Title: This is Life

Rating: This story is M rated. I think this chapter is a T.

Disclaimer: I'm beginning to feel like I own these characters, but alas, I don't.

A/N: I'm cruel, and mean and horrible but you know what, I decided I wanted to take this chapter momentarily away from sex. Apologies, but we were missing angst for a few chapters there…

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Her hands eased into his hair, her thighs parted in eager, torturing anticipation of his tongue, probing and laving, deliciously wet, plundering through crevices and urging her sexuality from within.

The release she sought to desperately was interrupted by his cell phone, piercing the breathless whispers, sounding tantamount to an atomic bomb, exploding by her ear, where his sweater lay, tossed in an abandoned heap. She huffed in frustration, feeling cheated, without, deserted as he reached for his phone, flipping the folds and growling his name down the line.

After a long moment of silence, he blinked, mouthing a silent apology.

"Owen! Hi!" he said, resting on his knees, pinching the top of his nose. "Are you in Philly?" Another pause, and this time, the atmosphere changed, the flexing muscles in his forearms became rigidly still, his eyes lost the pent up arousal, becoming glazed, almost impassive. "Okay," he said at last, dropping his hand from where he massaged his forehead and it was only now that she noticed the tremble in his fingers and the unsteady tone of his voice. "Fine. Thanks…" his gratitude was half-hearted, solemn and it existed purely for reasons of courtesy.

Brennan straightened, automatically aware that their afternoon romp would be called short. "Who was that?" she asked, pulling his sweater around her nakedness, glossy, untidy waves of hair spilling around her cheeks, tousled by his fingers and forgotten in his moment of darkness.

"Owen," he said, his voice lost.

"Who is Owen?" Temperance pressed, sinking to her knees, their bodies so close she could almost hear the rapid, aching thump of his heartbeat as he blinked at her, unseeing, blinded.

"He's my cousin. My dad had a heart attack…" His eyes met hers, a maelstrom of hurt and confusion. Brennan hated bad news because her socials skills lacked the required element of comfort and saying trite, meaningless things. She asked questions that were inappropriate, sometimes bordering on cold. But detachment was what got her through the saddest things in her life.

"Is he dead?" she asked, bracing her hands on his thighs, her thumbs drawing soft circles there as his face contorted at her lack of tact. She didn't apologise because she was not a woman who sugar-coated anything, and if there were arrangements to be made, one of them had to be logical.

"No," he replied at last, heaving a sigh. He looked pained, as though someone had punched the air from his lungs. Brennan tucked her hair behind her ears, clutching the sweater to her breasts with the awkwardness of someone caught in a naughty act with her best friend's husband. She felt as though they'd been wrong, so close to having sex, while Booth's father was hundreds of miles away, ill.

"We'll go tonight," she soothed and he nodded slowly, the macho bravado lost and he looked much like a child who had been abandoned. Brennan sighed, her fingertips brushing along his forehead, stroking through his hair as he leaned into her, seeking the comfort that she provided. It were times like these, she realised, where companionship meant more than the sex. Emotionally he needed her.

Passing his sweater, she reached for her own clothes, getting dressed in silence as she glanced around the room, filled with forlorn. Today would have been wildly charged and combined with her sadness for him, she felt disappointment. The God that Booth so readily believed in had threw them another curve in the road.

The journey to Booth's secret location had been filled with trepidation, the journey back into the city was owned by a different kind of concern. There was a darkness that shrouded them and the silence was deafening – buzzing with unanswered questions and fears. Booth drove with his eyes fixed on the road ahead, not really taking note or paying attention to anyway.

The majestic beauty of the landscape went unnoticed as his SUV speed along the narrow roads before joining the highway, and the myriad of concrete and glass dominated the skyline was again.

The Jeffersonian, with its snowy gardens was an oasis in the middle of a crazy, bustling city. Brennan was sure that's why Booth had begun to feel almost a home, there. Today, though, as he marched along the corridor at her side, there was a stiffness to his posture.

