Reruns of Bones spark so many awesome ideas in my head. Here is cool idea number two. Enjoy!

The Fear in the Fugitive

Chapter One

The only thought running through Special Agent Seeley Booth's mind as he hiked up the steep hillside was that he wished he hadn't eaten that whole pie after dinner. By the time they reached the top of the hill and could see through the dense trees, that thought had morphed into one about needing to make a resolution to go on a diet. He stopped walking for a second to regain his balance as the land flattened out abruptly. His breathlessness caused him to double over and he had to lean on his knees for a while before he felt able to stand up straight again.

"Do you want me to go back down and bring up some water, sir?"

Booth glanced up from his feet at the woman standing in front of him bouncing on the balls of her feet.

"Just give me a minute here, Shaw," he grumbled. "I'll be there in a minute." He searched around for somewhere to sit and found an overturned tree trunk. He ambled over to it and sat down heavily while his partner hurried to follow the trail guide, who looked entirely too old to be climbing hills, before he walked out of her sight.

Booth took a deep breath, felt satisfied with the minimal pain emanating from the stitch in his side, and stretched his legs before preparing to stand up. He definitely had to get on that diet. He had put on much more weight than he would have liked in the last ten years without Bones there to remind him to eat better.

Booth heaved himself to his feet and headed off to follow the path of bent plants that Shaw and the trail guide had left in their wake. The absence of crunching leaves was unsettling and he began to worry that he had followed the trail of a bear rather than people.

Then he stumbled into a break in the trees and found his partner crouched down next to a patch of grass that was not completely covered with brown leaves. The trail guide stood at the far side of the clearing, looking around the tops of the trees.

"What is that, a crop circle?" Booth asked.

"Perfect circles can only be formed either by nature or by using advanced math," Shaw said quietly. "Soil samples should be analyzed by the crime scene techs."

"What's your reasoning?" he asked curiously, glancing around at the treetops to see what the trail guide was looking at.

"The edges of those tree leaves are curled," she replied, which explained why the trail guide was staring up at them so intently. "Mr. Kosinski says the direction of curling suggests a fire was burning here recently. Also, there's a residue on the soil underneath the leaves bordering the circle." She stood up to look at Booth. "But I don't know how this circle was formed."

"There's no other evidence of a fire here," he pointed out. "What are we thinking this is? Murder? Drugs?"

"Murder." Booth and Shaw glanced over at the trail guide who had spoken for the first time since uttering his name before the hike up the hill.

"You got any proof of that?"

"Feels like it," Mr. Kosinski said vaguely.

"Oh-kay. Go ahead and call in CSU, have them sweep this place from top to bottom," Booth said. "If there was a murder here, I wanna know about it. I'm gonna go wait in the car... show people where to go." He turned and walked away in the general direction of where they had left the SUV. On the way past the fallen tree he had rested on earlier, a glint from beneath the trunk caught his eye and he crouched down next to it, his knees popping in protest. He twitched aside a few dead leaves to reveal a tiny silver charm shaped like a dolphin. He stared at it for a few seconds, trying to make the foggy memories in his brain clear enough to interpret. He was reminded of a time when his life seemed happier. He covered the charm with the leaves and sat on top of the tree trunk. He thought again about his diet, and then he thought of Bones and her healthy food that he should try eating.

That was the memory. Bones and the silver dolphin charm from her mother. Shaw had said something about advanced math. Bones knew very advanced math. She could make a perfect circle. She could also execute the perfect murder.