“So, you ready to tell me why you and Booth, despite the fact that he saved your life on Friday night, are so angry at each other? Or who this mysterious mob boss is?” Angela found Brennan typing on her laptop, slender fingers hitting the keys with barely concealed irritation. She spoke without looking away from the keys.

“Booth didn’t save me. I knew Epps would be coming after me because of the plaster dust and drew my gun on him before Booth even walked into my apartment. I hate that he thinks I’m some damsel in a dress that he has to save.”

“Damsel in distress, sweetie. And we all know you’re more than capable of taking care of yourself. But it can’t hurt to have an FBI agent around to help you out. Especially one like Booth.” Brennan failed to respond and Angela sighed, sat herself in a spare visitor’s chair.

“Joking aside, should I have a reason to be worried? I mean, is Booth overreacting? Because you can be kind of intense sometimes, sweetie. And this guy he’s talking about…”

“He’s…” Finally, Brennan stopped typing and turned to Ang. She half shrugged and folded her hands on the desk between them, lowered her eyes.

“He doesn’t have the most judicial job position. But he would never hurt me.”

“So how long have you known this guy?” Angela was, as always, fascinated with Brennan’s secrets. She had so many, such a long and multi-layered history behind her that she spoke of so seldom.

“Feels like forever.” Brennan allowed herself a small smile, failing to see Angela’s look of amazement. Bren was not the kind of person who used sappy sentiments; usually she didn’t use any kind of sentiment at all.

“I met him when I was fifteen. Bad foster house.” Brennan’s eyes flicked up to meet Angela’s, the blue paler than usual.

“He…” Brennan took a deep breath and Angela knew there was an internal struggle going on; because she held her secrets so tightly, it was always so hard for her to let them out.

“Our foster father tried to rape me, and Carlos stopped him. A little while after that we both got kicked out to the same group home and we just… He was my lifeline in that place.”

“Oh, sweetie…” Angela leant a hand across the table and placed it on Brennan’s.

“So are you guys dating now? I mean, obviously Booth thinks-.”

“Carlos drove me home Saturday morning Booth was outside waiting and he noticed I was wearing the same clothes.” A sheepish shrug and she continued.

“I left my phone in his car… He came back to give it to me. Booth answered the door because I was in the shower…”

“And Booth recognised him from some FBI picture and got upset.”

“It was a little more than upset, Ange.” Angela looked at Brennan and sighed.

“If it’s any consolation, he probably is trying to protect you. He doesn’t know you and Carlos have more of a history than Friday night. How would you feel if he was dating someone you knew to be dangerous?”

“But Carlos isn’t.”

“I didn’t say he was. But his picture isn’t in an FBI database somewhere for no reason.” Brennan sighed and nodded slightly.

“Do you think I should tell him?”

“You should stop announcing yourself as a whore in the middle of the lab.” Angela smiled as Brennan did and stood, smoothing her skirt.

“You have to decide whether you tell Booth. But you should talk to him about his reassignment. Unassignment. Whatever. He’s going to need a friend at the moment.”

“Dr. Brennan.” She nodded at the agent in front of her.

“I’m Agent Sullivan. Sully.”

“Where’s the body?”

“By the shore, most of it. The rest could be heading to the North Atlantic by now.” Sully followed her to the edge of the river. The water lapped at a skull, making it shine dim yellow in the noon light. Brennan knelt down and carefully dug around it until she could pick it up.

“The skull features indicate a male.”

“Any ideas on cause of death?”

“There appears to be two bullet holes in the top of the skull. Fired from a close range judging by the outward shattering around the holes.” Brennan put the skull in an evidence box and started extracting more of the bones.

“I’ll know more when I get all the bones out and back to the lab.”

“We’re missing most of it. But the gunshots on the skull would have been fatal. One penetrated straight through the coronal suture and came out the mental tuberosity.” Zach stood over the partial skeleton. Brennan snapped on her gloves as she and Sully entered the platform area.

“The bullet came out of his chin? Doesn’t leave much hope for the brain.” Sully nodded and turned away as his cell rang, offering an apologetic glance.

“I thought we were getting a replacement for Booth.” Zach leant over the table towards Brennan, his voice lowered.

“We did. He is.” She said.

“But he actually knows things.” Zach looked meaningfully at Brennan before he leant back as Sully returned to the table.

