A/N: Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed or added this story to your favorites and story alerts. I'm going to do my best not to let you down. By the way, I have a whole new level of admiration for you fanfiction writers out there who post multiple updates per week. I'm going to do my best to post twice a week, but it's tough to find time! Some of you guys are amazing...or perhaps you just don't sleep.

Chapter 2: Since You've Been Gone.

"Mr. Nigel-Murray, do you have something to ask me, or are you planning to simply stand over my shoulder, mumbling to yourself for the rest of the afternoon?" Temperance Brennan turned from the centuries-old skeleton she had been examining in order to look pointedly at the nervous intern.

"Well...yes..umm...what I was...yes...Did you know that the word 'mumbling' comes-"

"Mr. Nigel-Murray!" Dr. Brennan was practically shouting. "Allow me to restate my question. Do you have something of any relevance to any of the work going on in this lab to ask me?"

"Ah, well...nothing that can't wait until tomorrow," Vincent answered meekly, practically tripping over the stairs in his haste to exit the platform.

Brennan sighed as she watched the intern scurry away, feeling a twinge of guilt. Mr. Nigel-Murray was already overly anxious and easily intimidated- having her shout at him wasn't going to do much for his self-confidence. Not that it was her job to worry about his self-confidence. Still, she knew that she had grown increasingly irritable over the last two weeks, and she felt badly for taking it out on her coworkers. There was only one person to blame, and he should be home in- she glanced at the clock for what must have been the fiftieth time that day- two hours. It had taken her two days to get any information as to Booth's whereabouts. She still had no idea where he was, or what he was doing, but she finally managed to convince Cullen to tell her his expected date of return. After she had the date, it was relatively easy to convince Charlie to tell her approximately when Booth's flight would arrive. The flight number and exact time of arrival couldn't be disclosed as a matter of security, but at least she had something- enough to keep her from losing her mind. She suspected that she might have been able to get even more information had she gone to Hacker, but it felt wrong to use him in that way. She was tempted, though.

It frightened her how unsettled she was by Booth's absence. It wasn't as though they had never been separated before; in fact, she had been gone for six weeks over the summer. This time felt different. She had thrown herself into her work with the Powhatan exhibit, a tactic that had always served her well in the past, but this time not even bones could distract her from the feelings of anxiety that seemed to center around her partner. She knew that the mystery surrounding his current case was part of the problem, but even that couldn't explain the extent of her preoccupation with his quick and safe return. If she were the type of person who believed in that sort of thing, she would even say that she was having a premonition- one that she was losing him, had already lost him. It was illogical, but the phrase 'Abandoned partner, walking' kept circling through her thoughts. So, she supposed, it was a good thing that she wasn't the type of person to believe in something as silly as a premonition. In two hours he would land in D.C. and would call to complain about the uncomfortable hotel he had been forced to stay in and the disgusting food he had been forced to eat. Two hours, and she would have solid evidence (always preferable to vague feelings) that he was fine, that they were fine. With a determined nod, she returned her focus to the task at hand.


By 7:30, the lab was practically empty; it was Friday night, after all. Angela had left fifteen minutes earlier after trying and failing to convince Brennan to join her and Cam for a "girls night out." Brennan realized that she was excruciatingly tired. The past two weeks of practically non-stop work and inexplicable worry over Booth were finally starting to take their toll. What was the phrase Angela always used? Hitting a wall. Yes, Brennan had definitely hit a wall. She just wanted to get the "Bones, I'm back" phone call, then go home and straight to her comfortable bed.

She looked around the lab and realized that she had authenticated the remains of every Powhatan Indian available. With nothing left to do on the platform, she decided to return to her office to catch up on email while waiting for Booth to call. By 9:30, she had responded to all of her email and caught up on an entire week's worth of paperwork, but she still hadn't heard from Booth. He should have been back two hours ago, even allowing for time to grab his luggage from baggage claim, he should have been able to make it home by now. The thought Maybe he didn't make it back was quickly followed by Maybe he's with Catherine. The first thought was baseless and ridiculous; the second thought was plausible, yet distinctly unpleasant. Neither was easily dismissed.

