paladinsuitsyou | OOM: Post-"Judas on a Pole" 11 p.m., Brennan's apartment

Brennan almost doesn't have to check the peep hole (but she does, of course). Still, bad day, late-night knock on the door, and the faint aroma of spicy food?

It can only be Booth.

She opens the door (accompanied by the faint smell of chemicals.)

"Hi. Come on in."

It's good she checks the peephole. If she'd opened the door too soon, she'd have won a stern talking-to from Booth.

Booth's friendly, reassuring smile, the one he'd practiced in the mirror in the car at stoplights, changes into a scrunched up grimace as soon as the door opens.

"Blergh," he says. "What's that smell?"

It's a wonder she could smell the Indian food.

Like that would have fazed her.

"Some chemicals from the lab," she replies, closing the door behind him. "I wanted to make sure I got up all the blood."

Well, as much as possible anyway.

"Beer?" she asks, heading for the kitchen.

Booth just hopes that repetition will have some sort of impact.

"Right," he says. "If we eat in the same room as these mystery chemicals, are we going to develop strange, disgusting diseases?"

"It's highly unlikely. And just in case, I opened the windows."

Brennan grabs two bottles of beer from the refrigerator and a pair of forks, and walks back to the living room.

"I'm still not sure about the advisability of not reporting a murder scene," she says.

But mostly she's just glad that it wasn't the murder she initially thought it was.

"Good to know."

He accepts the beer and takes a sip of the drink after he's put the bags on the coffee table.

Booth shrugs. "What are they going to do, arrest us? We have alibis, and they've got their body already. All we'd accomplish by reporting the bloodstain would be to make this an even messier situation than it already is."

And really, it's plenty messy already. Booth doesn't like messes.

"True," Brennan replies, taking a seat on the sofa. "I'm not sure we could adequately explain why we covered it up without being charged ourselves."

Besides, the people who were meant to get Max Keenan's message would know good and well who had killed Kirby. How much did the 'where' really matter?

"What are they saying about Kirby's death?"

"Not much," Booth says, shrugging and sitting on one of the chairs across from her. From here, he can't see the blood.

It's not that he's squeamish. Blood's fine, normally. But it's also normally at a crime scene, and not in the living room of a friend.

"AS little as possible, in fact, which isn't surprising."

Annoying, yes. Surprising, no.

"That's annoying. Not surprising, though."

The danger of hanging out too much, eating ethnic food late at night, is that after a while, a certain amount of mind-reading ability develops.

"How mad is Caroline about her car?"

Russ had really done a number on it. Brennan hopes that Caroline has good insurance.

Mind-reading that has become second nature, in fact, as it is unremarked-upon.

Booth winces. "It's best not to know," he says. "Let's just say that I'm going to be her official chauffeur until it gets back from the shop. Which should be in about three weeks, since the mechanic said a week and a half."

Not that Booth would change a thing. Bad Things were afoot. A Bad Man had Brennan in his clutches. It turned out to be her father, but that didn't make him any less dangerous. Just maybe less dangerous to her.

"Hmm." Brennan picks up one of the boxes of food and examines the contents. "It's a good thing we got your job back then."

Without the FBI issue SUV, Brennan might have found herself driving them both around.

"No kidding."

And that wouldn't drive Booth crazy, no, not at all.

Booth shifts in his seat, and while he unwraps the nan, he gives Brennan a sidelong look and says, "So, ah, how're you?"

"Of course, the car isn't the primary reason I'm glad you got your job back," Brennan clarifies.

"I'm....okay."

It's a long way from being fine, certainly. But it's a start if nothing else.

In reply to her first statement, Booth just smiles. It's a small smile, a little cocksure, a little knowing. He knew that already. It was nice of her to say so, though.

"You're okay because you want people to stop asking how you are or you're really okay and on your way to being perfectly okay?"

A muddled statement, perhaps, but Booth thinks he's made himself clear.

Clear enough, anyway. By now, Brennan's had some experience in un-convoluting things Booth says.

"I've been better," she admits.

"Russ knew it was him the whole time," she adds. "I assume you figured that out already."

And yes, logically, she understands the reasons why her father took Russ into his confidence and not her. She was the one who was going to let him be arrested after all. But still, the knowledge that they both lied to her stings a bit.

It's a good thing Brennan is smart. Someone with fewer brains might never manage to have a conversation with Booth at all.

"I kinda did, yeah," he says.

And then...Booth has nothing to say there. Because really, what is there to say?

But there's always something to figure out, to ask.

"When'd you figure it out? Because I got it right about the time I learned the good father wasn't actually a priest."

"He told me."

Brennan pokes the contents of one of the take-out boxes with her fork.

"He was telling a story about something that happened when Russ and I were little, and..." Brennan shakes her head, smiling a little ruefully.

"I should have seen it. I mean, he's altered his appearance, but you'd think I'd have known who I was talking too."

Booth shakes his head. "No. You haven't seen him since you were a kid. Everything changes, seeing your parents when you're an adult. They always seem smaller, somehow. And changing his face and all, well, I've seen pictures of your dad. I never would have pegged who he was."

He sighs. "Between the time lapse, the appearance and the just general oddness of being the same height, it's no wonder you didn't recognize him."

"Maybe." Brennan sounds doubtful. "But he is my father. And I make my living identifying people. All rationalizations aside, I should have seen it."

She sets the box down without having actually eaten anything.

"Are there any leads on them?"

Brennan's not entirely sure what she wants the answer to that question to be.

Booth does not offer his disagreement again, but if that mind reading thing is still going on, she should be able to feel it. If not, the shrug should give the meaning away.

Booth hands her a piece of nan. She doesn't have to eat it, just...hold it, maybe.

"Nothing concrete," he says, picking up the box she's just put down and helping himself to its contents. "There's chatter, but really, no one seems to know anything definite."

Nothing they're telling him, anyway.

Brennan does note the shrug. And she appreciates it even if, in her current frame of mind, she can't quite agree with it.

"I suppose they could try following up with Russ's girlfriend, but I'm not sure how much good it would do," she says, accepting the piece of nan.

"Dad's been living under the radar so long without being caught, I'm not sure how much luck the authorities will have."

She takes a bite of the nan, and chews contemplatively. "This is good," she adds.

"Nan is great stuff," Booth says, delaying in responding to her earlier comment.

He finishes off a piece and then replies.

"Probably not," Booth says. "But it's really the only lead we've got, so it's going to be chased to death."

He feels bad for the woman. She's lost her boyfriend and is facing constant surveillance for quite a long time.

"I thought about giving her a call. But then I realized that I have no idea what I would say."

Brennan's never even met or talked to Russ's girlfriend. It's just an impulse based on the human need to make a connection with someone who's dealing with a mutual problem.

Brennan picks up one of the take-out boxes, and spears some of the food this time. Neglecting the body's basic needs won't help the situation, after all.

"Right, and Hallmark definitely doesn't make a card for this situation."

Although it might be kind of cool if they did. Elegant type on the front, saying "I'm sorry..." Inside, in scrawly, trashy type: "your boyfriend ran off with his criminal father, who pretends to be a priest and burns people on top of buildings."

It probably wouldn't sell, though.

Brennan pauses to think for a moment.

"No. I'm pretty sure it doesn't," she says seriously.

But Brennan doesn't shop for cards often, so she could be mistaken.

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