It was a mistake. Brennan knew it as soon as she made it back to her hotel room. An hour of silence, of having no one to call and no place to go, and she knew she'd made a decision not based on logic, but emotion.

But it was too late to take back the emails and too late to go back on her word to Sarah. Not that she wanted to do that. Sarah was doing work Brennan wanted to be a part of. It was work as important as the justice she found murder victims. The skeletons from the desert deserved to go home, too.

Reaching into her bag, she pulled out her gift from Booth and placed it on the bed in front of her. Opening to the pages he'd included in the back, she stopped at the page of Booth's injury from Pam Noonan. He'd saved her life. Then broke her heart. She'd forgiven the deception, but never forgot the feelings. Loving him was opening herself up to that again, and she hadn't been ready to do that when he'd asked her to.

It was wrong to expect him to wait for her, when she might never have been ready.

And she was wrong to be angry at herself for not being ready. Taking that step, when she wasn't capable of giving her entire heart to him, wouldn't have been fair to either of them.

Watching him with Hannah was hard. Not seeing him again, well, that wasn't something she could do either.

So it came down to a choice. Find a way to allow Booth and Hannah in her life, knowing there was always a part of her that would wonder what could have been, or leave it all behind and try to build a new family.

The problem was, she wanted the one she already had. Which made her hard decision, not that hard at all.

Brennan wanted to go back home. And she was going to find a way to get there for Christmas.

Knowing she shouldn't do it didn't stop her. She picked up her phone and dialed Booth.

"Hello?" he said.

"Booth?" she asked, pulling her phone back to verify she'd dialed the correct number. He sounded terrible. "Is that you?"

"It's me. What do you want, Bones?"

The sharpness of the question had her rethinking what she was about to say. "I wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas." she finally came up with.

His laugh turned into a groan and Brennan's brow furrowed with concern. "I already got your present, Bones. I think the email was more than enough."

While his words struck a nerve, she pushed aside her guilt. "You don't sound okay, Booth. Are you drunk?"

"I was sleeping. I'm going back to sleep. Merry Christmas, Bones," he said, hanging up before she had the chance to answer.

"Sleeping?" she asked the empty room. Glancing over at the clock, she calculated the time back in DC. "It's early afternoon." There was only a couple of reasons Booth would be asleep at this hour. One was a case, something she was sure they didn't have, since she'd just left. The second was that he was ill, something that worried her. Booth was not a pleasant man when he was ill, and took very poor care of himself, leading his sickness to last much longer than it needed to.

She dialed another number quickly, tapping her leg while waiting for an answer. "Hannah," she said, when the other phone was finally picked up. "Are you in DC?"

"Temperance? Yes, I'm in DC for the moment. I'm waiting for my flight to Atlanta. I'm on my way to Europe."

"Before Christmas?" Brennan asked. She made no effort to hide her disapproval. Christmas was everything to Booth. "Booth seems to be ill. I just spoke to him on the phone and he sounds terrible."

Worried for her partner and her friend, Brennan found it unforgivable that Hannah was heading back to Europe right before Christmas.

"Yeah, he didn't look good when we broke it off. I told him to take a nap. He didn't even wake up when I grabbed my things from the bedroom. Probably coming down with something. He mentioned it was going around the office."

Or it could be other things, Brennan knew. But she was pretty sure Booth had never shared that part of his health history with Hannah. And Brennan wouldn't betray him now.

"Wait," Brennan said, trying to catch up with the conversation. "What things did you grab from the bedroom. And what did you break off?"

The quiet laugh was clear, despite the distance between them. "We broke up, Temperance. Booth and I are no longer a couple."

Brennan ignored the little leap of hope her heart gave. She was too concerned to focus on that now. "I'm sorry to hear that," she lied. Booth would have been proud of how smoothly she delivered it. "And you're going back to Europe?"

"Yes, no reason to wait around. But Booth was sick when I left. You should go check on him."

"I plan to," Brennan said. No reason to explain that it was going to be hours before she could do so. "Stay safe in Europe, Hannah."

"I will. They're calling my flight. Good luck, Temperance."

The line was dead before she had a chance to ask what Hannah was wishing her good luck with. If it was dealing with a sick Booth, Brennan knew she was going to need it. She could only hope Hannah was right, and it was just a virus causing Booth to not feel well.

But she wasn't done making phone calls yet. She made a quick call to the travel agent her publisher employed, knowing if anyone could get her on a flight back to DC this evening, it was her.

The next went to Sarah. "I need to renegotiate our deal," she said as soon as Sarah answered the phone.

It was one of the last flights out of Arizona that evening, but Brennan was resting comfortably in first class, trying to control her impatience. She would land in DC before the sun came up, keeping the promise she'd made to herself. Before the sun set on Christmas, Brennan would be back in Booth's apartment.

An apartment that would only be the home of one person now, not two. Brennan would never wish Booth pain, but couldn't avoid feeling relieved that Hannah was gone. She wasn't sure what it meant for her and Booth, but maybe she'd have a chance to find out.

And she wasn't going to let this opportunity pass. Brennan was going to tell him how she felt. Maybe, they could move forward together.

When Booth was ready, of course. He would be upset by Hannah's sudden departure. And just before his favorite holiday. This time, she might be the one waiting for him, and she was prepared to do so. She was confident in her ability to read her partner. Brennan had been practicing that skill for years.

Accepting the pillow and blanket offered, Brennan tilted the seat back slightly and closed her eyes. She knew she wouldn't sleep, but rest would be in short supply over the next few days. Booth was a miserable patient and it would take all of the skills he'd taught her over the years in order to deal with him.

Of course, it was Christmas and her arrival would be a surprise. Perhaps that would keep him from being miserable.

Seeing his mood as small price to pay for the chance she might have, Brennan stared out the window, watching the world go by beneath her.