Disclaimer: Despite my desires, I do not own Bones.

Brennan sat in the living room of the Montenegro-Hodgins home, remembering the last time she'd been there.

It was the Paisley Johnson case – Hodgins surprised Angela with the magnificent home when Paisley decided she couldn't live in a home where her friend had been murdered. Brennan was glad her friend was not this superstitious, as Brennan's own home was the site of two deaths.

She shook herself out of her preoccupation as Angela came into the room with little Michael Staccato Vincent in her arms.

"I must say again, Angela, he is very cute. Even with his skull and features not being fully formed yet, I can tell he will have excellent bone structure and is sure to be very appealing to others his age in the future."

Angela smiled, the peculiar comment was nothing more than a compliment to her now; she had learned over the course of their friendship to take Brennan's commentary as it was – completely truthful and unabashed.

"Do you want to hold him, Bren?" Angela held the sleeping infant toward Brennan, lifting her encouraging eyes to meet her gaze. Brennan stared down at the child. She had seen babies before. They impressed her little, due to their lack of experience and knowledge in the world. But in the last few years, she grew more appreciative of them.

She nodded, allowing Angela to place the tiny bundle into her arms. Brennan focused her attention on her friend. The look on Angela's face was becoming an increasingly apparent reason to procreate. She still believed that any child of hers was a prodigy and that their presence in the world could only improve the human condition – but now the desire stemmed from the joy she saw others experience when holding their own child.

Angela leaned back on the couch where they were sitting. Exhaustedly, she sighed. Angela knew she needed to just come right out with it. She asked her friend to her home with not one but two ulterior motives.

The first was to give her arms a break – Michael was not exactly light as a feather. The second was to stage a mini-intervention. Brennan's leave from the Jeffersonian was a touchy subject for all involved.

For Angela and Hodgins, it was the possibility that their friend would once again leave them for a distant country. For the interns, it was the risk that they would lose their placement and scholarships – not to mention the best professor they could imagine. For Cam, it was unfortunately the status of her job. Being the boss didn't make her any more valuable with two of her staff on maternity leave, FBI consultant no longer attached to her lab, and a headlining anthropologist jumping ship.

Angela 'won' the pleasure of convincing the renown Dr. Temperance Brennan to stay this time.

"So, sweetie," she began, breaking her gaze from her son to her friend, "we have to talk."

Brennan recognized the phrase. She gathered that the connotation of the word was typically negative, and prefaced a conversation that was difficult for the speaker to hand down and even more difficult for the receiver to accept. Her assumption would prove to be correct.

"Bren, I love you, but you need to know how much you mean to all of us here."

"I am well aware of that, Ange, you have told me that everyone values my company as a friend and colleague."

"That's not what I mean this time, sweetie. This time I mean you're holding things together. Surely you remember how we all had to come back from the far reaches of the earth to save Cam's job."

"Yes, I do."

"Well, it's like this. You're different. You're different than when I met you, you're different than the first case I helped you work on, you're different than you were a month ago. When you left this last time, I was convinced you'd never come back."

"I would have kept in touch." Angela sat up straight, beginning to fume at her friend for her ignorance concerning her impact on those that loved her.

"That's not the point. You left no note, no location or number where I could contact you. You just… left!" Angela's tone was raised now, making it evident that the argument ensuing had a lot to do with her personal experience.

"We discussed that I might be leaving the country…"

Angela quickly interrupted. "I was due in a week! Sweetie, I love you, but you left us. You left me." With the last word she spoke, her voice became faint. "I was scared, Hodgins was scared. I needed you and your logical nonsense –" Brennan furrowed her brow at this oxymoron "-to calm me down.

"It was bad enough that I had to call your dad. Your father and my father are the only people in the world scary enough to convince stubborn people like us into changing our minds."

So that is how my dad knew I was gone. I suppose I never told him where I was going either. Brennan thought about how her sudden travel plans might have affected those around her. It seemed foolish to her that her impact could be so wide-spread.

"I'm sorry, Ange. If I would have known you would be so upset, I wouldn't have gone."

"I just thought that after all that's happened in your life, you'd be more aware of the repercussions of abandoning those you love." Angela knew the words would be stinging, but she intended them as they came. "Don't you find it at all irrational to leave all of us just because of one person?"

Brennan had to process this. I was confused as to why they would be so upset about the absence of one person – myself. Yet, I went to Turkey because I wanted to evade one person – Booth. Very hypocritical of me.

Brennan acknowledged the error in judgment. "I did not think about it that way. Thank you, Angela. I'm sorry if I was not the friend I should have been towards you." Brennan looked down and Michael and silently praised Angela for encouraging her father to lie – and allowing her to be there for the birth of her godson.

"It's alright, Bren. But you've got to make a decision here. Are you really going to stay mad, or are you going to rise out of this? You've done it before. You're strong, sweetie. There's no doubt about that."

Brennan was not so sure about her friend's belief. She had always believed herself to be impervious, but she felt that the walls she built and maintained over the years were starting to show their wear and were on the verge of collapse. Brennan smiled; she was simply glad to have such an authentic friend – despite the conundrum she now faced.


AN: Another super late update. I appreciate all of you that have decided to be in it for the long haul - I am encouraged especially by the review of rmcbuckeye. Thanks for reading - like I've said before, getting the characters right is incredibly important to me.

It was time for a little Brennan lovin', I hope this chapter did not come off as too filler-y. I love writing for all of the characters on the show, but I have to try to restrain myself from writing too much Booth and Sweets. I think their dynamic is just hilarious.

'Til next time,

zee