Author's Note: I know this storyline has probably been done before but as soon as I watched the Bones Season 7 Finale I had to write this. I started wondering what would happen if Brennan didn't come back and Booth couldn't catch Pelant… What was supposed to be a one shot ended up turning into a multi chapter fic. Oh and FYI this is my first time writing for the Bones fandom, so please be kind, especially if the characters seem out of character. Obviously this will be AU very soon and nothing belongs to me.

Daddy's Little Girl

By Hazelmist

Summary: Temperance picked up her daughter and never looked back. Years later the past catches up to her. "One day," Booth promised Christine, kissing the photograph, "Daddy's going to bring you home."

Prologue: Back to the Beginning

2012

She'll always be his little girl.

That was what Seeley Booth kept telling himself as he held the charred photograph of his newborn daughter. Lights flashed all around him and sirens wailed in the background, but he couldn't hear them and only saw the photograph in front of him.

"He was too close to the explosion." One of the first responders, a thin shrimpy officer fresh from the academy, explained that they hadn't been able to get a single verbal response out of the man that was almost blown up in his own home. "It'll probably leave permanent hearing loss."

"Hearing loss?!" The pretty young woman that had just arrived on the scene looked as if she was ready to explode. She gestured wildly to the man sitting at the end of the driveway of what was once his home. "Honey, that's not a deaf man over there. Can't you idiots see that the man's in shock?! Where the hell are the paramedics?!"

"He – uh - assaulted one of them when they tried to move him from the house. We managed to get him to the end of the driveway but we're waiting for backup before we try to take him to the hospital," the officer cleared his throat and adjusted his belt, "We will of course be looking at him as a prime suspect."

"A prime suspect?!" The woman stared down at the significantly shorter officer incredulously. "Are you suggesting that he blew himself up in his own home?"

"Well, we have reason to believe – Ma'am you can't go over there! This man is a highly dangerous –"

"Get out of my way! That poor guy's in shock and is in need of medical attention. You sniveling cowards can stay here until the real bad guy shows up. I'm going to help him and get him to a hospital."

She looked as if she might assault him too, so the officer let her slide beneath the caution tape and nervously radioed in for more backup again.

Booth's ears were still ringing hours later when he came to himself in the hospital.

"Bones? Christine?" he whispered, looking around in confusion. Bones wasn't there, but Angela was sleeping in the chair by his bedside and was sporting a black eye. Automatically, he went to reach for the singed photograph of his daughter on the table between them and found that he couldn't. There were restraints on his wrists.

"I'll have them remove those," Angela yawned, sitting up. "They were worried you might hurt m - yourself again."

Booth glanced down at his hands and found to his surprise that one of his hands was wrapped. So was his arm. In fact there were several other minor lacerations and burns all over his body. He reeked of smoke and his skin was smudged in spots where the ash hadn't been scrubbed away.

"Sorry, I couldn't stop you from trying to go back in," Angela apologized. "You were so determined but I don't blame you, even if you did almost get yourself killed."

Booth looked up at her confused. Everything was so foggy and his ears kept ringing like this was all some hazy dream and not quite reality. He couldn't remember what day it was or how he got there.

"Where are Bones and Christine?"

"They're – how much do you remember?" Angela asked, frowning. There was sympathy in her eyes, as she softened her voice. "Booth, what's the last thing you remember?"

"Where are they?" he demanded again, tearing at the restraints. "Angela tell me where they are or I'll –" He paused as he suddenly remembered something: A vivid flash of himself holding his head in his hands as church bells crashed above him. The church bells keep ringing in his ears and pounding in his head as everything comes back to him at once: Pelant, the murder, Bones, the baptism, Christine, Max, and then –

"She left?" Booth whispered.

"Pelant blew up your house, Booth. It was a bomb he'd planted in the bedroom."

But Booth wasn't listening to Angela's explanation. He was steeped in that last memory, how he wound up sitting helplessly on God's doorstep armed with nothing more than an empty car seat and a title that meant little to him now. In a matter of hours he had lost everything.

"She let me baptize Christine," he recalled. "And then when I went to go get the car she took Christine and left. Max cut the wires under the hood so I couldn't go after them."

"Booth," Angela grasped his arm. "They found something that looks like human remains in your house," her voice wavered. "They're not sure yet who it belonged to but they're still searching through the debris for more…"

For one horrible moment Booth wondered if they were dead. But Max had been there in front of the Church telling him that she was gone and he had to let her go. He remembered the pity in his eyes as he told him that they were safer with him than Booth. It had wrenched Booth apart, because he knew that Max was right. Admitting that he couldn't keep his own family safe was so painful and humiliating that it was almost as bad as thinking that they were dead.

