A/N: I fired up the angst machine and ended up hurting my own feelings. I'm not even sorry. I will try to put all the toys back together when I'm done…

This takes place following 6x09 - The Doctor in the Photo

1. I know this period is a point of contention with a lot of people, but I do believe that it was a necessary evil for the growth of the characters and I always find myself drawn to writing this era.

2. I have started and stopped stories that follow this episode so many times. I finally decided to come back to one of my drafts and it's just sort of flying out of me, so I'm going to try to finish it.

3. Rated M for swear-y bits and sparky bits.

4. I'm not a fan of posting before I've completed the entire story, but I thought I'd post the first little bit to see if there's actually any interest in it.

5. This started as a one-shot idea about a drunk-dial gone wrong, but once I started writing the outline, I couldn't stop and now I'm about 20k words deep... I don't think I'm coming back from this.

Chapter One

"I'm with someone." He had told her. "Do you want me to call someone to be with you?" Because this time it couldn't be him who consoled her. It couldn't be him who explained the ins and outs of the situation. It couldn't be him who eased her into her first heartbreak since she'd closed herself off from the world. He knew that, and he prayed she understood why. He wished he could call her mother, or at least she could. Girls needed their moms in these moments. He briefly wondered if he should call Max, but he didn't think she'd appreciate that at all.

"I'll be fine. Alone." Alone was something she'd known all too well how to be. He knew this, and it killed him. She deserved to have someone who loved and appreciated all that made up the brilliant woman she was. He just couldn't be that guy anymore. For both of their sakes.

"Temperance…" he said her name as she opened the door of the SUV, poised to get out and froze. He didn't know what else to say, but it felt like something final had just happened between them, like this would be the last time he ever saw her, and he wanted to hold on for just another moment. She stayed frozen like that for a moment, halfway in the car and halfway out, like some kind of fucked up metaphor, never looking back at him, just waiting for whatever he was going to say next. "Goodnight." He said finally, because he knew he had to release the hold he still had on her. It reminded him of the little rock she'd given Parker for Christmas one year. A tiny bug, trapped forever in hardened amber, polished to perfection, but never moving on, just frozen in time.

She didn't reply to him, he didn't expect her to. She closed the door carefully behind her and walked toward the entrance of her apartment building, pausing for a moment outside, tilting her head back and letting the falling rain wash over her face like she was trying to wash away the night. He pulled away when the doorman opened the door and hurried her inside, knowing she was safe now, from physical harm anyway.

"Ange?" He heard his voice crack without his permission when he tried to speak. It had taken him half of his drive home to work up the courage to call her. He had to.

"Booth?" She answered sleepily, and he felt immediately awful for waking her. "Who's dead?" She asked in a sudden panic.

"What? No! Nobody's… nobody's dead." He reassured her, talking over the sound of his windshield wipers scrubbing violently across his front window.

"Oh thank god. I just had this horrific dream about Brennan ending up in a tree stump like that Eames chick." She said, and Booth exhaled. She had no idea how close Bones had come to the same fate as Lauren Eames tonight. "Why are you calling me in the middle of the night if nobody is dead?" She asked, now sounding mildly irritated.

"Listen… Bones could probably use a friend tonight." He told her softly, feeling ever growing guilt about not being able to be that friend and leaving those words unspoken. "She, uh, she told me how she feels about me, and I… look, she was crying a lot when I left her, Ange." Just admitting that he had left Bones alone, crying her heart out, made him feel like the worst human on the whole damn planet. He just let her get out of his car and walk away.

"I'll go check on her, Booth." Ange replied quietly. He had prepared for vengeful, hateful Angela, but she seemed to understand the situation was difficult for them both. Maybe she'd give him the silent treatment once she saw the state he'd left her best friend in tonight. Part of him wanted them all to punish him, to hate him as much as he hated himself at the moment. He wanted to hate her a little bit too, for waiting so long to realize what they could have had, for waiting until it was too late to tell him.

