AN: Bet you thought this would NEVER update, huh?

I have very good reason for drifting from fanfiction. Two of them, really. Running a music blog is exhausting and filled with long hours. The second, major reason is I've been writing books. Original stories, complete with shiny covers and all that. Last fall, just I settled in to try and finish my stories here, one book grew a sequel and I've been in revision and promotion land ever since.

More on those at the end, but if you're not following me on Twitter (dillonac) please do.

Tag To: The Past In The Present, The Future In The Past

Still do not own Bones, nor do I own Snow Patrol's "Set The Fire To The Third Bar".

I find the map and draw a straight line
Over rivers, farms, and state lines
The distance from 'A' to where you'd be
It's only finger-lengths that I see
I touch the place where I'd find your face
My fingers in creases of distant dark places

I hang my coat up in the first bar
There is no peace that I've found so far
The laughter penetrates my silence
As drunken men find flaws in science…

It's a different bar every Friday, but they all feel the same.

An uncomfortable stool jarring his tailbone as the hours creep away. The smell of smoke and sweat, of desperation and debauchery, depending on the crowd. He stays away from the bars with pool tables, as a rule. No sense risking temptation when he's this close to falling off the edge. The scotch is often cheap, but sometimes, he goes for the good stuff. Sometimes, he skips dinner so it hits him harder, soaking his memories until they drown, until for one brief second, he can forget what he's going home to.

Tonight, he's found himself at a little hole in the wall recommended by Charlie. Because sometimes, you wanna go where absolutely nobody knows your name, but as long as you bring cash, they're glad you came. The scotch is terrible, cheap shit, but he's feeling particularly lousy, so it fits.

Nine weeks. He's been alone for nine weeks.

There was a lead today, a sighting. He could hear the buzz from the bullpen, where he's been banished to. He couldn't decide if he was happy or terrified and that's why he's getting smashed, why he's a good 20 shots in and counting. Because while he knows that until the Squints work their magic, she needs to stay gone, he is a man grieving the absence of his partner and child. And the heart wants what it wants: selfish and primal, it grunts and makes its demands. Her. Now.

His finger had traced the map in Flynn's magic task force room, counting the pegs. Where are you? He'd traced a line from Washington to Charleston, calculating the distance and settling on too far. In the end, it's a bogus sighting. Only part of him is relieved.

A group nearby erupts in laughter and he winces. Sometimes, he can drown it out with another round, but tonight, he only hears her laughter as they tangle the sheets in a memory so real, he can taste her skin on his tongue. He throws down a wad of bills as he stands and curses the spasms in his back. It's been acting up again and not a damn thing he's tried seems to help. The bartender approves his blurry-eyed math and Booth stumbles outside in search of a cab. He finds one on the corner two blocks east and manages to slur out his address.

His eyes stare out the window, studying the faces rushing past. He is forever searching for them. It doesn't matter that being in D.C. would be the most irrational move she could make. His heart is a seeping wound and like any dying man, he is reaching for hope. She is Hope. And now, he has none.

Their words mostly noises
Ghosts with just voices
Your words in my memory
Are like music to me…

Ten weeks, three days. Not that he's counting.

He's also not thinking clearly, and it isn't just the scotch this time. It's the need for connection that drives him to the Founding Fathers for the first time since she left him. So many memories lay within these familiar walls.

With every beer chaser, he drifts further from the ambient chatter, slipping back in time to a night with her. There's the time he convinced her to give tequila another chance, a night of laughter and subtle flirting in that strange limbo between Hannah and that night. He smiles briefly, remembering the way her eyes twinkled as she licked her lips, completely oblivious to the power she held over him. Was it a week before everything finally clicked? Two weeks?

Another shot, another craft beer, and he can hear her laughter as he twirls her around in his living room. Pregnant. A word so heavy with meaning, yet so light as to scarcely touch ground. He remembers the way his fingers splayed across her flat abdomen, imagining what the months to come would bring.

"You're really happy?" he hears her ask tentatively.

"Of course I am, Bones. Why would you think I wouldn't be?"

"Because we are still negotiating the terms of our new romantic partnership, and traditionally, couples fare better when major changes like conceiving a child are planned and mutually agreed upon in advance—"

"Don't 'science' this. Turn off the brain for a minute," he remembers urging her. "What does your heart say?"

