Again, your reviews have just blown me away! Thank you, thank you.

This may not be what many of you were expecting, but I just couldn't resist. As much as we love Booth and Brennan, what would Bones be without the squints? Kudos to the reviewer who totally called this.

Part 3

When Brennan didn't show up for work on Tuesday morning, Angela feared the worst. Bren was always in the lab by the time everyone else started drifting in around eight. Always. In the past five months she'd taken to disappearing into her office or Limbo for hours on end without speaking to anyone, but she was still there. But today she was … not.

Angela had actually made sure to show up on time for once, so she could track down Bren and try to grill her again about her bizarre behavior the day before. But all her usual haunts were empty, and there was nothing in her office that implied she'd arrived at all—no jacket on her chair, no purse or laptop on the desk.

Which was so not good.

By the time Angela had given up looking on her own Hodgins and Wendell had taken to the platform and were bent over their latest Limbo case. Silently.

"Have either of you seen Bren?" she asked as she swiped herself in.

Both men jumped slightly—the platform used to buzz with activity, but not anymore. The Jeffersonian hadn't been so dark since Zach's confession, and even that pallor had faded more quickly than the one currently encasing it. They'd all been shocked and devastated to have Zach taken from them, but Booth had kept bringing cases, along with coffee and donuts, and he'd pulled Bren around and they'd bickered just like always. Soon Angela had found herself helping to try to lighten the mood, because dwelling on their loss wasn't going to bring Zach back or make any of them feel any better, so they might as well try to get over it.

But there was no getting over their current tragedy, not while it was still ongoing. It felt wrong to joke on the platform now, disrespectful, and being at all lighthearted in Brennan's presence tended to provoke her wrath.

"Dr. B isn't here?" Hodgins whispered, as if the person in question could overhear them talking about her.

"I haven't seen her since yesterday afternoon when she," Wendell made a vague hand gesture, "left."

"All right. I'm calling her." Angela took a few steps away from the boys and pulled out her cell phone. After four rings the line went to voicemail. "Bren. Sweetie. It's after eight o'clock and you're not here. Please call me and tell me you're stuck in traffic, all right? You hear that? Call me back."

"She could be stuck in traffic," Hodgins tried to reassure, but Angela wasn't buying it.

When Booth's death had been faked, Bren had held it together. Angela had known her enough to recognize that she was not coping nearly as well as she was trying to convince the world she was. She worked too hard for too many hours, she was snappish, even with Zach, and she wore make-up to cover the circles under her eyes. While everyone around her marveled that she was taking her partner's death so well Angela knew otherwise—but there were still moments when she seemed so unfeeling that Angela had just wanted to shake her until she admitted she cared.

No one was fooled this time around, and Booth wasn't even dead. The great Temperance Brennan was unraveling, and she wasn't even bothering to hide it.

For five months Angela had tried to tape her back together, but she was failing. Totally failing. She'd done everything she could think of—a couple of times. She'd shown up at Bren's apartment with beer, with ice cream, with chick flicks and documentaries. She'd tried dragging her to bars, to the movies, even to dull university lectures she didn't care a lick about. Usually Bren brushed her off, occasionally she let her stay, but she didn't emote, didn't share, didn't take any joy from anything Angela said or did.

It was driving the artist absolutely crazy. She loved her best friend, she really truly did, but she wasn't sure how much more of this she could take. Angela needed joy, she needed adventure, she needed life—but lately the Jeffersonian seemed like a morgue. They had used to be a family, but nothing had been quite right since Zach left, not with the ever changing intern of the week preventing the formation of any new relationship or sense of normalcy. Bren had supposedly been close to a decision on his permanent replacement, had even consulted Angela about it, but since the surgery this was just one more topic that could not be brought up in Brennan's presence. She'd been waiting to talk to Booth about it one last time.

Personally, Angela was gunning for Wendell. She and Mr. Bray had gotten off to a rocky start, but she was thoroughly convinced now that she'd misjudged him. He lacked the obnoxious quirks of some of the other forerunners—Fisher's eternal pessimism was amusing for like five minute before he was just a drag, and Nigel-Murray was likely to bore them to death with his constant facts, even if his accent was hot. Unlike Clark (who Angela loved to tease, but couldn't see enduring their company for more than a few months—and come on, if you took away the drama, then they just had slime and skeletons, and that was depressing) Wendell wanted to fit in, and that's what the team needed, another member they could embrace who'd be willing to embrace them. Wendell would never be Zach, but he could be a friend. It didn't hurt that he was far more attractive than the average scientist, either. Zach had been like a puppy dog, adorable, but Wendell was all wolf.

Wendell was looking at her now, but he offered no explanation of his own. "Maybe," Angela conceded skeptically to Hodgins' hypothesis. "You don't think anything bad could have happened to her, do you? Besides the obvious? There haven't been any loose ends on any of our recent cases, right? Mob bosses who could be after her, deranged suspects still out there?"

