Author's Note: Just a minor note: if anyone has experienced panic attacks, read this chapter a bit tentatively. I totally understand what it's like, and I would hate to trigger an episode for someone. xx

With a chilling feeling, Cam couldn't help but recall the last time she had been sobbing in her car like this, and the reasoning between the two wasn't all that different. She had slept over at Vincent's apartment the night before he died, and that morning he had told her that he felt like he was falling in love with her. With her growing suspicions about her pregnancy and her hesitations about their relationship, she shamefully shuffled out of his apartment without giving him a substantial response all because she was scared. Her own complicated emotions forbade her acceptance of this new person that she was meant to love.

Looking through the rear-view mirror, Cam could see that Aida's crying had subsided to a light whimper, though her cheeks and eyes were still red.

Those eyes.

The pain in those familiar eyes brought a faster flash of memories; a series that was more abstract and powerful than those that crept into Cam's mind before.

The blue of Vincent's own eyes, their expressive, familiar manner. How they always managed to make her heart jump a bit. How she watched them fade with his dying heart.

The blue of the intimidating pregnancy test. How panicked she felt about it. How uncertain.

Without completely realizing it, she felt a mounting tension in her chest as these upsetting images continued to roll. Her breathing was quick and strained as her heartbeat was outpacing her struggling lungs.

The last time they had made love. How at peace she felt. How she would never experience that peace or genuine love again.

Her breathing was only becoming more labored as she failed to get enough air. More hot tears came as she desperately tried to focus, trying to take longer breaths while the weight on her chest grew.

The engagement ring-her engagement ring-that Booth found with Vincent's proposal. How even though she had been so withholding, he was ready to marry her. How undeserving she felt of such a gesture.

Everyone was right.

She was a workaholic who was too strict to love a man willing to marry her and raise her baby. She didn't deserve him, or a happy life with her baby. Fate or karma was never something she completely believed in, but she did now.

The inability to relax her breathing only made her heart beat faster, demanding more oxygen than her lungs could muster through her quaking emotions.

Her vision was blurring, part tears and part her inability to focus. She felt like she was underwater at this point.

She had given him nothing, and now she had nothing.

Her heart was beating too fast, out of control, completely out of her control.

Like everything else, like her own pregnancy, her own emotions, her own baby.

The gasping breaths were crushing her chest and making her feel faint as her heart and head pounded. With every struggling exhale, she felt like her body was on the cusp of completely shutting down from exhaustion.

Suddenly, someone's car alarm down the street began to blare which threw Cam out of her cycle of panic. Gripping the steering wheel, she attempted to consciously walk herself through taking long, deep breaths. Her mind still felt chaotic and frazzled, but her heartbeat and breathing wasn't as ragged.

With another deep breath, she considered what she was going to do now. She should just go home, retreat with her broken stroller and spirit. But, no, Michelle would probably be home and would excitedly ask Cam about how brunch went.. Reliving the fight would only make Cam feel worse, even though Michelle only wanted to help out. Cam just felt stranded-both emotionally and physically-and reaching out to those who supposedly loved her clearly only seemed to make everything worse.

Briefly, she longed for a time when things weren't so complex and when her priorities simply began and ended with her orderly work. In that frame of mind, she would know exactly what to do and how to do it. But here, trying to raise her own child through this unimaginable strain, she felt like she knew nothing.

Desperate for that sense of order-vacant of the broken friendships and expectations-she drove to the lab. She may not have had any specific work to do-or frankly was suppose to be there at all-but she didn't know of any other surrounding that wouldn't further her anxieties.

Once they arrived, Cam took Aida out of her car seat and placed her back into the bassinet. As she walked in with purse in one hand and bassinet in the other she allowed herself to take in familiar comforts swarming around her. The click of her heels against the floor, the sterile, cold smell of the air, and the light pouring through the glass ceilings. Her apartment was quite sunny and airy itself, but it really didn't have the same quality and comfort anymore.

Cam heard Aida make a soft cooing noise, and for the first time she imagined what it would be like when Aida got older. She'd most certainly end up visiting the lab-though only when she was at a responsible age-and would be growing up here with Michael Vincent and Brennan and Booth's daughter. She'd go to daycare with them, maybe even kindergarten too. She'd become her own person, just like Michelle, with her own interests and passions which would be completely separate from her tragic arrival into the world. Though small and rare, it was a comforting and hopeful thought.

