Sixteen Years Earlier

"I made a mistake, I missed my chance" Her heart swelled, chest tightened, and her sobs filled the air.

He turned to face, for once in his life at a loss for words with his partner. He'd been able to solve every problem in her life. Until now. Things were complicated, now. He was with someone else, and he loved her. But he'd always waited for Bones to finally be ready for their moment. Why now? Why not seven months ago before they'd ever left? Before he was…stuck.

"I need to go," Brennan choked back another sob and tugged at the door handle to Booth's SUV door.

Booth reached over and grabbed her hand, placing it back on her lap. "Bones, no, relax, okay," he commanded in a firm but gentle tone. She was starting to scare him; he'd never seen her so unwound before. Temperance Brennan was wearing her heart on her sleeve; Temperance Brennan never wore her heart for others to see. She wasn't cold hearted by any means, but the walls surrounding her heart, her emotions, he was sometimes sure were broader and taller than the Great Wall of China. And even that had fallen before her the walls around the good doctor's heart.

"Booth I need to go!" Urgency filled the brunette's voice and at the next red light she pushed the door to the SUV open. She didn't quite understand these emotions that she felt; alone for the very first time in her life. Solitude had never bothered her before this case, before she realized from a bystander's point of view what her life looked like from the outside. It was not appealing by any means.

Booth reached over and tugged the door closed again. This time he tapped the child lock button down so she couldn't open the door. There was no way he was letting her out alone, not in this frame of mind. It was his job to protect her, even if he didn't quite know how to protect her from her own feelings.

"Booth!" Brennan's voice grew angry, impatient. She had never been a patient woman. She swallowed hard as Booth slowed to a stop in front of her apartment building. The safety of her apartment was only a few floors up. She tapped her fingers anxiously against the leather doorframe of the familiar black SUV, watching from the corner of her eye as Booth slid from his seat and walked to the other side of the vehicle to let her out.

Cold air and thick droplets of rain met her skin when Booth opened the door. He'd escort her upstairs to her apartment, try and talk to her. Brennan wasn't an unintelligent woman; she knew her partner, she knew his next move. She just had to make sure that that wouldn't happen. She wanted to be alone. Away from him. For the first time in a long time she was thinking with her heart instead of her logic, and she knew she had a lot of reflection on her life to do. What was next? Was she happy? Could she continue like this?

Temperance looked up at Booth when she felt his hand slide around her forearm. The familiar grip was tighter and more secure than she ever remembered it being. She avoided looking in his eyes, lowering her gaze to the wet and dirty crème colored sidewalk.

"It's alright… I gotcha… I gotcha Bones," Booth whispered against her hair, walking as if to hold her up. As if he thought she might fall then and there.

Brennan quickly took back control of the situation, yanking her arm from his grip despite the nagging feeling in her chest that wanted to be by him, to get as close to him as she possibly could. She straightened herself and smoothed out her long, solid brown skirt and tugged her jacket closed over her chest as a minor shield from the pouring rain. "Goodnight, Booth."

"Whoa, Bones, hold on a minute here. I'm not leavin' you alone tonight. No way."

"I find that I'd like to be alone tonight, Booth." Clinical Brennan slipped past emotional Brennan faster than the speed of lightening.

"Well then I'll sleep on the couch," Booth insisted, breaking into a half jog to catch up to his partner.

"Logically speaking, that would mean I am not alone. In order for me to be alone, I'd need to be in my apartment without any other person there," Brennan explained, turning to meet his gaze.

Booth inwardly smiled; no matter what was going, Brennan was first and foremost a teacher. It gave him a flicker of hope that Brennan would be okay in the morning, and that this little mental break she was having was just a tough day in the lab working on a difficult case. He'd already lost his partner once… he couldn't do it again. "Alright, Bones, but I'm callin' to make sure you're okay, and you'd better pick up the phone."

Brennan scoffed at the command in his voice and rolled her eyes. "Yes Booth, I will." She glanced back up at him, letting her gaze linger for a moment before turning around and walking in the direction of her apartment building.

