I kept visiting Amy in the hospital. Just because we were finished with her case, or that her father was mine's boss, didn't mean that I had to stop visiting, and I was determined not to. She'd told me herself that her friends from school hadn't been coming to see her as much as they used to because of her cancer.

Unfortunately, while on one hand I finally had a life, it was hard to manage that and keep it away from Amy. She's fifteen. I may only be two years older, but at least I wanted to be in the situation where I had murders to attend to. Amy wasn't under any illusion about what I did when I wasn't with her, but there was no need to make her hear any details.

So, when I got a text from Booth telling me to get to Arlington National Cemetery, I told Amy that work was summoning me and excused myself from her parents, too. That it was a text was weird enough – I've figured out that Booth prefers phone calls to texting. I think it's just because hearing the other person's voice is proof of life and proof that he's talking to who he thinks he's talking to. I assumed that it was for a case and hurried to get a taxi.

I met Booth and Brennan just past the gates, running to catch up, but when I saw the people in the fire department and the crime scene team setting out past the rows of graves, I slowed down. Arlington National was a military cemetery. Men and women who served and died were buried here with honor unless their families had their own burial plans. It was a huge cemetery, separated from the hubbub of the rest of the city for peace and respect for the dead.

Having someone die here was not only crass, disrespectful, and negatively symbolic, but it was sure to make things tough with Booth, who was an army ranger and greatly identified with other veterans, no matter what unit they'd been in.

"I never get used to the magnitude of this place." Booth was stalking, talking with his voice down. Brennan and I were both lagging behind due to his speed and his attitude. "What it's taken to keep this country free." He was very deliberately not looking at any of the multitude of headstones, instead bee lining directly for the crime scene – which seemed to be one particular grave.

"All societies build monuments to their dead, to convince future combatants that it's an honor to die in battle," Brennan commented. While it was relevant and truthful, it also wasn't strictly what Booth believed.

Like I'd thought, he was tetchy about the remark. "For these servicemen, it was." Brennan didn't respond to that. I guess she realized that what she said could be taken the wrong way. "And for somebody to use this place to protest the war just pisses me off. These are the lives that gave them that right." I looked over the graves. There were colorful flowers left for a lot of the veterans, but the tranquility was interrupted by the crime scene; a human body was slouched over in front of a headstone, torched to a crisp. It looked like the fire department was wrapping up their part in the scene. "These men – they should be respected."

"If they were really respected," Brennan commented mildly. "Maybe not so many of them would be buried here."

She didn't mean to say anything objectionable, and I could see where she was coming from with it, but I also had a pretty good grasp on Booth's emotions where the military was involved. Any case that involved someone dead over someone's grave wasn't going to be easy for Booth, and there was bound to be tension until it was done with.

"Are we gonna get into something here, Bones?" His voice held a warning.

"I don't see why," she returned calmly. "I think we both wish this place were a lot smaller." There were hundreds of graves for hundreds of victims of war and murder and all other tragic ends. Booth probably knew some of the people buried here, I realized suddenly, and it made my steps falter.

Another FBI agent who had already beat us to the scene greeted Booth, recognizing him by sight, so they probably knew each other already. Apparently he also recognized Dr. Brennan and I, though, which made me wonder if he'd also been at another crime scene we'd investigated. "Agent Booth, Dr. Brennan, Miss Kirkland." He stepped to the side and held out an arm towards the crime scene tape, wrapped around poles stuck in the ground a respectful distance from the headstone of the soldier whose grave had been desecrated. "Right this way."

The skeleton wasn't completely bare, but the fire had done a good job at eating away flesh. What remained was charred and blackened, toasted extra crispy by the fire that had burned for a good amount of time to have done this much damage. The headstone was affected, slightly blackened, but the body wasn't leaning against it and the fire didn't seem to have spread. While the ground immediately around the corpse was blackened and singed, the fire seemed to have been localized. They must have used an accelerant only on the body.

The agent stepped to the side. Zach was already taking Polaroid pictures, leaning over another grave to get more angles of the entire skeleton. Coughing, the agent deliberately kept his eyes away from both grave and remains. "It must've happened in the middle of the night. The place is so big, no one saw the fire."

"The accelerant was charcoal starter." Zach called from behind his camera screen.

"We didn't find a suicide note," the agent added to Booth after a secondary pause, in which he was waiting for Zach to say something else. The grad student had already gotten his point across, and he remained quietly working.

While this was a cemetery for veterans, there wasn't anything really particular about this particular section or grave that stood out more than the others. I looked around the landscape and then back to the burnt body. "He's not being very specific on what he's protesting against," I pointed out.