And then, she saw it.

Her previous sense peace began to crumble and flake when Vincent's memoriam plaque came into view.

It had been Hodgins' idea, and it had been finally put up when she had been pregnant and still somewhat hopeful. Now, seeing it for the first time since Aida was born almost felt like too much. Aida wouldn't really be able to separate her life from Vincent's death, Cam thought. It didn't work that way. She would have a wide array of questions, and her own set of heartbreak separate from Cam's. She would be a lot like Michelle in that way too. That thought caused another tightness in Cam's throat; truly no amount of hoping and or positive thinking could overwrite Vincent's death and how it was going to affect Aida's own life.

"I really wish you had let me add father on there." Cam turned to her left to see Hodgins lamenting over Vincent's plaque. Though caught off guard, she tried to stifle the suggestion of tears in her eyes. "No matter what you say, Cam, he's still a father. He's still here, just not in that way."

Cam slowly nodded, attempting to gather herself. "I know you wanted to, but I just didn't want to shove my tragedy in everyone's face, that's all." The denial also came from a sense of blissful ignorance on Cam's part that as soon as Aida was born, believing that the tragedy had never even struck.

"I get that, but don't you think Vincent would've wanted..." Hodgins stared upwards, trying to gather the right words. "you to let us in? It doesn't matter that you're the boss anymore; it would've killed him to know that you were having to do this by yourself.." He swallowed a hard lump in his throat when he realized his poor choice of words.

"I was meant to do this on my own, and I will." Cam averted her eyes from his. She took a tight breath. "Look, Hodgins, I just went through the same exact emotional bargaining with Angela; I'm not doing it here."

Hodgins could understand where she was coming from, but he stood his ground just the same. "Yeah, she told me. Maybe she said somethings that were unfair, but so did you. You're upset, but that doesn't mean you get to hurt everyone else like that. " His eyes narrowed in confusion, sorrow, and hurt.

It felt odd for Hodgins to be speaking to her in this veiled accusatory manner, but not unwarranted. Cam maintained her tight expression. "You can at least be able to understand that it's so different. It's not just that I miss being with him…"

"What, do you think we don't miss him?" His face was somewhat stunned. Of course he understood that their worries weren't a contest, but he could relate Cam's own anxieties to his own. He could understand that the uneasiness, frustration, and sense of loss didn't always end when it was suppose to.

She got a complicated look on her face; a mix between disbelief and hurt. "Of course not, Hodgins. It's like every time I see something that reminds me of him I'm plagued with this awful feeling. It's not just grief but like utter inadequacy in being a mother and in...not keeping him safe."

He looked down at his shoes with his hands protectively in the pockets of his lab coat. He tried to hide his own tears and the unstable emotions growing on his face. "Did I ever tell you why I hated Finn so much at first?"

Cam slowly shook her head.

"When I saw Finn, I just immediately saw Vincent in those goddamn hopeful eyes. It just freaked me out. They're different people, I know, but their vibes are so similar. These charming, hopeful, determined guys who want nothing more than to expand their knowledge and help us out. It almost felt like Vincent was back, somehow, but of course he wasn't." Cam could know see the tears building in Hodgins' eyes, though they stayed contained. "I had that shitty attitude with Finn because I guess I felt like if he left, we could have Vincent back. We'd get a do-over, we wouldn't let him die, we wouldn't fail at keeping him safe."

"I know you saw it too, Cam." Hodgins continued. "You fought to keep this kid at the lab no matter how much Carolyn berated you about his records because you saw what I saw. You wanted to keep this one safe this time."

She gently wiped a tear from her eye with her pinky. He was right, she had seen the familiarity in Finn, who couldn't? At the time, Carolyn reasoned that Cam's pregnancy hormones had made her soft, but it wasn't that at all. Cam didn't want another genuine, kind soul to be denied their opportunity in a place that they loved. It was probably the only instance where she felt like she was able to make a substantial correction to her numerous regrets.

Hodgins stepped in closer. "I know that you and Angela and Brennan are fighting right now, but what else can we do? Things aren't going to get better if you write everyone off and keep to yourself like this." He pressed.

She abruptly turned away from him; she wasn't ready to unload the extent of her difficulties and frustrations, not here. "Just saying that isn't going to change anything, it can't."

"You can try to let it."

Cam could see where her good friend was coming from, but he didn't know how deep her inadequacies laid.