"Angie." Jack pulled off his gloves before putting both hands on her shoulders, and she thought he was going to hug her, but he didn't. His blue eyes bored into hers. "I think this is a Booth thing. Not a serial killer thing. Not a criminal thing of any kind. And I'm saying that as someone who both loves conspiracies and has been kidnapped with Dr. B before. We know she was upset yesterday. And she's only twenty minutes late. Give her a little more time before you go into total freak out mode. If she doesn't come in, we'll go look for her."

Angela nodded, surprised to find her eyes burning with tears. "Okay. I'll give her time." Then she fled from the platform, hoping Wendell didn't realize how upset she was, wishing Hodgins would forget.

The problem was that as much as she hoped she was overreacting, she wasn't overreacting, because even if the most obvious solution was the correct one, and Bren was just finally dealing with her grief, Angela didn't know how to help her.

She felt like a failure. She'd spent so much time trying to sell Brennan on the value of personal connections, to convince her that emotions were a necessary part of life, not ephemeral nuisances. And just when Bren had finally begun to accept that this terrible, inexplicable tragedy had happened, validating all her insecurities and leaving her ravaged with this new hurt she'd fought so hard to protect herself from.

Only once in this whole hellish period had she opened up to Angela. Three months after Booth's surgery she had showed up at Angela's after midnight, reeking of booze. "I love him, Ange," she had said without preamble, stumbling through the doorway. She was far too light when Angela caught her, gently pulling her toward the couch. "I love him, but he's never coming back to me." She didn't explain how she'd come to this revelation. She just cried, and these tears terrified Angela because Temperance Brennan didn't cry, not for more than a minute or two. As much as Angela had encouraged her friend to indulge in normal emotional release, now that she was Ange did not know how to deal with it. She let her friend cling to her as she cried, but she did not promise her everything would be okay, because in that moment she doubted that it would.

Bren eventually passed out on the couch, and when she awoke impeccably composed and determined to get Angela to promise never to speak of this moment, Angela hoped the breakdown was the beginning of a recovery. Instead Bren grew increasingly exhausted, and Angela feared she was doing far too much late-night crying on her own.

Back in her office, Angela attempted to quell her own tears by focusing on her latest facial reconstruction, but drawing an adolescent girl who had somehow ended up in a pit filled with Civil War soldiers did not cheer her. Instead she left Bren three phone messages, two emails and seven texts, and thought of the conversation she'd had with Sweets, a few months into Booth's amnesia.

"Don't you think that she's sabotaging this?" she had asked. Finding the Jeffersonian too depressing, Angela had skipped out for a long, early lunch and found Sweets alone at the diner, sitting at Booth and Brennan's regular table. The psychologist had been quite glum himself since Booth's surgery. Angela hadn't realized he and the agent were so close. He wasn't around nearly as often now that Perotta was working the Jeffersonian's cases, but once or twice Angela had noticed Bren asking for him specifically.

"Sabotaging what, exactly?" The problem with Sweets was Angela could never tell when he was being a shrink, and when he was being a regular person.

"Booth regaining his memory. She made us all swear not to tell him anything personal about their relationship. She harped on me about it three separate times, as if I wouldn't understand—which I don't. She even told Parker not to call her 'Dr. Bones' around his father. Everything out of her mouth is all murder and detective work and science he didn't understand the first time around. Shouldn't she be telling him about all their little moments where they stare longingly at one another and then should rip each other's clothes off, but don't? Seems to me that would be much more likely to jog his memory."

Sweets blushed a little, and took a long swig of Diet Coke before answering. "Implying that they had a physical intimacy when they did not is not likely to be helpful to Agent Booth."

"As Bren has told me many times. Pre and post amnesia." Angela popped a fry in her mouth, but the salt it was covered in barely registered. Everything was so tasteless now. "Look, I know I'm big on the whole 'Booth and Bren should sleep together' thing. I don't want you to psychoanalyze me and say this has to do with my adolescent sexual experiences or blah blah blah. I admit that in the beginning I wanted them to get together because yeah, they're both hot, and she didn't shoot him or break any of his bones during their first two months working together, which was very promising. But I've been watching those two for a long time now. And what they have is a helluva lot more than just amazing chemistry. I've known Bren a long time, and I give myself a lot of credit for making her into an almost normal human being. She was just as bad as Zach when I met her—cold, disconnected, uninterested in forming bonds of almost any sort with other people. But Booth has changed her way more in four years than I have in three times that long. They just work together, which I used to find really surprising, but they do. They bicker, and they argue, but at the end of the day they catch the bad guy and they go off and he teaches her stuff about life. He's good for her, and it's obvious they both care for each other. I just think it's silly that they keep up this 'just partners' façade, which no one buys, when they could be so much happier if they let themselves become something more."