"Didn't need to be. It's on Charlie Kent's grave." My frown became more pronounced and I looked to Booth. He hadn't moved since he'd read the name on the headstone, and his voice was unusually quiet. His eyes were locked on the name and dates carved into the stone. "Press was coming out to do a tribute to him… one-year anniversary of his death."

Brennan knelt down at the side of the grave, settling down on her knees and pulling stretchy latex gloves up past her wrists carefully, picking at the rubber ends that rolled up on her arms. "Charlie Kent?" She asked, looking up and squinting against the sunlight.

Booth took a long minute to answer, and for a few seconds I wasn't convinced that he was even going to. He took losses in battle hard, and for him to know the guy's name and react like that, it had to mean something serious to him. I couldn't have honestly blamed him for not responding to the prompt.

"He was in the National Guard," Booth finally said heavily, keeping his shoulders raised and his head dipped, showing respect to the deceased vet. "About to be drafted by the N.B.A. when he got shipped out to Iraq. He gave his life taking out a group of insurgents to save his unit… won the Silver Star." The Silver Star was a medal presented to veterans for bravery and honor in action. It was a very high, prestigious award.

And insurgents were rebels, individuals revolting against authorities, often in dangerous situations for an antagonistic purpose. In Iraq, they probably weren't too scarce, but I didn't doubt that the insurgents Kent had shot out had been armed. He'd put himself in their line of fire to protect the handful of people he'd been serving with at the time. Even to me, who hadn't experienced foreign combat, that was one hell of an act.

"It's male. African descent… approximately twenty to twenty-nine years old." Brennan gingerly scooted closer, raising herself up higher on her knees to see the cranium. "Too early to determine cause of death."

Booth blinked, seeming to come out of whatever head space he'd been in. Unfortunately for everyone else involved, he didn't come out of it happy. "I'm not a pro," he said sharply, waving a hand at the body and turning to the side so that he wouldn't have to see the headstone. "But I'm guessing fire."

I took in a deep breath through my nose. I really don't want to unintentionally offend him, but… he also has to know that just because he's sensitive to this, he doesn't get to be rude and talk down to us, and somehow I don't think Brennan's going to be the one willing to tell him that as bluntly as he may need to be reminded. To his credit, there aren't a lot of things that really get under his skin, or make him act cold to others – but his time as a sniper had greatly affected him, and he was sensitive to anything said about the wars or the people who fought in them.

"I know you don't like it, but we're supposed to be a bit more thorough," I said carefully while Brennan looked up from the skeleton to give Booth a slight glare.

The agent shifted. He had stayed in place in case he was needed, but he was staying out of the exchanges between Booth, Brennan, and I respectfully. "The White House and the D.O.D. want an I.D. as soon as possible," he informed.

Oh, boy. If I had been told a year ago that I'd be working on something the White House was involved in, I probably would have laughed before continuing on my way.

"So they can brand him a traitor." Brennan reached around to tip the skull very carefully to the side in order to check out the cervical vertebrae with more ease. We could be more thorough at the lab, but it was important to get a general idea at the scene in case of bad, bad things happening.

Booth rolled his eyes, shaking his head in disapproval and annoyance. "Why do you have to be so cynical?"

"I'm not cynical," Brennan responded, scowling and taking a little bit of offense. She didn't look back up at him, still focusing in on her work. "It's a necessary psychology of warfare – heroes and villains. Without clear distinctions like that, we'd never be able to fight." Most people wouldn't, anyway, but some people would still fight just for the hell of it, or for the sake of hurting other people.

"Yeah, well, I always found being shot at was a motivating factor." Booth turned his back, hooking his thumbs through his belt loops and glowering down at the ground as if it had done him a personal offense.

While I agreed that being shot at was a surefire way to piss someone off, I couldn't really tell him that without taking a side in this fight-that-shouldn't-be-a-fight.

"But how did you know that you were morally correct?" I asked, my tone lacking most of its certainty or attitude. It was a gentle question, meant to prove a point without doing harm. "You had a perspective colored by the ideas that the opposition was antagonistic while your side were the protagonists."

I thought that I sounded just honest, not like I had an edge to it, and I was pretty confident that I wasn't just spouting out words. It was a rational explanation that backed up what Brennan was saying, and besides, I know I've had to question if I'm really doing good before. I make my decisions based on what my moral standpoints are, and I'm obviously affected by other variables – not unlike Booth, my perspective can be influenced.

