(After 'The Blackout in the Blizzard')

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After trying to contact Booth several times and her calls were forwarded to voicemail, Brennan was certain that something was wrong. Lately, Booth managed to get back to her within an hour of any call that she made and he couldn't answer at the time, so not calling her back for several hours was unusual and worrisome. Feeling a little anxious, she called his office and when he didn't answer, she called Charlie Burns and he told her Booth had left the Hoover at lunch time and hadn't returned.

Worried, she told Cam that she had personal business to take care of and left the Lab. Not trying to make a hill out of a cricket mound, she drove over to Booth's apartment building and parked across the street. She looked up at the window facing the busy street and saw that it was dark. If Booth was home, that window usually showed a light on in the living room, so she hesitated before she crossed the street. It was possible he wasn't home but if he wasn't, she wasn't sure where to look next.

Determined to find Booth, Brennan strode across the street and into the apartment building. Impatient, she climbed the stairs instead of using the antiquated elevator and hurried down the hallway to Booth's apartment. Once there, she knocked on the door, waited for a few seconds and knocked again. Not sure if she was doing the right thing, she used her emergency key and opened the door. Once she was in, she closed the door behind her and walked down the hallway into the living room.

The room was dark, but there was light enough from the living room window to let her see that her partner was sitting on the couch, his elbows on his thighs, his face in his hands. "Booth?" She spoke his name softly, uncertain if she should be interfering in whatever was going on. When he didn't respond, she moved closer to the couch, sat down on the recliner and stared at her partner. "Booth?"

"Bones . . . I . . ." He didn't say anything further and kept his face in his hands. He was sad, so sad he had been crying and he didn't want Brennan to see that.

"Booth . . . can I help? What's wrong?" She could hear the thickness of his voice and knew that he had been crying. She had only seen him cry once before in their partnership and it wasn't something she was likely to forget. "Can I help you?"

Rubbing the butt of his hands into his eyes, Booth sniffed, finally lowered his hands and leaned back against his couch. "Not really. No one can fix this. It is what it is."

Not knowing what 'it' was, Brennan was afraid that something tragic had happened. "Would you like to talk about it . . . or I can leave if you want to be alone." She didn't know what her partner needed, but she was willing to do whatever it was to help him.

"No . . . no, you don't have to leave." After exhaling deeply, Booth turned his sad brown eyes toward his partner and friend. "Rebecca got a raise, a partnership in her firm, but part of the deal is she has to move to London. She and Parker are moving at the end of the month, permanently." He swallowed and tried to rein in his emotions. "I never thought that something like this could happen . . . I was wrong."

She wasn't sure what she could say to help him. "Can you get custody . . . do you want custody of Parker?" She was certain she knew the answer, but perhaps she was wrong. "I can help you find a lawyer to fight her for custody."

Slowly shaking his head, Booth sighed. He had thought about doing that for all of ten minutes when Rebecca had told him her news, but in the end, he knew he couldn't do that. "I can't take Parker from his mother, Bones. I know what it's like to grow up without a mother. I can't do that to my son."

Well aware of Booth's personal history, Brennan had known he would never take Parker from Rebecca, but she'd had to ask. "I understand. I finished my childhood without parents, so I do understand, Booth . . . Have you thought about what Parker wants? Maybe he'd like to stay."

A sad smile on his face, Booth shook his head. "She told me the news with Parker in the room. He's excited to move to London. I guess Rebecca has been telling about the things they can see when they're there . . . castles, the Tower of London, Stonehenge, the chalk white horse . . . he told me all about them and . . . he can learn a lot of history and see cool stuff in England. I don't want him to miss that . . . She's promised that Parker can come back to the States for summer vacation and Christmas holiday . . . I think Parker is okay with that. He said he was . . . You have to remember he's always lived with his mother and just visited me on the weekends and Christmas. I don't think he thinks this is different from that."

Feeling out of sorts, Brennan nodded her head. "I'm sorry, Booth . . . I don't know what else to say."

"You said the right things already, Bones and I appreciate it." Feeling a little better, Booth knew that he had needed someone to talk to and Brennan had been the right one to listen to him. "Thank you for checking on me. I should have called you back. I'm sorry . . . I just couldn't . . . not when you called."

"I understand and you don't need to apologize." Brennan smiled at her partner. It was a sad smile, but there wasn't really anything happy about the situation. "Did you eat lunch? I can make something or order something."

Grateful that he and Brennan's friendship was back to where it used to be, Booth stood up and turned the lamp on beside the couch. "I can cook us something, it will . . . maybe it will make things seem normal . . . or something."

Standing, Brennan nodded her head and followed him into the kitchen. Once he flipped on the overhead light, Brennan sat down at the table. "Anything will be fine, Booth . . . I can help if you want me to."

"Thanks, but I have some leftover vegetable soup from 'Mamas' and some Italian bread. I can heat up the soup pretty quick." Once he had the soup in a pot on the stove, he took the sliced bread from a bag, placed it on a plate and carried it and some margarine over to the table. "This isn't butter, it's margarine."

"Thank you." Taking a slice of bread, she spread some of the margarine on the bread and bit into the slice.

Doing the same, Booth sat down and ate in silence. After quickly wolfing that down, he picked up another slice and ate that too. "I didn't realize how hungry I was."

"You probably missed lunch and dinner . . . you shouldn't do that." Brennan was going to lecture him about proper diet and realized that this wasn't the time or the place. "She told you today?"

"Yeah, this morning. She asked me to meet her at the Founding Fathers for a cup of coffee." Thinking back, he had known something was odd about the situation before he got there. "We never meet for coffee, so I knew that she wanted to tell me something important, just not that . . . I couldn't go back to work and I didn't want to talk to anyone about what was going on . . . I was sad." He realized that it sounded like he wanted to be alone. "But I'm glad you came over to check on me. You're the only one that missed me . . . Thank you."

She wanted to cry for him, but instead she chose to smile. "Of course, that's what partners do . . . and friends."

"Yes, it's what friends do, Bones and you're my best friend." He smiled a sad smile. "I'm glad we had our talk in the elevator. We had some things we needed to talk about. It was time."

"It was." Brennan heard the soup bubbling, stood up, walked over to the stove and turn off the heat under the pan. "The soups ready."

Moving over to the cabinets, Booth grabbed two bowls from the cabinet, filled them with soup and handed one to Brennan. "The spoons are in the drawer behind you."

Once she grabbed two spoons, she walked over to the table and sat down. Steam coming from the bowl, Brennan dipped a spoon in the vegetable soup and blew on the broth to cool it. "You're not going to be alone, Booth. When Rebecca and Parker leave, I'll still be here."

Swallowing his spoonful of soup, Booth smiled at Brennan. "I appreciate that Bones . . . I'm going to be fine."

"Yes, you are." Brennan smiled and continued to eat her soup while Booth returned her smile and ate. It was going to be rough not seeing his son every weekend, but he would adjust. He'd always been able to adjust and he could do it again.

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