Temperance pulled the keys out of her pocket, readying them for when she hit her apartment door. A new feeling was nagging at her now, a new but also familiar feeling. She wanted to run, to escape. After all, it was in her blood. She pictured herself on a plane in first class, eyes straight ahead, departing for some foreign country that could possibly hold the key to the origins of mankind. She pictured leaving for the Maluku Islands; she wouldn't feel as depressed as she had then. She'd feel relieved. She'd feel… fresh. Yes, like she had a fresh start.

She flipped open her phone and leaned against the front door to her apartment. In a rash decision void of all logic, Temperance Brennan decided to do it: to just leave and get away.

Present

It had been a normal day for Special Agent Seeley Booth; he had just finished up a case, thanks again to the Squints at the Jeffersonian, and he was ignoring paper work in favor of kicking back in his office and relaxing, when he got the call from Hacker. More trouble in suburbia; Booth thought back to the murder he and Bones had solved in the suburbs, all over a windmill. He had to smile at the memory.

"…The file's on its way to you now, Booth. Solve it, quick and clean. You know how I like it."

'Yeah, I know,' Booth thought to himself. That didn't always mean he did things Hacker's way. Against the crowd, against authority. That was Booth's way.

Special Agent Seeley Booth stepped up to the two story white home. It was a white picket fence home if he ever saw one in his life, and absolutely everything he would never expect to see in this situation. Not in her case. He looked down; his palms were dripping with sticky sweat, and his chest was tight with the familiar fear he felt when they were working together sixteen years ago. Each case new, each threat new, each danger different, each fears the same sickening feeling.

Booth gulped down the lump in his throat as stared down at the file that had been delivered to him. Never in a million years did he think that she would be his next case. He reread the file quickly and thoroughly; this case was special. Not that the others weren't. But this case involved somebody he once loved. Somebody he still loved.

Former Special Agent Tim Sullivan, last seen leaving his restaurant at 10 p.m. He never showed up at home. Still unaccounted for.

Dr. Temperance Brennan-Sullivan, eight months pregnant, found beaten and unconscious in the living room of her home. Rushed to Mercy General and admitted to the ICU.

Sixteen year old Ally Kirsten Brennan-Sullivan, found shot and left for dead in her bedroom. Also rushed to Mercy General. Update: Has undergone surgery for internal injuries and is reported awake and coherent in ICU.

Five year old Kyle Timothy Brennan-Sullivan, found hiding in the cupboards of the kitchen in the family home; delivered to Social Services by First on Scene Deputy Michael Vandell.

Booth knew the history here; Brennan had run into Sully traveling to one of her digs. They'd reconnected. She wasn't going to miss her chance, not again. She followed him back to the States. They were married and nine months later had their first child, Ally. It still bothered him that Brennan had a child by another man.

He chewed on his lower lip and took a deep breath. He had an investigation to conduct here.

"Seeley, you alright?" The woman's voice behind him was recognizable. He turned and smiled at Cam. "Hey, yeah me? Yeah fine, why?"

"Because you look like you just met Casper, and he wasn't so friendly."

Booth swallowed again, shoving his sweaty palms in his pockets. "Yeah, I'm fine Cam. Find anything?" He had a way of switching topics to the case to avoid answering questions. He'd learned his evasiveness from Bones.

Cam shook her head. "Not much. Some blood and tissue samples, but no real evidence. Cop says the neighbor called in a disturbance at 2 a.m. and that's why he decided to show up. No one saw anything or heard anything else. No tire tracks found in the drive way, nothing."

"Any idea who called it in?"

"Doris Henley, she lives two houses down. Neighbors call her the nosy cat lady."

"Figures," Booth muttered and looked down. "Alright well do what you Squints do and let's get it back to the lab then. I'm going to go visit the daughter at the hospital."

"Ally, Booth."

"Huh?" Booth blinked and turned back to face Cam.

"Ally, her name is Ally. She's not just 'the daughter'. You and I both know this case is personal, for all of us."

"Yeah, Cam, I meant Ally, alright?" Booth snapped a little. He didn't mean to, of course. But she was right. The case *was* personal for him. And the fact that he was going to visit Bones' daughter—with another man—was putting him a little on edge. He'd love the girl, he knew he would. But he wouldn't love the fact that she wasn't *his*.