Authors Note: While this may be my first FanFiction story, I have read many stories to get the jist of it, but please don't be too harsh.

Overview: This story begins a month after Hannah rejects Booth's proposal. However, in this story, Hannah did not call Bones, so no one knows about Booth's breakup. After a month of being given the cold shoulder, Brennan takes matters into her own hands. Can Booth fix his mistakes, or is it too late for them to find happiness together?

Disclaimer: I do not own Bones.

She was not afraid.

That was surprising for she was about to leave the world she knew for a one of mystery and full of the unknown. She would no longer be surrounded by those she once considered family.

'This is for the best,' she thought as she took one last look around her barren apartment.

The movers had already taken all of her furniture and precious artifacts to storage. She knew she would return some day, and when she did, her apartment would once again be filled with her tokens of the past. But for now, they would rest in the storage, gathering dust, until the day she returned.

His apartment had been quite lonely since Hannah left. And yet, he didn't seem to mind that much. It had been a month since he proposed, and it had been a month since she had rejected him. The pain of the rejection stung, and he found out that he could drown out that sting with lies and alcohol.

The weeks succeeding their breakup, Booth put on a façade for all who knew him. While he was at work or out with friends, he would pretend he had the perfect life. No one knew that Hannah had rejected his marriage proposal; no one knew that they were no longer together. He hadn't bothered telling anyone because if he did then it would be real. As long as he kept it to himself, Hannah's rejection didn't seem that bad.

Sweets had been a slight problem. He had been there when Booth had bought the ring, and he knew of Booth's plans of proposing. And that had triggered a lie, the first lie of many. Booth had simply told Sweets that he was planning on waiting because of Hannah's assignment in Chicago. When Sweets began to pester him about when Hannah would return, Booth would blurt out another lie, or just deflect the questions and move on to another topic.

With Bones it hadn't been that easy.

When Hannah left, Booth realized how empty his life began. The time that he had once spent with Hannah, and before that Bones, he now spent at home, drowning his sorrows in beer. Bones tried to make an effort to have lunch or drinks during or after a case, but he began to reject her more readily. It didn't feel good rejecting her and lying to her. In fact what he wanted the most was to swoop her up in his arms and never let him go. But he couldn't do that. Not now. Not after everything he had put her through.

What he didn't know was that by him turning a cold shoulder to Bones, her rational mind jumped to the conclusion that he didn't want to be friends with her. So gradually, the lunch offers stopped coming, and the celebratory drinks were no more.

It had been a week since he had last seen her, but this wasn't something new. Since Hannah came into the picture, if they didn't have a case, they wouldn't see each other for long extended periods of time. But when he walked into the lab on a cold February day, something seemed different. And immediately he was informed of what had changed.

*slap*

"You messed up big time, G-man," said a voice dripping with fury.

"Oww," Booth groaned, as he grasped his cheek which was now stinging in pain.

He turned to see who his assailant was, and was surprised to see the very heavily pregnant and clearly very angry Angela Montenegro.

"How could you?" Angela whispered her eyes narrowed and fierce as she stared him straight through him.

"Angela, what are you talking about?" Booth asked as he looked around for his partner.

"Brennan."

That had caught his attention. He whipped his head back towards Angela.

"What about her?"

"She's gone," Angela muttered, her anger becoming more and more apparent.

Booth froze. No. It couldn't be.

"What do you mean she's gone?" He asked, almost scared for the answer.

"She's gone. She left. Some fancy museum in Italy offered her a job as being the head of an excavation going on in southern Sicily. Apparently they discovered a cave in which human remains were found dating back to the Stone Age."

Booth's eyes grew wider and wider as Angela explained the dig Brennan was allegedly on.

"Bren wasn't going to go, you know. She had considered it, but with the baby coming so soon, she wanted to be here for his or her birth," Angela said. "But with you acting like a cold fish for the past few weeks she reconsidered it. Now she's gone. And it's all your fault."

Booth stood there, in complete shock. He hadn't been expecting that at all. How could she have left without telling him? How could she have left without saying goodbye? He knew he hadn't been the best of friends to her lately but he didn't think it would drive her to leave.

Realizing that he had been standing there, staring at Angela like a complete idiot, he opened his mouth to say something but was quickly cut off by Angela.

"Save it. Theres nothing that you can say that will fix this. You know Bren, once she's made up her mind, there's no changing it," she barked. "And don't you think for a minute you can sweet talk me into giving up her location. Because I will not allow you to contact her. You broke her when you came back with Hannah. I forgave you because I thought it would be a fling. When it turned out to be the 'real deal' I didn't know if Bren could handle it. Turns out I was right. You should have seen her eyes when she told me she was leaving. It was heart-breaking. But she was happy about one thing, getting away from you."

Angela paused, gauging his reaction. His chocolate brown eyes mirrored that of Brennan's when she had left. 'Good,' Angela thought. 'He deserves to be in pain.'

"You've caused her so much pain by being with Hannah," Angela continued. "She couldn't handle it anymore. Theres no way I am letting you ruin this for her. She finally has the opportunity to get over you. All you're going to do is open healing wounds. I cant let you do that. Her heart can't take it.

"You've caused her so much pain" Angela said again. "And I cant let you keep doing that."

And with that, she spun on her heel and stalked off leaving Booth numb at the bottom of the steps of the forensics lab.

Slowly, the feeling came back to his extremities, and he walked out of the lab on auto-pilot. Before he knew it he arrived at his FBI standard SUV and climbed into the driver's seat.

He sat there for a few moments mulling over the information he was just given.

Bones.

His Bones.

Was gone.

'Shit,' Booth thought to himself. "What have I done?'

Booth thought about going home, but home didn't seem so appealing when there was no one to go home to. So instead, he went to a bar.

The Founding Fathers was a tempting option, but he wouldn't be able to handle seeing anyone he knew there. He knew if he was confronted by one of the squints, he wouldn't be able to keep up his charade. He was done with lying. He was done with his self-pity. Booth had lost everything important in his life, with the exception of Parker. First Hannah, and now Bones. He realized that the depressed state he had been in for the past month had done nothing but harm the people he cared most about. And by people, he meant person. And by person, he meant Bones.

Booth sat at one of the open bar stools that were lined up at the counter. The bar was crowded for a Thursday. It seemed that he was not the only one drowning his sorrows in alcohol today. He signaled the bartender and ordered a shot of the strongest scotch that they had. He downed it in one big gulp.

The liquor burned as it made its way down his throat and into his stomach. But the burning in his throat took away from the pain of the gaping hole in his heart, so he ordered another. And another. And another.

After about his fifth shot, his mind began whirring. What was he doing in some ratty bar while Bones was off in Europe thinking he didn't care? He needed to fix things. As soon as possible. For his sake, and hers.

Booth had a plan. And if his plan worked, all his past sufferings would be worth the happiness he planned to achieve. But first, he needed to make amends with one very angry expectant mother.