It had been one of the worst nights she'd ever endured in a long time. Nothing seemed to want to work out for her today.

For one, the case she had been working on didn't meet the standards to be FBI-worthy. In other words, she didn't get to work with Booth for a few days. She had to spend over extended, boring hours in her lab coat examining bones; a task that she used to find pleasurable and fulfilling before she met Booth. She didn't know what she was missing until he started taking her into the field. But these past few days brought her back to the life she knew before Booth. The dull, action-less, pure scientific life she never realized how much she didn't miss until now.

The case itself: dreary. Some 100-year-old skeleton found in a hidden tunnel in some field in Mexico. Brennan could barely keep herself focused while she drew information from his bones, a talent not many other people could say they withheld; a talent no other person could say they did better.

Her interns had been working her last nerve. Not one of them was worthy or good enough to replace Zack. All of them were adequate, great at their work, but no where near as great as Zack had been. She knew she needed to pick one but she didn't feel the need or want to try to get close to another assistant. It didn't feel right to her. They were all very intelligent and competent, but they all had these small character flaws that irritated Brennan to the bone.

Clark was too distant and emotionless; a characteristic that would have been unimportant or irrelevant to her before she started working with Booth.

Arastoo took too much time each day to pray to Allah and it seemed to make some of her colleagues uncomfortable.

Daisy was loud and obnoxious; a ditz as Booth would call her.

Vincent used too much of his time spouting out irrelevant facts to keep himself focused.

Fisher was too depressed all the time.

Wendell, who seemed to be everyone's (including her own) favorite intern was there on scholarship. This undependability was a concern to her.

These things had made her week drag along, making it very difficult for her to undergo. But this particular night seemed to take its toll on her as well.

The lock-down alarm had gone off at least three times that day for what ended up being pointless reasons, leaving her with a headache that four aspirin couldn't take care of. Hodgins had done another useless experiment that did nothing but create a big mess in her lab and leave Cam ranting with another nice dress of hers ruined. It had been raining non-stop since she woke up in the morning to when she walked home. She couldn't even think about the forty-five-minute long drive she was going to have to make to get back to her apartment. But she remembered something.

Booth had given her a key to his place for emergencies. His place was only 20 minutes away from the Jeffersonian and tonight seemed like a legitimate "emergency" to use it. She hadn't needed the key yet and found tonight to be a good reason to put it to use.

She walked down to the car garage where she had parked her car and started it up. About 5 minutes down the road, she noticed her gas was below the "empty" line. She growled to herself knowing the car wouldn't make it the extra 15 minutes and pulled into the first gas station she spotted.

She pumped the car completely full of gas. While she walked back to get in the other side of the car to drive to Booth's place, already soaking wet from the pouring rain, she slipped in a puddle, drenching the back of her jeans and sweater and hitting her already aching head on the pavement. She got up slowly, clenching her eyes shut and cradling her head in one of her hands, resting the other hand on her knee. She stood like that for about three minutes before slowly getting back into her car. No one was out on a rainy night like this, no one to aid her or ask her if she was okay. But that didn't matter to her. All she wanted was to get to her partners apartment before she accidently killed herself.

15 minutes later, she pulled up to Booth's apartment building. She got out of the car, cradling her head with her hand again when she stood too quickly. She walked to the door. It was about 11:30pm now. With Booth only being able to work on desk duty, she figured he was asleep by now. She unlocked the door and walked in to the dimly lit apartment. She tried to walk silently and slowly, to leave Booth undisturbed. She would just rest on his couch until morning. But her jeans, boots, and sweater were soaked, dripping water all over the floor below her. She had barely got five feet into the apartment when she slipped and fell on her back for the second time that night. The loud crash of her fall caused Booth to run from his bedroom into the kitchen with a baseball in one hand and an alert expression on his face.