After Christmas things went back to normal, or at least what passed for normal in their world. Booth and Temperance went back to school. They worked when they needed to. They spent time at his place after school when they could, though Booth rarely needed help with his homework anymore. Temperance was pleased to find Booth was more than just a jock. He was smarter than he liked to let on and he had a way of reading people that she truly admired.

She saw him in the cafeteria with the other football players and cheerleaders, being a typical alpha male, but she also saw him helping one of the kids in the robotics club carry in his science project. She saw how he was with Jared, firm and yet loving. When he sat listening to Lance talk about Pokemon, he had the patience of a saint. He knew what people needed to bring out their best. Perhaps most telling was the way he handled his father, when he came home in the middle of the afternoon barely able to stand.

Booth immediately stepped in front of her and the boys, but kept himself sightly slumped so that he was a not towering over his father. He spoke calmly, while Temperance ushered the boys out of the den. Once they were out of harms way, he ushered his father to the older man's favorite chair and offered to bring him some food. Mr. Booth was snoring before the kitchen door closed.

While Temperance was watching him, Booth was watching her. He saw her tutoring freshman in the library during lunch. He saw how she spoke kindly to the janitors and lunch ladies. He saw her move through crowds like a ghost. No one ever spoke to her. He wondered how it was possible that no one else had noticed her quiet beauty. Maybe it was someone that most kids in high school didn't recognize.

The Temperance that he knew argued with teachers and corrected his grammar with absolute certainty, but he had seen her other side to. He had watched her make herself invisible. She flinched and cowered and made herself small and quiet. He hated that he had seen it, hated even more that she had to live like that.

He started to walk into school with her in the mornings, introduced her to his friends. He made a point of stopping at her locker to chat between passing periods. Then one day she went missing. She should have been coming out of English class, and he thought he would catch her in the hall to walk together to chemistry, but she wasn't there. He knew she had come to school, which meant something must have happened to her.

He sat in chemistry for a full fifteen minutes, watching the door like a hawk, but she never came. Finally, he complained of a headache and asked to be sent to the nurse. She had to be there, but she wasn't. He was walking slowly back to class when he heard it.

click, click, click, clank, click, click, clank, click...

He spun around. It couldn't be. The sound was hauntingly familiar. His nightmares replayed it often enough. The exact same discordant notes he had heard the night he truly met her for the first time.

"Bones?" He questioned the seemingly empty hallway.

The sound stopped. His eyes narrowed, taking in his surroundings. Only then did he realize that he was in the hallway where her locker was. He moved closer to her locker.

"Bones?"

Nothing, but his gut still wouldn't let him leave. He put his ear to the door, praying he wasn't right.

"Bones?"

A sigh came from inside.

"I know you're in there. Tell me the combination so I can let you out."

"The sharing of lockers, locker combinations, and other school issued materials, is strictly forbidden by the student code of conduct section 3 paragraph 5," she said.

"I could go get the Mr. Buxley, but then you'd have to explain how you ended up in there."

"38-24-18"

He shoulders slumped as he worked the lock. A flash of the memories flickered in the back of his mind. Her terrified voice in the trunk of that car, the sound of his father's fist connecting with her face, faded hand prints on her arm and other random bruises in various degrees of healing. The door squeaked as it swung open and she blinked owlishly at the sudden bright lights.

"We are late. We should get to class," she said, stepping out of the locker, grabbing her bag and taking off down the hall as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.

He caught up to her in 3 large strides. "Are you going to tell me what happened?"

"No."

"No?"

"No."

"Why?"

She sighed. "We can be friends, Booth, but I can't let you keep being my knight. I have to take care of myself."

"Are you going to tell anyone?"

"It will be dealt with," she answered cryptically, before walking into chemistry. She knew who was responsible. She knew that if she told Booth he would try to make it right, but the truth was she didn't want him to. She was starting to trust him, and she hadn't trusted anyone since Russ left her in front of the group home. It was terrifying, more terrifying than the Regina convincing a wrestler to shove her into her locker. If it hadn't been from Regina's parting taunt, Temperance might have actually pulled away from Booth.

Regina's sickly sweet voice rang in her ear. "Stay away from Booth. He's my boyfriend!"

Temperance didn't like being pushed around, so when Booth invited her to his house to watch Boris Karloff's Mummy, she looked right at Regina as she agreed.

A/N: Hey to the guest who spammed me the other day. You got my attention and this update in honor of you! I have a tendency to get bogged down in life and while I do truthfully have this story planned for all the chapters til the end, I was being a completely unmotivated slacker for which I whole heartedly apologize. I will try to have the next update soon! thanks for the push!