“The field guys have finished sifting the river. No bullet recovered.”

“Anything else, Zach?” Brennan picked up a fibula and ran her eyes along the length of it.

“No apparent pre-mortem marks, other than the gunshot wound.”

“No breaks we can use for identification?” Brennan put the fibula back in its place and leant over the bones, her eyes intent.

“Nothing yet.”

“What angle were the gunshots at?”

“Ten years.” Hodgins interrupted as he swiped his card.

“Eighty two degrees.” Zach continued, bringing up an image of the skull.

“The bones have been in the water for slightly under ten years. Add to that the time they’ve been covered in flesh and it becomes ten years. Also, the scraping I took from the bones had a high level of lead. I isolated it to one that was banned thirteen years ago because it was causing lead poisoning. Levels indicated long exposure prior to this.” Hodgins looked pleased with himself.

“He lived in a house that has lead paint?” Sully asked.

“No, it wouldn’t account for that much. He had to have a closer exposure than that.”

“He was a painter.” Brennan said. Hodgins nodded.

“82 degrees… The victim would have been kneeling, head tilted slightly down while the killer stood over him. Classic execution.” Sully adopted the killer’s position.

“That only gives approximately sixty five degrees. It was a much sharper angle than that.” Zach calculated, pressing a button that zoomed in on the bullet holes on the screen.

“So, what, the killer’s a giant? Because our victim isn’t a midget.” Hodgins looked over the bones on the table.

“He’s gotta be 6 foot.”

“5 foot 11.” Zach corrected. Brennan picked up the skull and examined the bullet holes, her expression thoughtful. Angela walked into the lab, poised to speak. Hodgins gave her a quick look and shook his head. She stayed silent.

“He was lying down. Facedown. Zach, lie down.” Obediently, Zach lay on the floor, his face turned sideways. Brennan knelt down beside him and grabbed him under the chin.

“The killer held his head up… Tilted it back so he could see his eyes while he shot him.” She pretended to aim a gun at the back of Zach’s head while maintaining eye contact. Zach nodded as soon as she let go and was already talking as she helped him up.

“That would account for the angle. And the distance between the gun barrel and the skull which was abnormally close, even for an execution style killing.”

“Okay, that is just nasty. I thought execution style was bad, but wanting to be that close while you shot someone?” Angela shivered visibly.

“It must’ve been personal.” Sully said.

“Zach put on the skull markers, but because of the marks on the bones that could have happened while he was floating down the river, it’s going to take a day to come up with a reconstruction. But I did reverse engineer the bullet with the program you designed, Bren.” Angela cleared the skull image Zack had brought up and clicked a few keys, making the bullet visible on the screen.

“.357 magnum revolver.” Sully said as he stepped closer to the screen.

“It’s being run against the FBI database. Nothing yet.”

“Ange, can you get the bone marks off Zach, see if you can plot his course through the waterway? And keep working on the reconstruction.” Brennan cast her eyes over the few bones they had. She’d worked with less than this before and still managed to find the killer and have them brought to justice.

Booth opened his door to see Bones standing outside. She’d changed clothes since he’d seen her that morning and her hair was tied back in a messy bun, the little makeup she wore erased. For a moment, she made him feel old.

“Hey.” He swung the door wider to allow her entrance, and she stepped past him.

“I didn’t really talk to you. About your reassignment.” Obviously she was just going to ignore their exchange in the lab. It was fine with him; he’d spent the afternoon sitting on his couch and wondering how he could’ve handled it better. He hadn’t come to any kind of conclusion.

“More like an unassignment.” Booth grumbled gingerly as he grabbed another beer out of his fridge. The silences between them were awkward now, and he tried to fill them quickly. It had only been a few days and already he missed the simpler quiet they could exist in. Bones reached out and took the beer he handed to her after popping the top off. Her fingers barely missed grazing his.

“I don’t think that’s a word. But Angela said that, too.” She sat next to him on the couch, leaving enough space between them to let him know he wasn’t forgiven.

“Hm.” Again, he filled the silence, watching her as she drank. Her hands were pale around the bottle.

“I met Sully today. We have a case; a male with two bullet holes to the skull.” Booth was surprised as her casual reference of Sully, decided they must be getting along. Irrationally, jealousy flared. She was his partner and he didn’t like the idea of her working with anyone else.