"They do share a very strong emotional intimacy. It's fascinating to watch how they create a world only they occupy, thereby ignoring all others around them."

She couldn't help chuckling over how he'd probably come to that conclusion. "They do that a lot in your sessions, huh?"

"Yeah," he said with a sigh. "But I think what you've expressed speaks to the problem here. Dr. Brennan has come to trust Agent Booth deeply over the years. She's shared things about herself, her past. She's let him change her. She's opened herself up to new emotions because of him. I think Dr. Brennan would like Agent Booth to remember such things on his own."

"Well, we'd all like that, but it's been two months. That obviously isn't happening."

"Not telling him such details is also a way to retain hope. Even if he makes no progress, she can hold on to the fact that she possesses knowledge that might spark his memory. If she shares such things and his memory does not improve, she could be forced to face the possibility that it might never."

"That's a stretch, kid. Maybe that would be true for someone else, but Bren doesn't play psychological games. She tells it like it is. If she thought she could do something to help Booth remember, she'd just do it."

"That would be assuming she'd retained complete rationality. Love is not rational."

Her mouth had dropped open at that, and Sweets had grinned. "No, neither of them admitted that to me—not that I could tell you if they had—but come on, we all know."

Which was totally true.

"Also, you're the one who said that she's been learning things from him. From what I've gleaned of Agent Booth's character, he is a master of self-denial and repression, which has probably contributed to the reasons they have not embarked on a sexual relationship. She may have subconsciously picked up on some of his techniques."

Angela wasn't sure she bought any of that, but she found the topic of conversation scintillating. In the Jeffersonian it was now taboo to mention Booth and Brennan in the same sentence, and she'd missed churning the rumor mills. "Have I told you how much I'm looking forward to reading your book? Can I write the introduction?"

The way he flushed with pride made him look not much older than the twelve years Booth always teased him about. "The introduction's been written, actually. But I—uh—pushed the publication date back. It didn't seem appropriate, given the circumstances. I can try to get you an advance copy. But my publisher's not too happy about the delay."

"Thanks, Sweets." She pushed her plate forward, and let him take a couple of fries, wondering just when he'd gone from the annoying shrink who ruined everything to a real part of their crazy little family. "But the question is still: what do we do?"

"Nothing. I mean, we should continue to support them both as best we can, but we need to abide by Dr. Brennan's wishes."

"Because we're her friends?"

"Well, yes. But also because that woman has a mean right hook."

"I don't think she'd hit me. You—maybe."

"As interesting as those two are, it's not our place to interfere."

"Wait a minute, buster. That's rich advice coming from you. What about when we all thought Booth was dead, and you knew he wasn't? You didn't tell Bren because you thought losing Booth would make her face her feelings for him, and once he came back she'd be so overjoyed they'd make some sort of progress. That was totally interfering."

"I shouldn't have done that. It was unethical, and childish, and—"

"Backfired majorly?"

"And backfired majorly. Which interfering now could do as well. Imagine what would happen if you did reveal more personal information to Agent Booth, and he still didn't remember. Dr. Brennan would be furious and devastated."

The kid had a point, as much as she hated to admit it. And she hated to admit it. So she said nothing, until another thought struck.

"What about hypnosis? That kinda stuff has always weirded me out, but I tried it back when I needed to remember my husband's name. It kind of helped. It's worth a shot, anyway, right?"

"I've already suggested this. A few times. Agent Booth has refused hypnotherapy."

"Why?"

"I'm not sure. He gave some superficial expressions of distrust of the process, and revulsion at the thought of people digging around in his mind, but I don't buy it."

"He's hiding from his memories," Angela declared, emphasizing her point by gesturing with a french fry. "But why?"

Sweets shrugged. "I don't know. Dr. Brennan's response makes sense to me. But Agent Booth's—not so much."

"Maybe because for all he knows, forensic crimefighting is a morbid job with no perks. If he realized what he was missing—"

"I'm not going to change my mind and condone your meddling. This isn't our place, Angela. As much as we may want to see things go back to normal, we have to accept that we are not the ones who can set things right. And we need to come to terms with the fact that maybe Booth and Brennan can't either."

But the thought of them all stuck in this awful limbo state for the rest of their lives was unacceptable.

Six months, she'd decided. She would give them six months to work this out on their own. As soon as they hit the six month mark, Angela was going to stop listening to Bren, consequences be damned, and do anything she could to make Seeley Booth remember. She'd tell him every personal detail she could think of, and if waxing poetic about his infamous partnership didn't work she'd guilt him into the hypnotherapy. Because they were destroying each other, and she just couldn't stand to watch it.

