A fifteen year old Temperance Brennan sat in her biology class learning about the human bones and where each one was located as a soft, but audible word could be heard entering the class room.

"Marco." The whispered, causing a few of the kids to look up and out to the window.

Tempe remained writing her notes down as the teacher remained oblivious to the noise and the sudden life in the few children that had been bored with the class not seconds before. The sound came again and Tempe found herself smiling and sustaining laughter.

"Polo." She whispered back taking a quick glance out the window to see her older brother Russ standing out there smiling at her.

Sitting there, Tempe wondered what he was doing there so early. He had graduated from the school not a year before, but he was still pretty popular with the school and all the people in it, especially the teenaged girls with raging hormones. And because of his popularity, Tempe was always known as his little sister.

She looked from her brother to the clock and saw school was about to end and closed her notebook as the bell rang and got up from her chair to meet her brother outside. As she stepped out of the room she found him surrounded by girls and couldn't even see him in the crowd. She turned to walk to his car, but was stopped as she heard him talk.

"Ladies, ladies, please. I only have room in heart for one young woman, and that's my sister." He said and she heard and huge disappointed groan come from the crowd. "Now, if you'll all excuse me I'd like to get her home before school starts again on Monday."

Tempe smiled and turned to see her brother heading towards her, a huge smile on his face.

"Ready to go home?" he asked.

"I've been ready since school started this morning." She said walking with him towards the parking lot.

"This coming from the girl who is an honor roll student and has the highest grade in science." He said opening the door for her and acted like a gentleman, getting a laugh from her.

"I just didn't want to come to school today, she said getting in and sat back as they drove home."

"Hey I got a job today." He said smiling at her as she studied her science homework.

"Really? Where?" she asked happily pulling away from her work.

"No place fancy, just some dinner down the street."

"Russ, that's nice."

"Glad you think so Tempie."

"I'm proud of you."

They pulled up to the driveway of their house and Tempe jumped out of the car before it even stopped.

"Tempie, be careful you could of hurt yourself." Russ yelled, but knew she didn't hear him as she rushed into the house.

"MOM! DAD!" she yelled looking around the room.

"In here Tempie." A male voice called from the kitchen.

Tempe ran from the living room to the kitchen to find both her parents. Her mom stood at the stove cooking while her dad sat at the table talking to her.

"Wow, now young lady, where's the fire?" her dad asked.

"There isn't a fire." She said confused.

"It's just a saying honey, why are you so excited?" Christine asked pulling away from the cooking to look her daughter in the eyes.

"I aced my science test on the structure of the brain." She said holding up her paper.

"That's great." Matthew said hugging her closely.

"I'm proud of you." Christine said placing a kiss on her head.

"The teacher says all I have to do is ace the test we'll have on bones after Christmas vacation, and I'll have the highest grade in the class with a 104.8 percentage."

"Well than I suggest you study over the break and ace it then." Russ said walking in and handing her the bag she left in his car. "I think you'll be needing this though."

"Thanks, Russ can't believe I left it in there." She said grabbing her bag and ran upstairs to her room.

"So, how was your day?" Christine asked Russ.

"It was great; I got a job down the street." He said looking through the fridge and pulled out a banana.

"Good job, son. I'm proud of you." Matthew said smiling at Russ, then got up and patted him on the back before leaving the kitchen.

Tempe sat upstairs fishing through her closet searching for anything that could be of some use to her. As she came across an old photo of her mom, dad, brother and herself, all starring at the camera smiling.

"What you looking for Tempie?" Russ asked entering her room.

"Nothing, just something." She mumbled moving out of her closet.

"That doesn't make sense." He stated moving into her closet to pull out a shoe box. "Here."

"Thanks. How did you know it was in there?" She smiled taking the box and opened it.

"I watched you put it away." He said smiling back.

"Did you take any?" she asked emptying out the money that the box contained.

"No, I didn't touch it." He said, then turned and left.

It was Christmas Eve and Tempe and Russ had returned from shopping. Christine and Max tried to ask her what they bought, but all she did was run upstairs and hide in their, hopping to wrap the presents before they found out.

An hour later Tempe was called down stairs by her parents; they said their good-byes and promised to be back later. Tempe and Russ waved good bye to them as they pulled out of the parking lot and left to the store to continue the shopping.

"So what do we do now?" Russ asked her as she watched them disappear down the street.

"We can make something to eat. I'm starved." She said heading back in the house.

"Can you cook?" he asked walking in behind her.

"A little." She mumbled back and headed towards the kitchen.

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Hi sorry it took so long for me to update i was in Maui and just got back like ten minutes ago. please review and let me know what you all think. thanks so much for my past reviews and please keep them coming.