I'm so happy to know you really liked the previous chapters. Thank you all for the fantastc reviews.

This chapter is a bit rough ride. Fasten your seat belt and enjoy. Tissues anyone?

As usual, I own nothing and earn nothing, just own all my love for Booth and Brennan.

Grev

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Chapter 8

December 1st Washington D.C.

December arrived even before Booth could register it. After he was back from Texas he had taken a few days off work, spent a lot of time with Parker and remained alert and concerned waiting for some news arriving any moment. But the news had not come yet.

Days were getting shorter, and the cold dark of early evenings was now lit up by the Christmas decorations hanging in every street of the city centre.

Parker was already getting excited at the idea of the imminent return of Santa, but his father although affectionate and caring as usual, seemed to be distant and not being capable of participating to his joy.

That afternoon they were at home. Booth had picked up his son from school and it was a cold, windy and wet day. They had rushed inside shivering and they both enjoyed the idea of a cozy afternoon playing together, with nothing else on the agenda.

"Ok buddy, what would you like to do this afternoon. Shall we build the train or race cars?"

"Train!!" Yelled an enthusiastic Parker.

They started to assemble the rails together, but the boy noticed that his dad was slow, and stopped very frequently with the pieces in his hands and his gaze lost somewhere.

"Are you ok, dad?" Asked Parker.

"Yeah.. of course" Booth tried with a forced smile. "Why do you ask?"

"Are you sad because you are alone?"

"What? No, I'm not sad. And I'm not alone, right? I am back now and I'm happy to spend time with you."

"I don't know dad… Bones is not back yet, I think you miss her. You are always happy when she is around and you work together, and now you are not that happy anymore. I thought you missed her, like I missed mom when she went on holiday last summer"

Booth did not say anything and Parker continued "When is she coming back?".

"I think.. I hope soon buddy. But I still don't know."

"At school when I missed mom, my teacher asked me to make a drawing for her. She said that it feels good to think about the ones we love and do something for them.".

"You have a very good teacher Parker. And did it work?".

Parker was very proud that he could give some help to his dad, made him feel really like a big boy.

"Yes, because I could make something nice for her and the day went by very fast, and mom was so happy when I gave it to her". And then added "Why don't we go out and buy Bones a present? Then I can also make a card for her. For when she comes back."

"You know Parker" said Booth reaching out, grabbing his son and holding him in a tight embrace "you just had the best idea ever. Shall we go then, even with this weather?"

"Yeeehhh.." screamed Parker, and in a second he was already gone to get his jacket.

"Were are we going dad? What are you buying her?". The boy asked in the car.

"Mmm, I was thinking to go to the mall and find some inspiration there".

"Bones is a girl, girls like beautiful things. Are you buying her a jewel" Parker giggled. "But Tim says you give jewel only when you really like the girl.. is that right dad?"

Booth was taken by surprise. Was his son asking him if he loved Bones? Or that indeed you only give jewelry to the girls you like?

"I think Tim is right. You give those kind of gifts only when you really like the girl."

"And you really like Bones?"

"Yes." Booth decided that he was not going to lie to his son about that. Too important.

"If you love her you can even give her a ring…" Parker left the sentence hanging, his interest caught by the sparkly decorations he was watching outside the car window.

And Booth was thinking. This wait for some news was really killing him. She was somewhere, maybe in distress, probably in Pakistan. So far away from him. Waiting with some other soldiers for the American army to rescue and save them. He felt terribly guilty at being safe, with his son. It was already five days since he last received the information of the imminent attack. If she was safe, she was going to contact him directly. He knew that.

If she did not, it meant that either the rescue had not taken place yet, or that something went terribly wrong.

If she was already dead, and they could not find her body, it could be days before they decided to inform the families about the situation and officially declare someone missing and probably dead.

At the mere idea, he grabbed again her ring and whispered a quick prayer. He really could not lose her. He could not lose his own heart.

In the end Parker was right. Brennan was the love of his life and he had never given her a gift that could symbolize all his affection.

The two Booth boys went straight to a jewelry shop and both excited, they picked out a beautiful necklace with dolphins and blue stones.

And while Booth was waiting for the gift to be wrapped, Parker wandered around the shop until he stopped in front of the ring section.

"Hey, you seem young but would you like already to buy an engagement ring for your girlfriend?" Asked amused and funny the sales clerk.

Parker smiled shyly.

"No, it's for my daddy's friend. I think she would like a ring like that" Parker indicated a beautiful ring, with one shiny diamond.

"That's an engagement ring young man" said the patient man "you give it only to the woman you are going to marry."

Parker turned to his father "Dad, if you want to marry Bones you have to give her a ring".

Booth felt immediately embarrassed "Parker, we got her a gift, now we can go".

