"All right, Sweets, what the hell is going on?" demanded Booth angrily. Brennan had stepped out of the office to take a personal call and Booth used this time to confront Sweets.

"What..what do you mean, Agent Booth?" gulped Sweets.

"You were checking out Bones' assets when she got up to leave and it's not the first time today. So I ask again, what the hell?"

"No, Agent Booth, I wasn't.....Oh, God, I so was checking her out," muttered Sweets, a horrified expression flitting across his face as he flopped back into his chair and covered his face with his hands.

"Why. Were. You. Looking. At. My. Partner. Like. That?" At the tone of Booth's voice, Sweets shot upright, eyes wide to find Booth leaning over him menacingly.

Sweets gulped but couldn't find his voice to answer. He had never found Booth quite this intimidating before, probably because Booth had never had a legitimate reason to cause him bodily injury before but now he just might have found one. Sweets swallowed again and finally found his voice, "Agent Booth, I am so sorry. That was completely inappropriate and I swear it will never happen again."

"Wow, Sweets, do you have a crush on Bones?" teased Booth with a grin. " She is a very beautiful woman but she doesn't date twelve year olds and if I ever see you looking at her like that again, you won't live to be thirteen." All amusement was gone from Booth's voice now, his eyes glinting with anger. He leaned down, completely invading Sweets personal space. The two were almost nose to nose, although Sweets was doing his best to push himself through the back of the chair to escape the wrath of Booth. "Are we clear?"

"Crystal," whispered Sweets.

Booth held his eyes for another moment. "All righty, then," he said cheerfully as he straightened and headed for the door. "See ya, Sweets" he threw over his shoulder.

Sweets slumped in his chair, trying to calm his breathing and heart rate and was suddenly struck by a horrible thought. He was fairly certain that upon their return to the Jeffersonian that 3 grad students and 1 scientist were going to be looking at Dr. Brennan in exactly the same way he just had and if Booth noticed there would be hell to pay. Oh, who was he kidding, of course Booth would notice. He noticed if she had a hang nail. This was so not good.

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Meanwhile in the SUV

"Booth?"

"Hmm?"

"Did something happen at Hodgins' yesterday?"

"I don't know, Bones. Rebecca let me have Parker yesterday afternoon, out of the blue and I didn't make it to Hodgins." He glanced over to find a puzzled but thoughtful expression on Brennan's face. "Why do you ask?"

"Because people have been acting strange at the lab all morning. I'm thinking that the people who are exhibiting altered behavior today were in a shared social setting yesterday and logically something must have happened that caused the development of this deviant behavior." She said with a smile, relaxing back into her seat. Happy that she had started to figure things out, she took a sip of the coffee they had grabbed on the way out of Sweets' office.

At the words "deviant behavior" Booth almost spit out the sip of coffee he had just taken. Luckily, he only ended up choking when it went down the wrong way instead of wearing it on his new suit.

"Booth, are you OK?" asked Brennan reaching over and helpfully patting his back until his coughing episode ended.

"Yeah, Bones, I'm fine. Now, why don't you tell me about this "deviant behavior" happening at the lab?"

"What do you want to know?"

"Who is acting wierd and what exactly are they doing?"

"Well, at first, I didn't really pay that much attention, but when I spoke to Wendell for the third time and for the third time the dropped something, I started noticing other people were also acting oddly."

"So, Wendell dropping things is what you consider deviant behavior?" Booth asked with laughter in his voice.

"It's not just Wendell, Booth," Brennan had crossed her arms and her voice had developed a bit of a bite. "Every time I go near Hodgins, he runs off in the other direction and disappears. Mr. Fischer starts spouting some kind of strange poetry. Mr. Nigel-Murray just smiles constantly. He even winked at me this morning."

"Booth, stop laughing. This is not funny." Her voice was now indignant. "They keep looking at me kind of like Sweets was back in his office. It kind of creeps me," she ended softly.

No longer laughing, there was still a smile on Booth's face as he responded, "Creeps you out, Bones, not creeps you." Surprised, he added, "I didn't think you noticed Sweets..." he trailed off in embarrassment.

Rolling her eyes, Brennan said with a grin, "That he was checking out my assets? Yeah, I noticed."

Booth's brow suddenly furrowed and he was no longer even remotely amused. "Are you telling me that your junior squints and Hodgins are looking at you like that?"

"Yes," with a sigh.

"And you have no idea why?"

"None whatsoever."

"Well, don't worry about it, we are about to get to the bottom of this," he said, taking her hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. You better believe we're going to get to the bottom of this. Nobody is allowed to look at Bones like that but me.

Much to his surprise, Brennan returned his hand squeeze then entwined their fingers and gave him a soft smile.