Disclaimer-- I don't own the characters, though I sure hope I do them justice

Seeley Booth doggedly followed Temperance Brennan through the Jeffersonian Institute.

"Look Bones, all I'm saying is that you shouldn't be staying here alone. You should get someone to stay with you."

Tempe turned around briefly to look at him. "You're being ridiculous Booth. I'm more than capable of staying here by myself for a couple of hours."

"I'm just saying, the grave digger is still out there and we don't know if…"

"Booth I'm perfectly aware of the fact that he's still out there. But logic dictates that he wouldn't try to come after me again. He's failed once, what would make him try again?"

He took hold of her arm and pulled her to a halt. "Revenge is a powerful motivator Bones. You and Hodgins are the only two who have ever gotten away without him getting his money. You can't underestimate the mind of a killer."

She frowned at him. "You know I don't like psychology."

"It's not psychology Bones, its common sense. If you won't let anyone else stay I can just…"

She pulled out of his grasp and narrowed her eyes at him. "Males have a compulsive animalistic need to protect any female that they may be associated with, but it's not necessary. You told me only fifteen minutes ago that you're meeting Cam."

"Bones, I just," he paused awkwardly. "Look I just think you need to be more careful, that's all."

She strode purposefully into her office and turned to face him, her arms crossed. "You have an… engagement Booth. I don't need you to protect me."

"Cam and I aren't Brangelina Bones."

"I don't know what that means," she said with a frown. "Just go Booth."

He stepped closer. "Just promise me you'll be careful Bones. Find some pepper spray or something." He looked long into her eyes once more before he turned and left.

Hours later after all the others had left, Temperance gathered what she needed and headed for her car. Out of sheer stubbornness she refused to take any kind of precaution as Booth had asked of her. When she reached into her bag to pull out her keys everything else she carried tumbled to the ground. Frustrated she bent to pick everything up and before she knew it the world went black.

At five in the morning Angela and Jack were awakened by pounding on her apartment door.

"Leave it," he told her sleepily, pulling her back into his arms.

Tempting though it was, she couldn't bring herself to ignore it. "I'll be back in just a minute." She pulled on a robe and hurried to the rattling door. When she opened it she was amazed to see a haggard looking Seeley Booth in jeans and a t-shirt standing on her doorstep. "Booth?"

He stepped into the apartment and immediately began pacing. "Is Hodgins here? I want to say this as few times as possible."

Angela nodded her heart in her throat. "I'll get him." She practically sprinted to the bedroom. "Jack wake up!" She tossed his jeans at him. "Put these on and come out."

Jack walked out of the bedroom a minute later in nothing but his unbuttoned jeans and started when he found Angela wasn't alone. "Booth?"

Seeley ran his hands through his hair in frustration and stopped pacing long enough to look at them both. "I got an untraceable call on my cell about half an hour ago, from the grave digger. All he said was 'eight hours'. Then this came." He opened his cell phone to show them the grainy picture.

Jack caught Angela as her legs gave out and they sank onto the couch. "Eight hours?" Hodgins asked.

Booth looked incredibly grim. "That's it."

White hot panic rose up to overtake Booth as he gazed down at the poor quality image of Temperance Brennan bound, gagged, and unconscious.

Half an hour later Booth had gathered the entire team at the Jeffersonian. He told them all what very little he knew and for a moment everyone stood in stunned silence. Zack fell into the nearest chair while Cam wrapped her arms around her body. Jack still held Angela in his arms despite the fact that she'd moved past her initial tumult of emotion; he simply needed her near him.

"What do we do?" Zack asked.

Booth surveyed the room and knew that the pain in their faces must be mirrored in his own. "We do what we did last time. We find her."

"How?" Zack asked, panic welling up. "It was almost impossible the first time, statistically speaking…"

"It's not about statistics Zack! We'll find some kind of evidence and we'll find her. We've got seven hours."

Hodgins was the first to stand. "I remember where she was parked, I'll go out and see if there's anything."

Angela was immediately on her feet. "I'm going with you."

"Ang…"

"Just listen to her Hodgins," Booth chimed in. "None of us should go anywhere alone, least of all you. Stick together." They both nodded as they rushed away hand in hand.

"What can I do?" Zack asked. "And please don't tell me to be Dr. Brennan again."

Booth managed a tense smile. "You can just be Dr. Addy for now Zack. I need you and Cam to go over all of the information we've got on this bastard. See if there's anything we missed."

Zack nodded and walked hurriedly away to get the files he knew Dr. Brennan had been keeping in her office. As he moved away Cam cautiously approached Booth. She raised a hand to make some sort of comforting gesture but let it fall helplessly by her side.

"We did this once Seeley, we can do it again."