"I… I'm terrified." He watches her pulls away in his memory, a pang in his chest as he remembers how small she suddenly seemed. How fragile.

"Terrified of what? Of being a mom? You're going to be a wonderful mother."

"No, Booth. Well, yes, but I understand that such fears are natural and often attributed to hormonal changes during pregnancy."

"Then what is it?"

"It's just… I'm not good at this. At people. Relationships. And I realize now that I can't imagine us not being together. It's so soon, and statistically—"

He drains the beer, shaking his head as he'd done that night. "To hell with statistics. I love you. Do you love me?"

"Of course I do."

"So maybe the timing isn't what we would have planned, but I don't care about that. It doesn't change how I feel when you walk into the room. It doesn't change years of history between us, alright? Maybe… Maybe it's biology's way of telling us to hurry up after taking too long to get here."

"I don't know what that means."

"It means we would have had kids eventually. Now, later, doesn't matter. As long as we're together, it's perfect."

And he twirls her around again in his mind and she laughs even harder, falling against his chest with a sigh of relief.

The memories serve as the sweet to the bitterness of the empty stool beside him. They're almost enough to send him home less than devastated. But then, fate takes its hands and punches him in the gut.

"Seeley."

It's reflex. "Don't call me Seeley, Cam."

She slips onto the stool beside him, exhaling loudly. He signals the bartender for another shot. He's going to need one if she opens her mouth. Knowing Cam, it's a given. She can never keep her opinions to herself.

"We can't keep going like this."

"Yeah? I think things are just fine as they are."

The scotch arrives and Booth knocks back the shot and demands an immediate refill. The bartender hesitates briefly, but complies as Cam nods.

"This isn't my fault, Seeley."

"Not interested."

And he's not. Because the rational truths mean nothing in a world where his heart is broken. A world where Pelant is free to do whatever he wants while his family is out there somewhere, hopefully safe and sound. They must be. I would feel it if they weren't.

"She wouldn't want this," Cam continues. "You can forgive me or not, I really don't care. But you know she wouldn't want you to go down this road."

He drains the shot before him, throwing down his credit card as he struggles to his feet. "Look Cam: I get it. Procedure, staying beyond reproach and all of that other bullshit. Kind of like how Bones took off with my daughter and didn't give me a goodbye, because she wanted me to stay in the system. But knowing all of this – " He waves his hand wildly through the air, a sweeping gesture that staggers him. "Knowing doesn't make it easier or happier. So I drink. That's my business, not yours."

"I'm your friend," Cam pleads, clearly upset. "I have been for a very long time."

"So be a friend," he snarls, grabbing his card from the bar. "Find the evidence to clear Bones and bring them home. Less talk, more action. Wasn't that always your style?"

It's a low blow, a jab pulled from their complicated past, and he almost feels sorry when she flinches and looks away. Fearing what else will spill from his loose, boozy lips, he steps out into the rain and staggers down the sidewalk, lurching like he's on a sinking ship. A cab takes pity on him at the end of the block and he grunts out his address and asks for a silent ride.

Colours blur beyond the tinted glass, the streetlights streaking yellow across an inky sky. His eyes press shut as he wills himself into waking dreams. His anger is blood-red and blinding. He gives up.

I'm miles from where you are
I lay down on the cold ground
I pray that something picks me up
And sets me down in your warm arms…

He's drunk enough that the cabbie watches him until he gets inside. It takes five stabs of the key to find the actual lock and with a soft click that echoes thunderous in the foyer, he is standing in a house that isn't a home. His jacket is tossed onto the railing, eventually to find its rightful place upstairs. Shoes, pants, shirt – all discarded like a breadcrumb trail.

Follow it home. Come find me. It's almost an act of aggression. She hates a messy home. She'd be angry. He wants her to see it.

His back is worse now; every step towards the couch is an elastic snapping taut within him. Studying the living room, his body wavering, he settles on the floor. His bare skin meets the cold ground and he hisses angrily in spite of the minimal relief. For years, he relied on a night on the floor to set his aching back right.

And then she'd come along, with her fancy Thai massages and acupressure and suddenly, he's crying. He's thinking of all the times she's cared for him and wondering how much of a useless bastard he must be if she decided to run and leave him behind. Because while she was thinking of the law, of his job, he also knows that when it suits her, she doesn't give a damn about the law.