Too bad for me, Booth didn't agree that this was a good way of conversing, and he shot me an unreadable look that I was fairly sure covered up a very angry scowl for voicing an opinion that wasn't something he strongly agreed with. I sighed when he turned his back and walked back down the row of the graves, reading the headstones.

"How does he expect me to know what I'm saying that's wrong if he won't even tell me?" I asked Brennan, venting my frustration and kicking my toes against the turf. "I can't read his mind!"

I really wasn't surprised that I didn't get an answer following my complaints. "Bag these fragments on his clothing," Brennan ordered Zach, carefully peeling a ruined cloth piece away from the ribcage. "I also want any singed plant life or debris you find around him."

Zach let his camera hang from the thick black strap around his neck. "I'm on it," he reported.

I sighed again, raising a hand up to the back of my neck and dragging the tips of my fingers through the end of my ponytail. Just because I don't understand… doesn't mean I can't be supportive. I like to be mean, take shots, have an attitude. It all keeps people from really getting to know me, and it covers up any hurt that I do feel. Maybe, though, Booth needed a little less charades and a little more sincere attempts at supporting his emotions.

It's not like I was doing anything essential anyway, so I looked to the side. Booth had stopped several graves down, reading the headstone solemnly, his face a picture of mourning that I didn't particularly like on him. At all.

I left the crime scene, holding up the yellow crime scene tape and ducking underneath to get away from the others and follow the FBI agent. If he told me to go away, then I would – I just hoped that he wouldn't reject my company. Stepping quietly towards him, I stopped a foot or two away and turned to read the headstone, standing next to him companionably and looking at the name. Jamie Richards. According to the words on the grave marker, he had only died a couple of years ago.

I swallowed and asked softly, "Did you know him?"

"It's Jamie Richards." Booth answered, just as quietly, his voice sounding just a little bit forced. With one hand, he motioned towards the headstone. "We were in the Rangers together. He was hit by a roadside bomb…" he faltered. I didn't say anything, letting him get to it in his own time. Trying to push him, especially in this instance, was uncalled for. "… Just outside the green zone. He left a wife, and two kids. The fact that he was near this-"

He cut himself off abruptly. 'This' being the burnt body only yards away had no physical effect on his former friend, so he probably stopped talking because he was expressing a sentiment that he knew I didn't share. I don't think he can be upset about something that happened after he died, but… Booth does. It's part of his faith, how he sees the world.

"You think somehow he knows that this has happened?" I asked uncertainly, looking up to him from his side.

Booth tensed his jaw. "Yeah," he admitted. "You don't. I get that." He wasn't pleased, but I was thankful he had never once tried to push me into believing in his religion. He still wasn't.

"I'm sorry," I offered. It was one of the most sincere things that I had said all day. This was a careful situation, and I trusted Booth, so it was surprisingly easy to be entirely genuine. I looked away from him and back to the headstone he hadn't looked away from. "I can't control what I can or can't believe, but if you think he was one of the heroes, then I can take your word for it."

He sighed softly, seeming to be relieved, and I was glad that I'd said the right thing. "Thanks."

I nodded once.

Hodgins had wheeled a small-screen television set onto a cart on the platform for us to watch the press coverage going over the discovery of the body at the crime scene this morning. While we were supposed to be working, we were instead watching. Zach and I were both seated on stools at the edge of one side of the exam table in front of the bones, only a few feet apart. Hodgins was behind Zach and I, standing, and Goodman was only a few feet from the television, arms behind his back. Angela was leaning on the railing next to the computer.

The TV was playing a live scene in front of Arlington National with a brunette female reporter. "The unidentified suicide victim was found at Private Kent's grave this morning. Services had planned to honor Kent on the one-year anniversary of his death in Iraq."

The footage stopped streaming live, instead playing clips of Charlie Kent in a basketball jersey, shooting hoops with a bunch of other people in matching jerseys against an opposing team.

"Ah, I used to love watching Kent play." Goodman watched the television, smiling at fond memories as he reminisced on the fallen veteran's games before he was sent overseas. "He could fly."

Zach put down the utensil he was using to clean off the victim's right humorous and leaned back in his chair, pushing it to the side to see the television. "He made forty-six point four percent of his three-point attempts in his last season," the student shared, excitement practically vibrating through him.

I raised my eyebrows and cocked my head at Zach, surprised to hear statistics about basketball, of all things, falling out of his mouth.

"A basketball fan?" Unknowingly, Goodman vocalized my thoughts almost exactly. "I'm surprised, Mr. Addy."

Zach, still smiling, nodded happily and looked at me expectantly. I nodded towards Goodman to show I shared his sentiments. "Me, too, but I can't really talk. I don't watch basketball. I have no idea what a three-point attempt is."

