AN: I should probably do some explaining. I know, I know, we're three chapters in and I'm just now explaining? Sorry. Anyway, I just wanted to explain that this is primarily a Bones fic with the NCIS characters involved, which is why I cross-posted it to the Bones board as well as the cross-over section. I love both shows an unhealthy amount, but the story came to me from a Bones angle, so that's where we're going. I'd also like to say that though I'll try my hardest, I'm not a doctor or an investigator or a forensic anthropologist. I do research what I'm writing, but I don't have massive amounts of time to do so, so I'd be very grateful if any of you readers could point out any mistakes you notice, be it inaccuracies with the characters or something in the jargon. Thanks. :)

"No wife, no kids, no girlfriend to speak of." Ziva reported after sitting down to her computer for barely a minute. "Petty Officer Westland has one brother, a Jonathan Westland. He lives in Quantico. His commanding officer is Captain Joseph Samuels, stationed in Norfolk."

"Go to the CO. Take DiNozzo." Gibbs commanded. They were gone in seconds.

Brennan and Booth were standing rather awkwardly in the middle of the bullpen, unsure of where to go or what to do. On top of his awkwardness, Booth felt irritation rising in his throat at being crowded out of the investigation.

"I'm going to go talk to the brother." Gibbs announced. "McGee, bank records, phone records, everything."

"On it, Boss."

Gibbs strode away, then stopped. "Coming?" He asked. Booth and Brennan hurried to catch up. "No." He pointed to Booth. "You, come." He pointed to Brennan. "You, stay."

"What?" Booth asked. "No. That's not how it works."

"I investigate." Brennan said.

"Okay. Investigate here."

"What am I supposed to investigate here?" Brennan asked, frustrated.

"You'll figure it out." Gibbs called over his shoulder as he continued his path to the elevator, pausing when he realized Booth wasn't following. He came back and stood toe-to-toe with the younger man.

"I'm in charge here. You want to stay on this investigation? You do what I say."

"Bones is my partner. I don't leave my partner." Booth said stubbornly, ignoring the Gibbs glare.

"You want to stay and play grab-ass with her, fine, but you go back to the FBI and we drop the joint part of this investigation."

"Booth has never grabbed my ass." Brennan interjected. "Well, he did slap it once, but we were under cover. It didn't count."

"It's an expression, Bones." Booth turned his attention back to Gibbs. "Agent Gibbs, is there a reason you're so intent to cut the FBI out of this investigation?"

"Booth, it's obvious this is simply a clash of alpha-males. You are both used to being the most dominant in your social group, and no herd can accommodate two head males. A battle to the death will eliminate the problem."

Gibbs fought the urge to laugh despite how tightly his jaw was clenched. Where did they find this woman?

"We are not having a battle to the death, Bones. We're federal agents. There's no reason we can't resolve this."

"I'm heading this investigation. The only way to resolve this is to do what I say." Gibbs refused to yield, and Booth clenched his fists at his sides. Breathe, Seeley. He reminded himself. Violence is not the answer. You don't want mandatory sessions with Sweets about anger management.

"Booth…" Brennan stepped closer to him and laid a hand on his arm, speaking softly. "There is no reason for you not to cooperate. I'll be fine here."

"You're my partner." Booth sounded almost desperate.

"And I'll still be your partner when you get back." She told him, tapping a finger on his arm. "You know I can take care of myself when you're not around to do it for me."

"This is touching," Gibbs broke in gruffly, fighting memories of a younger version of himself in Paris with a partner he didn't want to leave. "But we have a murder to solve."

Booth and Brennan locked eyes, blocking out NCIS and the team leader who apparently hated them. Brennan nodded once at him and Booth sighed.

"Call me if anything happens. And if anything does happen?" He gave McGee his harshest death glare. "No one in the United States government will be able to stop me."

Brennan rolled her eyes at Booth's retreating back. "I would appreciate if you did not take your frustrated alpha-male tendencies out on me." She called. "Urinating on me would serve the same purpose as your words."