She still had one more month of inaction. But if she found her friend broken down in her apartment, inconsolable, it was likely she'd have to move up the timetable.

She'd already tried to get around her promise by showing Booth pictures from the stash she'd been collecting ever since the dynamic duo had started working together. She had even gotten Zach in on her scheme once upon a time, recruiting him to snap pictures while they were collecting evidence or bickering in the SUV. Right around the time she'd started dating Hodgins she'd been convinced that if anyone could change Bren's mind about marriage, it was Seeley Booth, and when that day came Angela was going to present them with one hell of a collage to prove she'd been on to them from the start.

This was a decidedly less romantic endeavor, but Angela had been hopeful that the snapshots would spark something. Booth scrutinized them all carefully, and she was certain he recognized there was something more than partnerly in just about all of them.

"Why do we look like that?" he had yelped, as he held out Angela's secret weapon: the snapshot of him and Bren in Vegas, his arm around her as her side pressed into his, her black dress showing off a lot of leg and a hint of cleavage. Angela wanted to tell him how he'd called her from Vegas, needing to know Bones' dress size so he could get her something to wear undercover—and she'd given it to him only after he'd promised to get a picture of them in their get-ups. The result had been even better than she'd hoped for—how obvious was it from his choice that he thought his partner was absolutely smoking hot; nor did Bren look like she was complaining that he'd draped himself around her. Instead Angela said, "You were undercover in Vegas," and left it at that, fervently hoping that somehow his mind would fill in the blanks.

Being so tight-lipped killed Angela, especially when he'd ended the first photo session with an incredulous, "Are you sure we were just partners?" Angela remembered how desperate Bren had been the first time she'd told Angela not to talk to Booth about their partnership—when she'd hesitated a moment Bren had actually started to plead—so she kept her promise, but it was a damn shame, because it sure seemed to her that Booth wanted to hear that they'd been something more. And maybe they'd never been the something more Ange had routed for, but there had been far more than professionalism between them, and now there was not even that.

Five months. Twenty two weeks. One hundred fifty two days. And absolutely no improvement.

This was ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. And Angela wasn't going to stand for it anymore. As soon as Bren was found, Ange was going to try and convince her to talk to Booth—to really talk to Booth. And if she wouldn't—well Angela would. They couldn't go on like this anymore.

After one last phone message: "I'm coming to find you. Text me back if you don't want to talk. I just need to know you're alive," Angela was done with waiting. She strode into Cam's office, finding her boss bent over a pile of paperwork that had assumedly kept her occupied all morning.

"Did Bren call in sick this morning?"

Cam glanced up. She too seemed weary. "Dr. Brennan isn't here? I haven't heard from her. Maybe she's taking a personal day. She could certainly use one."

"Bren doesn't take personal days. She gets kidnapped by psychopaths, or she works herself until she falls asleep behind the wheel or just can't get up in the morning, but she doesn't take personal days to deal with emotions she finds ephemeral and useless."

"Okay," Cam said slowly, scrutinizing her employee. "You're really worried."

"Yeah." Angela took a deep breath and tried to look calmer than she felt.

"Then go, look for her. Do whatever you need. Is there anything I can do to help?"

They'd come a long way, Cam and Bren. There was a time Angela had half expected to walk into the lab one day and find them trading blows. Now Dr. Saroyan checked the security cameras each night to make sure Brennan went home, and accepted the fact she now made an even poorer forensic witness without threatening to fire her after every trial.

"If she's not at her apartment, you'll have to start calling hospitals," Angela advised, fear of such possibility washing over her anew. "And maybe Booth."

Six months ago Booth would have been the first one Angela called if Bren was missing. Chances were she'd be sitting right beside him, off to some crime scene with her cell phone left behind. If she wasn't, Booth would tear through the city with his siren on and track her down before Angela could formulate a plan of action. But now calling him would only complicate things, when chances were Bren was hiding from him. Angela couldn't help but wonder how he would take the news. Would he even care?

The thought that he might not was chilling. Probably untrue. But possible.

Unless the familiarity of her being in danger might bring some part of him back.

But Angela really, really didn't want it to happen that way.

"I'm going to Brennan's apartment," she shouted up to the boys as she left, only halting when Jack called out after her.

"Do you want me to come with you?"

She thought of everything that might be waiting for her: signs of forced entry, a struggle her friend may or may not have survived, no signs at all, or—oh God—what if her only attacker was herself—but surely Bren wasn't that stupid, or that desperate—and yes Angela wanted Jack there, to hold her if everything fell apart. But what if she was only overreacting? What would Brennan want?

"No," Angela answered with regret. "If the apocalypse has arrived and Bren is finally dealing with all this emotional upheaval, she'll prefer to have as few people see her like that as possible. I'll call if I need help, or if I can't find her."

