38—Wrong

"Predrag Kristic," Brennan said, writing the name on the outside of a cardboard box. "Age fourteen. Died April 1994. Cause of death: single gunshot wound to the base of the skull. Found: thirty miles outside of Stolac, Bosnia-Herzegovina; mass gravesite."

After double checking the packing around the remains, she placed the report folder on top and sealed the box. Carrying it to the side wall, she added it to the growing stack of identical boxes, some labeled with names, but most with just the case number.

Moving back to the table, she opened a new box and unloaded the bones of the victim, arranging them in order to find any identifying marks that would aid in finding the name of the dead.

She worked quickly and methodically, writing down every find in the case file before cross-referencing the file against a printed list of the people who disappeared during the war, from 1991 to 1995, in the entire region.

Without a searchable database for the missing, identifying the victims took longer than most were willing to spend. While her three colleagues were out in the field collecting the last of the remains, Brennan had chosen to spend her days in the solitude of the single-room laboratory, giving names to the boxes of remains.

While she worked, she tried to ignore the atrocities of a war that had severely crippled an entire region. She tried to forget that each and every one of these victims had been lined up and executed by the opposing side, then dumped in a mass grave, to be forgotten.

So she buried herself in the intimate details of each body, studying healed breaks and fractures, age markers, anything that would help her to narrow down the list of the hundreds of thousands of missing or presumed dead. Most names on the list did not have anything listed to help her identify the remains. Only those who had surviving family members who reported them missing had any information, and it was vague at best.

Scanning the list, Brennan was looking for a name she had passed hundreds of times in the last week. She was sure she had finally found the body to match the name.

"Olya Milicic. Born 7 September 1971. Broken arm, age 7. 3 gold crowns on molars. Bad left knee," she mumbled, reading the entry she had found. Cross-referencing with her findings, Brennan was confident she had matched the body to a name. Labeling the outside of the box, she sealed it and placed it in the pile on the side of the room.

Her next three cases were not as fortunate, as she was not able to find names for them. Labeled with the case numbers and as much information as she could provide, they were also placed in the pile.

Clearing the room, she cleaned the table and tools she had used, and stored them for the night. Grabbing her bag, she closed and locked the lab, her body desperate for food and sleep.

While she walked the two blocks from the University to her hotel, she wondered why everything felt wrong. I'm doing good work, here, she told herself. I'm identifying the victims of war and giving their families closure, just like I've done dozens of times in the past. So why does it feel so wrong to be here this time?

She stopped only to pick up something for dinner at the corner café before making her way back to her hotel room. From her window, she could see the old bridge that had been destroyed in the war and rebuilt over the last decade.

Watching the bridge and the river it crossed, Brennan continued to ponder what she was feeling. It just doesn't make sense, she thought. Why am I feeling this now? It's not like I could've been working back in DC, without a lab. I would've just been in the apartment working on my novel while they got the lab rebuilt. Booth would be assigned to different cases while we couldn't work. There's no reason I should be feeling like this.

The longer she thought about Booth and why she was there, it slowly dawned on her what was different. Yes, I needed something to keep my mind off of what happened at the lab, she realized, but I didn't need to come here. I could have gone to Colombia or Argentina. I could have gone to Rwanda or Sudan. But I came here, because I knew Booth wouldn't come after me here.

Startled by her sudden revelation, she thought about calling him, to let him know she was alright. She had told him in the letter where she was going, and she had asked him not to come after her or try to contact her while she was gone. She had told him she would be back in a month.

So why was she feeling as if she had betrayed him? Because you did, the little voice in the back of her head told her. You went to the one place Booth would never go back to. You went to the source of his nightmares and his demons, the voice taunted, sounding an awful lot like Angela. You went because you knew he couldn't come after you. You knew he'd worry, and stress while you were gone, but you went anyway.

Needing to get away from the accusing voice, Brennan turned the television on, hoping to drown it out with something on the BBC.

I'm doing good, being here, she told herself. I'm doing good. I'm doing good. It's not wrong that I came here, she repeated to herself, over and over until sleep overtook her.

Booth was pacing the Los Angeles FBI office, waiting for Zack to finish his preliminary report. "Well?" he asked, his frustration rising.

"If you would stop pacing for a few minutes, I might be able to think long enough to find something," Zack told him, studying the bones carefully.

"Fine," Booth announced, "I'll be back in an hour. Try to have something for me by then."

Zack didn't bother replying as Booth walked out, slamming the door behind him. Once he was sure Booth was out of earshot, he wondered aloud, "How does Doctor Brennan deal with that?!"

Booth, however, was muttering about Zack's incompetence and being too slow in his work as he crossed the street. Waiting in line for coffee, Booth pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket, re-reading her letter for the thousandth time.

Booth,

I took some personal time to go work on a mass grave in Bosnia. I will be back in 4 weeks. I didn't take my phone and I doubt I'll have internet access, so you won't be able to contact me. Please don't come after me.

See you in a month,

Temperance