Apologies for the delay in updating - the site wouldn't play with me :-(

They still don't belong to me, and I'm still not making anything out of this except the pleasure of playing with such wonderful characters.

Thanks for the reviews!

And most of all, I must say a big thankyou to MintExpresso for the wonderful job she's doing on betareading this story for me. Check out her stories - they're great!

Monday 11.43am

Every surface of the lab was covered in bones. Hodgins was intently studying a container full of beetles. Zack was carefully cleaning all the flesh off a skeleton. Angela was working on a reconstruction of a face from a skull. Dr Brennan was intently studying lab reports at her desk. It was business as usual in the Jeffersonian laboratory.

Brennan glanced up impatiently as a suited man walked up and stood beside her, waiting for her to notice him. "Go away, Booth." She was far too busy to welcome the FBI agent, who no doubt wanted to drag her away from her current task to investigate another suspicious body. She lowered the papers, however, as she registered that the man in front of her was not Booth. "I'm sorry, can I help you?" Her voice betrayed her impatience.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, Dr Brennan," the man said smoothly. "I'm looking for Agent Booth. I believe you often work with him?" He looked like a typical FBI agent; dark suit, cleanshaven, polished shoes, sunglasses sticking out of his jacket pocket.

"Yes, but I haven't seen him for a few days." Brennan frowned. "Is there a problem?"

The man indicated the seat on the other side of the desk. "May I?" At her nod, he slid into the seat and faced her, his expression grave. "I'm Agent Harris," he said, flashing his identification at her. "I need to know when you last saw Booth. He's been working on a case related to a missing FBI agent, by the name of Charles Cotton, but now he appears to have gone missing himself."

Brennan gave the papers on her desk a last, regretful glance, before turning her full attention to Agent Harris. "Is he okay?" she asked, then shook her head. "Okay, sorry, stupid question. Let me think. Thursday. Thursday evening. He was here, asking about a skeleton we're trying to identify for him. He was nagging for the results, but I sent him home, told him to come back the next day, and he never did."

"Was that unusual?"

"I was irritated. He kept pressing and pressing, then when we finally got the result he wanted, he never came by. I tried ringing him but got no reply. Then we got a shipment of skeletons from New York and I haven't had time to think since."

She was worried now. Come to think of it, it was strange that Booth had never come back for those results, and she felt cross that she hadn't followed it up more strongly before this moment.

"Did he say where he was going?" Harris asked.

"Not to me." Brennan winced inwardly as she recalled the last time she had talked to Booth. She had not exactly been polite to him. Not exactly nasty either, but she could hardly blame him for staying away for a day or so. "Let me ask the others."

She headed out to the others and told them why Agent Harris was there. None of them could add any information of any use, except that Hodgins thought he had heard Booth mention heading east out of town, but all of them expressed concern at Booth's absence.

"I'm sorry we can't be of any further assistance," Brennan apologised.

"You already have, Dr Brennan," Harris reassured her. "You saw Agent Booth on Thursday evening. The last sighting we had of him was Wednesday morning. You've narrowed things down slightly."

"Oh. Well, when you find him, tell him to give me a call." Brennan tried to sound cheerful. After all, Booth knew his job. She was sure he would be fine, just heavily involved in something.

All the same, as she returned to the papers on her desk she could not shake off a feeling of unease. The more she thought about it, the more unusual it seemed to her that Booth had not contacted her to ask about the case, especially considering how much time he had been spending at the lab over the past week or so.

Tuesday 2.07am

Temperance stood in the middle of the room. "Mom? Dad?" She rushed up the stairs and into her parents' room. "Mom?"

Her parents' room was empty. Completely empty. Even the bed had been stripped down to the bare mattress, its garish design of pink flowers standing out hideously against the delicate peach wallpaper. The wardrobe doors stood open, revealing nothing but a single wire coathanger. The window was wide open, and the blinds were gone. Temperance threw herself down on the mattress, sobbing. Before she knew it the mattress had started swaying under her, and she tried to jump off, but found herself surrounded by water, in which millions of skulls bobbed. Horrified, she tried to cling to the bedframe, but it lurched suddenly as if pushed by a giant hand, and she started to slip off. As she sank down into the sea of skulls one floated by with big brown eyes in the sockets, eyes that looked at her reproachfully. "You told me to go away, Bones, so I went," the jaw mocked her. She screamed...

Brennan sat upright in her bed, trembling. She'd often dreamed about her parents since their disappearance, but she didn't like the new twist at the end of the familiar dream. She thought again about Booth. Where the hell could he be? She could not imagine him just dropping his responsibilities and leaving, but what other option could there be other than that something had happened to him?

She had been through this thought process before. Many times. Too many times. She thought back to when her parents had disappeared, of the hours she had lain awake envisaging various scenarios that could explain their disappearance, trying to find one that left her and them happily reunited. She had never managed to find one that satisfied her, and now she felt she never would. All she could do was the best she could to ensure that any body that went through her hands was identified and returned to loved ones where possible.

And now it had happened again. Once again someone close to her had disappeared, and she was left looking for explanations, and hoping against hope that this time it would have a happy ending. She felt a surge of anger towards Booth. How dare he disappear on her like this? He should be more responsible! Didn't he realise how much it hurt, when someone you loved disappeared without warning? She bit back the feeling of bitterness inside her. Whatever had happened to Booth, eating herself up like this would not help.

She lay down in the bed and pulled the covers up round her shoulders, trying fruitlessly to return to sleep, but the sea of skulls haunted her whenever she closed her eyes. Eventually she got up and headed for the kitchen, to warm herself some milk. She sat curled up in an armchair with her drink and a novel, and found herself still sitting there several hours later, the book slipped onto the floor and the mug of milk, half-drunk, sitting on the coffee table beside her.

Tuesday 4.19pm

Things were winding down for the day. The set of skeletons they had been working on from New York were mostly catalogued and awaiting identification, and everyone was just in the process of clearing their desks and anticipating the chance of an early finish for the first time in over a week. Brennan was just finishing up some paperwork and wondering yet again whether there was any point at all in ringing to ask about Booth, when she spotted Agent Harris making his way through the equipment towards her.

"Agent Harris," she greeted him eagerly. "Is there any news about Booth yet?"

He shook his head, his expression unreadable. "We don't know, Dr Brennan. I'm afraid I'm here to request your assistance. We have a body we need you to identify."

Brennan nodded, but waited, sensing that Harris had more to tell her.

"The body..." he said haltingly. "I'm afraid there's a good chance it may be Agent Booth."

Again, I'd love to hear what you think of it - and apologies: I'm currently reading Cross Bones by Kathy Reichs and I'm learning from a great writer just how to end each chapter on a cliffhanger ;-)