Update! Yay! I'm proud of me. Anyway, this chapter is anything but happy, so just be warned. More depressing flashback than anything else..This is the true start of my angsty writing, so as before, review and tell me how I'm doing. I own nothing relating to Bones except a Kathy Reichs book.

BB

Three months later

Special Agent Seeley Booth had been in his office for what seemed like an eternity, but was, in reality, only a few hours of a very slow morning. Paperwork sucked, and that was the nicest way to put it. Typing a bit more on a final report, Booth sighed again, leaning back into his chair. His eyes fell on the picture on the corner of his desk, and for the thousandth time today he regretted taking his eyes off the computer screen.

The picture was familiar by now, but the pain that accompanied it would never be. Angela had given it to him, about two months ago…It was of Bones, and him, in the lab, on some normal day with some normal case. He was leaning over the table at her, smiling the 'charm smile' she refused to admit she loved. She was on the other side, leaning over to meet his halfway, her finger out in a scolding manner. The smile on her face negated the seriousness of the situation. They were close in body and in spirit there, a moment captured by a rogue Angela with a camera, about a month before the world fell apart.

He put his hand to his forehead as if that would stop the images from playing in his mind like a sick slideshow. The phone call….the numb exit from the office, stopped too soon by Angela. Hey Sweetie, heard anything from Brennan? What's wrong? Is it her? Please don't tell me… Her weight crashing into him upon the realization…How he managed to keep both of them upright he still didn't know…all he remembered was passing her off to Hodgins, who appeared a few minutes later.

"What's wrong with her, Booth? Booth? It's Brennan, isn't it?"

"Brennan's dead." His hollow voice rang through his memory, sounding more inhuman that any of the psychopaths he had worked with. Angela's scream shrieked through him as her fear was confirmed with words.

"She's…." Hodgins dazed look was the last thing he remembered of the Jeffersonian, as he pushed Angela into his arms and walked out.

He hadn't been to the museum since.

Placing his eyes firmly back on the computer screen, Booth tried to block any memories he had of his beautiful partner. The mission, as it had a million times before, failed, and Booth tried to convince himself that he'd be much better off shoving the picture in the desk drawer. Even as he thought it, he knew he never would.

Snorting to himself, Booth mused silently, the work on the screen in front of him forgotten. He knew ridding himself of every picture, every note, every physical reminder of her would be a fruitless venture. She was more of a part of him than anything else in his life, besides Parker, and even stripping everything in his life bare would still leave him with a Bones-shaped hole in his core.

After he left the Jeffersonian that day, he had somehow made to his apartment, and in the door. At that point the FBI G-man, a knight in standard issue body armor, collapsed in a heap on the floor of his apartment. How long he sat there he couldn't remember, but he did remember the sound of a phone ringing repeatedly and his answering machine catching each time.

"Booth, its Cullen. Take what time you need. Sorry about Dr.Brennan. Call if you need something."

"Booth, its…its Angela. Sweetie, I…I'm…I can't even put into words what this is like for me, and you, I know. Call me and let me know your ok…as ok as you can be…"

"Booth, it's Russ….They called about Tempe…I… this is so freakin' hard. I know you loved her Booth."

"It's Hodgins. Angela said for me to try you…I don't know what to say, man. I just don't know what to say."

"Zach Addy. Agent Booth, I can't even…Dr.Brennan was…(sniffle) Call us, ok? (a sniffle was heard, and then a voice further away) He doesn't even listen to me when the world is sane, Angela, he really won't now. (Angela's voice filled the room).Brennan always said that if anything happened for us to go to her apartment and deal with her material things…I was supposed to go first, but I think its for you to do now…I'll give you tonight…"

Booth had stood then, and only then, when given a purposeful goal to achieve. Not even bothering to clear the messages he left the apartment, and navigated the familiar route to Brennan's apartment. He used the spare key she had given him For emergencies, Booth...emergencies being defined as severe trauma, or death, not an urgent case that just couldn't wait until morning.

Or death….

Seeing the apartment caused another wave of nausea to hit him, because it was so…untouched. The place looked as if it were waiting for her to get home, as if she'd be back in a few hours to clean the papers off the table, or to put up the CDs that had been scattered across the counter. Foreigner had been on top.

Booth moved through the apartment silently, as if a single sound would shatter this world that still held Temperance Brennan. Her laptop was closed at the table in the kitchen, obviously finishing the final details on the manuscript she'd never see published. To my partner and friend, Special Agent Seeley Booth. A new refrigerator stood gleaming in the corner, no doubt holding various staples of food now gone bad, with the cabinet next to it holding all the glasses. He didn't open either.

The short hallway had been littered with pictures that taunted him, smiling happily from a time where Bones still lived and breathed. Her parents smiled down at him from one side, with a little Temperance and slightly bigger Russ sitting on their laps. Angela and Temperance smiled down from another side, arms around each other at some club he was sure was not Brennan's idea. All the squints were in another, all working on something on the platform, looking entirely at ease in their surroundings. The one next to her bedroom door made him stop cold.

It was of all of them…all the squints and him at Wong Foo's one night after some hard case or another had worn them all down. They were all shoved in a booth, Zach on one end smiling goofily, with Hodgins beside him smirking at something Angela had said next to him. Booth was on the other side of Angela, looking at Bones with a slight smile, total adoration on his features. Brennan looked back at him with a similar expression, stirring her drink thoughtfully. Slowly he reached up to touch the picture, hot tears forming as he wondered if she had ever done the same.

The only other room he had any interest in was the one room he had never been able to see. Her bedroom door was slightly ajar, and he had opened it timidly to find what Temperance Brennan had kept hidden away from the world. The room had been very welcoming, with a large mirrored dresser with an oversized bed he could just imagine her curling up in on long nights. Her bedside table held a case file and two books, as well as a couple of knickknacks that were scattered carelessly across. One small piece of jewelry caught his attention, and the hot tears he felt fell as he picked it up. Her mother's earring.

Clutching the small piece of metal in his hand just as he had months before in New Orleans, he had collapsed on her bed, wondering vaguely through his pain where the other earring was. The question didn't plague him too much as he buried his head in the pillow that still held wisps of her scent. The pain that had been gnawing inside of him released itself in an anguished scream, and he lay on the bed of the woman he loved until the tears had run themselves dry and he collapsed in a nightmarish sleep.

BB

Well? I know, I know, very depressing. Reviews are love, leave them.