I don't own Bones!

"Colonel Andy Carter meet my partner Dr. Temperance Brennan." Booth grinned as he made the introduction, patting Andy on the shoulder. The man looked to be a few years younger than her partner, his eyes were soft and blue and his hair was a tousled sandy color.

"Booth didn't mention you were hot." The amiable young colonel shook her hand and raised his eyebrows as he perused her body in a way that made her distinctly uncomfortable.

"Off limits Carter." He warned "This woman is like a sister to me so you will treat her with respect."

"You know, Sweets would say something about the attractive nature of forbidden fruit right about now." She said, eying Booth irritably.

"No offense doctor but there is not a piece of tail so fine on this earth or any other that would be worth pissing this guy off." He was still smiling but Bones sensed something else there. Fear, tension, sincerity? Booth quickly redirected Andy by pointing to a pile of putrefied remains on a sterile table.

"Check this out Carter. This is what you would look like if I shot you and left you in a pile of manure for a few days. Pretty huh?"

"This is what you do now Booth? You work in a lab? You pick through corpses for clues? Dude, you're the most dangerous man I've ever met. I use the reports from your kills to train new snipers. Why are you wasting your time here?"

"No. I do not pick through corpses. I catch murderers. It's retribution Carter. For the people I killed. What do you do to make things right huh? Train more killers?" He slapped the younger man on the back a couple times and led him off the platform.

"Hey drinks tonight? You, me, your sister?" Booth's comment hadn't so much as rattled the officer, his tone remained jovial.

"Bones you wanna grab a drink with us?"

"Sure, we'll meet you later."

When they were gone Daisy looked up from the body and asked "What do you think he meant when he said Booth was the most dangerous man he'd ever met?"

"Booth is very capable. I'm sure he did his job as a sniper very well."

"I just thought, since the guy trains snipers, it seemed like an odd thing to say."

"He must have been exaggerating in order to inflate Booth's ego. Males do things like that in order to create bonds of friendship."

"Not my brothers." Daisy scoffed. "It kills them to offer the slightest praise to one another, or to me for that matter…" Daisy's endless chatter filled the room, her mind and most of the rest of her day.

Angela and Bones sat across from Andy in a large booth at the back of the Founding Fathers bar. Wide eyed, they both leaned forward, completely enthralled by the young officer's story. "So this guy" he jerked his thumb in the general direction of Booth, "cracks his neck in one move, jumps from the balcony, shoots his target while still falling through the air, and slips out of the city completely unnoticed." Carter slapped the table and leaned back indicating the completion of his story. It made Bones shutter, thinking about how her partner used to live. The kind of person he'd had to be to do that job and do it well. Somewhere in the corner of her mind, she recognized a secret attraction to the dangerous Booth. The one she saw so rarely but always simmered just underneath the surface.

Booth returned from the bar with three drinks in his hands and went back for the fourth beer.

"Don't tell him I told you that story," Carter whispered. He hates when I tell it." But even as Andy spoke the words, Bones felt Booth's presence behind her. She usually knew when he was near, even though he was exceptionally silent when he moved. His voice was strained, "Did you…. just tell them the Mazatlan story Carter?" The guilty stares of his three friends confirmed it. "God Carter, what did I tell you about repeating that story?" he was clearly irritated. She recognized that particular mode of irritation by his tone of voice. He was embarrassed. He didn't respond to embarrassment by blushing or averting his eyes like a normal person. He typically just got annoyed and changed the subject.

"Booth doesn't like to talk about his time as a sniper." She explained to Carter.

"You just don't want people to know what a bad ass you are." Angela teased Booth and took a slow sip of wine.

"No." Booth elongated the word in exasperation. "I'm just concerned with national security. Ever heard of it? Those assignments are 'need to know' and these two don't 'need to know,'" he accentuated the words with air quotations.

"It is not a national security issue and you know it." Carter protested.

"Booth doesn't like to brag about killing people." Bones said defensively. "He's an honorable and decent man who doesn't take pleasure in ending a human life."

"Sister huh?" Carter said, looking suspiciously at her. "That's exactly the kind of thing my sister says about me."

"Sister?" Ang repeated the word and looked inquisitively from Booth to Brennan, but it was Carter who provided the explanation she was seeking.

"Booth here says she's like a sister to him, making her conveniently off limits for me."

"You just indicated that my comments were consistent with those made by your own female sibling. Why are you now insinuating alternative motives for Booth's categorization of our relationship?" she asked.

"Eh?" Andy looked at her in confusion.

"She wants to know what you meant by 'conveniently off limits'" Angie translated for him.

"How is that sister of yours?" Booth said in a loud and blatantly obvious attempt to change the subject. "Kassandra right? She was going to school to be….a lawyer right?" Andy had mercy on him and answered his question rather than Dr. Brennan's.

"Kassy is practicing law in New York City. She's doing patent law and raking in cash hand over fist." His voice was filled with pride.

"What do her extremities have to do with her income?" Bones asked.

"It's an expression Bones. It means she makes a lot of money." Booth's quiet explanation satisfied her and she returned to the subject of patent law.

"We currently have three patent's pending at the Medico-Legal Laboratory. The legalities are quite complex."