Disclaimer: I do not own Bones.

Catching her breath, Brennan slipped her arm under her best friend's waist and easily held her upright. Making her way inside the familiar condo, she pushed back the door with her foot and heard it click shut. To say that she was blown away was an understatement. Were her eyes deceiving her? She walked to the oddly dust-less sofa and laid Angela down. All of it was there. Her belongings were all in the last place she saw them. She inhaled with closed eyes and stopped midway. She could smell hints of softener in the air. Someone had cleaned her bed sheets. Her entire place smelled pristine. Brennan began to march to her bedroom when something else caught her attention.

A heartbeat. No…

She could precisely hear two different hearts beating to separate rhythms. A sharp intake of breath slid in her lips and she followed the source of the mysterious beat. Angela was here. She could detect her strong heart calmly thumping to its natural pattern. The other one was much more quick. It galloped at a speedy pace and she couldn't help but make an audible gasp as she met two warm doe eyes. Inside her own bedroom was a curious, small baby.

"Oh." She did a double take and stared. The infant carried the scent of her own mother and she mentally smacked herself for not noticing sooner. It was Angela's baby. She could only assume that the other scent he radiated was Hodgins'. Brennan approached him carefully and gauged his reaction. His eyes were wide and large, shining with an innocence that was foreign to her. His small lips popped into a an 'o' and he giggled.

Brennan's shoulders sagged at the sound and she found herself right in front of the child. The baby's fair eyebrows hopped up, then fixed themselves into a cheeky frown. She heard herself laugh and it vibrated from her mouth so smoothly that she stopped and hesitatingly smiled at him. He was even more beautiful than she had imagined he'd be. The soft skin of his face plumped as he frowned and then cried an amused series of giggles. The boy was laughing at her!

That's nice. At least she wasn't scary. "Hi." She cooed and reached for his cheek. It looked so soft, cotton candy soft. A thought made her hand go limp. Was she really going to risk hurting him? Under her hands he was like glass, easy to crush. Clenching her hands into fists, she retreated them. Shaking her head at her foolishness, she sighed and faced her back to him. Not entirely surprised, Brennan raised her eyes to see ragged breaths being tugged in and out by a pale Angela.

The curly-haired artist was leaning on the doorframe of her room with great effort. Her hollow cheeks were being filled heavily by oxygen unevenly. Looking down at her hands, Brennan was unsure of what to do. Hug her? Say hi? It was an awkward situation. Deciding that letting herself have heart attack was probably not the best move, she started to stand up and open her mouth when she was interrupted.

"I'm dreaming right?" Angela desperately asked. "I totally am. Yeah, just fell asleep on your bed and know I'm seeing you here. Makes sense."

She was reassuring herself. Brennan felt pity for her. How was she going to break it to her? 'Hi Angela. I'm actually a vampire and I've been alive for almost a year after I disappeared.'

That was believable.

Studying her white hands, she pondered how long it would take for Angela to realize that she wasn't dreaming. Was it really so hard to believe? To be realistic, she supposed not. But…she had gone missing. Not dead. Never that. They had assumed she was dead.

Time seemed to be dragging slowly because Angela was still across from her, frozen to her spot. With stiff legs, Brennan approached her and decided on one thing. She would tell her. Everything.

"Angela…" She let it trail. Three feet away from her, Brennan raised her hand to…

Do what? Comfort her? She saw her mental self snorting at the idea. Of all the things that changed about her after the transformation, her more than lacking empathy was not one of them. Caught in an odd position, Brennan scrunched her hand and it fell to her side. A second later, however, she found herself in an even stranger position.

"You…" Angela had stepped forward and her frail fingers were lightly hovering above her cheekbones. They traced the highs of her cheeks and then, with shimmering eyes, she placed them on her skin. The warmth of Angela's skin, a familiar warmth, rang an alarm in her faltering brain. Her own eyes had widened perceptibly and in a haze of confusion caught Angela's wrists.

"Stop." Brennan commanded, her fingers still wrapped tightly around her best friend's wrists. "Angela, I have to talk to you."

The silence was cruel and Angela's breathing quickened. "Why, if this is a dream, are you so different?"

She tried to escape from her grasp but she wouldn't allow it.

"…your eyes." Angela stared in them, and Brennan had to dart them elsewhere to flee her eager curiosity. She had not thought about her absent contacts.

"Angela, stop."

She eyed Brennan. "And strong…?"

"Could you just listen to me?"

She was getting mad. How bad could their first encounter get?

"But I guess in my dreams you would be at your best, right? I mean, no one would want to see their best friend dead. So, this is good."

"An-"

"Your voice is nice, too. It's almost like you're singing."

She kept rambling.

"The skin is a problem, though. Why so cold? I'd imagine you'd be warm. I would want you alive, so you'd be warm."

Brennan felt an icy stab at her chest. Her jaw went taut and she let go of Angela. Not even looking, she let her weight fall on the bed. Not…alive?