"There you guys are!" Angela called, striding towards them, her lab coat fanned out behind her as her pump clad feet pounded on the floor. "Zach has been trying to reach you… he's-"

"Not now, Ange," Brennan said, stepping into her office and gathering her belongings. She worked with efficiency as she made certain she had everything she needed. "Booth and I have to go to Philadelphia," she muttered vaguely, turning the key in her desk, slipping the tiny fob into her pocket.

"Have you got a lead up there?" Angela asked, glancing at Booth to rested his weight against the doorframe as though he didn't have the energy to hold himself straight. He looked weary, somehow distant and his eyes had taken on a brooding darkness that Angela had come to recognise as not being a good thing.

"No," Brennan said, taking her heavy wool jacket from the coat stand and pulling it over her arms. She had been so aware of the cold, plundering through the snowy field and there was no way she was going anywhere without being wrapped up. "Booth has a family emergency. We'll call as soon as we get back."

She was out the door, slipping her cell phone from her backpack, dialling numbers and making brisk commands down the line, her no nonsense tone in operation the moment a crisis developed. Angela followed behind, her curious nature intrigued. When Brennan snapped into an 'all systems go' mode, it was usually because she was fighting to hide her emotions, to pretend everything would be okay if it was hidden behind a veil of emotional detachment and cool efficiency.

Dropping her hand to Booth's arm she watched how his features changed, almost as if he'd been on another plane, returning to reality. His eyes lightened as he focused on her. "What's happened?" she asked, falling into step beside him as Brennan stormed on, her hands gesticulating with each demand she made. Her voice rose a pitch in disapproval.

"…no planes? It's not even that bad!..."

"My father's in hospital. He had a heart attack earlier this morning," Booth said, the strong, powerful FBI agent reduced to a small boy, fighting a surge of emotions within. Angela felt a stab of sorrow for her friend.

"It'll be fine, sweetie," she said, her fingers tightening. "Besides, with Brennan the Nazi over there, everything will be sorted." Booth smiled a little, nodding his ascent as they paused to watch. "She gets angry when she doesn't get everything her own way." A warm chuckle rose from his chest as he nodded.

"You got that right. I've been on the receiving end of it many a time." Brennan stopped in her tracks, rubber soles squeaking on the tiles, her shoulders tense.

"No," she said, "that's not good enough. What part of emergency do you not understand?" Booth pursed his lips, glancing sideways at Angela who grinned back, shaking her head.

"Do you need me to do anything?" she asked. "Do you have animals or plants that need fed?" He realised that he barely existed inside his apartment these days. He spent the majority of his life in Brennan's bed and when he wasn't there, he was sleeping in cheap motels beneath scratchy covers. Like he would be, tonight.

"No thanks," he said and her hand slipped from his arm. "I have to go…" Angela nodded as he moved off, stopping only when he reached the end of the hallway, before turning back. "By the way," he said, "from what I seen at the party, things are looking good for you and the resident geek, right?" Angela's eyes sparkled, endeared by how Booth noticed her happiness, despite the dark times in his own life. Brennan, she realised, was very lucky to have a man with such a wonderful, kind character.

"Right," she said, dipping her head. "Very good indeed." Booth smiled, the light reaching his eyes for the briefest of moments.

"Pleased for you, Ange." Glancing at his watch, he sighed. "Today is the twenty first," he said. "If I'm not back in time, Merry Christmas." Angela felt sympathy pierce her heart. In a few days, Christmas would arrive and after all the sadness that had tarnished their year, Brennan and Booth wouldn't get any relief from it. Not even at such a festive time.

"Yes," she said. "You too."

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Owen Booth was perhaps five years younger than his cousin, and while his facial features had the same chiselled cut, his hair was sandy blond, longer than what was generally acceptable for a government worker. But at first glance, it was apparent that Owen did not work for the government.

In torn jeans and a black t-shirt that was emblazoned with the logo of some dysfunctional rock band, he looked like a computer nerd.

"Seeley," he said, engulfing Booth in a perfunctory hug. "How are you, man?"

"Fine," he replied, perhaps a little terse. "Owen this is Temperance Brennan. Temperance this is my cousin, Owen." After brief, polite introductions, they were led along the corridor, lit by bright florescent lights that made Booth's eyes hurt and his stomach knot. He felt the atmosphere of the sick and needy and it shrouded him, suffocating him, sucking all the happiness from his soul.