"No!" Booth shook his head. He tried to lift his hands to his face but they were restrained. This had to be a nightmare, something happening to someone else. "No, after the baptism she took Christine and she left. Max was there. He told her to run and he told me not to go after them."

"Are you sure, Booth?" Angela asked, hesitantly.

Booth was sure, but now he remembered the explosion. He remembered how he had put the key in the door and just stood there in the open doorway, unable to go any further because they wouldn't be there. He'd been unaware of the fact that he'd activated the bomb Pelant had planted as soon as he opened the door. God knows how long he stood there on the front step, just staring in to the empty house that had once been their home. If she hadn't left him right before that he'd certainly be dead and probably Bones and Christine as well. But he would find that out later. Now he remembered the explosion that had knocked him off his feet, the blur of sirens and flashing lights, the officers, Angela trying to approach him, the hospital, the doctors restraining him, the photograph…

Angela placed it in his hand before he could even turn his head in its direction. He closed his fingers around it and brought it as close to his eyes as his tied wrists would allow. Bones had been holding Christine in the picture, but the corner that held her face had been burned and had turned to ash in his fingers. She had disappeared like smoke in to thin air and it was the last straw that had set him off in the aftermath of the explosion. Booth felt that in that moment it was almost appropriate that her face had been burned off, considering how he felt about her taking his daughter and leaving him.

"I'll get them to take those stupid things off you," Angela said, close to tears. She wiped at her eyes and left the room.

Booth cradled the photograph in his hand and tried to block out everything except for his daughter. It never ceased to amaze him how beautiful she was. He thought that after having Parker he would have been prepared, but it had been almost nine years since he had last become a father, and it blew him away how quickly that little girl had wrapped him around her finger. She was Daddy's little girl from the day Bones showed him the video of the ultrasound.

Angela's raised voice was heard long before she frog marched some guy in scrubs into his hospital room.

"Take them off!" she ordered him.

"Miss, I think I should remind you that the police officer and Dr. Hodgins gave explicit orders –"

"I'm Dr. Hodgins' wife and I'm telling you to remove them. NOW!"

The guy in scrubs took the restraints off and Booth massaged his freed wrists. He scooted out of the room before Booth could thank him, leaving him alone with the raging Angela. Booth took a moment to look at her face and when his eyes came to rest on the black eye, she deliberately turned her head away.

"Angela, earlier when you tried to get me to go to the hospital…" he swallowed hard. "Did I hit you?"

"It was an accident, I got in the way."

"Angela, I'm so sorry," Booth apologized.

He already felt terrible on so many levels and now this. He'd sworn never to hit a woman but as soon as his world fell apart one of the first people he lashed out at was one. Was he turning in to his old man? Perhaps that was the real reason why Bones had left him. Maybe she'd lost faith in his ability to be a good father to their daughter. Her standards were so impossibly high. She'd only want the best for Christine and who could blame her? He couldn't even keep them safe from a killer. Instead she'd turned to her own father for help and she'd run away with him.

"Booth," Angela took his hand in her own, snapping him out of his miserable musings and forcing him to look at her. "You were upset and in shock. It was an accident and no one's going to blame you for getting angry and lashing out when you hardly knew what was going on or what you were doing."

"Except Hodgins," Booth sighed.

"Yeah, I'd steer clear of him for a while," she advised him. "But besides Hodgins and the officer you assaulted-"

"Great and now I'm going to jail too!" Booth groaned.

"He was a dick, trust me, even I wanted to smack him," Angela confessed with a weak smile. When Booth chuckled darkly at this, Angela tightened her grip on his hand.

"Booth, do you really believe that Brennan and Christine weren't in the house?"

Booth rested his other hand on top of hers and leaned closer so that they were on eye level.

"Angela, I know they weren't at home," he reassured her, patting her hand. "She's gone but she's not dead."

"And you're sure?"

"Positive."

"Thank god," Angela closed her eyes in relief. But when she opened them again she wasn't entirely convinced.

"But where'd she go?" Angela asked, still trying to wrap her head around it. He was still trying to figure that out too.

He shrugged.

"I don't know. Wherever Max told her to go, I guess. He said that he was going to keep her safe. All I have to do is stay in the system and catch Pelant," he said bitterly. He let go of Angela's hand and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"He makes it sound so easy," Angela lamented. "Does he have any idea that you just became the prime suspect in another possible murder investigation? Or that this killer we're dealing with is a psychotic genius?" She ran her hands through her hair and leaned back in her chair. "It's not going to be easy," she sighed, staring up at the ceiling.

"No, it's not," Booth agreed. He reached for the photograph again, one of the few that he had left of them. There were some in his office and some in her office but they may or may not have been confiscated as evidence. They had probably already locked him out of his email and his phone had half melted in the explosion that destroyed their house. He wished now that Bone's face hadn't been burned. He missed her already.