Steeling herself for whatever might come, Angela breezed out of the Jeffersonian and into the crisp DC morning.

____

Brennan's apartment building hadn't gone up in flames, which was the first good sign greeting Angela once she arrived. No swarming SWAT teams, no paramedics. It was a lovely autumn day, cool but bright. She could do this, Angela repeated over and over as she waited for the elevator. She would go up, find Bren, comfort her, and if necessary, she would take action.

Shame all her deep breathing exercises were doing nothing for her elevated pulse right now.

She heard the noise as soon as she stepped onto Brennan's floor, and as she approached she realized it was coming from Bren's apartment. By the time Angela reached the doorstep she recognized it as 80s rock music—Foreigner, maybe? That didn't seem like something Bren would own, let alone play at a time like this. At least it seemed unlikely that a serial killer was holding her hostage and torturing her with catchy rock tunes, so that was a huge relief. Maybe she was having some sort of emotional breakdown. At least it didn't seem like a suicide mantra.

For nearly a minute her frantic knocking went unanswered, and Angela was ready to check if the door was unlocked when it finally opened, revealing a flushed and guilty-looking Temperance Brennan.

"Angela!"

For a moment Angela wondered if Bren had been doing yoga—but only for a moment. The t-shirt she wore was far too large to belong to her, her hair was loose and unbrushed, and there was a blush—and a glow—about her that Angela recognized well. Usually Angela was all for a good roll in the hay to cure whatever ailed you, but now she felt strangely disappointed—which was the wrong emotion to have, since her best friend was apparently fine and for the first time in months didn't look god-awful. But she didn't think sleeping with some random guy would help now that Bren had finally accepted she was in love with Booth. Plus where had she managed to find a random guy when she'd stayed so late at the Jeffersonian?

"Hey, Sweetie," she said in a voice that she figured even Bren would realize meant she knew what was going on. "Mind if I come in?"

"Umm."

It was actually kinda cute to see Bren so uncharacteristically speechless—since when had she ever been so awkward about sex?—but Angela had spent the better half of her morning worried that her friend had been killed or kidnapped, so she wasn't letting her off the hook so easily. She stepped forward as if she had been invited in, causing Bren to step back in response. "I've been calling all morning. Half terrified that you ran afoul of a serial killer or a deranged fan—or a telephone pole. I totally support you taking the day off and all—but you could have at least sent me a text message to let me know you weren't dead."

"I didn't get any calls. And why would you think I had a fatal encounter with a telephone pole?"

"Car accident, Sweetie," she explained, exasperated.

"It's not Bones' fault. I turned off her phone."

Angela peered over Brennan's shoulder to find Seeley Booth standing in her friend's living room, looking a bit tousled himself. "Hey, Ange."

He hadn't called her Ange since the surgery—it was always Angela now, awkward and formal, as if he still wasn't certain that was her name, even though there was nothing wrong with his post-operation short-term memory. Amnesiac Booth didn't know how he fit with the squints—and with much of his confidence stolen with eight years of memory he now had the air of a kicked dog, slinking about with bowed head and puzzled eyes. But that was all gone now, his posture straight and a satisfied smile playing on his lips, just daring her to comment.

Angela Montenegro knew two things almost immediately. Firstly: Seeley Booth remembered everything about himself and the beautiful woman now wearing his shirt. And secondly: he'd just shown said woman what was probably the best night (and morning) of her life.

So. Hot.

It took a whole lot of willpower not to do a victory dance in the middle of Brennan's doorway. But at Bren's almost terrified look she contained herself. This might be the biggest "I told you so" in history, but after all the hell these two had been through lately they deserved this moment. She'd have plenty of time later to make scenes and inform them they could have avoided so much of this if they'd just hopped in the sack four years ago. In the spirit of friendship she could be the bigger person here. For now.

So instead she crossed the room, wrapped Booth in a giant hug and said, "Welcome back, stud," resisting the urge to follow that with something dirtier.

"Thanks," he said warmly, as the realization that everything was going to be okay washed over Angela like a warm wave on a Fijian beach.

"How did she know you remembered?" Brennan asked, and Angela and Booth shared a laugh before Angela moved on to give her friend an even tighter embrace. "I'm so happy for you, Sweetie," she said, hoping her friend knew how much she meant that. "And we are so going to talk later," she added more quietly.

It was like a portrait of joy and relief, the way they stood side by side, his hand naturally gravitating toward the small of her back, both barefoot, unkempt, and radiant. Brennan must have decided Angela wasn't going to emit any unsightly noises because her fear was gone and she was smiling now, a genuine grin that brightened her whole face, drawing attention away from the dark circles that still existed under her eyes. The patented Seeley Booth charm smile was working overtime, and he was oozing so much sexiness Angela wasn't sure why Bren wasn't jumping him right then. She had the sudden desire to forget returning to the Jeffersonian and go home and paint—because when would she next experience such raw emotion?