When he met her eyes the pain and fear she saw there was heart-shattering. In that moment she knew she had lost him for good. "Its revenge Cam, there's no rhyme or reason to it. We were lucky last time that they found a way to send the message. We may not get lucky again." He shook his head as he began to walk away. "I'm going to get in touch with the FBI, you go help Zack."

Temperance Brennan woke in the dark with a pounding headache. The minute she came to she realized what had happened and cursed herself for ignoring Booth's advice. She took a survey of her injuries and realized with some relief that nothing other than her head hurt all that much. She explored her dark surroundings with her hands and roughly calculated the square footage. If she was right, and if she managed not to panic, she had about six or seven hours of air left. She was thankful when she found her watch still on her wrist and working. Unfortunately that appeared to be all that was in the metal prison with her. No bag, no cell phone, nothing. She pushed down the alarm and forced herself to take slow shallow breaths. Just as she calmed herself down, a light shown down through a small pain of reinforced glass at the top of the structure. A worn face with an evil grin filled Tempe's vision. It was a split second view before dirt began to tumble over the window and the rest of the structure. She fought for her composure as she realized that the only reason she'd been allowed to see that twisted face was because he was absolutely certain that she wouldn't live to tell anyone.

When Hodgins and Angela returned it was with grim looks. Hodgins held out Temperance's bag, papers, and cell phone. "We found it tucked into a corner of the parking garage just like this. The cell was next to it," Angela told him as she handed both over.

Booth looked down at the cell phone dejectedly then felt a surge of anger and threw it hard across the room. It hit the wall and broke into dozens of pieces. "Damn it."

Hodgins shook his head. "When she gets back she's going to be pissed about that."

Booth nodded in silent thanks of the 'when' that Hodgins had used. "I'll buy her a new one. Is there anything useful?"

Angela shook her head. "We didn't find anything helpful Booth, I'm so sorry."

"It's alright, at least you tried."

"Let's go see if we can help Cam and Zack."

When they reached the main platform of the lab they found the Jeffersonian crawling with FBI agents, including Seeley's boss.

"Sir, I wasn't expecting…"

"I know you weren't Agent Booth, but we're taking this very seriously. This team is fully at your disposal until you find Dr. Brennan."

Booth reached out and shook his hand heartily. "Thank you sir."

The older man nodded and took his leave of the institute. As he left Booth turned and whistled for the attention of the other agents. "First thing's first, we're revisiting the grave digger's previous scenes. Take metal detectors and search every inch of ground within a mile's radius of the original site. Go!"

The agents jumped into action and Booth turned back to the squints. "I'm going to help search. I'll call if we know anything. Keep looking."

Booth spread the team out so that all of the sites were covered at once, they couldn't afford to gamble with time. As he surveyed the area around the last known site his cell phone rang and his heart leapt to his throat.

"Not even close Agent Booth."

"You son of a bitch."

"Now, now Agent Booth, no name calling."

"What's the ransom? Whatever it is we'll get it."

"Oh there is no ransom Agent Booth. I just wanted to call and let you know that you're girl is in good hands, and you're not even close." The line went dead.

"Damn it!"

The next time Temperance looked at her watch she had roughly four hours of air left. As she sat thinking in the dark and fighting to keep her breath even she realized how wrong she had been. She always thought that she wasn't afraid of death, after all she dealt with it all the time. When she and Hodgins had been through this the first time she had been prepared that there was a chance that they would die, but at least then she'd had someone with her. Now that she was completely alone in the situation she was terrified. She felt her breath come faster and struggled to regain her composure.

"Booth is going to find me," she told herself. "He and the others are working on it now, and he is going to find me." She allowed herself one rather deep steadying breath before she wrapped her arms around her legs and thought of her family.

Booth glanced at the clock as he reentered the Jeffersonian. They had three and a half hours left. He found the others ranged around the table with dozens of open files.

"Anything?"

Cam shook her head. "Nothing we didn't already know."

Booth sank into a chair. "I got another call."

"There's never another call," Cam said to herself worriedly.

"What's the ransom? Whatever it is I'll get it," Hodgins told him adamantly.

"There is no ransom."

"What do you mean there's no ransom?" Angela asked frantically. "There's always a ransom!"

Jack rubbed a soothing hand on her back. "It's all about revenge. He's pissed that Brennan and I made it out. He didn't get his money or the knowledge that we didn't make it out alive."

"Exactly. He told me that…" He took a deep breath. "That my girl was in good hands, and that we weren't even close."

"Damn it," Angela whispered.

The silence closed over them like a fist until Booth couldn't take it any longer. "I've got to get some air."

Angela gave him a moment before she trailed slowly after. She walked outside just as he punched the side of the building, hard. "Did that help?"

He shook his hand, sending a few drop of blood scattering to the pavement. "No."

