rays of the bone grafted into your leg. The bone has… advanced osteoporosis."

I wasn't sure what electives Amy had opted to take, or how inspired she'd ever been to learn about human anatomy, biology, or medical terminology, but osteoporosis is a fairly well-known condition. Sure enough, Amy frowned for a moment, looking down to her leg like she could see through it to the bone. "I thought only older people got that. Why do I?"

I glanced to the door. It was ajar, but no one was coming in. "The official reports say that the graft was donated from a twenty-five year old, but the Jeffersonian agrees that the file is wrong." I hated that she had to learn something like this… well, in this way, but I couldn't just keep it from her. "The degree of osteoporosis in the bone is more fitting to a senior."

"So they want to do the biopsy because they think that's how I got cancer." Amy was a smart girl, and she said it mostly factually. There was just a bit of a questioning tone to her voice, so I nodded anyway in confirmation.

"Mesothelioma is tricky, but all cancers happen in cells." I rapped my right fist lightly on my left forearm. "Bones are made of DNA, just like muscles or organs, so… yeah, at this point, it's seeming most likely that your cancer came from the donor."

Amy was quiet for a long few seconds. I was okay with that. I didn't exactly want to be the person to bring her this news, which was sure to change a lot of beliefs and perceptions she'd had on her own life and illness, but I couldn't have been happy with myself if I had left someone else to tell her – especially not a doctor, who may not feel the same empathy that I do. No, it seemed like a better choice for her to hear it from someone who would maybe not completely understand, but who would at least try to.

The teenager pushed open the cover of her drawing book again and flipped through it a few pages to the one that she was working on. It looked like she was experimenting with three-dimensional impressions and shading during different times of day, going by the other drawings I'd seen. All were incredibly detailed. She picked up her pencil again, held it carefully, started drawing precise, slow lines.

"It's weird, you know," she said softly, focusing intently on the picture she was making rather than the words she was expressing. She was using her art as a buffer; something to ground her and keep her calm and relaxed, even during this discussion. "This time last year, I was completely healthy, and now I can barely leave this hospital. It's like I can't even trust my own body to work right. I used to think one day I'd wake up and it would turn out to be some nightmare, but it's been a month and I'm still here."

"I can't imagine how awful it must be," I said, equally as quiet and respecting the mood she'd set for this. I took a deep breath, almost painful between the stretch of my lungs and the hurt on my conscience. "I… I really wish that I could help, but…"

But I'm not a doctor. I'm not a saint. I'm not an angel. I'm not anything that could potentially help her overcome her mesothelioma; all I can do is try to be a support system, and even then I can't be a failsafe. I'm human, just like everyone else on the damn planet, and for all humans have been able to do, there are some things that we just can't stop.

Metastasized cancer cells are one of those things.

"I know," Amy assured me, pausing in her drawing and blinking. She looked back up through the window and dropped her eyes back to her paper. I could see her mood through the drawing; the lines were soft, tentative, but dark with repetitive motions of the graphite. There was less shading so far, and what there was was less distinct. "It's just… it's the sort of thing that makes people sad. Scared." She tilted her head to the side, continuing to draw in a new angle, a new perspective. "And you're always thinking that it'd be terrifying if it happened to someone you knew. Somehow you never think that you could actually get cancer.

"My parents are terrified, my friends stopped talking to me. I'm afraid to brush my hair anymore because of the chemo. And most of the people I can talk to don't treat it like it is. I have cancer. I know what it's going to do to me. They know it, too, but they try to make it seem like it's not as bad as it is. … I want to talk about it sometimes, but there's no one I can talk about it with. Mom and Dad try not to seem like they're upset, but I can see it. They're different."

It hurt that Amy could have that monologue and not be reading off of a script. This was insight and knowledge that she shouldn't be forced into gaining. Even for me, who tries not to care too deeply for other people, I could feel my chest tightening in response to her forlorn voice, her matter-of-fact words. She wasn't searching for pity; she was just talking, saying the truth of what was on her mind.

"To be honest, I…" I put my hand on the bed again, near her leg but not touching her, even through the sheets. Now I could relate to Brennan and Angela, when they had done similar actions while I was hospitalized. "During Easter this year, we accidentally cut into bones at the Jeffersonian and potentially exposed ourselves to valley fever. The thought of having some pathogen I couldn't see or fight off sneaking into my lungs, it…

"Your cancer… cancer in general terrifies me. I'm scared to death that you have it, even though I just met you. I want to run from it, but I know it wouldn't make anything better. The thought that anyone could be betrayed by their own body makes me feel sick." The valley fever had been one thing; it originated from outside of the body. Vaccinations and precautions were taken. Cancer, though – there was no cure, no real way of preventing it, because it originated from inside the body, like a sleeper cell, or an explosive waiting to go off.

Amy hummed softly in either agreement or acknowledgment. That was something we had in common; the humming. "I think that's kind of how everyone feels when they learn about it. It's like abstract art…" as she made the comparison, she looked down to her landscape. She should have been proud, but she seemed agitated by it instead. "When you don't understand it, it's there. It's just a thing. But when people educate themselves… figure out the meaning behind the word 'cancer'… it takes on a whole new meaning. They fear it. It becomes a concrete fact."