Booth was getting out of the shower at the gym when his phone rang in his bag, and he hurried to grab it. It was the middle of the night, so it was either an emergency or a murder. His workout had done nothing to clear his head, and he'd given up halfway through his routine. He'd kill for a murder to distract him right about now.

He glanced at his phone screen and found Angela's number flashing with the incoming call. "Booth." He answered around the lump in his throat. She'd probably been to see Bones by now, and was calling to report back.

"Hey, you dropped her off at her place, right?" Angela asked, her voice puzzled, and he confirmed that yes he had watched her walk into the building before he left. "Well, I knocked a few times before I let myself in, and she's not here." She told him and he could hear her moving around, probably inside Bones' apartment.

"What do you mean she's not there?" He asked incredulously. He had seen her go inside. He knew that. He wouldn't have left without seeing her enter the safety of her apartment building. The doorman had even pushed the elevator for her.

"I mean, I'm standing in her apartment and she's not here." Angela told him. He racked his brain to think again. Maybe he'd been distracted? Seeing her go in and board the elevator before he left was a habit. Maybe it was one of those things that you do so often you just assume you did it.

"The shower is still wet." He heard Hodgins' voice call. "We must have just missed her." Why would her shower be wet if she wasn't there?

"Looks like she went out. Her closet is ransacked." Angela said casually, and he felt the urge to shake her.

"What do you mean ransacked?" He asked, feeling bile rise in his throat. Had she packed and disappeared into the night, off to some nameless island without a second thought, without even trying to work through this and regain solid ground with their friendship and partnership. Why was Angela being so fucking casual about it?

"There're a couple of dresses on the bed, and all her heels are pulled out in a pile in front of the closet. Looks like she was trying stuff on to go out." She said, grunting a bit as if she had been getting up from said bed. "Curling iron is still warm and her makeup is out on the bathroom counter. Looks like she went out."

"Where the hell would she go at 1:00 in the morning?" Booth asked, glancing at his phone as if the time would somehow change. As if he had just been delirious and it was a perfectly acceptable time for Bones to be throwing on a party dress and heels to go out.

"You probably don't want to hear this, big guy, but the evidence says she went to a bar, maybe a club, definitely somewhere where very high heels and very un-Brennan-like short dresses are trending based on the options she had laid out on the bed." Angela told him slowly as if breaking the news of a victim's death to their loved ones. He felt like he'd just lost a loved one. "Actually a couple of these are mine." she added absently, but he wasn't really listening anymore.

"Alone?!" He asked, cursing under his breath. Why was she being so damn reckless? He knew that answer, in his heart. She was hurting and confused, and she was being exactly like Eames, whether she thought she was or not.

"Booth, Brennan is a big girl. She goes out alone all the time. I will try calling her to check in, but she probably just wanted to unwind and have a few drinks, dance, find some…thing to distract herself…" her voice trailed off as if she didn't want to mention that Bones may have gone to the bar alone, but she probably wasn't leaving alone. "It's been a while, but this isn't some out of the ordinary behavior for her. We used to do this all the time."

Booth sighed loudly and asked Angela to let him know if he heard from Bones. He didn't want to overstep or further hurt her, so he opted to go against his better judgment to call her himself. He needed to give her space and time to adjust, even if it killed him to pretend he wasn't gut-wrenched at the thought of her drinking alone in some bar with the intent of letting god-knows-who climb into her bed tonight as a band-aid for the pain he'd caused.

His hands were on her hips, stroking the satin fabric of her dress as he stood behind her, close enough that his breath was heavy against the back of her neck and every so often his groin would brush against her behind, presenting her with the opportunity to feel the hard evidence of his primal urges. She let her body move to the music, seductively writhing against him, reaching her arm up behind her to caress his stubbly face over her shoulder.

"You wanna get outta here?" He asked, and she sighed. She'd been having fun with him, and he had to go and ruin it. She turned in his arms, admiring his blue eyes and giving him a lazy smile as she shook her head. "I don't live very far." He had said it like he was trying to entice her with a delicious candy bar. She closed her eyes briefly because she actually found herself considering it, but she knew that was the tequila talking. Not that tequila had a voice, but that's what Angela had told her a number of times when she'd been far too drunk to make the rational decision not to let a strange man at a bar take her home with him.

