Even as a teenager Temperance Brennan was obsessed with bones. It started when her parents disappeared and her brother walked out she had been taken into foster care. In the system there were good homes and bad. The good ones fed you well, and the bad ones not so well. This is when bones first became important to Brennan. She could tell how well the match would work by how well many ribs you could see at any one time. The fewer bones, the happier she was.
When it became apparent to the youngster that her parents would not likely return to her life again, she decided she would dedicate her life to forensic anthropology so that she could help families of a missing person end the agonising wait that she thought would never cease for her.
It was at this point in her life that the skeletons took on a whole new meaning. Not only were they a measure of her personal happiness or her source of income, they marked the beginning of the end. They marked the end of a family's wait the beginning of someone's grieving process, which would eventually end their suffering. She just wished she could have this for herself. Yes, she had found her mother's body and her father alive, but the killer had never been brought to justice. She would have to wait a lifetime for that.
Even now, as a happy adult who knew the importance of a healthy BMI, Tempe liked to keep her on the edge of healthily. Just thin enough to see a shadow of her bones; of her former self. Her bones reminded her of where she came from. Standing in front of her full-length mirror she ran her fingers over the familiar lumps beneath her skin. They had been there since her family had left and she liked it that way. The day they left her sight would be the day she was fully happy again with a family of her own. Given recent events with Booth she did not think this would happen anytime soon. She had come close, only to be reminded in the cruellest of ways that putting all your love and happiness into one group of people was not worth the pain and sadness she would have to endure when they left.
After all, no one had ever been able to love her for long.