"He's awake," Owen was saying, "but he's in pretty bad shape. Dad found him this morning…" Booth was silent, guilt ebbing at his resolve. When was the last time he had spoke to his father? When was the last time he has stopped to contemplate that a man of his father's age was vulnerable? Why couldn't he let bygones be bygones?

His dad had spent his years in the military, passing on his passion for patriotism on to his son. And while Booth was proud of the fire with which his dad fought for his country, he was terrified that certain other traits could be passed on, father to son. Like infidelity.

How many years had his mother put up with her husband's indiscretions with other women? How many nights had he lay awake, listening to his mother's muffled sobs?

As Owen eased the door open, the steady beep of the heart monitor filled his ears, and he paused, eyes downcast and he was suddenly gripped with fear. He could not look up. He couldn't witness his father, strong and proud, reduced to a bed-ridden old man.

Behind him, Temperance slipped her hand into his, squeezing his fingers. Her strength was transferred and he wondered how would she cope with such a situation? Would she look? Of course she would. She would because she didn't believe anything that was true should be hidden. His dad was a bed ridden old man and his weakness was not going to change the circumstances.

Sucking antiseptic scented air into his lungs, his jaw tightened and he looked up, his chest burning when he saw his father, thin and elderly, drowning beneath blue blankets and dwarfed by the hospital gown he wore.

His hair was white and his cheeks gaunt. A shadow of the man Booth had admired as a child. Admired and detested. Admired and feared. There had been so much respect shown towards this old man as he was growing up. Until he became a teenager, filled with opinions and beliefs that a genetic connection were not going to change. His father had been adulterous, lying, unfaithful and Booth found it difficult to accept that his mother had wasted her life on a man who barely loved her.

"Seeley," his father said, his voice raspy, impeded by the pure oxygen that he inhaled. "How are you my boy?" Brennan's fingers flexed around his and he stepped beyond the threshold of the room, blinking slowly.

"I'm fine, dad," he said. "You don't look so good." His father released a cackling laugh, a wheeze catching in his chest.

"You're not as tactful as you once were," he said, coughing twice. Owen passed him a glass of water, sitting in the plastic chair at the edge of his bed. Booth released Brennan's hand, clipping the pages of his chart. "You've been gone awhile, haven't you, Seeley?" his dad said, his tone pointed. Booth glanced up through his lashes, an ache tightening inside his sternum.

"I've been busy," he said with hard determination.

"I understand," his father replied and it was fairly obvious he did not understand this point at all. Or accept it. "How long as it been, anyway? Four years?" Booth replaced the chart, his fingers curling around the iron frame, his knuckles white.

"Mom's funeral," he said. "So dad, you're still smoking…?" A second cackling laugh, followed by a dismissal wave of his bony hand.

"What would you know? I've been off the cigarettes for years." Booth sighed.

"There are traces of banisterine in your system, dad. It's commonly found in cigarettes." His father had eyes that were so similar to his son's that to Brennan, it were almost as though she were looking right into Seeley Booth's soul. The old man blinked, folding his hands over his torso.

"They've been giving me banisterine as a treatment, Seeley," he said at last. "I have Parkinson's disease and I have had for two years. If perhaps you were in contact more often-"

"Please don't…" Owen said, shaking his head. "Seeley is here now, isn't that what matters?" Brennan pressed her hand to Booth's shoulder and the old man caught the moment of soft comfort and responded to it with a sneer.

"No it's not," he spat at his nephew. "My son thinks he can drop by when it suits him. When he gets time…" Booth swallowed.

"You were an adulterous cheat," he growled. "My mother died with a broken heart. My selfishness comes from you, dad, so if you're feeling a little neglected, blame it on the genes." He pushed himself away from the bed, spinning on his heel. "Come on, Bones, lets go."

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I don't know if his family are alive in the series, but I thought I would write about this anyway, because a lot of people have commented that in Woman in Limbo, Booth seemed a little resenting in talking about his family. He made a comment about all parents having secrets. Let me know what you think…