To Love and Be Loved

Disclaimer: Bones and all characters known out of TV are not mine. I'm just having some fun with them.

Authors Note: I got the idea for this story after Bones declaring that she'll never have children. This idea mixed together with news about yet another baby found dead (we had quite a few of them over the last months in Germany) inspired me. Please read and write a review to me, it will help me become a better writer :-) Thanks.

---Chapter One: A lousy Monday---

Medico-Legal Lab, Jeffersonian Institute

It was just another Monday morning, a day like every Monday this summer. The team of Dr Temperance Brennan had enjoyed the weekend and was now back at work. There was always enough work to do, skeletons from storage space, from archaeologists all around the United States and occasionally from a crime scene.

Tempe Brennan herself was seated at the staff table, dressed in casual clothing with her typical large necklace and dangling earrings. Only the color of her skin was paler than usual and the faint shadows of dark circles under her eyes penetrated her make-up.

"What did we get this weekend?", Zach Addy asked. He was a young man and only recently he had qualified as forensic anthropologist.

"Camille called in ill, she got the flu." Brennan had her hands full of case files, handing them out to her team. "Some children found a skeleton out in the woods, they're not sure what it is yet. Alexandria Police had it already removed from the scene and send it in. Zack, you'll have a look at it. Angela?"

The artists head snapped up. She had unconsciously been sketching something on a piece of paper before her. "Yes, Bren?"

"Please have a look at this, this are x-rays from the new mummy the museum got. Perhaps you can get some face out of them?"

"Sure, I'll do." Angela Montenegro took the file and flipped it open.

"I'm still not finished with the larvae from Thursday." Jack Hodgins stated.

"Good, so everybody's satisfied?" Brennan asked and received nods.

She herself was relieved that the workload was low, giving her time to finish some articles she had been writing on for about a month. In the last time it seemed as if she couldn't work as efficiently as she was used to. Perhaps that was due to her being alone again after the intermezzo with Sully, or perhaps she finally had caught the summer flu going around in the Labs of the Jeffersonian. For her, she'd been a lot more tired and quite often napped in the afternoons. Zach had been out cold for about ten days and just last Thursday returned to work. And even Booth had called her last week, telling her that he was staying at home.

Tempe Brennan smiled while she remembered the call Booth had given her. His voice was rough and nasal and he sounded like any ill man: Like he was in danger of dying this second. But surely his cold had to be over by now and she was slightly suspicious that he would stop by this Monday.

Seated in her office she turned on the computer and went in search of a painkiller. Feeling the cramping in her belly this morning, she suspected it to be that time of the month and wanted to be prepared. But no, it couldn't be, she had just yesterday started the last blister of her pills. Well, the cramping was there and if she had learned one thing early, it was that her menstrual cycle was a mess, with or without taking the pill. Taking it long term just helped to lessen the pain and have to live through it only a few times a year.

Having found what she searched for, she drank a large glass of water with it and logged into her computer. Emails, requests, a quick glimpse into her online-dating account and soon she was absorbed in her daily work.

"Dr Brennan, I think I've found something." Zach Addy stood in the door to her office.

Startled Brennan looked up. "Zach, you startled me."

"Sorry, I just thought you'd want to look at the skeleton from the Alexandria police."

She stood up. "What is it?"

He informed her about his findings while they walked to the working area. The skeleton was that of a tiny baby, some bones missing and only remnants of the cloth it was buried in.

Zach had made lots of photos and carefully laid out the parts they had. The bones were old, only tiny bits of flesh left on. One femur was missing, as well as several ribs, pieces of the scull and one hand. But it was enough left to clearly identify it as human remains.

"Zach, call Hodgins. His larvae have to wait a bit longer. Take samples and photos, then clean the bones. I'll inform Alexandria police that we need access to the site it was found on."

Normally she would have been all over the remains herself, taking samples, measuring and getting a feeling for the case. But today she wasn't sure she could stand handling it. It made her sick to the stomach to see the disrespect someone had shown to the infant in burying it in the woods. Just the leftovers of another life never lived, never loved.

There was a dull pain in her belly, subdued by the painkillers but still there. Tempe thought about taking the day off, laying in her bed, blinds closed and just waiting till it was over. But with the new case in the lab and no Cam to take it over she just couldn't do this.

A quick call to the officer who had brought the case in informed her that he was down with the summer cold, too. 'Great, just great', she thought. The police station told her that another officer would come to the Jeffersonian and give her all the information she might need. Brennan wasn't happy about that but she couldn't do anything about it.

A trip to the bathroom revealed that she was right about having her period. Taken care of this, she went in search for a fresh cup of coffee to keep her awake. She felt like she hadn't slept for days when in fact her weekend had been quite with writing and research. The coffee machine needed to get filled up and impatiently she waited until the dark liquid dipped through. Just as the smell of freshly brewed coffee filled her nostrils she felt nauseous. Fighting the urge to get sick, she headed back to the bathroom.

'What a lousy day', she thought while rushing through the door. Letting cold water flow over her wrists should do the trick to get her stomach to behave. It helped a bit but not enough, the urge to throw up won. She just reached the toilet and grabbed her long hairs away.