"I thought we were supposed to stick together," she said wryly.

"I'm the big bad FBI agent with the gun, remember?" He leaned his forehead against the cool brick of the building. "I should have gotten her a gun."

Angela felt the vice around her heart tighten just a bit more at the regret in his voice. "We'll find her Booth."

"I want to believe it Angela."

"You can't blame yourself for this Seeley. You told me that she flat out told you to go. We both know that there's no arguing with Brennan when she gets something in her head."

He turned and sank to the ground, his head leaning against the wall. "I know, but I keep thinking of her buried in a hole somewhere and it makes me crazy. There are things I should have done Angela, things I should have said."

"Don't talk that way," she said sternly. "We're going to find her and you can do and say all those things when we bring her back."

He stood up swiftly. "You're right. I'm not going to let this bastard beat us, and I'm sure as hell not going to let him take her from us." He glanced down at his watch. "We've got three hours."

Underground Temperance was fighting off exhaustion. She hadn't been sleeping well since her father and Russ's vanishing act and until then she hadn't let it catch up with her. Now exhaustion wasn't just gaining on her, it was about to overtake. As hard as she tried to keep awake she felt herself dragging down. Her last conscious thought before she drifted off was that maybe sleep would be better. At least then death would come while she was unaware.

At the Jeffersonian they had all of their files spread over every available surface. Everyone was going over every piece of information with a fine-toothed comb, searching for any detail, however small, that could lead them in the right direction.

"This is useless," Zack said, dropping his head to his hands. "We've been through all of this at least three times and there isn't anything new."

"Zack's right," this from Booth. "We've tried everything."

Angela suddenly surged forward in her chair. "Not everything."

"What do you mean Ang?" Hodgins asked.

She rushed over to where they had left Brennan's bag. "The bag; when Jack and I found it everything was perfectly arranged, just like nothing had ever happened. If we assume that things went the same as last time her bag would have hit the ground, everything would have spilled out. Is that's true why is everything so neat and tidy?"

Booth was suddenly sitting straight up in his seat. "So you're thinking he tried to hide the bag for some reason. This was an act of revenge, motivated by rage so…"

"So maybe he slipped up," Hodgins finished.

"Give me the bag, I'll see what we can get off of it. Keep looking."

While Booth grabbed a jacket and sprinted to his car the others returned to the files. "Do you think he can find anything?" Zack asked.

"I know Seeley," Cam told them. "He'll have them go over every inch of everything in that bag as quickly and efficiently as possible. If there's anything on there he'll find it."

Nearly an hour later Booth rushed back in looking very nearly elated. "I can't believe it, but we've got him. He screwed up and we got him."

"Seriously? You seriously have a name, and address, everything?" Angela asked.

He nodded. "Seriously; I'll tell you everything on the way. We've only got…" He looked down at his watch. "Forty-five minutes."

As they all hurried to the door Cam asked the question they were all slightly afraid to ask. "How long will it take to get there?"

"If we hurry, about half an hour."

True to word almost half an hour later they baled out of a car in front of a house in what could only be described as the middle of nowhere. The FBI agents pulled up behind them and Booth turned.

"We don't do this quietly. Take him hard, take him fast and nobody leaves unless we find her." He turned to the others. "You all know what we're looking for, spread out."

Everyone sprang to action and as they spread throughout the property, on the lookout for anything unusual. As he moved Booth glanced down at his watch; they had five minutes. Though Booth kept his eyes open for any indication he couldn't see anything. The next time he glanced down at his watch it read 1:00 pm; she was out of air.

"Anything?" he asked the agents nearest him. They shook their heads, then…

"Booth! Booth!"

At the sound of Angela's frantic scream he took off running. When he reached he she and the others already had shovels, working at a frenzied pace to move the recently turned earth. Booth grabbed a shovel and began working like a man possessed. She wasn't buried that far below the surface. About three feet down they hit metal. Booth glanced at his watch; she'd been out of air for fifteen minutes. As they moved the last of the dirt Booth was on top of the structure wrenching the door open. He dropped the short distance to the floor and fell to his knees at Temperance's side.

"She's breathing! Temperance! Temperance!" He took hold of her shoulders and shook her gently. "Come on Bones!"

Slowly, she began to stir. Her eyelashes fluttered once before they opened to reveal blurred blue-gray eyes. When she spoke her voice was raspy. "Booth."

Seeley let out a grateful sigh. Still holding onto her he turned his face up to the opening. "Someone get down here."

A moment later Hodgins dropped down next to them. "What do you need?"

"I'm going to go back up there. I want you to pass her up to me." Booth transferred her carefully into Jack's arms and climbed out.

"Ok Dr. Brennan, lets get you out of here," Hodgins said quietly. He passed her into Booth's waiting arms then climbed out himself.