But who was she kidding? There was no way she was putting off going back to the Jeffersonian. Not when that was going to be so much fun.

"Uh, I'm making pancakes," Booth finally said, when they'd all done nothing but stare at each other for nearly a minute. "You can stay for some if you like."

So that explained the white splotches on his t-shirt and the smudge on her face. She could see it—her flinging flour at him, his messy thumb leaving a mark on her cheek as he pulled her in for a kiss.

She really ought to leave them to their escapades.

"No thank you," she said with a chuckle. "I can see where I'm not wanted. But you two kids have fun."

She walked deliberately across the room, turning back once she reached the doorway. "And Bren," she just couldn't resist adding, "I'll be sure to tell everyone that you won't be coming in to work today." She grinned, shut the door behind her, and managed to make it back to her car before devolving into almost hysterical giggles. She could die a happy woman. Her life's work was complete.

____

She did her best to keep her expression slightly grim as she re-entered the Jeffersonian, but her lips kept twitching into a smile. Even the traffic she'd encountered on the way back had not sullied her mood. Was this what it felt like to win the lottery?

Whoa. Calm down, Ange. This isn't even your own love life that's got you so excited. Maybe you're a bit too invested in this.

Ah, hell. Of course she was. But she'd waited more than four years for a resolution! And this was the first good thing to happen to any of them in five months of misery.

Cam had joined Wendell on the platform, and even though Hodgins should probably have been off somewhere, analyzing particulates, the fact they were all together made this so much easier. They all looked up before she even swiped herself in, but she waited until she was just a few feet from them to say anything.

"So, did you find her?" Jack demanded. Cam and Wendell's faces held similar signs of anxiety.

"Um-hm," she answered, offering nothing more.

"Um-hm? That's it? Where was she? What happened?" Hodgin's worry was quite endearing. Bren had lots of people caring about her far more than she probably realized.

"Oh, she was in her apartment," Angela said solemnly, but then she let her smile break free. "She wasn't alone in her apartment."

Cam looked confused and Wendell a bit uncomfortable, but after just three seconds Jack was grinning and Angela thrilled at how even after the past year and a half they were still on the same wavelength.

"It's finally happened, hasn't it?" he asked in the boyish, enraptured tone he often adopted while talking about one of his beloved conspiracies.

"Oh yeah. And that's not even the best part."

"Wait a second. Booth and Dr. B finally sleep together after four years, and you are saying there's something better than that?"

He knew her so well, and she found herself trying to remember why they weren't together, and failing. Maybe, now that she could stop ragging on Bren to catch up to her own reality, she should consider taking her own advice. "He remembers."

Hodgins whistled low in his throat. "Everything?"

"I didn't stick around for all the details, cause let's face it—they didn't want me there—but I'd bet on it."

"Wow. You know, we always figured this day would come, but now that it has, I'm a little bit speechless."

"They really never slept together before now?" Wendell asked incredulously. Oh goody, a new player in their game. Angela had thought Wendell might be able to fit in.

"Hard to believe right? It's been hard to believe since like, days after they started working together. But no. They never slept together until now."

"And you're sure this really happened? It isn't a false alarm?" Jack demanded.

"I didn't catch them in the act. But all the signs were there. She was wearing his shirt. He was making pancakes. They're in her apartment, improperly dressed, at eleven o'clock in the morning on a work day. She, Dr. Temperance Brennan, not only skipped work, but he had her so distracted she didn't even call in sick or realize he'd turned off her phone. Plus they didn't even try to deny any of my innuendoes. It's happened, my friends. It's happened. The evidence is conclusive."

"Well, it was a long time coming," Cam declared with a bemused smile. "Although if those two carry on like you two did I'm going to have to start carrying a water gun."

Angela's eyes found Hodgins' instinctively, and she delighted in his slight blush. Ah, those had been the days: sneaking off to the medieval storage room, making out over solved clues, seeing, for the only time in her life, what might have been a concrete future.

"How long have they been working together?" Wendell asked, forehead furrowed.

"About four and a half years. Booth was actually the fifth agent the Bureau tried to get her to work with."

"Sixth, I think," Hodgins corrected. "Remember Henderson?"

"Right. He only lasted about four hours. Bren broke three of his fingers."

"She did what?" Wendell's shock was priceless, but so was Cam's. Angela would have thought Goodman would have tucked that away in some file of instructions when he hired Cam to oversee the lab—Dr. Brennan does not play well with others.

"Broke his fingers," Angela repeated with a grin. "He touched her evidence. She warned him not to, but he kept picking up the bones without gloves. Chipped one. She slammed a microscope down on his hand."

"Now that was a fun day at work," Jack laughed.