Angela must have stopped talking because the next thing she heard was the quiet stirrings of the wind outside. It hummed thinly, like it was trying to soothe her.

"Bren?" The artist looked at her, something amongst her eyes angered Brennan.

"I went missing. That was all. Why are you all so quick to think that I died?" If she could cry, the tears would be rolling already. Her chest felt heavy. Did they all really want her gone that badly?

Angela blinked, a cloud of puzzlement bathing her face. "Bren?"

"Do you all hate me that much? Out of all you, I thought you would be the only one to still hope. I think…"

"I have my answer." If she wasn't wanted, she could leave. Derek was right. She didn't need to suffer. Why should she care for people that don't return the same feeling?

She always knew logic came before feeling. A rule she had acted on for years.

"I don't understand." Angela trembled, hand on her forehead, shaking.

Look where it had gotten her.

"It's nothing. I'll be going now." She was ready to stand up when a force weighed her down. She had been forced on the bed, her entire body flat on the mattress.

"It can't be you." Angela began to cry. Brennan still felt cold.

She bore her eyes directly in Angela's. "I guess not."

Brennan attempted again to stand but Angela had planted herself on her. She sat on her lap, eyes brimming in tears. Sighing, she raised her upper torso and leaned her weight on her arms as her hands palmed on the sheets.

"Get off, Angela." She waited. Much to her disappointment, she still sat there, with an unreadable expression and tears staining her face.

She didn't want to have to hoist Angela off her. But if she had to…

"Just tell me one thing."

Brennan glared. This was not the kind of reunion she had been hoping for.

"What?" She snapped.

Angela was unaffected.

"If you're really, I mean really, here then why did you just leave?"

"I didn't have a choice."

"Not even one phone call? To let me know that somewhere out there, you were still alive?"

Angela was screaming now, her tears building up again and the dam was close to breaking. Her face was beyond angry and Brennan could see the shift in her eyes. A glimmer of something different shined in her eyes, could it be…hope?

"You don't understand," Brennan blew an angry sigh, "Why are you believing me now?"

"I'm not sure." She murmured.

The anthropologist raised a hand to run it through her bangs. She never thought it would be this hard. Getting her to believe she was a vampire would have been the difficult part. Apparently, not.

"What difference would one phone call have made?"

"Enough to keep me and the rest of us sane." She harshly pointed out.

"I…"

"Do you realize how hard it's been? Thinking that you were gone from our lives, forever? An-and Booth."

She whispered with a thick voice.

"Did you even think of him?"

Brennan threw Angela off herself. Not enough to hurt her, but to make her be sensible.

"You don't think that there's been one day that I haven't felt guilty? Thinking of him. Of you guys?"

She was shaking now. The anger coursed through her body, pumping through her veins.

"You think I wanted this?"

She slammed her fist on the wall that Angela leaned on. The artist gasped as a rough hole created itself there.

"Who would want this? Tell me." She had the new mother cornered and trapped. Her eyes seethed and she shot them straight into the glazed brown eyes of Angela.

She could hear Angela's heart beating at a jagged pace, the blood pumping with loud swishes and plump sloshes. Brennan closed her eyes in concentration, she couldn't think about that now.

"I'm sorry."

It was so faint that if she didn't have such sharp hearing, it would have gone unnoticed. Brennan cracked and eye and saw Angela with her hands reaching for her again.

She hugged her in a fierce embrace, repressing cold shivers at her body temperature. "I'm so sorry."

She whispered, the words spoken with tears.

Brennan was frozen, her body unmoved. It felt strange, having someone so warm touch her. It had been months, no one had come this close to her. No one alive.

She gave up and wound an arm around her friend's back, her body softening. She felt light touches on her own back and her eyes traveled to Angela's arms. She was hitting her.

"Why didn't you tell me?" She sobbed, her breathing haggard. Brennan just let her.

"I couldn't." She replied, guilty.

Angela continued to cry for what felt like hours. Once she relaxed, they let go and Brennan motioned her to the bed.

Her best friend had regained her senses. Before she could speak, Angela narrowed her eyes. "You're going to explain this." She waved at Brennan, up and down. Then she spoke again.

"And that." She pointed at the wall.

It was, surprisingly, more easy for her to believe that she was a mythical creature! She was vague, but explained most of what she could. Brennan breathed out in relief as she spilled the rest of the story.

"Vampire, huh?" Angela faced her, a steady arm holding her face. She had taken comfort to her own bed, laying on it with ease.

"You do have the whole package." She agreed. Her eyes confirmed genuine belief.

"This is ridiculous. You actually believe me?" Brennan asked, eyes incredulous.

"I do." She hummed. "I know it's weird, but… I know if you believed in it first, then it has to be true."

Brennan didn't say anything to that. She paused in her musings and looked at the baby that had fallen asleep. He slept with no worries of the world, and she envied him. Smiling dimly, she looked at Angela with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, Ange, you have to explain that."