The security system chimed in for a moment as Brennan slid her authorization card and stepped up the platform, looking around at the distinct lack of work being accomplished. Rolling her eyes, she walked quickly to the television and pressed the power button. The volume died and the screen turned black. Zach's shoulders slumped.

"Zach, I'd like you to keep cleaning the bones," Brennan told her intern now that he didn't have the basketball clips to distract him.

Zach slowly reached out to his tools again, picking one up and rotating it in his hand. "Did you see the game against North Carolina?" He asked Goodman brightly. "Fifty-three points, and he grabbed eighteen rebounds!"

"Zach," Brennan interrupted reproachfully, giving him a stern but somewhat fond glare.

Zach looked down, reaching to his right and turning on an ultraviolet lamp, leaning down over the table. "Sorry," he called to Brennan sheepishly, bending over the humorous once more. "Cleaning."

Goodman sighed, looking sadly back to the television screen, which was now black and blank. "It's difficult knowing Kent will never play again." He rolled his shoulders and turned back towards the unidentified skeleton who had disrespected the player in question. "It makes the war so real."

Of course it did. When soldiers no one's heard of die overseas, then it's still isolated to foreign land. It's not hit home until someone people know has died. Kent had a future with the National Basketball Association, was sent to fight, and died in service. Suddenly, Americans are given the forceful reminder that, hey, this is still going on. People are still dying.

"Which is odd," Hodgins said with a roll of his eyes, his hands spread and braced on the steel edge of the table. "Since it was all fiction that got us there in the first place."

Goodman raised his eyes to Hodgins, somewhat skeptical and disbelieving. "So you don't think we should stand up to tyrants?"

"Sure," Hodgins agreed too quickly, smirking up at the taller male, pleased that he had fallen for the lead-in. "I've been waiting for the press to do that for three years now."

Giving Hodgins a you-frustrate-me look, Goodman sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose, and turned his back to the entomologist so he didn't have to see the scientist being more smug than the cat that tried to eat the canary, was told no, and then ate the fish instead without getting caught.

Angela shook her head incredulously. "I can't believe you took the bait," she told Goodman, partially amazed but mostly just saddened that he hadn't seen it coming.

"Like a starving fish to a hook," I agreed, nodding enthusiastically.

"Yeah," Goodman agreed, disheartened. "Me neither." His phone ringing made us pause before ribbing him any more for falling for the trap, and he had to look at the caller I.D. before answering the call. "Oh, Press Office of Defense," he announced out loud. He looked back to Brennan and Angela. "Please I.D. him, this is the third call in an hour." He flipped it open and the call was automatically accepted. "Hello?"

The administrator moved towards the stairs to leave the platform. That way he could take the phone call in peace and we could continue working without the added distraction. On his way down, he passed Booth, who was sliding his authorization card in the panel so he could come up without the security systems screaming at him.

"Yes, it's a pleasure to hear from you again, sir… yes, we're very close."

Angela shifted, drawing her eyes away from the poor guy trying to deal with the legal departments. "Alright," she called out to get everyone else's attention. "I fed his dentals, approximate age, and height, along with the rough sketch I made from the tissue markers, into the D.O.D. database." With any luck, that would be able to give us a name and basic information.

"The victim had lamb about an hour before his death," Hodgins drew from the results of some of the tests that we'd had run by the computer and the other equipment available in the lab. Sardonically, he cocked his head. "Of course, it's a little overcooked now."

"At least it won't be raw," I remarked with a roll of my eyes. 'A little' overcooked was understating it – the fire had gone on for a long time, and had burned hot enough to eat away most of the human body, save for some tougher flesh and the skeletons. Despite having a lot of carbon and hydrogen in our bodies, humans are surprisingly hard to actually burn to nothing.

"Toasted himself," Booth snapped unhappily as he joined us on the platform. He was as cheerful as I was after I'd woken up beaten and bloody with amnesia in New Orleans. "Who cares what he ate?"

I should have known better than to make smart retorts. I really should have.

That doesn't mean I was able to refrain.

"The pathology report cares," I said with the tone of a lecturer, holding out a hand towards Hodgins. Hodgins waved the pathology report in question for Booth's attention, attesting to the statement that, yes, the contents of the victim's stomach are to be cared about to an extent.

Hodgins' lips quirked up in a smirk. "Big boys telling you to sweep this under the rug?" He asked with the voice of someone making a prediction, like he thought he already knew what the answer and result was going to be.

