Title: Footprints in the sand

Chapter 1

Rating: For now, it's pg.
Author's Note: This story is set in February of 2007 and is told in Booth's POV.

Temperance Brennan has been murdered. She wrote entries on what had happened during the time she was missing, but will it be enough?

I'm crying in her apartment. Her body was finally found, half buried in a desert halfway across the country, in the same desert that her and I found the two people who had fought underground. If you asked me at this very moment, I wouldn't have been able to tell you their names if my life depended on it. Next to the body was footprints in the sand leading out of the desert and into town. They had not been able to find whoever had run out, but knew it was female, size 7, and that there were many, many women who fit that profile. The only limit to that was it appeared to be champion sneakers. Not the hottest fashion in Vegas, but plenty of tourists wore them, along with many people in Vegas who simply didn't care what you thought of them.

She was also found with a journal, one page bookmarked, in her hand. She hadn't been kidnapped right away, but on vacation in Maine. As far as anyone could tell, the journal didn't specify how she had gotten from Maine to Vegas. In fact, the bookmarked page of the journal didn't make sense.

I opened to this entry, if it could be called that. It seemed as good a place to start as any.

Really all it was was a bunch of letters and numbers, but I knew they meant something. Bones didn't just write numbers or letters down for nothing.

1-5-07 1E3E3E4C2 A1D3B2E1B3A1 D2D4 A1D3E5E3D3E1 C4E1A1D1D2D3B2 E4C2D2D4?D2E4'D4 B1C3E1D3D3A1D3.D2 A1C3 D3E3E4D1E1A1D1. E1C2D2D4 C5E3C3A1D3 C5A1D4 E4A1A3E1D3 D2E3D4E4A1B2E1 C5D2E4C2 C3E1 A1D3D1 C2A1D4 D4D2C3D2B3A1C4 B1E3D3E1 D4E4C4A5C1E4A5C4E1. D2 A1C3 D2D3 B4E1B2A1D4. A1D4A3 E4C2E1 E3D3E1 E3D3E1 A4E1C4D4E3D3 C5C2E3 A3D3C5D4 C5D2E1C4E1 D2D3 B5E1B2A1D4 D2 C3A1E5 B1E1 C5C2E1C4E1 D2D3 B5C2E1C4E1 D2 A1C3.

This was her code. The one she wrote before she died. I just couldn't figure it out. What did it mean? Was it a last statement? Was it very important? I couldn't tell.

All Zach could find from the body was some childhood history, race, and height, all of which fit Brennan perfectly.. He had one suspected cause of death, and that was a stab wound to her left hip. What was Brennan trying to tell us? Was it even Brennan who wrote this?

Quickly my mind went through all the techniques used to crack codes, but I couldn't figure it out, even after 2 hours of working on it. I wasn't really allowed on the case, but the Jeffersonian still told me the latest news on the case as soon as they informed the FBI, if it wasn't anything major they told me first.

I had managed to get a copy of the code, as did the Jeffersonian. The FBI had the original.

I wondered what Brennan was trying to tell us once again as I drifted to sleep.

I was in the desert. A man I couldn't see was stabbing a woman. I couldn't see her face, but her hair, shadowed by the sun, looked to be Brennan's. She had the same shape as well, which almost confirmed it was Brennan, but the woman's scream was not Brennan's. She screamed and screamed, and as I looked I saw another woman run out of sight, leaving nothing but footprints in the sand…

I awoke from my dream. It wasn't surprising that I would dream the day she died. I had been in love with her, after all.

I looked out my window and saw it was light out, so I got out of bed and made myself some breakfast.

It had been a week since anyone had seen Angela at work, though Hodgins and I had both talked to her over the phone. She sounded miserable.

Today she came in, a determined look on her face. "I want to draw her face." She told Zach.

He looked at her, confused. "You want to draw her?" He asked, stunned.

Her expression softened into that of sadness. "Please Zach, I need…" Her voice cracked. "I need to see how she looked when she died."

Zach looked as though he understood. "Take it." he said, nodding. "I'm working on some samples anyway."

She thanked him and took the skull to her office next to the Angelator. It would probably be ready around midday.

It was midday before we realized something was out of place with the body, and it was Hodgins who noticed it, even though he didn't actually realize he had until he told me.

"Sorry man. Nothing important. Zach, pretty much nothing new." He said. "Just a few things of sediment and what looks like an old break in one of the leg bones, probably from where she fell off a bike when she was little or something."

That got my attention. "She has an old break?" I asked. "She once broke her bone, I mean?"

He looked at me, clearly not understanding why this was important. "Yeah man, check it out for yourself."

"I wouldn't know what to look for, but not the point. The point is, I know for a fact Brennan has never once broken a bone. Ever. She's forever bragging about it, saying that caution prevents broken bones and such. If this woman broke a bone, any bone, ever, then she can not be identified as Temperance Brennan."

A/N: Please review!