paladinsuitsyou | OOM: The heart of the operation

OOM: The heart of the operation

It's a good thing Hodgins was around, Booth thought. It meant he could corner Brennan and have an unpleasant conversation immediately, rather than putting it off. And he'd never want to stop her from helping Angela, especially after...that.

The blacked-out newspaper clipping might even have been creepier than the heart itself. It just emphasized the crazy. Dr. Hodgins called Angela 'the heart of the operation.' He can't suppress a shiver, even though it wasn't aimed at him.

"Could I have a minute, Bones?" he asks as she heads back to her office.

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"Of course." Brennan waves him toward the door of her office.

"What to you think?" she asks, nodded back toward where they'd left Hodgins and Angela.

Booth looks very, very serious. "I think that maybe this place isn't so safe as we thought it was."

Brennan closes her office door behind them. Her mouth is tight with suppressed anger.

"How did an unidentified package get past security? The entire building is under guard, and a bike messenger just sends through a box?"

Now that she's in relative privacy, it's safe to momentarily give in to frustration.

"Trust me," Booth says, his voice taught and his body tense. "I'll be checking into that as soon as we're done here."

Very thoroughly.

Brennan sighs, folding her arms tightly.

"Epps is trying to get at me through my friends. You heard him--he said that everything that happens will be my fault."

A package for Angela. What was next?

"I know what he said," Booth says carefully. "I know it's not your fault, either, Bones, and so do you. I also know we'd damn well better protect your team better."

A slight pause for emphasis.

"That includes Hannah. Most of all, maybe."

"Of course I know it's not my fault," Brennan says, a little more testily than necessary. "But that doesn't matter. What matters is that he's going after people close to me."

She untwists her arms and shakes her head. Taking things out on Booth is unfair and unhelpful. "Sorry. Booth, I'm sorry. You're right. We need to do something about security."

"And Hannah."

"I'll handle security," he says, and his voice is all tight again. Heads are gonna be rolling if anything like this happens again. "They're the ones whose jobs I have some kind of power over. Hannah, though..."

He trails off, sighs. "I seriously have no idea what to do, short of putting her in an FBI safe house and not letting her near this place. I'd hate to do it to the kid, but..."

He trails off again, leaving the obvious unsaid.

Brennan considers for a moment.

She has an idea, but she's not sure how Booth is going to respond to it.

"There is a logical alternative. One that would be even safer."

Booth gives her a rather disbelieving look. "Yeah? And that is?"

After all, how would Bones know a safer place than an FBI safe house? It's called a safe house with good reason.

Brennan glances toward the door, just to make certain that it's closed.

She wouldn't want a hovering guard or agent to overhear.

"Milliways."

Booth's eyes widen.

"What, that place?"

He thinks very, very hard for a very long moment.

"And you're sure the rules work, right? The no violence stuff?"

Because if he and Brennan and Hannah and Angela can all get there, there's no guarantee Epps won't be able to. But if security there is that good, it might work.

"It's an alternate dimension. It doesn't get much farther removed than that," Brennan replies, reasonably.

She shrugs.

"I've heard that there are occasional brawls. And a couple altercations involving magic. But they do have a security force to enforce the rules. And Hannah has friends there."

"True."

He brightens. "And she's got that boyfriend. Who was military."

Yeah, he was Navy. In the 19th century. So what? He can probably shoot things well enough. And hand-to-hand combat was big in those days, right? So Hannah's probably safe enough.

"I think that's a great idea, Bones."

"Henry Wellard," Brennan says, nodding. "Midshipman. British Royal Navy. 1802."

Brennan looks a little surprised.

"I didn't expect you to agree quite so fast."

She had really expected Booth to argue for something more pragmatic and under FBI jurisdiction.

"I'm just not happy about locking up a 16-year-old girl in a place where she knows nobody and won't have her family around. I'm not happy about sending her to an alternate world or whatever, but I think that it's the best possible solution. As long as she doesn't leave."

He doesn't think she's likely to, but you can never tell.

"Yeah. It's a neat answer."

Booth likes neat.

"She won't," Brennan says. "Hannah has more sense than that."

"I think it's the best option we have. She can at least stay there until her flight Sunday morning, if Epps isn't in custody by then." She sighs. "The time differential will make it a lot longer for her, but at least she'll be safe there."

Brennan likes safe. For Hannah, at any rate.

"We'll have to come up with something to tell the others about where she is."

Booth nods. "That's what I thought. And she won't be working on the case, so she won't have any brilliant insights that have to be communicated immediately, thereby placing her in danger."

A dig? From Booth? Never, not at a time like this.

"Safe house should work. I mean, it's not like they have the tools to check up on it. Or the reason."

Brennan gives him a Look.

She will get him for that. Maybe not today or tomorrow....

But for now, business.

"As long as we're agreed, I doubt anyone will question it. We'll fill Angela in. And as long as we're agreed, I think we should get her there as soon as possible."

Before any more surprises from Epps show up.

He knows what that Look means. However she gets him, Booth is pretty sure he can handle it.

"Absolutely. You want responsibility for the herding in, or should I do it?"

"I'll do it," Brennan says. "I'm the reason she's in the middle of this."

Yes, she knows that's not rational. There's no way she could have foreseen something like this happening.

"I'll tell Angela," Booth says.

And now it's his turn to give her a Look. This one says, you should know better. Are we gonna have to talk about this later?

Brennan rolls her eyes slightly in a No, I am not going to succumb to irrational guilt manner.

"I'll go get Hannah."

Booth nods, and exits with her. He watches her march off to collect Hannah, and sighs.

It was clearly too much to expect this thing to wrap quickly and easily.

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OOM: The heart of the operation

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