Booth shook his head but didn't turn around. He and Gibbs disappeared into the elevator. Brennan and McGee looked at each other awkwardly for a minute before Brennan grabbed Tony's chair and pulled it over to McGee's desk.

"Show me how you investigate here." She ordered. McGee raised an eyebrow, and she added, "Please?"

Almost the second the elevator began to move, Gibbs hit the emergency stop. The lights switched off and the elevator lurched to a stop.

"Something wrong?" Booth asked, already tensed for a fight.

"We can't have a pissing match with every decision." Gibbs declared. "We gotta straighten this out right now if we're going to go on."

"Look, I did what you wanted, didn't I?"

"You can't fight me every step of the way."

"Yeah? Well, you don't need to assert your dominance every step of the way, either." Booth's eyes widened just the tiniest bit. He'd been spending too much time around Bones and her squint-talk. "You want me to do something?" He plowed on, ignoring his anthropological moment. "You can talk to me like I'm your equal, because I am."

"Not treating you any different from the rest of my team." Gibbs said.

"I'm not on your team. I'm on my own team. Me and Bones, we're a team. And right now our teams have to work together, but that doesn't mean I'm on your team."

They glared at each other for a long minute, inches apart, both refusing to blink first.

"And I do not appreciate being separated from my partner." Booth added.

"You two got separation anxiety?" Gibbs asked.

"There aren't many people Bones and I can trust." Booth admitted softly, finally looking away. "Not even other federal agents."

Gibbs studied Booth for a beat before speaking. "Someone hurt her?"

"Lots of someones." Booth ran a hand through his hair. A dirty FBI agent. A serial killer. A doctor covering up murder. Her own damn family. He didn't say any of it out loud, because he still didn't wholly trust Gibbs. He shrugged. "I'm supposed to protect my partner."

Gibbs nodded. "McGee won't hurt her." He promised solemnly. "None of my team will. I can promise you that much."

Booth was caught off-guard. He'd expected a lecture about how he shouldn't feel guilty for things that were out of his control, or how he needed to trust other people, or at least that he should let Bones take care of herself. But Gibbs seemed to get it.

"You take care of your own." Gibbs said with a shrug, turning the elevator back on.

"Why does he call you Bones?" McGee asked. They were waiting for a search of Petty Officer Westland's phone records to show oft-repeated numbers.

"I'm a forensic anthropologist." Brennan answered, trying to pay attention to whether or not she was being condescending. She was pretty sure she was. "Bones are my specialty. At first I resisted it. It isn't my name."

"You don't like nicknames, either, huh? Tony still calls me Probie. I hate it."

"You shouldn't." Brennan said matter-of-factly. "A nickname is a sign of increased intimacy. He wouldn't give you a nickname if he didn't like you."

McGee thought of all the different nicknames Tony had given him. "It doesn't seem flattering."

Brennan shrugged. "Neither does Bones, but I know it's a sign of affection."

McGee snorted. "Well, yeah. We can all see it's a sign of affection."

"I believe your tone implies more than your words say; however, I don't know what you're saying."

"Um, you and Agent Booth…you know…we can all tell." McGee tripped over his words under her fierce eyes.

"You can all tell what?"

"That you're…" He trailed off, thinking Brennan would jump in and save him. No such luck.

"That we're what? Partners?"

"Very close." McGee supplied.

"We have saved each other's lives many times. We have seen horrible things and solved crimes together." Brennan tilted her head. "I'm sure you know the kinds of bonds that creates."

"Right. I do. It's just, well, aren't you and Agent Booth, um, you know…" He bit his lip and decided to just take the plunge. "Together?"

"We are almost always together." Brennan answered, still mystified. A proverbial light bulb went off in her eyes. "Oh, are we together sexually?" McGee gulped at her terminology but nodded. "No. Booth and I have never engaged in intercourse. Until recently he was in a very serious relationship with a woman named Hannah."

