A/N: I've read so much Bones Fanfic that this plot came to me and won't let me do anything else but write. this is my first Bones fic and it's not betaed so feel free to grill me on my spelling and grammar. It will obviously be BB all the way and more intense if all goes as i plan it. reveiws alwasy welcome but not mandatory, read for readings sake i say ;)

Temperance Brennan was miserable. Her expression remained impassive as she inconspicuously watched the couple seated in a private booth at the back of the room but her insides burned with rage and jealousy. Special Agent Seely Booth sat huddled with his latest leggy-blonde talking in hushed intimate tones as they awaited the arrival of their food. Brennan cursed under her breath admonishing herself once again for deciding to have dinner here instead of her usual Wong Foo's. It was all his fault, she thought sullenly, "Branch out," he said. "Break your routine," he said. The one time I actually decide to take his advice and OF COURSE I had to end up in the same place as him and Barbie over there." Sulking she downed the last of her beer before paying her bill and leaving so she wouldn't have to suffer seeing his 'charm smile' aimed at someone else for an entire evening. She was grateful they were too wrapped up in one another to notice her sitting alone by the bar, nor did they notice her leave and just as well. Tomorrow she could slip behind the mask of indifference that she had hid behind for the last three years that she and Booth had been partners and no one would be the wiser that she was dying inside. She would have her supposed obliviousness to fall back onto so that she could avoid the inevitable pain relationships caused. The drive home was a short one but she turned on the radio to the highest volume in an attempt to drown out her thoughts which threatened to overwhelm her logic and insist she turn the car around and go running to him, the leggy-blonde be damned. She had just reached her door when she heard her house phone ringing from beyond the heavy oak. Brennan dug in her jean pockets for her keys, her usually deft hands fumbling in her rush but nevertheless she got the door open and was at the phone by about the fourth ring.

"Brennan." She answered anchoring the phone to her ear as she dropped her keys on the table and shed her coat. The voice on the other end made her freeze in the process.

"I need you to listen to me..." came the hurried voice of Max Keenan.

"Dad?" Brennan asked even though she knew it was him, his voice had haunted her ever since the day she watched him and Russ drive away from her, again.

"Temperance you need to listen to me, you're in danger. I need you to lay low for a while."

"What? Why?"

"There's no time to explain, but you need to get out of DC, get on a plane to anywhere until I sort this out."

"Sort this out? The last time you sorted anything out the Deputy Director of the FBI was strung up and burnt to death!"

"I did what had to be done; you have to understand I was making sure you were safe but this time I can't protect you. I come anywhere near DC, I'm as good as dead and I'm not only talking about the warrant that the FBI has on my head. Now do as I say and get out of town while I deal with this."

"What makes you think after all you've done to me that you have any right to order me around or have any say about what I do. If you will not tell me why I'm in danger this conversation is over." As she made to remove the phone from her ear her father's hurried voice sounded once more.

"You don't understand, I still have many enemies out there and one in particular has been recently paroled. He is not above using you to get to me, so until I find out where he is and what his plans are I need to know you're safe. These are very dangerous men Temperance."

"Well I don't scare easy and I refuse to turn my life upside down based on a whim, especially yours. I go with facts and the fact is that you don't know this man's intention be it malevolent or otherwise. Besides I can take care of myself, I have done for fifteen years but you wouldn't know about that now would you?" With that she hung up staring at the phone as if it would jump out and attack her. His voice, the voice of the man she had been so desperate to find for the last fifteen years of her life still echoing in her head. Her Temper hand gotten the better of her and now she would probably never hear his voice again, the voice that could give her all the answeres that she craved.

Pulling her coat back on she picked up her keys once more and was out the door without a second thought. She needed to get away, to think, about everything. It was all just too much, after two years of silence her father decides to pick up the phone to order around like she was five years old. It was ridiculous, how dare he? She ignored the part of her that was deeply touched that he still cared enough to try and warn her, that thought did nothing for her so it was pushed aside. Brennan stormed down the road not knowing where she was going, her feet working on their own. Blinded by frustration she was surprised when she found herself in a nearby park and she sat with a huff on a cold bench in the deserted grounds. Try though she might to avoid it a seed of doubt and apprehension planted itself in her mind and took firm hold. What if her father was right? What if she was in danger? She shook it off the best she could, the thought was ridiculous, wasn't it? More frustrated than ever she let her head roll back and stared unseeingly at the star-flecked inky blackness of the sky above her. She remained like that for hours, her thoughts running in a constant loop.

When she had eventually gotten home sleep had not come easy and the dark circles under her eyes were a testament to it the next day. Of course Booth had noticed, he always noticed, especially when she didn't want him to. Brennan had no intention of telling him about her father's phone call or the non existed threat on her, his alpha male tendencies were barley tolerable as it was.

"Geez Bones you look beat!" he announced as he swiped his card and entered the platform.

"Your powers of observation astound me as always Booth." She snapped, brining a femur under the magnifying glass to examine it, skilfully avoiding his eyes.

"Sleep deprivation sure makes you cranky Bones." Without looking up she knew he wore that sexy charm smile of his, the one that made her knees week and it was for that reason she examined the femur with renewed vigour.

"And why is Brennan sleep deprived?" Angela Montenegro asked as she came up behind the pair sketchbook hugged tightly to her chest. "Was there a hot guy involved?" Angela's eyebrows wiggled with the insinuation.

"No," Brennan replied nonchalantly. "But if you two insist on knowing, I had an idea for the chapter I've been working on and I wanted to get it down before I forgot it. It just took a little longer than I expected." That was her lie and she was sticking with it.

"So do I get to read it this time?" Booth asked an expectant puppy dog look on his face.

Brennan rolled her eyes, they had this conversation every time she mentioned a new chapter in her book and every time she gave Booth the same answer but before she could supply her usual, "You'll read it when it's published." Zack arrived carrying a package wrapped in brown paper.

"Dr Brennan, this just arrived for you."

"Ah those must be the bones Justine wanted me to examine," despite her tiredness Brennan still felt like a kid at Christmas as she took the box from Zack and began to walk towards her office throwing instructions over her shoulder as she left. "Booth, Angela should have the reconstruction done, run it through the database and see what you get. Angela, start imputing the variables into the Angelator and see if it matches our hypothesis. Zack go check how far Hodgins is on those particulates we found with the body."

She shut her door behind her before collapsing in her chair and heaving an audible sigh of relief. This is just what she needed, a distraction, something that concerned neither Booth nor her father. Justine was a forensic anthropologist in Montreal and often sent Brennan bones to examine as the Jeffersonian had better resources at her disposal but it was not bones that she found when she peeled back the plain brown paper that surrounded the box. Instead a plain manila folder lay at the bottom of the box, nothing on it to suggest what its contents might be so Brennan simply shrugged her shoulders and pulled it out. The smell bombarded her senses as soon as she did so, that heavy copper smell that had only one source, blood. A nervous fear now gripped her stomach as she opened the folder and that turned into unrestrained terror as she looked through its contents. There were five A4 photographs altogether each smeared in blood but not so that you couldn't see what was in them. The first was a shot of her leaving her apartment building, the second of Booth leaving his, third Angela and Hodgins holding hands as they strolled into the Jeffersonian. Zack was next shown leaving the building apparently very late at night but it was the fifth one that shocked her most of all as it showed Booth's little boy parker being picked up from school by his mother. Brennan felt sick, there was no way you could misinterpret what they all meant but as if just to make certain she got the message a plain white sheet of printer paper was exposed as she lifted the last photo. On it typed in a plain generic font were the words:

Them or you.

You decide.

You have three days.