As soon as she was in his arms his legs gave out and he sank to the ground shaking. "I've got you," he whispered. "I'm just not so sure I've got myself."

"I was terrified," she told him as she clung to him. "Logically I shouldn't have been, I'd been through it before, but I was terrified."

"It's over now."

"I knew you'd figure it out," she whispered. "I knew you'd come."

Behind them an agent cleared his throat hesitantly. "I'm sorry sir but the medics need to take a look at Dr. Brennan."

He nodded. "Ok, ok." He kissed her forehead before he let go, then rose to stand with the others as they watched the EMTs swarm around Dr. Brennan.

"You did it," Zack said quietly.

"No, we all did it," Booth told him, remembering to pat him on the shoulder the way Temperance had told him.

"I'm more than capable of assessing my own injuries and I'm fine," Brennan snapped, clearly agitated. Booth looked over as she slapped at one of the medics.

"Clearly you're already feeling better," he said as he approached the scene. "Tell you what boys, if she says she's' fine, she's fine. I promise that the minute we get in that car I'll drive her to the hospital."

One man began to say something but he stopped abruptly at Booth's pointed look and raised eyebrows. "Um, yes sir that'll be fine, as long as she receives medical attention."

"Thank you," Brennan said.

She stumbled as she struggled to her feet but Booth caught her easily. He touched his forehead to hers and looked intently into her eyes. "I owe you a cell phone, and we're getting you a gun."

She smiled and opened her mouth to answer when a huge commotion arose from the nearby house. Handcuffed and struggling between two agents was the grave digger. Booth narrowed his eyes. "Hey guys, come here."

The others gladly rushed over and within moments Angela had a hold of Tempe. "Sweetie, you have no idea how… I'm so glad you're ok," she said through tears.

"So am I Ang."

"Bones I need to know if that's him," Booth said gently.

Her eyes clouded with anger but she nodded. "That's him."

"Good." Booth strode purposefully over to where the agents were reading the grave digger his rights. "Positive ID, you're going away for a long time."

The worn, distinctly evil looking man turned with dead eyes. "This isn't over Agent Booth, I'm too good. And I'm not done with her."

Booth seriously considered just walking away. Instead he turned and punched the man in the face, putting all of his weight behind it. "Anybody see that?" he asked the agents.

"No sir," they chorused.

"I didn't think so."

Hour and a half later Bones was situated in a hospital bed and completely agitated. "Booth I don't need to be here, I'm perfectly fine."

"They want to keep you for observation Bones, you're staying for observation."

"Why? Other than a couple of bruises and scrapes and fatigue I'm fine."

He took a seat on the edge of the bed. "Bones just for once do what someone tells you, please."

Though she wanted to argue the look in his eyes stopped her. "Fine, but only one night."

He nodded. "Only one night." Though he'd touched her before too many times to count, when he lifted her chin gently with a finger he felt as if it was the first time. "You really had me worried you know."

"I know. When I was down there I kept thinking about my family."

"Your brother and father?"

She shook her head. "No, no not them; you were right. My family, my real family, is at the Jeffersonian, and with you."

He grinned at her but scooted closer. "Our relationship isn't like brother sister right?" he asked quietly.

She laughed and shook her head. "No, not brother sister, I've already got enough brother troubles."

He scooted even closer, the grin still in place. "Good because if that were the case then this…" He leaned down and kissed her softly. "…would have been wildly inappropriate."

Her eyes fluttered open as he pulled away. "Yes, that would have been… wildly inappropriate." Their eyes locked and she grinned a bit dreamily. "Want to try it again?"

Booth bent and kissed her again, hard this time. Her arms came up to circle his neck and his hands pressed insistently into her back. Her mouth opened in silent surrender and…

"Woah, sorry guys we'll come back in a minute," Hodgins said.

They pulled apart and looked over at the rest of the team a bit sheepishly. "Hey guys."

"Satisfying some basic human needs?" Angela asked with a grin.

"Anthropologically speaking every human being, whether they're man or woman…" Brennan broke off when Booth kissed her again.

"Let's not get all anthropologisty. I've got to get to the bureau and file the report but I'll be back to get you in the morning." He brushed his hand over her hair as he rose.

When he passed Angela she caught his arm. "I'm glad you're saying and doing the things you wanted to," she said quietly.

"Me too Ang." He was at the door when Temperance called to him.

"Booth?"

He turned to see her sitting with Zack on one side of the bed and Hodgins and Angela on the other and smiled. "Yeah?"

"Thank you."

He smiled and nodded, waving goodbye to the group. As he walked out to his car he tossed his keys in the air and couldn't stop himself from whistling. They caught the bad guy, they saved Temperance….

"And I think I got the girl."