Booth didn't appreciate it, and the agent glowered darkly across the distance between them. "Just can the left-wing conspiracy, Hodgins," he growled, gesturing to the corpse on the table. "It's probably one of your nutball friends here on the table."

That seemed a little bit harsh.

Well, at least the other one wasn't offended. "Don't think so," he disagreed, smug that for once he wasn't crashing in flames after being shot down. "Fabric found at the scene was cotton with synthetic polymers. Dye? Olive green."

The same color as used in both camouflage uniforms and the more typical green uniforms worn by veterans in America on military bases.

"And," I said carefully, less cheerful and less willing to poke fun. At the color of the dye, Booth had turned more solemn, and I suspected he already knew what I was about to confirm. "Put together, that makes up a standard military uniform."

"He's one of yours," Hodgins concluded, pleased. "Not mine."

Although the entomologist was happy with his victory, Booth didn't seem to be hearing the last declaration, looking at the fire victim with something caught between grief and betrayal. If we were still operating under the assumption that this was a protest, then I could understand the latter. The former was a bit more complicated – it's hard to really grieve for someone you may have never actually met, but when you identify with people, hits to those in that community hit you, too. It's why I work so hard to protect children when they're involved in our investigations.

"Ooooo-kay," Angela said pointedly, breaking up the two of them and dissolving part of the tension. She read off of the computer as she got the results back for the information she had sent. "His name is Devon Marshall. He served in the National Guard with Kent."

Booth stopped dead in his paces. "What?"

"He was there in Mosul the night Kent was killed," Angela added in surprise as she read it.

Zach looked up from cleaning the bones to wonder in surprise, "He was protesting?" I sent a curious look towards Booth, asking him to please explain that. It didn't make much sense for someone to protest to something they'd already been a part of – or for someone to object to someone they'd served with and known who had lost their life protecting them.

"Marshall could've had a change of heart," Hodgins theorized. "It's not like support for the war is increasing."

Booth shot Hodgins a sideways glare, but offered an alternative explanation rather than getting into again. "It also could've been survivor's guilt." He switched the pen to his other hand and stood to the side of the platform. "The guy who saved his life didn't make it. You can't imagine what it's like, carrying that around…"

Do you know? I wondered, but didn't quite have the nerve to ask aloud.

Still fixatedly working on the bones, Brennan slowly said, "I don't think so, Booth." Everyone turned to look to her, waiting impatiently for a more detailed explanation for what she thought, and she looked up, a hand near the left side of the skull to point out what looked like scraping. "There's evidence of damage on the external auditory meatus."

Booth threw a ticked glare over to Brennan in response to the terms he probably thought she should know he wouldn't understand. "I'm sorry," he said, snappish and short-tempered as he'd been all day. "You know, but I left my phrase book at home."

"No, you didn't. I'm right here!" I threw my arm up in the air, looking between Booth and Brennan. Even though I'd just called myself a human phrase book – which was actually more accurate than one may first think – neither my father nor my roommate was that impressed. I dropped my eyes back down to what used to be Devon and simplified, taking my job as a phrase book seriously. "Basically, Marshall was shish kebab-ed."

Booth paced back and forth in front of the television we'd been watching the news on, tapping a pen against the palm of his hand. "Okay. But why?"

Brennan shook her head, saying nonverbally that she didn't know the answer to that question yet. I had no doubt she would figure it out eventually, if not soon. She was dedicated, and noticed things that were otherwise easy to overlook.

Sure enough, we waited less than ten seconds before Brennan's face adopted the determined but slightly puzzled look she fostered when she found a clue that didn't necessarily make a lot of sense.

"There's scrapings within the cranium and marks on the inside of the parietal and occipital," she said, almost doubled over to be at eye-level with the skull on the table. With one hand, she mimed holding something in a fist and slamming it through the side of the skull without actually touching the cranium. "Whatever was used was pushed completely through his skull."

I frowned and leaned back on my stool, hooking my ankles around the front two legs so I didn't fall backwards. I craned my neck back, almost managing to see Hodgins upside down before my weight came dangerously close to tipping the chair backwards and I stopped.

"Someone scrambled his brain, then set the fire so there'd be no tissue left to see what had been done," Hodgins summarized with wide eyes. I suppose his "left-wing conspiracies" have a bit more substance in this case now that we know this wasn't just some protest or political statement.

"So the fire was a cover-up." Even saying 'cover-up' made me on edge. That had been part of what had Kenton trying to kill Booth, Brennan, and/or I. He really hadn't been picky about it. Since that particular case, I'd learned that cover-ups made things a lot more dangerous than they seemed at first. "On the day Charlie Kent was being honored, another serviceman from his unit was murdered."