“Any suspects yet?” She shook her head.

“I just finished the initial exam tonight and gave Sully the results. He’s going to call me if he finds anything.” She fell silent again, as if talking that much had exhausted her. Single-handedly, Booth had managed to quieten the woman who would talk while chasing a suspect, if the conversation hadn’t finished when the pursuit started.

“I’m sorry, Bones.” Booth’s tone was as gentle as his words. He needed her back, needed things to be the way they were between them before. He wouldn’t lose her over a fallen serial killer and a mob boss.

He waited while she absorbed them, weighed the sentiment behind them. Then she simply nodded. But it didn’t remove the elephant in the room.

“Okay.” Her words to him, he knew, would never be erased. She rarely spoke without thinking about it first but most people didn’t realise it because her brain worked far more quickly than anyone else’s he knew. The words she’d said to him still smarted and he’d alternated thinking about how he could’ve avoided hurting her and considering how much this guy meant to her. And why.

He’d been smug in the assumption that he was foremost in Bones’ life but had been forced to abandon that after that conversation in her bathroom. And the convincing point that had come during the fight in the lab.

“So…” Both didn’t know what they could move on to from here. Conversation was meant to be question and answer, have an easy kind of flow to it. This was turning into a trip to the dentist.

“Angela thought… Maybe I should tell you about Carlos. Well, not about him, but about him and I. I’m guessing the FBI had enough info on him, and that you’ve looked at it…” Booth nodded sheepishly. As usual, she’d surprised him with a rare perceptiveness. She did that sometimes; appeared impervious to everything and suddenly arrived at a conclusion that would have required inductive thoughtfulness.

“I did check up.” He didn’t want to upset her again but couldn’t help but continue. He wondered if she knew how dangerous he was. From her words, she’d known him for longer than a one night stand. He’d always thought that Bones wasn’t the kind to open up to people after a brief tryst. Then again, Booth wouldn’t have guessed she would be sleeping with a man who could order the president killed with a phone call.

“He’s in the organisation deep enough to be untouchable.”

“I know.” Bones took another long swallow from her beer bottle before fiddling with the label, using the bottle’s condensation to start peeling it slowly from the glossy glass. “I know who he is, Booth.”

“And you’re still…? But he’s-.”

“I know.” She cut him off and took a deep breath as her attention went from the half removed label to him.

“Just listen, okay?” She’d already compelled him into silence with the deep blue of her eyes that had pierced his and now held them into place, but her words made him stop fidgeting with his own beer.

“I’ve known Carlos since I was fifteen. We were in the same foster house; it wasn’t… It wasn’t a nice place to live.” Her eyes teared briefly and Booth half reached for her hand before pulling back. He hadn’t redeemed himself, and he didn’t deserve to comfort her yet.

“He saved me from something bad… My foster father…” Then her eyes were overflowing, deep blue washing out to something paler, something a little more broken. This time Booth didn’t hold back. He pulled her into a hug, feeling the familiar curves that he could now imagine in his mind, dripping with water. She relaxed into him and he considered himself closer to forgiven.

“Shhh. I understand. You’re okay.” And Booth understood that she was okay only because Carlos had been there. The part of his imagination that had been envisioning bloodying Manos’ nose as he stood outside Bones’ door returning her cell receded slightly.

“I know who he is now, Booth, but he’s also the one who saved me from being another street kid.” Booth pulled away from her slightly so he could look at her eyes.

“You would never have been a street kid, Bones. You were always too good for that.” She shook her head, sniffing.

“You don’t know how easy it would have been, to give up.” And he didn’t. This was one area where he could never match Bones in experience. His mother was an accountant and his father had managed a golf club for those rich enough to pay the fees. His upbringing had never included carrying his clothes around in a garbage bag or fending off paedophile foster fathers.

“Carlos rescued me, Booth. He’s the reason I made it this far-.”

“No, you’re the reason you made it. He made sure you got out of the foster system okay. But you did the rest. Don’t feel you need to give him more than you owe.” Booth propped a finger under her chin in the same way he had when he’d expanded her family to include him. Her eyes stayed with his, the blue darkening once more. The feeling was the same as when they were in the bathroom together, but this time it was at his apartment and the air didn’t carry the heavy scent of Bones’ shampoo.