Closing his eyes, he prays for the nightmare to be over. He prays for the warmth of her curved against his chest, reassuring him that he is enough.

Angela's been talking to her. He knows it and he's angry. Because she clearly doesn't know him if she thinks this job is more important than her. He's broken the rules countless times. Suppressed evidence. Threatened a few people.

He's angry until she finally leaves him a message.

He can sense it in the way Angela hedges about their find in the woods. The excavation is classic Bones. Even he knows that. He's watched her work enough to recognize her precision. But it's the flower in the photos that strikes him and when Angela tells him that she can't tell him how she's communicating with Bones, he knows the flower isn't quite the right language.

She wanted the remains found. Maybe she wants to be found.

It takes a little digging, but once he connects Pelant to the remains (and, by extension, his childhood stomping grounds), it's a quick Google to the cheap dive motel with Snowdrop in the name. Maybe it's a long shot. Maybe he's trying to extract meaning where there is none.

It doesn't stop him from buying Clark's old beater and hitting the road.

After I have traveled so far
We'd set the fire to the third bar
We'd share each other like an island
Until exhausted, close our eyelids
And dreaming, pick up from
The last place we left off
Your soft skin is weeping
A joy you can't keep in…

He's been in the room for forty-seven minutes when he hears a noise outside. Reaching for his gun, it suddenly occurs to him that maybe this is a trap. Maybe Pelant knows what he knows. And when the door opens and a hand slips inside, the Army Ranger takes over.

A struggle so fast, it takes throwing the intruder to the ground for time to pause and exhale. But in that breath, he finds life.

"Booth." It's the tentative joy of one who believes she is lost in a dream, but the reality of the two of them being together sinks in swiftly.

"I knew you would come," she tells him and he no longer doubts his instincts. It was a message to him. She'd called out for him. And like so many times before, he's run to her side.

He never gives up on her. She never gives up on him. It's their silent vow of partnership.

The taste of her ignites him, like a starving man sitting down to a buffet. His hands wander to caress her curves and he can't stop kissing her. He won't stop. The carpet reeks of mildew and it scratches against his skin but her skin is soft and her back arches and there is nowhere in the world he would rather be.

By the time he surfaces for air, her cheeks are stained in tears. His callused thumbs trace their course as he murmurs her name. Temperance. When she's retreating within herself, to that place of self-doubt tucked deep beneath her intelligence, it's the only way to call her back.

"I missed you."

"I've been drowning without you," he replies.

"We have to go," she whispers.

He nods. If he's put things together, Pelant surely has. But not yet.

"Five minutes," he tells her as he rises and pulls her to her feet. Feather-light kisses and stumbling steps and a tumble onto the bed, where he wraps his arms around her, much like that night. He closes his eyes as she burrows into his chest, her breath hot through the thin cotton of his t-shirt.

"Bones?"

"Booth?"

"Why now?"

"Selfishness. Rationally, it makes no sense to endanger your career when we're this close to catching him. But I couldn't do it anymore."

His hand strokes her hair, ignoring the jarring blonde shade and concentrating on the softness. "Couldn't do what?"

"Be apart from you."

"You won't have to," he vows. "I'm not going anywhere without you."

He can hear the dripping faucet in the bathroom, a steady, slow monotony of droplets pinging ceramic. The ticking of a metronome. Outside, crickets chime in a chorus.

"Booth…"

"Okay. Let's go."

They make it to the door before he catches her in his arms, pulling her in for another kiss. His knees shudder as she presses against him with a primitive rumble in her throat. This is dangerous, he knows. They have to be vigilant. And they will be, he assures himself.

Right after one more kiss…

I'm miles from where you are
I lay down on the cold ground
And I, I pray that something picks me up
and sets me down in your warm arms.

I'm still in revision land, so it might be a while before I return. In the meantime, you can learn all about the books I've been writing (that some amazing Bones fandom people have read and embraced) at acdillon dot com. Change of Season is freshly re-released with new scenes and is free on Kindle Unlimited. If you watch on Twitter, I do free book days on Amazon sometimes. Its sequel, Waiting For A Star To Fall, releases this summer.

See you on Twitter dillonac - and do let me know below what moment you'd like me to write next for this series!