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[argyle_princess]

Hannah slept till late afternoon today. Which is not that unusual for a teenager on a Saturday, though it's unusual for this teenager, who usually runs three miles before breakfast. But this is hardly a usual Saturday, and Hannah slept though both breakfast and lunch.

And now Brennan has gone to pick up Chinese food for dinner, and Hannah has had a very long and very hot shower and put on her own clothes for the first time in two and half weeks.

She's busy painting her toe nails a rather vivid shade of green, and watching Legally Blonde on her laptop while she waits for Brennan to get back. She's not especially concerned with the trials and triumphs of Elle Woods today, she just wants the background noise.

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[argyle_princess]

"Um," she says, her brain taking a moment to finish with the old subject and move on, "ah, it was, um, seventeen days.

"But you really shouldn't feel sorry about that. It was really the best of a bunch of not ideal choices, I think. It's not a bad place, you know. Weird as hell sometimes, but not bad necessarily. I've met some pretty amazing people there. And yeah, okay, so occasionally there's something like tofu that turns everyone into yuppies, but it always seems to work out."

[paladinsuitsyou]

Booth raises his eyebrows at that. "I probably don't want to know about the tofu thing, do I?"

Shaking his head, Booth looks down at the coffee table for a long moment. "I'm glad it worked out, though. I mean, it sucks your internship was interrupted like this, but I'm pretty sure Brennan would bring you back, if you really want."

[argyle_princess]

"The tofu thing really wasn't that bad."

Yuppies just aren't all that scary, if you're from Neptune.

Hannah shrugs.

"Maybe. I mean, four days, five days, still get a pretty good picture. And she assures me that there really aren't as many serial killers as it seems like there are."

She pauses.

"I feel kinda like I ought to say thank you."

[paladinsuitsyou]

"If you say so."

Booth doesn't like yuppies. They'd really just put him in a bad mood, and it's just as well he missed that plot.


"There really aren't," Booth says absently. "I think Epps is the worst I've come across, though."

He looks up, suddenly focused on Hannah. "You think?" Booth's tone indicates surprise, but not displeasure.

[argyle_princess]

Another shrug. "I . . . yeah. I do," she says, more certainly.

"I mean, you figured it out, and you stopped him, and you kept Brennan from . . . is it bad if I want to finish this sentence with 'from doing anything too stupid'?"

[paladinsuitsyou]

Hannah gets a rueful smile at that last part. "There is that," he says. "I pulled Zach out of the way of a blast, too."

He's not boasting, exactly, but he did feel a bit unappreciated after that whole explosion thing.

"Did Brennan ever tell you about how she got involved with Epps's case to start with?"

It seems like a change of subject, but it isn't really. Not in Booth's mind.

[argyle_princess]

"You're the reason that story was fake, not real. I think the commonly accepted term would be 'hero.'"

Hannah gets it, even if the squints don't.

She shakes her head a little.

"Not a whole lot. I mean, I've read a little, and you told me she broke his wrist, but, no, not really."

[paladinsuitsyou]

Booth smiles a little more genuinely at the "hero" part. Finally, someone gets it. It's less sweet now than it would have been a day ago.

The smile fades a bit when he starts to tell her about Epps, though.

"He was gonna die. His lawyer asked me to look into his case, make sure he was innocent. There was unexplained evidence, and...yeah. So I asked the squints to look into it."

[argyle_princess]

Hannah nods.

"Kinda the only thing you could do, if you had any, you know, reservations."

[paladinsuitsyou]

"I didn't," he says shortly, because he really, really didn't. "But I didn't want anyone else to. Evidence...it's important. And you can't just pick and choose what you use, if you have other options."

He sighs and rubs his temple with his hands. "I arrested him for killing a girl named April. That's the only death we knew about. But chasing down the evidence led us to the others..."

He trails off, not sure how much he wants to say after that.

[argyle_princess]

"And he had to be tried for those murders, too, so the execution was stayed. And I'm guessing that's what he wanted."

Hannah's been played by an accused murderer, too, after all. Not that that analogy should be carried too far, but it's there.

[paladinsuitsyou]

"Yeah," Booth says. "It was. And I gave it to him, wrapped up with a nice tidy bow. He thanked me. Before Brennan broke his wrist."

[argyle_princess]

Hannah is quiet for longer than she means to be, thinking.

"He . . . I . . . it doesn't sound like there was anything you could have done differently."

[paladinsuitsyou]

"Not so much," Booth agrees. "Even at the end, he boxed me in. Didn't let me choose. It was always his game."

He wouldn't normally talk to someone Hannah's age like this, not at all, but things are not exactly normal, are they? Luckily, Hannah's not exactly normal either.

[argyle_princess]

"Of course it was. It couldn't be your game, because you don't play games with people's lives, I don't think. Which means all you could do was try to change the rules in his. Or something. That made sense in my head."

She's not sure it makes sense said out loud.

[paladinsuitsyou]

"It makes sense out loud, too. Mostly." Booth smiles kindly. "The game...maybe the mistake was trying to think we could ever beat him at it."

He's sounding glum again after having been slightly cheered by Hannah's garbled theory.

[argyle_princess]

"Rigged game. Stacked deck. Something."

Hannah looks at her hands.

"I wonder, though, if it's better to be the opponent, even a rigged game, than a pawn."

She's only ever been a pawn.

[paladinsuitsyou]

"It is," Booth says. "I've been both, I think, and seriously, it works much better for me to be an opponent."

He eyes her curiously. "Which one are you thinking suits you best?"

[argyle_princess]

She looks up and directly into his eyes.

"I've never been the opponent. But I can't say like being the pawn."

[paladinsuitsyou]

"No, I don't think it suits you," Booth says. "Not that I'd suggest setting yourself up as the opponent on purpose just to stop being a pawn."

He gives her a long look. "That means, don't go into criminal justice just so you don't feel like a target. It doesn't work like that."

[argyle_princess]

Hannah nods. "I know."

If anything, it seems to make you more of a target.

"I find all this really interesting, scientically, but . . . it's a lot to think about. And not a decision I have to make any time soon."

[paladinsuitsyou]

It also makes you an opponent, and it can make you a formidable one, if you're lucky. But a target as well. And sometimes a pawn.

"I was in the Army," Booth says. "Ranger."

It seems apropos of nothing, but Booth does have a point.

[argyle_princess]

It does, in fact, seem a propos of nothing.

"Okay," says Hannah, slowly.

[paladinsuitsyou]

"I was a sniper," he says slowly, looking down again. "Meant doing a lot of things I didn't understand, just because I had orders. I was a pawn. It didn't bother me, not for a long time. And then it did."

Booth pauses, looks up at her. "So I decided not to be a pawn, to try and...oh, hell, it sounds stupid, but make up for the things I did before."

He's not sure why he's telling her this. It just seemed like something that should be said.

[argyle_princess]

"It doesn't sound stupid," says Hannah.

"Does it work?"