I had the first few chapters of this story up some time ago, almost immediately after completing "The Couple in the Wilderness" but I got side-tracked, in a good way, by the Post Bones fic challenges. I've decided to forgo this week's challenge and start posting this story instead. In the show, Brennan had come to terms with her parents abandoning her and made peace with Max. However, we didn't really get much info about her life in foster care other than that scene from "Mayhem on the Cross." This is my attempt to try to explore a little more of this.

This story can be read on its own but it's meant to be a sequel to "The Couple in the Wilderness".

It had been two months since their "little adventure in the wild", as Booth liked to call it. He had recovered from his injuries and had been reinstated to active field duty for about a week now. Cam was still away on her sabbatical with Arastoo thus Hodgins was still literally 'King of the Lab'. Taking up the role and running the medico-legal lab involved a lot more administrative work than he had anticipated. Juggling both paperwork and actual lab work was challenging, especially for someone with his personality. As a result, he had required Brennan's help in some aspects, especially in areas he disliked, like managing the budget. The Jeffersonian's help had not been called upon to solve any murder since the accident and she could devote her time to the numbers that Hodgins needed help justifying.

It was such an evening when she was engrossed with the numbers on the screen of her laptop when she heard her favorite voice.

"Hiya Bones, ready to go?"

Brennan looked up, frowning at her husband. "Is it time to go already?"

Booth looked at his watch as he walked into her office and took the seat opposite her. "Yeah it's six-thirty."

"Balancing accounts are more arduous than I had anticipated." Brennan sighed and continued looking at her screen.

Booth smiled to himself. After all this time together, he still found her cute when she was squinting at things.

"Well, we should go. The numbers can wait. I'm planning to cook ravioli." He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

"It's obvious that you're eager to romance me with dinner in an attempt to entice me to make love with you tonight. Especially since you've recently been cleared by your doctor to resume sexual intercourse."

"You've got that right babe!" Booth clapped his hands together and stood up. "Last night and this morning were hardly enough to make up for the two months I had to wait."

Brennan knew that she would be fighting a losing battle and he wasn't going to let her finish what she wanted. They still had to address the issue that she had brought up while they were lost in the woods. He seemed to have had conveniently forgotten about it, having "bagged his sniper" both times since they had resumed intercourse. She wondered if his head injury made him forget. She made a mental note to find an opportune time to bring it up.

"Bones, come on." His voice took on a whiny tone. Brennan reflected that even though he was attempting to annoy her, he still looked decidedly cute with his chiselled jaw set in a small pout.

"Fine. It's no wonder Hank whines when he doesn't get his way."

"Hey you can't blame everything he does on me!" Booth feigned annoyance as he helped Brennan into her coat, taking the chance to sneak in a light slap to her butt.

She turned, tugging at his tie and pulling him to her for a passionate kiss. At that moment, she was glad that when the lab was rebuilt, for safety reasons, the walls of her office were no longer made of glass. This afforded her the much needed privacy she didn't previously have. Booth's moan into her mouth seemed to reverberate through her as his fingertips ghosted the hem of her blouse, attempting to make contact with her skin.

"Booth!" She broke the kiss. "I thought we were going home?"

"Hey you started it." Booth replied, his lips upturned in a mischievous smile. It was as if he could read her thoughts, "Besides, whoever decided to replace the walls of your office with an actual wall instead of glass is genius! We should definitely take advantage of it and christen you brand new office, doncha think?"

Brennan laughed. "What happened to making ravioli?"

"I don't need ravioli to romance my wife since she seems to be in the mood now. We can be quick." Booth kissed her again, his hands firmly planted on her hips as he backed her towards the couch in her office. The back of her knees hit the couch and the couple tumbled onto it. He felt her hands tugging at his shirt, freeing it from the confines of his pants. Her lips brushed his neck as he slipped a hand under her blouse moving it sensually up her side, savouring the feel of her skin when his cellphone rang.

Booth groaned in annoyance. He chose to ignore the ringing, pressing warm kisses to Brennan's neck.

"It could be Georgia." Brennan said, pushing Booth off her. Georgia, the babysitter for the Booth children was also a grad student who had found the world of babysitting more lucrative than the business world. Given that Angela was currently incubating her Catherine Temperance, although Hodgins still insisted they were having a boy, Georgia was a welcome source of childcare for Brennan and Booth. She was funny and smart and had a way with children. The kids had taken to her quickly, much to their parents' relief.