Breathing heavily Tempe sat down and a single tear dropped down from her green eyes. It had been years since her body had betrayed her in this way, but as a teenager it had happened quite frequently. To her knowledge a fresh dose of painkiller, two large glasses of water and a few hours of sleep should get her back to normal. The first two points were manageable, the last one sadly not.

Angela Montenegro had chosen this time to look for Brennan. She had realized early that day that her friend wasn't her usual self. Normally Bren should be at the lab table, poking and probing the remains or visiting Angela at her work place to talk about the weekend. Now that the clock was shortly before midday, she'd visited Temperances office, the working tables, the coffee machine. As her friend was nowhere to be seen, she treated herself with some of the freshly brewed liquid, added sugar and milk and took the cup with her. She stopped at the bathroom and out of instinct she went inside.

Someone was breathing heavily, compared with hiccups. The door of the first stall was not completely closed, just enough to see someone sitting on the floor inside. Angela put her cup next to the basin and carefully went to the door. "Hello there, everything alright?", she asked.

"...away", a muffled voice answered her. It was just audible enough for her to identify Brennan.

"Sweetie, what happened?", she exclaimed and carefully pushed the door open. Inside Tempe was just on the way collecting herself and flushing the evidence away.

"It's okay, it's just..." She blushed. It was really embarrassing to be found lying in the restroom by a co-worker, even if the co-worker was her friend. "It's just, well it's that time of the month for me and sometimes I get sick then." She stood up, shaky but standing on her own feet.

Angela reached for her hand and helped her over to the basin. "Have some water." She wet some tissue and put it in Tempe's neck. "Here, this will help."

Without the sour taste in her mouth and again some cool water for her wrists Temperance already felt better. If just the cramping would stop, she'd feel back to normal in no time. "Thanks, Ange, it's already better now."

"Do you need something else? Shall I drive you home?"

"No, a Tylenol and some more water will do the trick. Let me just wash my face, I have some in my purse." She could only hope that being grown-up would mean that her body would do as she pleased.

After lunch break Temperance Brennan felt nearly normal again. She had used the hour to take a nap on the couch in her office and was just rubbing her eyes, as Zach knocked on her door once again. Standing up slowly - no need to get her system off-balance so soon again - she opened the door for him. "Zach, what can I do this time?"

"I'm sorry to interrupt you, I just wanted to inform you that I cleaned the bones. There is a lot of damage, some parts are missing, but I can see no indicators of pre-mortem injury at a first glance."

"Thank you, I'll be out there in a minute."

Thus being dismissed, he left her alone again and Tempe went to check her emails before she popped another Tylenol and left the office. Wasn't the officer of Alexandria PD supposed to be here already?

Zach had laid out the bones in anatomical correct positions, the tiny skull still in pieces. Tempe went over them once with her eyes, then she snapped on some latex gloves and seated herself at that table, started to work them. Magnifying lens, different light sources, instruments to prod and probe and a recorder to catch her words were assembled around the bones. Carefully she marked every missing bone on a form, inspected every broken one and searched for clues.

"Who have you been?", she asked the remains, but no answer came. She forgot everything over her task, now the bones where not the reminders of a child dead too young but an unsolved puzzle. She distanced herself and got even more involved.

"Hey Bones, you alright?"

A well known voice scattered her concentration and abruptly she was back in the world of the living. A man in a suite stepped up next to her, brown eyes searching her face.

"Sure, Booth", she said out of habit. Suddenly she realized that it was already getting dark outside and that she wasn't alright. She hadn't eaten all day, in the morning she just felt sick, at lunch she slept and now it was nearly past dinner time. No longer stilled with concentration her hand began to shake a little.

Apparently he didn't believe her but let it drop. "Well, I thought I should stop here and get back up to date. What have you got here?" He pointed an the small bones in front of her.

"It's a baby Alexandria PD brought in. I'm not sure if it was homicide, thus far I haven't found any information why she died."

"She? You mean, it's a girl?"

"Yeah, it's hard to determine in infants, but I'm 99 percent certain that this are the remains of a little baby girl. After getting all measurements the computer will confirm me."

She hold up a small bone, a rib broken in two pieces. "There's a lot of damage, but I haven't decided when it was inflicted. At the moment we aren't even sure if she ever breathed."

Suddenly Tempe had two reasons to get back to her office: there was some food in the cooler and a fresh painkiller in her purse. She hadn't even realized that the last one had stopped working and now was in real pain from the cramping. It should have stopped or lessened over the day, shouldn't it? A really heavy one made her twitch.

When she realized that Booth was starring at her right hand, holding the sharp-edged rib, she looked there too. Red stains sprang up between the white bones on the table and she blinked several times. How was this possible? It was the color of blood, but the girl was long dead, her bones cleaned. A hand touched her shoulder.

"Bones, you're bleeding."

Yes, she was, but how did Booth know about it?

"Your hand, here, open your grip", he told her.

Then her eyes caught a glimpse on a blood drop forming, forming at the end of the bone she was still holding.

---

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