"That man screamed like a little girl. I was actually worried he was gonna follow through on his threat and charge her for assaulting a federal officer."

"He didn't, I assume?" Cam asked.

"Would have, but how could he ever admit that publicly and keep his job—an FBI agent getting beat up by a scientist chick. But he certainly never came around again," Hodgins explained.

"Bren's tough, but Booth has calmed her down—a lot. Booth was right after Henderson, actually. I knew it was a good sign when they'd worked a few cases and she hadn't beaten him up. Which I thought might have changed after he got Homeland Security to arrest her after she ran off to Guatemala for a couple of months to blow off both him and the guy she'd been dating. Instead, they started going out into the field together, and thus began the saga of Booth and Brennan. Buckets of sexual tension, constant bickering, and the highest solve rate in DC. Somewhere along the line they fell head over heels in love with each other."

"Kenton," Hodgins declared with King of the Lab certainty. "He was in love with her by Kenton, I swear. The guy gets blown up by her refrigerator, and we're just chatting in his hospital room when he realizes the agent he'd sent her off with was working for the mob. You should have seen the look in his eye. Next thing I know I'm driving him to some warehouse even though most of his ribs are broken and he can barely sit up, and then he's handing me his bullet proof vest cause he can't get it on and telling me I can come—Booth never lets me go to active crime scenes. And the way they looked at each other when he pulled her down from that hook—wow."

Hodgins had told her that story before, of course, but Angela was still sorry she hadn't been there, although she wasn't so keen on the ravenous dogs and the shootout part. Numerous complimenting moments came immediately to mind but she paused, forcing her gaze to her boss. As much as her romance-starved brain wanted to gush about the Booth and Brennan love story until the sun went down, perhaps this wasn't quite the appropriate audience given Cam's previous…dalliance…with Booth. Angela had never quite understood that. Okay, so she totally understood it. The Special Agent was one hunk of a man, no doubt about it. But it had been obvious to Angela within months of meeting him that no matter what his body was up to, his mind would be on one particular woman, and Angela had no interest playing second fiddle.

Cam met her eyes and seemed to understand. "Oh, go ahead. Seeley and I had fun, but it's not like I didn't realize pretty quick that those two are made for each other."

Wendell's eyes widened as realization dawned. "You and Booth?"

"In my defense, I knew Seeley long before either of us came to Washington."

Angela got the feeling that by the end of the day Wendell was going to know so much about the entire team's personal lives that they'd pretty much have to hire him. Not that telling Bren that one of her interns had been given the Angela Montenegro version of her partnership was actually going to be a convincing selling point. But hey, after spending the day in bed with her Special Agent F-B-Eyecandy Ange didn't think she'd be able to be mad about anything for at least a week.

Wendell nodded, accepting without comment, and Angela couldn't stem her laughter. "Okay. Moments of revelation. A month or so after the Kenton debacle my boyfriend went missing in New Mexico. Bren flew down to identify this skull that was found. We were having trouble with jurisdiction, so she called Booth. She was so angry because she didn't think he was going to come. But then there he was the next morning, taking vacation days to chase her around the desert. She had him wrapped around her finger even then."

"And she knew it. When we got kidnapped by the Gravedigger, we were buried in that car, running out of oxygen, the ransom deadline already passed, and she never doubted that Booth would rescue us. I told her that she had a lot of faith in Booth. And she told me I was wrong, because faith was an irrational belief in something that is logically impossible, and she knew that Booth would come."

"Which he did, of course. But man, the way he stormed around this place once we found out you two were kidnapped. We were all upset but Booth—he was like a raging elephant."

"What about when the Gravedigger got Booth? Dr. B came after me for taking that evidence—such quiet fury. It was terrifying. And the way she smacked that Taffet bitch with the briefcase..."

"How about when Booth got kidnapped by those West Virginian crime bosses, and she lied to the FBI and went to her father for help even though she was still furious with him."

"Her father teaches the afterschool science program, right?" Wendell asked. "Max something? Why was she mad at him?"

Angela was not diplomatic enough to explain, so she let Jack do it. "Max, uh, used to rob banks for a living. And he was accused of murdering a Deputy Director of the FBI…and setting him on fire."

"But he was innocent, right?"

Cam, Angela and Jack all shared a look.

"Erm."

"He was acquitted," Cam offered.

"Oh come on, even Booth and Bren know he did it. Bren's father is a psychopath. A very charming psychopath, granted. And really quite harmless as long as you aren't threatening his family."

"Max's trial!" Hodgins exclaimed. "The two of them were on opposite sides of the aisle, but they were whispering to each other so much the judge actually made them switch seats. Then during Booth's testimony, when the defense attorney tried to get him to admit that Dr. B could have done it—you could practically see his heart get ripped out on the stand."