I felt like I was talking to an experienced adult, not a high school sophomore.

"Why did you come back?" She asked, putting down her pencil and this time, she lifted her book off of her. She put it down on the other side of her legs.

That was something that I could answer, with no reservations. "Because…" Still, I had to phrase it carefully, put thought into the words. This wasn't a discussion about music or television or other trivia. It was important, sensitive, and phrasing mattered. "No matter how scared I am, you shouldn't be alone. And you should have someone who will tell things the way they are, and who you can talk to without having to worry about how they'll feel."

"Thank you." Amy smiled softly, accepting the reasoning and she reached out with her left hand, gently setting her palm over the back of mine. Though I'd only met her today, I hoped I'd managed to cheer her up some.

I'm not stupid, or unrealistic. I know that no matter how much better her attitude gets even when her family can't see, she's still facing unpleasant odds. Unless the chemical therapy her mother mentioned worked, then there was really very little they could do. It was no longer a matter of taking out the bad graft and exposing her to radiation or chemicals; the cancer cells metastasized from the donated bone, spread throughout her body. If this treatment didn't put her into remission, then the truth of the matter is that eventually she'll become weaker, sicker. The cancer could either hit a vital organ quickly or slowly, or it could work its way through less important organ systems. And because she has mesothelioma, she wouldn't be approved for any transplants.

If this treatment didn't put her into remission, mesothelioma would kill Amy Cullen.

Making a friend and then losing her would hurt me, but not having the kind of friend that she needs would hurt Amy a whole lot worse.

I flipped my hand so my palm was underneath hers and gingerly held on.

"What will the biopsy do?" She asked finally, going back to the point we'd been on at the start. "I want to know what's going to happen if my parents consent. They're getting desperate," she added lowly. "So… they probably will."

I took a deep breath before trying to explain the procedure. Brennan had only been able to give me a brief description, but it was enough for me to tell her what to expect. "They'll take you to a different room – a sterilized one, and anyone in there will have to wear masks. There'll be an anesthetic used, but only a local one," I warned. "It won't knock you out, and it won't completely deaden the pain. It'll just… lessen it. Numb it." I found myself thinking back to how I'd felt when an anesthetic had been used on me, right after I'd been stabbed. I had bits and pieces between the warehouse and the hospital, and I remembered feeling the pain as if it was fuzzy or secondhand.

"You won't feel it as acutely, but…" I shook my head. This wasn't going to get the point across. I promised to tell her what she needed to hear as they were, not sugarcoated or as half-truths. "Amy, they're going to cut open your leg and stick a big needle in the bone," I said bluntly. She cringed slightly, tightening her grip on my hand without seeming to realize it. "The sample will be miniscule, but bone pain is the worst kind there is. It'll hurt." I squeezed her hand back lightly for comfort. "And after, they'll stitch the incision and put you on pain medication before the anesthesia wears off. It may become more pronounced, but if it's too much then they'll either raise the dosage or give you a stronger prescription."

She nodded slowly, her eyes narrowed in concentration like she was trying to imagine how much it would hurt. Although I had had my wrist sprained and my stomach stabbed, I doubted either of those were exactly up to par with having a piece of bone cut out. I mean, maybe they were up there with it on the Top Most Physically Painful Experiences chart, but if I couldn't describe the agony I'd felt, how could I expect to start to explain how she might feel, even with anesthetic?

"Can my parents stay with me?" She asked hopefully. Although I wasn't happy about the note of trepidation I heard, I was glad that she was at least recognizing the gravity of what would happen.

"Probably," I said with a shrug. It wasn't open surgery; I couldn't see why not. Spinal taps, lumbar punctures, and many types of biopsies can be done with families in the room, so long as the patient was cool with it and behaved. "If they wear masks and stay out of the doctors' way."

Amy gave my hand a very light tug once. "Will you?"

I was right about it not being like open surgery. Because she was a minor, her parents were given free passes into the room, more or less, and because Amy asked and apparently her parents have serious soft spots for her and the doctors didn't have a good reason to say no, they let me stay with her during the biopsy.

She laid down in the bed, her hair spreading out underneath her head on the crisp white pillow. While her father stayed to her side, her mother held her hand while standing next to him, and Amy reached for mine with her other hand. I let her lock our fingers together, offering what I could as she saw the surgical scalpel the doctor raised to her leg. Then she leaned back and squeezed her eyes shut, squeezing my hand (and probably her mother's, too) like it was the only thing keeping her sane.

"Try not to tense up," I whispered to her, my voice muffled but still understandable through the paper mask across my mouth and nose. Visibly, her shoulders loosened before tightening again. She could barely relax. "It'll hurt less if your muscles aren't so stiff." I offered her a squeeze of my hand in encouragement and support.

I could tell the moment that she started to feel the cut on her leg; maybe she didn't feel the pain like she should have, but that didn't mean her body was completely failing to send the signal that there was something wrong.

And I could see how hard she was fighting the instinctive urge to move as the doctors actually started the biopsy, slipping the needle past muscle and into bone.