McGee couldn't help but gape. Not together? Their sexual tension rivaled Tony and Ziva. Possibly beat it, because he never could be sure Tony and Ziva hadn't actually already done the deed. There was that undercover operation, after all, that was still a big question mark in every NCIS agent's mind.

His computer pinged, allowing him to change the subject. "Hmm…looks like Westland was making a lot of calls to this number until about six months ago, when he began his deployment on the USS Normandy." He ran a search on the number and came up with the ID almost immediately.

"Petty Officer Whitney Jacobson." Brennan read aloud.

"She was stationed on the ship with him. The ship returned to port two weeks ago."

Brennan frowned. "The level of decomposition of the body suggests a time of death about two weeks ago."

"So he could've been murdered the night they got home."

"You shouldn't leap to conclusions." Brennan scolded. "We're still not positive it was a murder, though I feel comfortable assuming there was at least a cover-up. I should call Booth."

"I should tell Gibbs first."

Brennan narrowed her eyes as she pulled out her phone and hit speed-dial. "We'll see who answers first." She challenged, knowing Booth would answer on the second ring. He didn't disappoint.

"Bones, you good?" He asked.

"I am good at many things, Booth." Brennan answered, confused.

"Are you alright?" He clarified.

"I'm fine, Booth. Listen—"

"Boss, it's McGee—"

"The victim was calling a woman a lot!" Brennan started rushing her words to get them out before McGee. "Her name was Whitney Jacobson!"

"—Whitney Jacobson." McGee finished half a second behind her and she shot him a gloating smile. He made a face.

"They were on the boat together." Brennan told Booth.

"They were deployed together?" Booth asked.

"When'd they get back?" Gibbs asked.

"Two weeks ago." McGee answered.

"The time of death is most likely around then." Brennan said.

"This is giving me a headache." Gibbs muttered as he hung up on McGee. Why did he always end up working with competitive five-year-olds?

"Thanks, Bones. Did you find that out? I didn't think you knew how to search phone records."

"I haven't had much experience with it, since the FBI technical analysts usually do that, but Agent McGee is showing me how to do some of the computer things."

"That's my girl, always learning new things." Booth grinned widely.

"Booth?" Brennan wanted to say something to him before they hung up, but not with McGee listening in. She turned her back on him and took a few steps away, keeping her voice low. "I find working without you to be unsatisfactory."

Booth's smile got bigger, as if that were even possible. "I know, Bones. I miss you too." He said it as a half-joke, since it had barely been half an hour since they'd been apart, and a half-truth, because he knew what she meant. Working a case with other people wasn't the same.

"Oh, please." Gibbs snatched Booth's phone from his hand. "Pull yourselves together," he barked into it, then ended the call.

Brennan frowned at the phone. "Your boss is not very pleasant." She told McGee.

McGee snorted but didn't dare agree with her. Gibbs would find out somehow. He just would. His phone rang, and he could hear Abby's excited voice before he even got the phone to his ear.

"Okay, Abby, I'll come right down." He stood up and gestured with his head. "Our forensic analyst's got something."

Brennan couldn't help but stare when she met Abby. For one thing, there was Abby's clothing. And chains. And pigtails. Then there was the way she was talking—it seemed like she wasn't taking any breaths, but she was saying so much. Brennan was astounded by this woman's lung capacity. Her ears were also being assaulted by some strange form of music. Brennan had enjoyed the Tibetan throat singers more than she enjoyed this.

"—so the fire was definitely on purpose." Abby finished with a grin, then turned to stare at Brennan. "Who are you?"

"Dr. Temperance Brennan of the Jeffersonian." Brennan recited automatically. "I am a forensic anthropologist—"

"And you work with the FBI! Timmy and I love your books." Abby said, making McGee turn slightly pink. "What? There's nothing to be ashamed of." Abby told him.

"She's right. Millions of people love my books. It's how they became best sellers." Brennan shrugged and Abby laughed.

"I like you." She declared.

"Thank you." Brennan responded uncertainly. Not many people liked her, especially when they first met her. "Can you trace the accelerant used on the body?"