And thanking the sales clerks, they left. If only the boy knew how intensely his father hoped to buy one day such a ring for his partner.

They decided to get back home and Parker kept his promise and made a very beautiful card for Brennan. He drew flowers and hearts, because girls like them he said, and wrote a welcome back, we love you in full colors.

"You made a very beautiful card, Parker, and you are definitely smarter than your old man. You'll make the woman you love one day really happy".

"You also make Bones really happy, dad, remember how happy she was last Christmas when we brought her the tree? Are we doing it again this year?".

"That's an idea, bub. But hopefully we stay with her when we give her the tree this time.".

"Then I'll make more decorations at school for her tree".

"You know what?" Said Booth picking up his son and hugging him tight "I'm the luckiest dad in the world. I love you".

"I love you too dad".

After dinner he drove Parker home. And with a hug and saying goodbye, he left and waived with a smile. But once in the car alone, the smile died on his face.

He had an awful feeling that things were coming to a head pretty soon and he could not shake the horrible sensation that Brennan was not fine and something bad had or was happening to her.

Once back home, he fell on the couch, in the dark. He would give anything to have her back, to be able to see the shining of her eyes, her beautiful and sometimes shy smile. He had been a fool for so long, having her with him every day and never having the courage to hold her tight and whisper to her how much he liked her, admired her, loved and wanted her.

He felt sick and in pain because he knew, right then and there, that she was needing him and he could not help her. Booth knew that if the guilt over Teddy's death had not destroyed him, this time he could not survive losing her, despite the love for his son. If she died, his soul was going to die with her.

He fell asleep on the couch and spent the night plagued by bad dreams and in a restless anguish.

It was before dawn that a horrible nightmare woke him up. He remembered only some vague details: the red and smell of blood, her cry for him, her lifeless body lying on the ground.

He struggled to raise from the couch, his back and neck hurting. But hurried to the shower and tried to get ready as fast as he could. The memory of the dream was too horrible and he needed to replace it pretty quickly with some boring routine details of his office real life.

He had spent half of his morning drinking coffee and doing paperwork when he noticed that there was no noise coming from the busy desks in front of his office. He raised his head to look why suddenly so much silence.

The moment he saw what there was in front of him he wished he was still sleeping and that he was still prey of nightmares. But he was awake. And he froze.

Two military men were standing at his door, sad faces, hats in their hands. How many times he had witnessed the same scene? That was the standard procedure to inform families about the death of their loved ones at war. His colleagues were just staring disbelieved.

"Agent Seeley Booth?"

Booth nodded. His voice had died in his throat.

"You are listed as the nearest contact person in the file of Doctor Temperance Brennan. May we come in?".

No, they cannot come in, I don't want to hear what they came to tell me. I don't want to know that the world has stopped turning, that the sun will never rise again for me. I don't want to hear that the most incredible woman I have ever met, that stubborn genius scientist with a heart as big as the world itself, the one who has completely stolen my heart will never be able to give it back to me. I don't want to hear that today, that my life is over.

But he stepped aside and the two men came in.

December 1st Pakistan

Every day now was always the same. She was taken from her cell, escorted to the building where the remains were, and she was going to spend the day there, under the vigilant guard of Hina.

Identifying those remains was extremely difficult and time consuming. Sometimes bones belonging to the same person had been stored in different boxes and anyway, for a positive ID she only had low quality photos.

But she really did her best to do an accurate job. Not to gain some time and stay alive, not because she was a perfectionist. But because she had not lost, ever, the deep respect she had always displayed towards human remains. It was not garbage, they were part of what had been a person once. As much as she respected life, she had become an anthropologist because she also respected what was left of that life.

Her days were always spent in complete silence. Hina spoke to her rarely, and mainly to ask and evaluate if she was doing things properly. Brennan could feel that the woman hated her because once Hina slipped out that among those remains there were also her father and brother.

During those long days she could feel the scrutiny above her shoulder, of someone who is waiting any moment to be given important news.

And if there was someone who could understand what Hina was passing through it was her. Didn't she also loose her family at young age? Didn't she also have to look at the skull of a loved one before putting the remains to rest?

Brennan knew that it was obvious that Hina was blaming her, at least her country and her buddy marines for the loss of her family. It was war, times and places of hatred and conflicts. And she was in the middle of it.

Despite the similarities of their lives, Brennan was aware that there was no room for socialising and she was sure that she had to watch her back every time she turned her shoulder to this young woman full of hatred and vengeance.

Brennan talked to her, though. Hina seemed capable of understanding her language pretty well, and Brennan explained every little thing she was doing to the bones, every measure she was taking, every note she was writing down.

It was helping her. Focus on the detail, focus on the job. And maybe the fact that someone is just looking at you, all the time, wishing they could kill you because you represent everything they hate, was fading in the background.

She loved though when every night they escorted her back, to the other marines.