She extricated herself from his strong hands, hands that she was sure could do a plethora of wonderful things to her tonight if she'd only said yes, but she moved away from him slowly, allowing the crowd of writhing bodies fill the growing space between them until she could no longer see those enticing blue eyes. Approaching the bar, she took a free stool and nodded at the bartender, raising her finger at him to indicate she'd like another drink. He knew what she wanted by now. She hadn't been in the club very long, but she'd certainly made up for lost time when she first arrived. "Keep my glass full?" she'd asked him when she first arrived, slipping a fifty into his hand and starting a tab on her credit card when she ordered a scotch and two tequila shots. He'd stayed true to his agreement, sliding a scotch and a shot in front of her anytime she came near the bar.

"We're getting close to last call." He told her, leaning over the bar and shouting over the loud music. "Work on that and I'll bring a couple more before I have to close your tab." He told her, and she nodded. She wasn't sure she'd need a couple more after this set, but she'd take them anyways. By the time he had closed her tab, she'd downed another scotch and two more shots and he was leaning over the bar again asking if she wanted him to call her a cab. She shook her head, closing her eyes as she listened to the still pounding beats of the dance music.

She reached into her purse and pulled out her cell phone. She hadn't touched it once since she arrived, and it had been blissfully peaceful. She didn't care that she couldn't hear it over the music. She didn't care if Cam was trying to reach her with a new murder. She didn't care if Booth… well he wouldn't be anyways. She looked at the new message icon on her screen and opened the text from Angela.

'Stopped by your place and you weren't there. :( '

Brennan sighed and wondered if she should call Angela. She couldn't get her eyes to focus on the time and see when the message was even sent. Why had Ange gone over to her place in the middle of the night? Unless… Brennan wondered if Booth had called Ange, but she couldn't logically connect all of the dots for the most rational series of events. Instead she opened her contacts and started to type.

A-G

Agent Seeley Booth popped up, and she scoffed at herself, quickly hitting the backspace button and trying again.

A-N

She scrolled and clumsily pressed her screen three times before finally getting Angela's name and trying very carefully to type a clear and concise message.

'I am too much drunk… come get me.' Satisfied, she clicked send, then decided she probably sounded rude.

'Please. Because you are my beast friend and you are my metamorphical sister.' She typed out and sent a follow-up message. She would buy Angela a giant stack of pancakes for this tomorrow morning… or afternoon. She would even make them for her. In the nude because Ange had told her on more than one occasion how hot Brennan was. She giggled to herself as she typed up a follow up text. 'I will feed you naked pancakes.'

Brennan was about to put her phone away when she realized belatedly that she hadn't told Ange where she was. She wasn't exactly sure she remembered where she was either, if she was being entirely honest with herself, so she hit the message again and dropped her location pin into it, hitting send again before tossing her phone into her bag.

She had no idea how long she'd been standing in front of the club, leaning against the rough brick of the exterior wall of the building, her head tilted back and her eyes closed, but she didn't care. She was sure she was probably cold, but she didn't feel that either. The rain had stopped, she noticed to herself, as she inhaled the fresh air. It was crisp and clean, unlike that stale sweat infused air that filled the nightclub. She wondered if she should have gone home with Mr. Blue-Eyes. She could be naked and warm in a bed right now, and at least one orgasm into a long night of multiple orgasms. Booth's unwelcomed voice of reason piped up in her brain, pointing out that she could also be dead in a ditch right now if she'd gone home with Mr. Blue-Eyes. Even when he wasn't at the party, he was… what did Angela call it? She chuckled, knowing it had something to with defecation. Party Pooping?

"Temperance?" She heard her name, but her brain wasn't cooperative, and she couldn't place the direction or the owner of the voice. She knew the correct response was to open her eyes and acknowledge the person, but that wasn't happening. "Hey…" the voice was closer this time, and gently soothing. She knew this voice from somewhere, so she opened her eyes when a hand tentatively touched her shoulder. "Hi…" he said, meeting her glassy eyes.