Angela could see Booth start to run after her, to recapture the blonde figure rapidly crossing to the edge of the yard. She motioned to Hodgins and he grabbed the bigger man before he could get the door open.

"Hodgins, let me go." Barely restrained fury peppered his words.

"Can't do that, man."

"Booth, she has to do this alone." Angela walked closer to flank him on the other side, hoping to defuse his rage. She could imagine how he felt; he'd only just gotten to her after years of searching and now she was walking back into the arms of the enemy.

"If you love something-." Hodgins started to say.

"Do not tell me to set her free, Hodgins. She hasn't had freedom for three years – it is not freedom she's walking to right now. It's a guy who shot her without thinking twice about it." Angela knew his final sentence was a lie or he would be out there chasing after her, keeping her safe. Obviously he didn't believe this Scott Smythe guy posed a threat to her safety, only to his own.

"She'll be fine, Booth." Angela hoped her words were right as they all watched Brennan standing in the sun, her hair shimmering pale gold. She'd called out to someone, now she was waiting for him to appear.

Within minutes, he stepped into view. Booth had already seen him but Angela looked on with interest, needing to see the man that had been a surrogate for everyone else in Brennan's life.

xXx xXx xX

She called out to him first, waited until he was sure there was no one ready to ambush him.

"It's okay." She said, noticing his eyes flicking between her and the cabin behind her as he walked out of the shade.

"I'd understand if it wasn't." He came close to her, touched her injured shoulder lightly. She moved it out of his reach by taking a step back.

"Rowan, I'm so sorry. I wasn't thinking, I knew I was losing you and I just wanted things back... The way they were."

"When you were lying to me?"

"When it was just the two of us and who we were before didn't matter." She looked at him, really looked into his eyes trying to find something, anything that would allow her to let him down gently, let him know she would never be able to be Rowan again.

"Scott..." She said. He pulled her close to him, careful of her shoulder, his hand tangling through her hair. She felt a kiss pressed on her scalp.

"The last three years have been the happiest of my life. You made me a better person." He pulled her back and looked into her eyes. "I love you."

"I loved you," she replied, hoping he would believe the lie, knowing it would bring him some comfort if he did. The woman with blonde hair had tried to love him but, in truth, her heart had always been somewhere else. She felt he understood that now.

"You're staying... With him." He looked towards the house briefly. She wondered if he could see their silhouettes through the windows; her friends she had tried so hard to keep safe. But it hadn't been enough - she hadn't been good enough at the charade to keep herself hidden.

"Yes." She knew how she had felt about Booth, even if she'd never admitted it to him, but it had been a feeling she'd pushed aside for so long, to stop it ripping her apart.

"As soon as I..." Scott again moved his hand down her shoulder, touch feather light. This time she didn't pull away. "I knew it would be goodbye."

"I'm sorry." Brennan said, her voice unexpectedly catching in her throat. Why was it so hard to say goodbye to a man who had killed before, who had lied to her? But she would never believe he had lied about loving her.

"It will take some time. But I'm going to make you safe." His eyes looked at hers, into her. She wasn't ready to die. But he was. He would try and fix it the only way he knew how, the only thing she would not do – the very thing that had driven him away from his previous life and towards her in the first place. She had a reverence for life. He had a reverence for her and he was going to go down, guns blazing, to make sure she would get out of this alive, able to move on with her life.

"You don't have to... You could just start again."

"Everyone needs a purpose in their lives. This is mine."

"I don't want..." She couldn't finish, but knew he knew.

"And I don't want you to be looking over your shoulder for me as well as them. And as soon as I can arrange it, you shouldn't have to look for them, either." He pulled aside his suit jacket and Brennan could almost feel Booth tensing from inside, where Angela and Hodgins must be holding him back. She took the manila folder he offered her and opened it. A new passport and other documents to help her start again. She opened the passport, looked at the name.

"From Temperance to Grace." He said as she ran her hand over the picture. Grace Hunter's hair was still blonde; Rowan Smythe was less recognisable than Temperance Brennan. But her eyes were light and she was American again.

"Thank you." She knew she'd keep this name. She trusted Scott enough; despite what he did before he met her she always believed people could change. Everything changed, all the time.