Wait a minute, I'm Dr. Temperance Brennan. I do not sit around waiting for men to call me. Though she wished she were strong enough to leave it at that and just go home and to bed, she decided to compromise and call Booth herself. She would work on pulling herself together, analyzing this unhealthy attachment she seemed to have formed, tomorrow. Quickly dialing the number she knew by heart, she was disappointed when the call went straight to voicemail. She left a message asking Booth to call her, saying she needed to check in about an old case. The lie felt silly, and it would have been unnecessary even a month ago, but for some reason she felt it essential that Booth not know her call was purely personal. Figuring that his flight must have been delayed and realizing that there was absolutely nothing left to do at the lab, Brennan decided to head back to her apartment. He would probably return her call before she even made it home.


By the time she walked through the door of her apartment, Brennan still hadn't heard from Booth. She had called him twice more, each call going directly to voicemail. She tried to make herself relax. There were a million reasons why he might not have called her. Something could have come up with the case, and they might not have been able to leave on schedule. He could have forgotten to charge his phone. He could be having sex with his girlfriend. He could still be so upset by Sweets' book that he didn't want to talk to her. The possibilities were endless, but it was that last one that had her on the verge of a panic attack. It was so unfair. She had been so careful, played by all of the rules. She never gave any hint of feeling more for him than one would feel for a partner and a very close friend. She dated other people, pretended that it didn't matter to her that he dated other people. She did everything she felt he had asked of her when he drew his metaphorical line. The idea that he would now freeze her out because of something Sweets wrote was unbearable. If he would just call, just act like he always did, things would go back to being okay. She just wanted things to be the way they had been before. That's all. She wasn't asking for more or better, just for the same.

Determined to do anything to break her increasingly irrational train of thought, she decided to clean her already immaculate apartment. She wiped at specks of dust that didn't exist, swept up crumbs that weren't there. Wandering listlessly through the living room holding a bottle of Windex, she found herself pacing in front of her front door. She was startled to remember that this was exactly what she used to do after her parents disappeared.

Temperance was logical and realistic, even at fifteen. She knew a week into her parents' disappearance that they weren't coming back. She stopped expecting them to be home when she arrived from school, stopped waiting for her mother to call up the stairs, reminding her to come eat dinner. Her parents were gone, and there was nothing she could do about it. The only thing she could do was to make sure that nothing like that ever happened to her again. She focused all of her energies on her brother, Russ. She watched him closely, trying to ascertain his state of mind. She would panic when he wasn't home exactly when he said he would be. Their childhood home had a glass front door. On days when he was late, Temperance would pace back and forth in front of that door. Watching for him, imagining all of the bad things that could have happened while he was out of sight. When he would come home, she would be so shaken from those minutes of panic that she would snap at him. It had seemed so perverse- she would be desperate to see him until he walked through the door, at which point she would just get furious. She doubted poor Russ ever understood her behavior, and eventually he left anyway. The sad thing was, she hadn't seen it coming. When, two days after Christmas, he announced that he was going to work out West and leaving her behind, she had been stunned. For all of her vigilance, she had still been caught off guard. The fact that she been surprised hurt her more than anything ever had. She had already come to accept that other people were likely to let you down, but at that moment she also realized she could let herself down. What would become of her if she couldn't be counted on to protect herself?

Even though the situations weren't remotely similar, she was feeling the same way about Booth right now. It was like she was a little girl again, waiting for someone she loved to come home, feeling terrified that he might not. As with Russ, she had been vigilant. At first, she had refused to let her guard down around him at all. Once he had charmed his way past most of her defenses, she took comfort in the boundaries he placed around their relationship. They provided a framework in which to place their interaction. After she believed he had been killed, she took some time, built a few more walls. Finally, after the brain tumor, she watched him; she watched him as if her very life depended on it. She noticed the foot with which he lead when he took the stairs, his choice of ties, his choice of breakfast cereal. She paid attention. She was careful. She knew what could be lost when one was careless. Still, for all her vigilance, here she was unable to fight this choking feeling that something was wrong.

There was no rational explanation for her fears. She couldn't even tell anymore what it was she feared- that something had happened to Booth, or that he was replacing her with his new sexy scientist. Sure, things had been a little weird between them before he had been forced to leave for this case, but there had certainly been times in the past when things between them had been even weirder. She could not explain why the unmet expectation of a phone call had pushed her to the edge, but it had. Pushing the reasonable part of her, the part that wondered exactly who she was allowing herself to become, aside, she grabbed her keys and ran out the door.

TBC