R&R please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Temperance trampled out of the house shrugging on her coat. It had started to snow outside and she could see her breath fogging as she exhaled. She couldn't think clearly and she couldn't comprehend what was happening to her. Was she going crazy? Had her inability to connect with other people finally caught up to her through subconscious manifestation of some sort of imaginary friend?

She was breathing heavily but at the same time felt like she was running low on oxygen. Her head was spinning and she made it to the end of the driveway before sitting down on the curb. She heard the cautious footsteps behind her and shook her head, "I really don't think I can talk about this right now." She said firmly.

"I wasn't expecting you to." Said a voice that was neither unfamiliar nor Booth's.

Temperance turned around and found Anthony and Grace standing behind her. She stood up and backed away carefully, "You're not real. You're dead."

Anthony turned to Grace and looked at her in amusement, "Well," he said turning back to her, "You got that half right." He said, winking at her.

Temperance shook her head, "No, you can't be both dead and charming. One or the other… buster!" she said jabbing her finger at the man defiantly.

"Well, now you at least know why we are here, Temperance. Our reasoning may be a little selfish, but it proves my point." Anthony said taking another step toward her.

Temperance stepped back away from Tony, "Booth is going to be out here any second and he won't like seeing you… because you're supposed to be dead."

Grace laughed, endearingly at the young woman, "We have passed on, Temperance, and Seeley won't be seeing us while we are visiting you." She said turning to gesture at the front door. Temperance squinted and saw Booth frozen in place jogging out the front door of his house. He wasn't moving a muscle. In shock, she took a step back and gasped when she found herself standing next to a car that was frozen as well. The headlights were on and the man behind the wheel was in the middle of singing a song that she presumed had been on the radio.

Temperance nodded, "Oh, I see. I was run over by this car and am now in a state of shock and hallucinating because I just saw the video that featured both of you."

Anthony shook his head, "When we took this case we knew that you would be a handful, but I never thought you would be this tough to crack. You were not run over by a car." He told her.

Grace stepped forward, "Honey, there comes a point in a situation like this where you just have to accept that there is no rational or logical explanation. We could sit here and talk theory and evolution and sort through the myths and facts from the Bible, Koran, Torah and other religious texts, but it would take years for you to understand fully. As a woman who is very much like you, and I think you know that you and I are very much alike, this is real. You aren't dreaming."

Temperance cocked her head to the side in thought, "I don't know you… why do I feel like I do? Why do I feel the way I am feeling right now?"

"You're feeling our souls." Anthony explained briefly, "That's why you were so willing to trust me in the diner. That is why you asked Grace about me on the street, but most of all, you know that is how you know that you can trust us."

"So, those people from my dreams?" Temperance asked.

"They were all manifestations of people you know." Grace told her.

Temperance paused, "But I don't know Frankie. That was the first time I had ever seen her." Temperance questioned.

Anthony smiled, "You know her very well. You have seen her before and you don't even realize it. She has been coming to you in your dreams for a very long time now."

Temperance shook her head, "So she isn't real? She will never actually be my daughter?" she asked, obviously trying to hide her disappointment and sadness.

Grace shrugged, "She is a possibility, Temperance. That is, if you travel down the right path."

Brennan exhaled loudly and rubbed her face with her hands, "So what? Are you some kind of Angels or something?" she asked incredulously.

Anthony smiled, "No. Spirits who were once human cannot be Angels. We are essentially what is left behind after a human dies; the consciousness or in other words Spirits, ghosts, ghouls… whatever." Anthony laughed, "Everyone has a job, something that they are good at to help those who have not yet made it to where we are. Grace and I help people like you. It just so happens that Seeley is your friend." He shrugged.

Temperance was thoroughly intrigued at this point. If she was crazy, she was obviously extremely in the whole so she figured she might as well indulge in the fantasy a little and milk all of the information that she could before the charade went away, "So what other kinds of jobs are there?" she asked.

"Well, we help people who are at a juncture in their life who need a little guidance, there are the cupids who, despite common belief are not babies with bow and arrows, they are just people who try to guide people in the right direction towards their soul mates. There are tricksters who guide people into mischief, nothing terrible mind you, but the word is a little more fun when there is a little tomfoolery going on. I mean, Temperance, the heavens are vast and filled with a multitude of opportunities, the even have a place for people who deal with the dead like you. Instead of studying the bones of the dead they sort out the lost souls and decide who goes where, sort of like a disembodied human resources department." Anthony laughed.

"The only problem they have is that we're all deceivers…" Grace mumbled to herself.

"Decievers?" Temperance asked a little taken aback.

"Oh, it's not what you think." Grace backtracked momentarily, "We can change our appearances at the drop of a hat if we want because we are no longer attached to a physical body. Everyone is beautiful up there…" she said shaking her head, "It's like a Miss America Pageant." She laughed. Anthony looked at her wide eyed and she shrugged her shoulders.