Then he was pulling her close again, still careful of her shoulder, his mouth finding hers comfortably, familiar in its positioning. It was their last kiss and it made her think of going to sleep knowing he was there, asking how his day was, kissing in front of the elevators at work... He'd given her a normalcy she'd never managed to gain before, a simple life her intellect had always kept at bay before. And for that she was grateful.

xXx xXx xX

Booth took a faltering step towards the door, couldn't move any closer. Angela's hand came to rest smoothly on his shoulder.

"It's a goodbye kiss, Booth," she said with the knowledge of those who can see past their own projections. "She's just saying goodbye."

She was right, as usual, because the two figures outside drew a respectable distance apart before final words were exchanged. Then he was gone, a shadow moving through the tree line, away. Booth finally found the strength to move his legs and walked to the door, opened it, stepped outside. She'd told him, last night, that she was going to stay with him. But now, in the light of day, he had to make sure she remembered, would keep her promise.

xXx xXx xXx

Hodgins moved over to stand near Angela and looked out the window at Brennan and Booth, both moving silently and slowly to meet on the stairs.

He felt dampness on his feet and looked down, then back up at Angela, stunned. Her water had broken. He started to yell out to Booth and Brennan but Angela grabbed his arm, her hand digging in, clawlike, as the first contraction moved from her spine through her stomach, pain radiating as far as her shoulders and knees.

"Just... Give them a minute." Her words were forced through clenched teeth that relaxed as soon as the pain passed.

"What? Our child just made you pee on my feet and you want to give them a minute?" Hodgins looked aghast.

"They've waited for this moment, Jack, for a long time. We've only been waiting eight and a half months. I think we can give them a minute." Jack leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead.

"I love you, you know that?" Angela nodded, gritted her teeth as she felt another wave if pain coming on.

"If you love me, call ahead to the hospital and get them ready to give me lots of drugs. And get the hospital bag." She leant on the bench, trying not to whimper from the contractions, trying not to interrupt Booth and Brennan.

"She'd better be going to give you all the details about this because-"

"Drugs, Jack." Angela hissed. Hodgins got out his cell phone and made the call while Angela looked out onto the porch, alternating between pain and happiness.

Finally, things were the way they should be.

xXx xXx xXx

"Do you want to be alone?" He asked as soon as they were close enough to each other, wanting her to say no but expecting a resounding yes – anyone would need to take some time after saying goodbye to the man they had pretended to be married to for several years. If a goodbye was what it was.

Bones, ever unconventional, shook her head. She sank onto the step, tugged at his pants leg to make him sit down as well.

Hodgins and Angela were inside the house, leaving just the two of them, listening to the sound of wind through the trees. Bones looked up at the sky and reached into one eye, then the other, removing her contact lenses.

"He said goodbye, Booth." Somehow she knew what he needed to hear before he said anything. For once he was the speechless one, unsure of what words would be acceptable in this situation, what words would help make it right.

He remained mute while she tucked the contact lenses into her pocket, never to be used again, and turned to him, spoke. "Thank you."

"For..?" He started, then trailed off. Her hand moved up, over his neck, the feeling of the caress already familiar to him. It was something he wanted to be used to.

"For never giving up." He knew, somehow, that she meant never giving up on either of them. He thought she could almost sense the memory her words prompted, the image of him sitting alone in a darkened apartment, gun in hand, wishing he had the courage to make a decision. But there had always been Parker, and there had always been the hope that he would find her and she would sit across from him on a weather hewn top step with the sun in her eyes and love caught in her throat.

"Nobody who knows you, Bones, could ever give up on you." His words weren't enough to give an answer she deserved but they would have to do, for now. He had time to come up with something to tell her how much he needed her in his life.

They sat in silence for a while, her hand absentmindedly gathered in his, fingertips touching.

"You have to think of another nickname." She said finally as she leaned into him, watched the blue of the sky interrupted by swooping birds, the wind rattle the leaves from the trees. Watched life going on. "I don't work with bones anymore."

Booth tucked an arm around her, breathed in her familiar smell as she snuggled closer before looking into the sky with her.

"You'll always be Bones to me, Bones."

xXx xXx xXx

Finit.

Thanks for reading.

Author's Notes next chapter if you're up for it.

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