Author's Note: I planned to never write a wedding scene between Booth and Brennan. However, this story needed one. I hope that I have given justice to these characters as they do what I consider something to be out of character for them, exchange vows.

"I've imagined this day."

"You have?" Booth looked at his mother with surprise.

"Some days, especially at first, it was too painful to think about you and Jared. But as time passed I found myself thinking about the two of you all the time. I found comfort in imagining my boys experiencing all of life's wonderful milestones."

Booth and his mother were standing on a beach in North Carolina. Behind them Booth and Brennan's friends and family were gathering for their wedding ceremony. The roar of the ocean created a serene symphony as they waited on the bride and her father to walk down the sea shell lined aisle. Hester was brimming with excitement. Booth was overwhelmed with joy.

George was filled with fear.

He was sitting in the last row of chairs that had been put out on the beach to accommodate the guests. Brennan had invited him to sit up front with Hester but he had declined. He was biting on his nails, a long held habit in times of stress. George did not like crowds. He also did not like being so far away from where he assured The Leader they were. If The Leader were to discover that they had deceived him, they would lose his trust and the decision of when to return would be taken away from him. He glanced nervously around the group. He recognized most of them as friends of Seeley and Temperance, but some of them he didn't know. He had considered asking Seeley, to make sure that they all belonged there but he found himself afraid of Hester's son and unable to void his concerns out loud. Now he found himself mentally cataloguing each stranger, filing information about their facial features away, in case it was needed at a later date. Most would call him paranoid, but he knew Hester would understand.

While George had spent the past week trying to convince Hester to return to The Facility, she had spent it busy helping with wedding preparations and outings with her eldest son. He had introduced her to Parker. The boy had only asked a few questions that Booth had answered as simply as possible. Hester had accompanied Booth to hockey games, she, Brennan and Christine all watching together from the stands. Both delighted in having a companion who understood the game as little as they did. She had cooked for them and she had sampled Brennan's cooking as well; declaring it good enough for her son. George watched all their interactions with a careful eye. He insisted that as few people as possible learn where Hester had been during the time that Booth had thought her deceased. His definition of "few" varied quite a bit from theirs. Hester spent her nights reassuring George that The Leader would understand and that they would return after the wedding. It wasn't enough to make George comfortable but yet it was enough.

Booth was sharing a hug with his mother as Caroline Julian approached and cleared her throat to get their attention.

"Is this your dead mother that I keep hearing about?" She asked with raised eyebrows.

"I'm not dead."

"Well we thought you were."

Hester nodded her head in understanding before asking Caroline if she were a minister.

"No, I'm a federal prosecutor. Not exactly the type to marry folks but for these two I went and got a license. After all I've been through with your son and Dr. Brennan, I deserve the honor."

"Plus you were the only person Bones and I could agree on," Booth added.

Caroline gave him a glare over her oversized sunglasses before turning her attention back to his mom. "I hear you've been stashed away at some secret location all these years."

"Yes, my husband sent me there after he told me my children were dead. I had a nervous breakdown."

"Why didn't you leave once you felt better?"

"No one ever leaves The Facility," Hester said as if it were the most normal situation in the world. "Besides I'm not sure I ever got over the loss of my boys. Until now."

"I suppose."

Booth could see the wheels turning in Caroline's head and he was glad that Angela and Michael appeared at the other end of the makeshift walkway before the suspicious lawyer could ask more questions. "Mom, maybe you should go take your seat? I think we're about to start."

Hester gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and returned to her seat on the front row next to Russ Brennan and his family. Caroline stepped into her place underneath an arch covered with vines and flowers. Parker ran to join his father waiting on Caroline's left side for Bones to appear.

A musician began to play and Angela walked down the aisle carrying the nearly two year old Michael in her arms. She had considered letting him walk but it seemed safer this way. The only glitch came when Cam stepped in the aisle with Christine. As soon as the baby saw Booth she began to call out "Da" louder and louder, her cries reaching a crescendo once they reached him. Cam quickly relented, unsure of what else to do, and placed her in Booth's arms.

The music abruptly switched to Mendel's Wedding March and Booth's spine went rigid. Nothing could distract him from watching his bride walk toward him, not even their daughter wiggling in his arms or her mother's exasperated looks.

"He isn't supposed to be holding her," Brennan remarked to her father.

"Well she has him suckered; man can't help it."

Booth stared at Bones as she approached. Her off white dress was flowing in the breeze coming off of the sea. The dress was decorated with a few simple jewels at the top and it was very much the style Booth had imagined for her. It was tight at the waist, accenting Brennan's figure. The bottom of the dress flowed outward, the fabric twisting at her ankle as she walked. Her hair was down and curled on the ends, the way he'd once told her he liked it. She never forgot anything. She wore a small veil that fell just to the bottom of her eyes.

Max and Brennan came to a stop in front of Booth as the music faded into the sound of the ocean. "Hey," Brennan said as she locked eyes with her groom.

