Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. They are owned By Kathy Reichs, Fox, Far field Productions and Josephson entertainment.

While leaving my apartment building, I had had no intention of ending my life. Though the thought had occurred to me I had yet to make plans for the event. As I drove from the tall building snow seemed to dance through the air, the tiny flakes spinning and twirling in the night air, only to meet their end on the windshield of my car. The night had started cheerily; my apartment was donned with garland and a Christmas tree, not anything extravagant, but a little decoration. Russ had called to say Merry Christmas and apologize for his absence- he couldn't come visit because his cars engine had died, and, though he possessed the ability to fix it, the things he needed lay, snowed in, in an auto parts store three blocks from his home. I had readily accepted the let down, what was one more Christmas without Russ? I had survived fifteen already, one more wasn't going to hurt me. However, I must admit, it didn't go without thought.

So as I drove I contemplated the thought of suicide, but not as that word, not as only a word. I thought of it more as a release.

Before I took my drive I had been sitting at home, in front of my stereo, a low Diana Krall mumbling through my home, and wondering where everyone was, what all of my friends, or squints, as Booth called them, were doing at that exact moment. I knew Angela was out of town, probably thinking about Hodgins, and Hodgins was out of town, probably thinking of Angela. Zack had left four days earlier to go see his family in Michigan and Cam, well, I had no idea about Cam, but strangely I could easily imagine her curled up in front of a fire, a huge chair surrounding her form, a book in her hands. And then there was Booth. Booth would undoubtedly be with his son, smiling and laughing as he so often did with Parker. He was probably trying to put him to sleep, teasing him with tales of little boys who stayed up to spy on Santa only to find a lump of coal in the place of presents. It was then that it struck me that I was sitting there, doing nothing, except wondering about what my friends were doing. I found myself wishing I was in there place.

In a meager attempt to surpass my loneliness I thought to call Angela, then stopped myself, not wanting to interrupt her Holiday with my problems. Dumbfounded by my lack of resources I decided to write. If I had to be lonely, my characters didn't. Unfortunately over the course of the next twenty minutes I found myself bored beyond belief, still lonely, with increasingly depressing character developments. I had gone absolutely nowhere. Sighing, my self pity had then begun to wedge itself into my conscious.

I slowly became the lone, cold, heartless doctor, an almost Scrooge-like figure as I began to curse the holiday; my thoughts fluttering back to the first Christmas after my parents had disappeared. Suddenly taken up with the urge to get out, not of my home specifically, but out at all, I decided to go for a drive.

The air had been cool against my skin, light snow flakes melting around the few dark freckles that marked my shoulders. I hadn't dressed warmly; deciding that my car's heating system would keep me warm despite my lack of major outerwear. Snow littered the ground around me, the cool white chips piling up as soft mounds on the pavement.

Hugging my arms around myself, I watched as my car's headlights burst to life in sync with the movement of my thumb. Venturing forth I made my way towards my vehicle, the snow sloshing beneath and around my feet, soaking my calves. Slipping into the car I found the windshield a blank canvas of white, flakes flying as I turned on the windshield wipers. In a puff-like instant the window was cleared and a gross black SUV drove passed my building's entrance, my heart thumping with anticipation as thoughts of Booth slipped into my mind.

Don't kid yourself Brennan, I told myself, He's with Cam or Parker.

And so the engine whirred to life.

I had no notion as to where I was going, my thoughts on other things. Unfortunately the sole relative to my Christmas feelings was the disappearance of my parents, a crisis which had recently come into a new light. I knew who my father was, and found myself longing to spend a snowy evening in front of a glowing fireplace and Christmas tree with him, to reclaim my lost childhood. None the less these thoughts did not improve my mood. In fact perhaps it was probably this very thought that stimulated the neuron firings that made my mind wander to the solution of suicide.

My family had abandoned me again, my brother and father driving away, my mother dead. I was alone once more. Of course later on I realized I wasn't, I had Booth and Angela, Hodgins and Zack, maybe even Cam, but at the time my mind wouldn't let me admit that. So as my wheels tread over icy pavement, my mind slid in and out of a decision.

It could end everything, of course it was extremely irrational, but it would stop my thoughts front taunting me. But then my mind would tell me that it was completely irrational and stupid, asking myself if I wanted someone with the same occupation as myself, maybe even Zack, identifying my deteriorated corps. Oddly the imagery didn't bother me. This banter went of back and forth for nearly and hour, arguments of religion versus atheism, going on viruses dying bickering amongst themselves as I sat, a fly on the wall. Then a thought occurred to me; I relate better to the dead than I do the living. Those ten words decided it for me. Searching the streets around me I came upon an empty back road, a man-made ditch gliding along side it as though it was the water to a river's bank. Taking in a single deep breath I held it for a moment, closing my eyes slowly as my hands fell from the wheel, their weight pulling the vehicles tires jeeringly to one side just as the car hit a patch of filmy ice.

I only opened my eyes once more before everything went back. The last thing I saw were the flashing and brilliant white of my vehicles lights bouncing off of a thick wooden, leafy stalk thicker than a telephone pole.

Moments later, but what could have been years to my unknowing mind I began to feel a prickle in the darkness; a slight twinge that began to clear the darkness into something of a fog. I was later told what had awoken me was my car's horn, the sound set off into a permanent blast as it had been damaged when my car had wrapped around the thick pine tree, but I hadn't noticed at the time, my ears blind to all tones as the original blast of my car meeting wood had temporarily deafened me.

I had awoken tired and disoriented, my body like ice. I had only the recollection of my lights on the tree's trunk. Jumping in to a very slow course of action my mind began to tell my appendages to move, first my fingers, them my hands and wrists, then my arms and shoulders and so on, stopping when I met a severe pain in my left ribs. Touching them tenderly I felt for a brake or wound, neither existing. Moving further down towards my legs I felt that every limb was in tact. Taking in a second deep breath I pried to door open, exiting the vehicle shakily. In a mild state of shock I left ht vehicle, my footsteps echoing in the snow and off of the thick forest that surrounded me.

Eventually, though after what amount of time and distance I cannot recall, I reached a hospital, checking in for only an hour as doctors surveyed my body. I was deemed fine and a taxi was called for me. I was home within twenty minutes and asleep, alone once more, on my couch in front of my now silent CD player, my side bruised and my mind empty.

No one knew of my intentions that night other than myself, my team and friends only knowing that year as the Christmas I treated myself to a new car. It was the last christmas I spent alone, and the last Christmas I recieved a car. And what a nice car it was.

Fin.