Booth groaned again, adjusting his now very tight pants as he fished his ringing phone out of his jacket pocket. "Booth." He growled into the phone, not bothering to mask his frustration.

It wasn't the babysitter and he shook his head slightly at Brennan. "Okay, text me the location."

He sighed as he ended the call. "I don't suppose I could convince you that we only need ten minutes to help me with my big problem here." He pointed to his groin.

"While I know we can have intercourse in ten minutes, it would be less satisfying. You wouldn't want me unsatisfied, do you? And you know I don't like my remains compromised."

"Okay. Hold that thought and maybe, just maybe, we can get home at a decent hour to finish what we started here."

Brennan smiled as she took Booth's hand, allowing him to help her up from the couch. She smoothed her hair back into place then moved her fingers to wipe a lipstick smear off Booth's neck. "I'll suit up and you can call Georgia." She gave Booth a quick peck on the cheek, "And try not to be grumpy at the crime scene."

"I'm already grumpy."

… …

Booth had the sirens on and they got to the crime scene faster than necessary in Brennan's opinion. The crime scene happened to be a local landfill, the smell and flies doing nothing to alleviate Booth's foul mood.

"This is our first case back since the accident. I thought you would be more enthusiastic Booth." Brennan said as her husband held up the crime scene tape to allow her under.

"Careful Bones." He said taking her hand as they made their way down the pile of garbage.

"I'm more enthusiastic about spending quality time with my wife." Booth grumbled. "And I just got these shoes polished!"

The couple reached the bottom and Brennan could now see a set of skeletal remains covered in garbage. Hodgins was already there, along with Dr Steven Hayes, the coroner who was temporarily filling in for Cam.

"Hey Dr B. Are we getting an intern to help back at the lab?" Hodgins asked.

"Yes. I usually do if we want the case to be solved in a timely fashion. Of course, with Aubrey partnering Booth in the field more often now, I suppose I could stay in the lab – "

"Great! Then I won't have to worry about paying any intern."

"Hey Bug Boy! That would mean Bones would have to work overtime, which also means I won't get any time with my wife and that would make me really unhappy."

"Because your happiness is top on my list of priorities."

Booth glared angrily at Hodgins.

"Hey I would rather be home with my pregnant wife and son too!"

"Guys!" Brennan was annoyed. She knew historically women enjoyed being fought over, but in this instance, she didn't like being the source of their quarrel. "We'll do a quick assessment here and I'll have the remains brought back to the lab. I can decide there if I need the help of an intern. Is that acceptable?"

"That means you're not gonna be home tonight."

"Just tonight."

"I'm really not getting any tonight." Booth mumbled under his breath.

"While I know you've missed engaging in inter – "

"Bones!"

Hodgins snickered and Dr Hayes tugged at his shirt uncomfortably.

"Don't you have a body to look at?" Booth gestured at the remains with one hand while reaching for his pen, ready to jot down information onto his index cards.

"The skull is fractured but I can't determine now if it's post or peri-mortem."

"Could be just the tonnes of garbage piled on top of it. This body's been here for at least a month." Hodgins held up a beetle in his palm, before putting it into a container.

"I wanna talk to the guy who runs this place." Booth nodded to the Metro PD officer standing nearby.

"Booth?" Brennan called to him, a look of concern on her face.

"Yeah?"

"It's definitely murder. The C5 vertebrae is broken, it's unlikely a fall from the top of this pile of garbage would have caused the extent of this injury. It's not that steep a slope."

"So, this was a body dump."

"Pelvic inlet indicates a young female who has never given birth." She fingered the exposed teeth in the jaw. "This is a young female between the ages of thirteen and sixteen."

"A kid?"

"Yes. Someone broke this girl's neck and moved her body here to be disposed of."

"Oh man! As if she was a piece of junk." Hodgins remarked.

"Great!" Booth threw his hands up in the air, his grumpiness turning to anger at the person who did this. "Who would do such a thing to a kid?!" He hated cases where their victims were young. He knew Brennan hated them too.

Brennan didn't answer, knowing Booth's question was meant to be rhetorical. She reminded herself that she should not get attached to victims. Hodgins wheeled himself a short distance away, as if trying to regain his composure. Being parents themselves, these cases always got to them. The pressure was now on to find the killer.

So, what does everyone think about what I've got so far? Oh yes, since Wendell was my fave intern, and they wrote him off to do something else, anyone have any suggestions on which intern Brennan should call for this case?