"Hey," Booth smiled, "you look beautiful." He handed Christine to her grandfather and joined hands with Brennan. The baby wasn't exactly happy to have been taken away from her father, but Russ' wife Amy quickly tossed Monkey to Max and all was well again.

Caroline addressed the small crowd gathered before her. "The last time I stood in front of this group of people I was attempting to convict one of them for murder." Her opening line was met with a wave of laughter and she was glad to it wasn't "too soon."

Caroline smiled, "But today we're here for a much happier reason. Today we've come to finally join these two together in holy matrimony. Now, they've both denied that they've loved one another for years. Not that they were fooling anyone. And in a move that shouldn't surprise you, these two have written their own vows. Go ahead Cheri," she pointed to Booth.

He took a deep breath before he spoke, speaking directly to Brennan as if there weren't three dozen people in the audience listening to him. "Four years ago I told you that you were the one. For thirty or forty or fifty years, you would always be the one. I handed my heart to you. And you might not have been ready to accept it then but I'm still that guy Bones. I thank God every day that you are letting me be that guy. I'm the luckiest man on earth and I promise to spend the rest of my life protecting you, cherishing you, loving you. You didn't believe in marriage before but that didn't matter. I would've always stayed by your side, marriage or not. We would've always been a family but thank you for agreeing to be my wife."

Booth reached up to wipe the tears off of Brennan's face with the side of his hand. After a beat he turned to Parker and held out his hand.

"What?"

"Give me the ring."

"Oh," the ten year old fumbled with his hand in his pocket, his eyes widening when he didn't feel the ring.

"Check the other pocket."

One quick feel of the outside of his left pocket confirmed that the ring was there and relief flooded through him. "Here ya go Dad," Parker said as he proudly presented the simple gold band to his father.

"I love you," Booth whispered as he slipped the ring onto her finger.

She leaned in to kiss him but Caroline stopped her. "Whoa there Cheri, not yet. Go ahead with your vows."

Brennan blushed as the crowd laughed. It took Booth sending a glare toward their friends to get her to begin.

"Before I met you I had no concept of what it meant to be loved unconditionally."

Max Brennan felt his stomach drop at her words but he could not deny that she was being honest. He wiped a tear from his own face as his daughter continued her vows. "I did not understand what fate was. I didn't even believe that it existed. But you've shown me that love isn't rational. It isn't something that anyone can predict or make happen. When it's real, love is something that just is. It's been hard for me to accept that. But nonetheless I promise to love you, to cherish you and to let you protect me, even when it really annoys me."

Brennan scrunched up her nose in confusion at the laughter this line garnered from her audience "Why are they laughing at me Booth? That wasn't supposed to be funny."

"But it kinda was Bones." Booth held her gaze as realization of what she had said hit her and she joined in with their laughter.

As the crowd had settled Brennan resumed her vows. "Thank you for not giving up on me Booth. I thought that in order to enter into marriage that I would have to give up a part of myself. You have shown me differently. This evidence, along with others, shows me that you are often correct. And because of that I find myself believing that love will give us our chance at thirty or forty of fifty years spent together."

Angela handed Brennan the ring and she slipped it onto Booth's finger. He smiled as he looked at the gold band on his left hand; it was something he had wanted for so long that he had begun to think that it would never happen.

"See now wasn't that easy?" Caroline raised her eyebrows. "By the power vested in me by the state of South Carolina, and the Almighty himself, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may-"

The crowd cheered and shouted as Booth took Brennan in his arms before Caroline could finish her sentence.

"I'm glad you talked me into this Booth." Brennan had her head lying on Booth's shoulder, he held her as they swayed to the music. The resort had a makeshift dance floor on the beach, with candles lit the edge casting flickering shadows that danced along with the party guests.

Booth laughed, "I'm glad you let me."

"May I cut in?" Max asked as the four piece string band finished one song and began another.

"Of course," Booth kissed Brennan on the head as her father took her into his arms for a dance. "I'm going to go dance with my mom."

Booth found Hester and George dancing nearby and stole her away. "What a beautiful wedding Seeley."

"It was, wasn't it?"

"Yes, it was simple yet elegant."

"I don't think this day could be any more perfect Mom," Booth said. The band began to play an up tempo song and Hester laughed out loud as Booth spun her in circles along with the beat.

Two lone figures, clad in grey suits watched the ceremony from the boardwalk above the beach. They didn't speak to anyone, not even each other as they took in the situation. The taller man nodded toward his counterpart as he watched Hester dancing with her son. Then he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and made two phone calls. One was to The Leader. The other was to George.

George's cell phone rarely rang. He knew the news wouldn't be good. He closed his eyes as he heard the message he knew was coming. Why hadn't she listened to him?

Once Hester realized that George was using the cell phone she was by his side in an instant. The words that he said to her sent a chill straight through her spine.

"Hester, they know."