Disclaimer: I don't own Bones or any of it's characters - I wish I did because B&B would be together already!!

Temperance Brennan was finally feeling back on top of her game.

After everything that had happened with her father, and then with Zach, for a long time she hadn't been able to focus. Her mind wasn't on the case when she was out in the field with Booth, and she just stared at the blank screen on her laptop whenever she felt the urge to write.

But now she felt she was back. She was visiting Zack in the psychiatric hospital they held him in uptown, and he was doing so much better. She spoke to her father and Russ every few days, and her dad even started coming around every Sunday night for dinner. Even her relationship with Booth was at it's best. They bickered all the time, just how she liked it. She enjoyed stirring him up, egging him on in philosophical debates that she knew he wouldn't be able to resist.

Then she felt it.

She didn't register it at first, her hand brushed up so lightly against it, the water rushing down her side. But then she felt again, and it was hard. Like a stone someone had somehow inserted into her armpit. She turned the water off and stepped out of the shower, and dried herself quickly. She hoped that it was in her imagination and that if she felt for it again, now that she was dry, she wouldn't be able to find it. She braced herself against the bathroom sink, and studied herself in the mirror. Come on, Brennan, she thought, you're a scientist, be brave.

But she didn't feel brave. She felt like someone had knifed her in the chest when her fingers found once again the very solid, the very real lump in her right armpit. She knew it was a lymph node. She specialized in bones, but she knew her way around the human anatomy enough to know that lymph nodes don't get that large without something being wrong.

It's just from an infection, nothing to worry about, she told herself, looking in the mirror. Yes, you could have had an infection, which led to scar tissue in the nodal area. But the scientist in her knew it could be something more. She did a thorough exam of her breasts, her heart beating so rapidly she thought she might faint. There was nothing else. No other anomalies that she could see or feel. That's good, she thought, trying to reassure herself. That's good.

But she knew what wasn't good. What wasn't good was the weight she'd been losing without even trying. She had thought it was depression, after everything that had happened. She hadn't exactly felt like stuffing her face lately. What wasn't good was the nightmares, the waking up in cold sweats. Again, she had explained this away with what had happened with Zack and Gormogon, and with her father almost going to prison.

The woman in her wanted to pretend she didn't feel the lump. But the scientist in her knew better. The logical side always won out with Brennan.

She went to work at the same time as usual, acted the same as she always did. No one noticed that anything was wrong. If Brennan was good at anything it was at compartmentalizing.

Booth dropped by and picked up her up after lunch - there was a new case. On the way to the crime scene, Brennan was unusually quiet – she usually took this opportunity to rile him up on one topic or another and then giggle to herself when she succeeded. Her partner, the more "people person" of the two, couldn't help but notice. She did know that if anybody would pick up that something was going on it would be him.

"Hey Bones," he said, in a jovial tone, trying to lighten the mood. He looked over at her when she didn't respond. She was just staring out the passenger side window, her forehead creased with worry.

"Earth to Bones. Hey Bones!" he said, taking his right hand off the steering wheel and waiving it in front of her face to snap her out of her head-space.

"Geez, what's up there Bones?" said Booth, smiling. "Can't think of any more topics to stir me up with?"

She just shook her head as though she hadn't really heard him, fiddling with a tissue she held.

Booth quickly spun the wheel and braked into a park on the side of the road, jolting Brennan forward so she had to put her hands on the dashboard to steady herself.

"God, Booth, are you trying to kill us?" gasped Brennan, glaring at him.

"No, Bones, I'm trying to talk to you. And yet here you are, off in fairy-fairy land, which since you don't believe in fairies is a very long way away," he said, pulling his sunglasses off to stare her down.

"I don't believe in fairies and I don't know what you mean. Sometimes I just don't want to talk okay? Today is one of those times. I have... I have things on my mind, things that are private that I don't want to talk about. I want to go to this crime scene, I want to look at the body and then I want to go back to the Jeffersonian." She folded her arms and looked back out the window.

"What's wrong, Bones?" said Booth softly, concerned.

"What's wrong is that you believe in fairies! What's with that? You not only believe in a non-existent God but now you believe in fairies too?" she said strongly, still not looking him in the eye.

"Okay, one, Bones, that was a phrase, and I'm pretty sure you know that. Two, you are bringing up the God thing because you know it'll get me fired up and you won't have to talk to me. You're deflecting," he said calmly and knowingly.

"Sweets tell you that?" she said, her voice softer but sarcastic.

"No, years of interrogating people told me that. I know what it looks like when someone is hiding something and it's hurting them," he said.

She looked at him, and stared at him for a few seconds. He didn't look away, he held her gaze, as if to assure her she could trust him. Her eyes glistened with tears that she couldn't bring herself to shed. She unfolded her arms.

"Okay, Booth."

Please R&R :) :) :)