"It's pretty standard stuff." Abby started clack clack clacking away on her keyboard. "I'm still running it through Major Mass Spec to see if there's anything unusual about its chemical makeup, but if not it's going to be a lot harder to track down."

"I need to find cause of death." Brennan said, checking her watch. "The bones won't be de-fleshed yet." She sighed, frustrated. "I usually don't have to sit around and wait during this part. Usually I'm with Booth, notifying the victim's families and investigating. This is…" She didn't say the word threatening to spill from her lips—boring.

"Booth, huh?" Abby wiggled her eyebrows up and down. "Your inspiration for Andy."

"No." Brennan was getting tired of defending herself to everyone who had ever read her books. "Andy is fictional. Booth is real. They are not related. No one ever believes me."

"I believe you." McGee offered, prompting Abby to roll her eyes.

"He only believes you because he writes novels based on real life, too, and he's always denying he put all of us in his book."

"You write crime novels?" Brennan asked, raising an eyebrow at McGee. His ears were very red at this point.

"He's Thom E. Gemcity." Abby said flippantly as she turned back to her computer. If they expected Brennan to know who they were talking about, they were barking up the wrong tree. She could tell she was supposed to say something, but she didn't know what.

"Who's your publisher?" She asked after a slightly too-long pause.

"We…have the same publisher." McGee was clearly horribly embarrassed, and she did feel a little guilty. He was a nice man. "Our publishing companies combined after your publisher…"

"…was murdered in the same fashion as my book." Brennan finished matter-of-factly.

"You know, that happened to McGee, too." Abby butted in. "And then the murderer was going to murder me because I thought I was Amy from the books and had broken Agent McGregor's heart."

"I had never considered the possibility of mentally disturbed people thinking my books were true and having personal feelings about the characters' actions." Brennan sounded apprehensive.

"Oooh, are you planning something for Kathy and Andy? Something that might make people upset? Your fans are dying for them to cut the casual sex thing and make some commitments to each other. I mean, anyone reading the books can see they're made for each other." Abby

"No one is made for anyone." Brennan replied quickly.

"Technically, Andy and Kathy are made for each other." McGee pointed out. "You wrote them. They're together. Made for each other." He shrugged.

"Okay, fictional characters may be made for each other. But real people are not."

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks…" Abby murmured, earning her a frown from Brennan.

"I don't see what Hamlet has to do with anything."

"Never mind." McGee broke in quickly. "We're going to go talk to Whitney Jacobson and see if something was going on between her and Westland."

"Are you good at reading people?" Brennan asked.

"What?"

"I am not very adept at understanding people's tone, body language, perspiration, and other tells of lying or ulterior motives. That is an area in which Booth's expertise exceeds my own. I've come to rely on him, and since your boss would not allow us to work together, I'll have to rely on you to read this Whitney Jacobson. Are you up for the task?"

"Uh…" Though McGee had gotten much more confident in his abilities as a field agent, Brennan's admission that she'd be relying on him made feel a bit pressured.

"Hm." She studied him with her lips pressed together. "I can tell you're hesitant, which supports my theory that you will not be as effective as Booth. Obviously I'll have to try to compensate for that lack in our questioning."

"I…" McGee wasn't sure if he should be insulted or not.

"Don't worry; I don't hold others to the same standards to which I hold myself, and it's becoming more apparent to me every day that I can't hold others to the standards to which I hold Booth, either."

"McGee's a good agent." Abby defended her friend, though she knew McGee wasn't always the best at reading people, either.

"Thanks, Abs." They shared a smile.

"We should go." Brennan interrupted their moment. "We need to hurry with this questioning so I can get back to the bones as soon as they're free of flesh."

"Oh yes," McGee muttered. "I'd hate to keep you from your de-fleshed bones."

AN 2: Next chapter we'll get some Tony/Ziva bickering. After all, they've got quite a drive, and we all know arguing is inevitable for them. We'll also get some Brennan/Ziva interaction, which I am very excited to write!