"I have a ton of pictures of them on my hard drive and on my phone," Angela said, as if she could read his mind. "Bren used to send me dozens of photos a day." A fleeting smile crossed her face as they looked at the photograph together.

Bones had been so proud of their daughter, showing her off to everyone including complete strangers. And who could blame her? Christine was one of the most beautiful things he'd ever laid eyes on. And now he'd never see her again.

"I can print them out for you tomorrow," Angela offered generously.

"Thanks," Booth said gratefully. It took him a moment to swallow past the thick lump in his throat. "You should go home, before your husband comes back and tries to kill me."

"Mmm you're right, but he's going to have a hell of a time if he thinks he's getting past me tonight. I think with a little persuasion, though, I might be able to convince him that you're more useful to us alive than dead," she tried to joke.

As she put on her coat and gathered her things, Booth wondered if she was wrong. Perhaps he would have been better off if he had died when that bomb went off. Perhaps then someone would actually believe that Brennan wasn't a killer and catch the fucker before he hurt Bones or Christine or anyone else.

"Oh, and Booth," Booth reluctantly tore his eyes from the photograph as Angela touched his shoulder. "I'm not giving up. I'm going to do everything I can to help you catch this psycho so you can get your family back."

"I know, Angela, thank you," he said, nodding.

As he focused on the photograph of his little girl, he knew that he wasn't going to give up either even if it killed him. He couldn't, not when he knew that she was still out there. He was the system, and the system had never failed him, until now. In all of his years in the system, he never once thought that something like this could happen to him. But it had.

It would be the greatest sacrifice he ever made but he knew now what he had to do. He had to give her up, at least for a little while.

"One day," he promised Christine, kissing the photograph, "Daddy's going to bring you home."

Looking Back

She'll always be his little girl.

Max wasn't always there for her, but now she realizes that he had given her all he could. He taught her everything he knew when she was a child. He was her father, her teacher, and the man that abandoned her and took her mother with him. But he was also her savior.

When the rest of the world turned their back on her, he was there waiting for her with an open door.

"You have to leave now," he told her. And then he took her by the hand and he helped her walk through that door and leave everything behind her.

Except her daughter.

She couldn't leave Christine. Christine was a part of her and a part of him that she couldn't let go. Before she became a mother she never would've thought herself capable of a love so powerful that it superseded everything else, but then she held her daughter for the first time. She never wanted to let go. She couldn't.

So, she clung to Christine as she watched Booth walk away for the last time and then she got into that car with her daughter. She looked back, hoping to catch one more glimpse of him, hoping he'd catch her and stop her and take her in his arms again. But he was already gone.

The next time she looked back in the rear view mirror, all she saw of him was their daughter and that was all she needed.

"You're making the right choice," her father had praised her.

And for a while she believed him.

She was a wealthy genius and he was a criminal who had evaded the law for years. Pooling together their resources, they were able to set up a network of their shadier and isolated contacts that would supply them with a steady stream of new identifications and help them cover their tracks. They fled the country, dyed their hair, altered their appearance, and adopted their new identities. They'd hop from country to country, just in case someone was following them. But after years of no sign of anyone, they both began to hopefully consider the idea that Pelant was satisfied with what he'd done to her and decided to wreak havoc on someone else.

Their increasing hope lulled them in to a false sense of security. They slacked off in Europe, stayed a little too long, looked and acted a little too much like themselves, and got a little too comfortable and bold with their new identities. They got better jobs, made more friends, and when they got homesick they actually made some trips on to an American military base with Christine.

It was on one of these special occasions that someone recognized them. In retrospect, she realizes that she should have spotted him in the crowd immediately. But years had gone by and she was so busy chasing her daughter in the crowded hall that she didn't notice the pair of eyes watching her. It was the last thing she and Max had ever expected and it was the moment that changed everything.

Perhaps they could have gotten past it, if only they hadn't been so wrapped up in the small fragile world they'd built around her daughter. She had been so sure, that this was the only way, and that it had to be the "right" choice. Her heart and mind had been in agreement that this was the best decision for all of them, right up until that moment when he came for her.

She knows now that she should have known better. She should have known that nothing would ever stop him from coming for her. She should have known that she'd always be Daddy's little girl.

But when she looks back now, she wonders if she could have fixed everything the first time Seeley Booth came for his daughter.

A/N: Who's super excited for Season 8? I AM! I've seen the promos and I know it's going to be awesome and that this will be very AU. I started writing this months ago and I've been editing, rearranging and adding to it ever since. I'm wicked nervous because I haven't posted anything in a while and I've never written for this amazing fandom before. So, what do you think? Will Booth get to see his daughter again? You'll find out soon!