Another moment Angela had missed, although she didn't regret refusing to participate in that one. Searching for an appropriate follow-up, one particular thing came to mind.

"New Orleans," she and Hodgins said simultaneously.

She smiled a moment before elaborating. "It was right after Katrina, and Bren does not understand the meaning of a real vacation, so she ran off to New Orleans to identify bodies disturbed by the hurricane. She didn't come home when she was supposed to, and when we called her Booth was there."

"Turns out," Hodgins continued, "that she got involved with some voodoo murder cover-up. The guy beat her up pretty bad, and put some kind of curse on her so she forgot a whole day."

"You know, I think that is when I knew. Because Bren was confused and in trouble, and instead of calling me, she called Booth. Didn't ask him to come—told him not to, actually—but she told him what was going on, while we were left with cryptic comments like "don't worry, the murder charge won't stick." Of course he flew right down there anyway. He even got Caroline to come and defend her when she got accused of murder. Then they caught the bad guy and he brought her home."

"What was up with that earring?" Hodgins asked.

Angela smirked. She'd wondered that herself after watching the pair's cryptic interaction the night they got back, and she'd harassed Brennan until she'd told her the whole story. "It was her mother's. She lost it in the attack. Booth lifted it from the crime scene."

"Go G-man!" Hodgins said with a chuckle.

"I tell you, Wendell, those two are like watching Shakespeare. Except that the play never ends. I scared Tessa away almost four years ago. Four years. Such a wasted effort."

"Tessa?"

"Booth's girlfriend at the time. Blond. A lawyer. Insecure about Booth's hot new partner. Totally wrong for him. I was doing them both a favor. But I never thought it would take Bren so long to make a move."

Angela and Jack both shook their heads.

"So this is what you guys do all the time?" Wendell asked.

"Oh, we bring faces and justice to the unfortunately deceased," Angela answered. "But we've got this great love affair in the making, and we have horribly mutilated bodies. Which do you think I want to emotionally engage with?"

"After that stunning endorsement of our professional careers, perhaps we can actually get back to work now," Cam suggested pointedly.

Angela and Jack both fixed her with the look of disbelief they'd perfected back when Dr. Saroyan had first arrived and they'd taken every opportunity to fight her authority. To Wendell's credit, he managed a quite impressive look of incredulity as well. Yes, he'd fit right in. Angela was so going to put in another good word for him.

"Fine," Cam caved, her slight smile revealing she wasn't actually too annoyed. "Someone call Sweets and tell him to meet us at the diner. But after lunch we are going to get back to work, people."

"Thank you, Cam," they chorused.

"I'll call the shrink," Angela offered.

"Maybe now that this tragedy is over he can tell us what the hell happened in therapy that got Brennan to admit she wanted to have Booth's baby," Jack declared. "You heard about that, didn't you?" he asked Wendell.

"Uh, yeah. Fisher mentioned it. But isn't Sweets bound by doctor-patient confidentiality, or something?"

"Eh, it's not like it's a secret. Dr. B blurted it out while we were sifting through a barrel of wine soaked remains."

"Sweets will spill," Angela predicted. "Next to me, he's their biggest cheerleader."

"That woman's going to be a horror when she's pregnant," Cam remarked as she left the room. "I may have to take a sabbatical."

"Yeah," Angela called after her retreating back. "But their kid is going to be absolutely adorable."

"Told you it was a Booth thing," Jack whispered, leaning close as he walked around Angela to discard his lab coat and collect his things.

"This was so not what you meant," she shot back, but he had been right and she wasn't too determined to take that away from him, especially not when he flashed her a smile before exiting the platform.

She hung back a moment so she could speak to Wendell. He looked a bit overwhelmed by all the information he'd just absorbed. Though befuddled really seemed to work for him.

Might as well turn his day upside down just a little more. "And this is why I knew Bren didn't want to sleep with you." She wrapped an arm around his shoulder and leaned in close. "It was really nothing personal," she purred. Then she skipped away with a laugh, delighting in the way his face flushed. Mr. Bray had been around enough that he probably understood how she operated somewhat. And if he was going to be sticking around, he'd just have to get used to it.

She caught up to Hodgins by the time she pulled out her cell phone. "Hey Sweets. Meet us at the diner as soon as you can get there. Booth remembers, and he and Bren finally slept together, so we're going out to celebrate."

As "that's wicked awesome," carried across the lab, Angela looked at her smiling colleagues and knew they were all going to be okay. They were all going to be so much better than okay.

____

So that's it folks, my first foray into Bones fanfiction. If you enjoyed it, I'd appreciate if you took a moment to review. No immediate follow-ups are in the works (I need to return to my neglected original fiction) but depending on how the mood strikes me, I can think of a couple connected fluffy one-shots in the Lament universe that may make an appearance someday. Let me know if there's an interest.