They were so happy to see her. She noticed that they were given much less food than her, and the constant restraint in the cell was taking its toll. They were dehydrated, weak and depressed. At least she had her daily short walk, in the sun. And some work to do to keep her spirit up.

The ones that were still a bit energetic, asked her about everything she had done. Probably they were not interested in her bones stuff, but listening to her scientific jargon, her logical explanations, and the progress of every day work, it helped them evading from that cell with their imagination, at least momentarily.

And when there was silence, there was always someone who was praying. Out loud.

Brennan listened. Was that the way Booth was praying? Did he do it when he was in that same type of situation? Was he holding his medal then, the very same that was still hanging on her chest?

She took it in her hand, looking at it and remembering his words when he had given it to her "maybe it will make you think of me".

"Booth, I'm always thinking of you. My heart is not here, is not in this desert, is not in my chest. It's by your side."

She didn't have a watch anymore, but she guessed that it was probably mid day right then in North America. She wandered what Booth could be doing right in that instant. She asked herself if he could barely imagine how much she was missing him and thinking about him.

Lying down on the hard and dirty floor, Brennan let tears flow freely and wetting her face.

She would give anything to be able to be home again, and she thought of how foolish it had been of her, being always by his side and hardly ever letting herself being comforted by his hugs, loving him for so long and not even realizing it. She could have spent years sleeping in his warm embrace, hiding her face into his wide and protective chest and for once, for once in her lifetime just exist like any other woman instead of stubbornly playing the part of the super hero.

But that time was gone, and maybe never coming back again. And she decided, solemnly, while still crying, that from that moment he was going to be the most important thing in her life, more than her job, more than her science, more than her fears and surely more than her sense of duty.

And before she thought possible it was dawn again and they came to pick her up for her daily work. It was still early, the sun just starting to rise.

Hina joined her in the room as usual, never letting her one single moment alone.

And Brennan started to display boxes and materials in order to start her work.

It was then that they heard loud whistles and blasts. The earth started to shake, and the boxes and papers started to fall on the ground.

For a moment, one single second, Hina and Brennan looked at each other in the eyes. Two women, one fate. Enemies.

Shouts and movements were loud outside, men were fighting, the American army was attacking the Taliban camp with all its might, launching bombs from airplanes and probably with choppers ready to let infantry on the ground.

But in that room there was another war. Hina moved quickly to try and reach her gun, but Brennan dove against her hitting the ground hard, together with the other woman. Brennan was definitely bigger and stronger than the young afghan, but she was wearing her chador and hampered in her movements. Hina on the contrary, was perfectly at ease with the vest she had been wearing all her life.

They struggled to get to the gun that was only a few feet away and they started to really hit each other with bare hands.

Brennan had been in fights before, but she had never hit another woman. But the first punch that hurt her jaw made her forget the person and she started to fight for life.

Brennan hit hard with no mercy, and Hina was responding with same power, until she could reach the mess of stuff which had fallen from the table and found a knife.

The gun was still just a few feet away and Brennan was focusing on grabbing it when she felt the painful stab of the knife in her leg. She turned in time to see Hina moving her hand back again to launch another attack. Bending her torso, Brennan realised that she was never going to get the gun, too far away, and she had to find something else to shield herself with and to possibly kill the girl.

Her hand moved frantically on the ground trying to get something hard among the mess until she felt a long bone, probably a femur, and gripped around it. The moment Brennan turned to hit, raising her arm to smash the bone on Hina's head, she felt an unimaginable pain in her abdomen and the blade entering her flesh. They looked at each other breathing hard, one feeling the triumph of victory, the other sensing that the flood of blood out of her belly was the end.

"You die here and now" said Hina, looking at Brennan in the eyes, hating her with all her soul.

She had breath left for a whisper only, but enough to answer "you too". With one hand against the knife still in her body to keep it firm, she raised the other and smashed the bone against Hina's face, and when the girl fell, the fury of desperation kept her hitting and hitting until she heard the crack of the bones breaking.

She fell on the ground, knife still inside her. She didn't look at the dead body of Hina by her side, she could only see the dirty ceiling on top of her, smell the blood that was everywhere around her, other noises from the outside.

And then she could not even focus anymore on those details but only heard Booth's sweet voice calling her, saw him hugging Parker, she saw the sad smile of his brother and his dad, she sensed the crystalline laugh of Angela and the warmth of her touches. And then she felt like when she was a child and her mom was picking her up to console or cuddle her.

"I'm so sorry Booth" were her last word before she let the memory of her mother's touch and love surround and engulf her to peace.

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I know, I know.

I'll try to post next chapter soon.

Luckily Bones is back on Fox and seems that there are really great episodes ahead.

You take care out there. Don't forget to leave a few lines and let me know what you think of this chapter.

Grev