Suddenly her cell rang, piercing the silence with startling clarity. Her head jerked from his fingertips as she answered.

“Okay. I can be there in ten minutes.” She ended the call and put the phone back in her pocket. He was reluctant to ask who had been on the phone; no doubt she’d misconstrue his genuine interest as another jab at her association with Manos.

“Sully. The bullet from an old case matches the reverse engineered image of the bullet from the body. He just wants me to confirm.” She stood, put her half finished beer on the table next to Booth’s. Some of her hair had sprung loose and she tucked it carefully back behind her ear.

“Well, I guess…” The awkwardness settled back into place, less so but still there, just under the surface. Booth stood as he spoke, put his hands on his hips.

“I’d better go.” Bones gave him a sad half smile and he returned it before following her to the door.

“See you.” She let herself out and he leant in the doorway, watching her walk to the stairs.

“Yeah.” Booth said, too quietly for her to hear him.

“You found a match?” She stood hesitantly at his doorway until he motioned her in. Her hair was falling out of its restraint, shadow from it playing across her face. A lack of mascara on her eyes didn’t make them stand out any less. He’d noticed it straight away by the river bank but out of overalls or a lab coat she was unsettlingly attractive. Sully wondered where she’d been when he called. He cleared his throat, started talking.

“Ten years ago a man was shot, same style. Here, have a meatball sub. Best thing you’ll ever eat. Necessary for survival, especially if this lead proves promising and we have to stay awake arresting the bad guys.”

“I’m not hungry.” She moved the food aside and slipped the file across the desk so she could look at it. She held up both images of the bullets and tilted them towards the light.

“It’s a match.” Sully looked down at his meatball sub and bit in with relish. He’d thought as much, but wanted her to sign off on it before he put together an arrest. Because this arrest would be big.

He heard her breath catch in her throat and looked up from his sub.

“Why... Why is this your suspect?”

“Almost convicted for a murder with the same weapon twelve years ago. Couldn’t get the DA to prosecute this guy without an air tight case; which was compromised because of the evidence collection methods.”

“The gun could’ve changed owners… Couldn’t it?” Her eyes met his, slightly desperate. Sully frowned.

“Theoretically, yes, but since the MO is basically the same it seems unlikely-.”

“They never managed to prosecute, though. He may not have done it.” Sully pointed his sub at the file, shaking his head.

“The detective on the case picked up the shell casing without gloves on. Defence would have argued it was placed there to frame the client. And the kind of defence he had... Well, it would’ve ripped the case to shreds. DA decided a trial wasn’t worth the cost, especially because the victim was a crack dealer. Fairly high up, but still a dealer. But there was no doubt in anyone’s mind he was the doer.”

“The body, the crack dealer. Is it still in evidence?” Sully shook his head, swallowing before he answered.

“No, family buried it.”

“You need to get a judge to sign an order of exhumation. We can reverse engineer the bullet hole in the skull and compare that to the hole in our current victim’s skull.”

“What?” Sully put his sub down, momentarily forgotten. She wanted him to dig up another body?

“The casing was the problem in the first case. If we build evidence that excludes that,” she took a deep breath, “then we’ll build a stronger case now.” She closed the file and stood. She did have a point, but it had been a turnaround; she sounded as if she didn’t believe the outcome of the first case and now she was trying to make it stronger.

“I have to go to the lab. You’ll call me if you get the exhumation order in the morning?” Sully nodded slowly, looking at her with confusion.

“You don’t... Do you know the suspect?” She had crossed the room towards the door and her back was to him. He saw her shoulders hunch slightly before her head shook.

“I’ll see you in the morning.” Sully saw her shadow move down the hallway until it was gone completely. He leant back on the table and heard a squish. Sighing, he rolled his eyes as he lifted his hand out of his meatball sub.

AN: Unfortunately, I just couldn’t fit Carlos into this chapter. I tried so hard because, let’s face it, the man is gorgeous. Scar and all. But next chapter; promise. And how long until the next chapter? Really. Do you have to ask? I’m aiming at more than a week and less than three years. Sorry. Life is for living.

To all my readers who have continued to remind themselves what the heck the fic is all about because of the lengthy space between updates; thank you, thank you, apologies. I do love writing but so far it doesn’t pay my bills. Especially not writing about copyright characters (no infringement intended btw).

Thanks for reading.