"Ask me how I'm feeling." Brennan jumped when she heard Angela's voice, knocking her head against the inspection light she'd been under.

"Ow, god," she rubbed where the hot bulb that touched her skull and gave her friend an impatient glare, "Welcome back, Ang; how are you feeling?"

The artist dropped down into the seat next to her, faded yellow rings around her eyes and a ghostly paleness to her skin after a week of food poisoning, "Like John Hurt right before the alien crawled out of his stomach."

"I don't know what that means."

Angela looked over her shoulder and called out, "Told you!" Then, as if summoned, Jack and Zack appeared from the other side of the office door, an incredulous expression taking over Zack's face. "No way," he muttered, digging into his pocket to extract a few wrinkled dollar bills, "I thought everyone had seen at least the first Alien movie."

"No, sorry." Brennan suddenly stopped rubbing her wounded head and looked back and forth between the three, then jumped up, as if only just realizing who they were, "Thank god! I think everyone else that works here decided to drop twenty IQ points the day you got sick."

Jack snorted, "That bad?"

Brennan rolled her eyes, "Doctor Harettés started crying everytime I talked to her. She, um," she blushed guiltily, "Requested a transfer."

"Erin?" All amusement was gone from the man's face, "You scared off my assistant? Damn," he cursed quietly, "She was cute, too."

"Aw, honey," Angela rubbed his shoulder soothingly, "Erin is a lesbian. You never would have cashed in on that one anyway." Jack stared at her for a second, trying to figure out if she was kidding, before he shrugged and it was all behind him.

Brennan ran her tongue over her teeth and lifted her eyebrows, "Okay then. Back to work?" After she'd recieved three nods of agreement, she began handing out assignments. She was just finishing her request that Angela put a face to a new museum specimen when her mobile began alerting her to an incoming call. She sighed and held up one finger, then flipped the phone open.

"We have a case!" A rushed voice told her.

The doctor felt her stomach drop at least a foot and a half. She didn't want to see Booth, but she wouldn't be able to deny a case; she had no excuse for that. So she gulped and repeated, "We have a case?"

There was a pause, and then, "Well, no. No, we don't have a case."

Again, she repeated, "We don't have a case."

"No."

"Why would you tell me we have a case when we don't have a case?"

Another pause. "Because...it was the only way to..."

"To what?" Brennan asked shortly, "Inform me that we have no cases?"

"Okay, stop saying the word 'case,'" Booth ordered in that voice that told Brennan he was holding up one hand for her to stop, even though they weren't in the same room, "Its starting to sound a lot like 'moron.'"

She rolled her eyes and caught sight of her team, all three staring at her with interest. "Funny," she said into the reciever, "I meant for it to sound like 'jackass.' I'm busy right now," she began pulling the mobile away from her ear.

"Bones, wait; we really need to ta--" his words were rushed and loud, but Brennan had already snapped the phone shut and was staring back at the three that seemed so curious now. After a few beats, she swallowed, desperate not to allow her torn emotions to become apparant, "Well? What are you waiting for? You came back on your own, so I'm not going to give you any special sick treatment." Without a word, Jack and Zack turned and left, while Angela hung back a little, her eyes never leaving Brennan's face.

Finally, she spoke up, "Something happened." It wasn't a question. Angela very rarely asked questions, and when she did, she almost always already knew the answer. So Brennan said nothing; she just let her continue. "And since you avoided coming to see me this whole week I was sick--which, by the way, was so sweet of you--I figure it has something to do with the night of the banquet. Judging by that phone conversation, I figure it has something to do with Booth. And from that look of doubt on your face, I figure," she stopped, her voice softening considerably, "He really did a number on you. Oh, honey," she knelt down in front of Brennan's chair and brushed some hair out of her friend's face, "What happened?"

Brennan opened her mouth to say that it was nothing--that the artist had an overactive imagination--but she knew it was pointless. What Angela knew, she knew without a doubt. So instead, the doctor launched into the story, her voice wobbling no matter how hard she tried to control her emotions, and feeling the words slide over her lips and touch the air for the first time made her feel smaller than she had since she was fifteen years old.

--

"Multiple fractures here, and here," Zack pointed out the cracked ribs on the skeleton, "Suggest he was kicked several times, but that's not what killed him."

"No?"

"No," Jack confirmed with his proud little Mommy-look-what-I-did smile, "He was poisoned."

"Pois--" Brennan stopped to accept the mug of hot coffee that Angela pressed into her hands, a comforting smile on her face. They'd stayed at the office that night, the doctor wanting nothing more than to finish her work and forget her troubles, and the artist wanting nothing more than to be there when her friend finally shirked her pride. "Thanks. Poisoned? By what?"

Jack held up a plastic bag and inside was about two inches of green stem, "Hemlock. Probably slipped into that morning tea of his. No one would ever know." He put the bag down and gestured to the skeleton's sternum, "Its not painful. First, all your muscles go, and that's probably more than a little scary. Then your lungs start to freeze, but by then, your brain is so numb you can't even register it. Its not a quick death, but he probably didn't feel a thing."

Brennan nodded, sighing through her nose, "Okay, um," she pointed to Zack, "Call Agent Sanyes and give him the ID and cause of death so that he can inform the victim's family." Then to Jack she added, "Very good work; take the rest of the day off."

"Really?"

"Of course not. But you can work on your...fungus thing...for the rest of the day," she gestured to the various fungi in airtight containers that littered the man's desk. He gave her a bright, happy smile and went to them, tearing open box after box and examining the contents closely. That left Brennan and Angela. And...

"I'm curious," Brennan froze at the voice in her ear, "How long you thought that would work." She turned slowly, cautiously, until she was facing Booth. He stared back with a nervous/cocky smirk and Brennan struggled to keep her cool, "How long what would work?"

"Avoiding me," he filled in, "I mean, we're partners."

The word suddenly sounded wrong to her; like it meant something more. "I wasn't avoiding you," she countered with what she hoped was a disinterested but sincere voice, "I was busy; people don't stop dying just because Cullen doesn't bump you a case."

"Huh," he feigned ignorance, "And here I thought they did; I am shocked."

Brennan forced a tight-lipped grin and began moving around him, "I have to go."

"Bones, please," but she was already passing him, and he turned with her, "Would you wait?" She was about five feet from him now, and walking fast, so he called out, "Bones, I was drunk!" She froze.

Angela picked up the ulna from the examining table and hit Booth on the shoulder with it--a good, hard tap--and whispered, "Nnno! Bad dog; very bad dog."

Before Booth had a chance to inquire, Brennan had turned and stomped back to him, so close that she was practically breathing her words into his mouth. She spoke slowly, deliberately, in a quiet voice that gave away more emotion than if she had been sobbing, "I love," she started, teeth gritted, "That you think that was the part that hurt me. But thanks for letting me know how you feel." And then she was gone, and a little piece inside of her felt this was fitting; now he got to feel what it was like to see her walk away. But the rest of her was screaming for him, wanting it all to be more than a drunken mistake. Tipping a waitress a hundred dollars and then throwing up in the bathroom of a restaraunt was a drunken mistake; a kiss should have been more than that.

Booth didn't move for a long time, and when he did it was to look at Angela, who was staring back at him with angry eyes. They held this gaze for a moment before she said simply and surely, "You're dumb," and left him there to absorb it all.