Temperance was confused. She didn't understand why they were being so open with her about everything and she certainly didn't understand why they were helping her when there were other people in the world who needed their assistance more than she did. She sighed and pulled her coat tighter around her body, "So what do you want from me?" she asked harshly.

Anthony and Grace looked at each other and then back at Temperance. Anthony cleared his throat to speak but Grace put her hand on his forearm and spoke, "We need you to stop being so resistant to yourself. You're heart is telling you one thing and you take that information and do exactly the opposite. It's almost as though you want yourself to be unhappy." She said regretfully.

"I'm keeping myself and other safe." She said defiantly.

Anthony scoffed, "No you aren't. You're hiding from your life and rationalizing that you are keeping people safe when in reality you are just hurting yourself… and Seeley." He said sadly.

"How am I hurting, Booth? You don't know anything about Booth and I." she said angrily.

Anthony took a step toward Temperance and put a hand on her shoulder, "We know everything about the two of you, especially the things that you have never told anyone. We know about what you're thinking in your head, Temperance. Naughty and nice." Anthony smiled knowingly.

Temperance blushed and stepped away from his outstretched hand, "So that's it?" She asked. Anthony and Grace nodded. "Fine." She shrugged, "I'll do my best."

Anthony pulled her into a hug and coincidently pulled her out of the way of the moving car as everything came back into motion they were both gone. Booth ran out into the street where Temperance was standing and grabbed her by the shoulders, "Bones, are you okay? That guy was speeding down the road. You're lucky you didn't get hit." He said, looking over her body to make sure that she wasn't injured.

"I'm fine, Booth." She said, brushing snow off of her coat.

"What happened in there?" he asked, confused about her attitude.

She looked up at him for a moment before remembering the occurrence in the Booth household, "Oh. Don't worry about it, Booth. It was nothing."

He squinted at her, "Nothing caused you to run out of the house?" he asked.

Temperance laughed, "I'm sorry." She said taking a breath and then laughing again, "I'm going crazy."

He took a step closer to her and put his hands on her shoulders, "Are you sure you're okay?" he asked.

She closed her eyes and leaned her head on his chest. He responded to her by pulling her into a hug, "I'll be fine. I don't know what is going on with me lately, but I promise you that I will be okay."

Booth inhaled and rubbed her back, "Good. I'm glad."

"I do have one question though." She asked, deciding not to move away from him. Being in his arms was too comforting to give up right away. She felt him nod and she continued, "Who was Grace?" she asked.

"Aunt Grace was Boppy's wife." Booth replied.

Brennan looked up at Booth, "Do you remember anything about her?"

Booth smiled, "Yeah, of course. She was really sweet. She was kind of endearingly awkward. She reminds me a lot of you actually. She would give me and Jared these practical birthday presents and she was seriously literal."

"Like me?" she asked.

"No, she understood pop culture and that sort of thing but she was a little lost when it came to sarcasm, which is a Booth family tradition." He laughed, "One time I asked for an huge ice cream cake for my birthday and she called a few weeks later saying that the biggest she could find was this monstrous cake used for corporate events."

"What is wrong with that?" Brennan asked.

"I was a nine year old who tended to over exaggerate. My mom had to talk her out of buying it."

Brennan laughed, "She sounds lovely." She smiled.

"Yeah," he said tucking a strand of renegade hair behind her ear, "She was."

It was at this point that they both realized that they were still holding each other and staring contentedly into one another's eyes. Booth cleared his throat and took a step away from her to correct their mistake before anything happened, and silently regretted doing so, "Can I ask you a question?" he asked her.

Temperance shrugged and passed her foot over a mound of snow sitting up against the curb.

"What made you change your mind?" he asked.

"Change my mind about what?" she asked.

"About coming to my house? Normally you aren't swayed easily but it seemed like today you changed your mind without provocation; so seriously in fact that you visited every Booth residence in the tri state area to find the right one. What made you want to get here so badly?"

Temperance looked away from him and then down at her shoes, "I really… I don't know what it was. I… I think the best way to describe it would be your gut instinct."

Booth raised his eyebrows, "Ohh, so you're finally a believer?" he said in jest.

Temperance laughed, "You'd be surprised about what I'm finally starting to believe, Seeley Booth." She said.

There was a moment where they just looked at each other. Their cheeks flushed from the cold, both holding their extremities close to their bodies to fend off their lowering body temperatures. It was quiet in a way that you could never imagine a city to be and the only thing that existed was each other.

Temperance lifted her self up on her toes to stretch out her ankles, "We should probably go back in." she whispered to him.

Booth nodded his head, "Yeah." He said huskily.

They turned and slowly made their way back in the house, both subconsciously praying for endless moments of opportunity to be together; endless opportunities like this one in the snow.