Okay, so here's the second half. Hope you enjoy :)

These are Bones' words. Her words to him.

With shaking hands he opens it. There are actually two papers, folded together. The first is addressed to him. He begins to read, not bothering to hide his emotions as his eyes melt further with every word.

Booth,

I suppose most people might use your full name in such a letter, but I cannot. You will always be Booth to me. And I will always be Bones to you, I'm certain. I understand that nickname now; it is your way of showing you care, I suppose. I wouldn't have it any other way, and I would never have let anyone else get away with calling me that.

I'm sorry. I'll say that right away, and I really hope you can comprehend just how much truth I put behind those words. I've always been afraid of losing people I care about, and now I've gone and become the one doing the leaving. It surprised me, you know, how long you stayed with me. I was always afraid you might leave, that you might finally get tired of me and how I'm so cold and unfeeling, but you never did. You have no idea how much that meant to me.

You were the only person I could ever work with, Booth, and the only person I would want to work with as well. You gave me a chance that no one else did; you let me go out in the field and try a life outside the lab for a change. I don't think you ever understood what that meant to me, getting to be a part of the world everyone else lives in and watching you and your expertise with understanding people. I never really was able to figure out how you could do that, how you could tell what others might be thinking just by looking at them and their facial expressions... I was never able to do that. I really respected you, despite the fact that, as you said many times, I lack people skills. That's probably why I never actually told you before.

I hope I'm doing this right, since I have neither you nor Ange to consult on how exactly to say goodbye. It's one of the many things that I don't comprehend as well as other people do. Nonetheless I really hope you can realize what I'm trying to say here, that I never wanted to hurt you or any of the others and I wish that there was a way to reverse it all.

You're a good man, Booth, I want you to know that too.

I've included everything Hodgins and I were able to figure out that may help the investigation in my other letter. Make sure to collect the piece of evidence that I put in between the pages of my book, too; we believe it may be able to help you.

Keep everyone together, please. Zach will be able to cope, he's almost as talented at compartmentalizing as I myself am, but it's the others I'm not sure about. Angela will be upset I'm sure. Hodgins loved her, he told me down here. As an alpha-male I'm sure you would do this anyways, but please comfort her and don't lose touch with our squints. Work with the new forensic anthropologist the Jeffersonian will get. Maybe Zach will fill my place; I hope so.

I still don't believe you to be right about heaven or religion or any of that, so I won't suggest that I could possibly be watching you or those other things that I've heard people say to children about their grandparents when they pass away. But, despite that, I do believe that a part of a person can stay behind when they die; the part that others remember. When we talked about my mother and we went to her grave I did feel better by remembering her. I'd like it if you did that; if you didn't forget me.

Thank you, for everything, for just being nice to me, I guess. I can't say that I will miss you, because I will be gone, but I can say that I do miss you, writing this. And I'm sorry that I won't ever see you again. You were my partner, but also my best friend.

Sincerely, Temperance Bones Brennan

The tears fall thickly, staining the edges of the paper and making some of the ink run. He carefully brushes away the liquid and holds the letter away so as not to damage it further.

Angela sees it and steps towards him, her eyes wide.

He hands her the second letter without reading it. It is addressed to her. She begins to read, her eyes widening and tears flowing rapidly. When she is done she lets out a strangled sob and passes it back to him, covering her face in her hands.

He puts his arm around her gently and lets her cry on him as he reads.

Dear Ange,

I am so sorry. So very sorry. I'm sure you can believe the truth in what those words say since you know quite well that I'm not great at apologizing and don't do it often. I never would have gotten this far without you, I hope you know that. You helped me through so much, and you made me see the world in a totally different way. You showed me, through all our forced shopping trips and late night girl chats, how to have fun.

You and the others became my family; you took me in and accepted me for who I am. I hate that I'll never see any of you again.

Hodgins loves you. I doubt that will shock you, since you are so observant. After all, you could always tell when I liked someone or when I was happy for a particular reason. I'm really sorry about that, sorry that you'll never get to be with him. But... Ange I'm not sure how to put this. Usually you'd help me with this sort of thing... You are the kind of person who will be strong and will find love again. I know you will Ange, I'm certain of it. Like I told you before, I promise with my head and my heart. The heart thing was something you and Booth taught me, which I never would have understood on my own, so I'm in your thanks.

Now, Booth, I'd appreciate if you stopped reading this, since the rest is for Ange only.

His eyes go wide in shock. She'd expected that he'd read Ange's letter in addition to his own. She's so... she'd been so much better at figuring people out than she'd given herself credit for. He folds the letter, deciding to respect his partner's wishes.

But Angela has seen him stop reading; she's composed herself considerably in the past few minutes. She takes the letter and opens it back up.

"Finish," she whispers, handing it back to him.

He frowns and then takes it back. If Ange wants him to... and his curiosity is killing him... He starts back where he left off.

Ange, you were right, and I figured I'd give you the satisfaction of knowing the truth since you'd never forgive yourself if you thought you hadn't gotten through to me and all your time had been wasted. Not that you couldn't still think that since nothing got to come of it... but I just thought this would be better than absolutely nothing.

Yes, I was jealous when Booth had Tessa around. Thanks for being such a great friend and never relenting when that topic came around... I think my life was better for understanding my feelings rather than denying them. Not that I ever stopped denying them out loud. Just not to myself, which is probably the most important thing.

If you were here you'd tell me I was rambling on and avoiding the point. Truth is, I really don't want to write it, but I will anyways, for you. Yes, I loved Booth. Please don't tell him... I don't want him to feel any worse, and I know he doesn't feel the same way; we're just friends, just partners.

And please... don't miss me too much, because I know you well enough to know how you'll probably react. Hodgins and I are going to try to blow our way out of here in a moment, and if it doesn't work then I don't even know if you'll ever find this letter. I hope you will. I hope something of my final moments might reach you so that you will be able to know what happened. If the explosion doesn't work, we will simply fall asleep. And if it does work, but we aren't blown free, we won't suffer. Don't worry about that part, okay, Ange?

Live your life, Angela, and be happy.

Love, your best friend, Temperance Brennan

Below that is written a bunch of case-related information, also in her handwriting. That's not what interests or shocks him though. That can wait till later. Right now his eyes are trained on the part that she had specifically asked him not to be told about.

Yes, I loved Booth.

She what? She loved him?

...And she had thought he didn't feel the same way.

Regret burns through him like a wildfire, creating a wave of pain worse than the drowning feeling he experienced earlier. Why didn't I tell her? he berates himself. In his mind he is again seeing her beautiful face with that soft smile, her eyes sparkling as she gazes back at him. And both had been denying the same thing at the same time.

"I'm sorry, Booth," Ange whispers.

"She..." he whispers.

Ange nods quietly and hugs him again.

He's never felt more lost. She loves him. Loved him, he corrects bitterly. She's gone...

Two weeks later.

They all stand in that line that they've been in so often before. Never has he been in the line for one of them though. Him and her had stood together so many times, just like this, when a case had touched them and they'd gone to see the victim put to rest.

Now there were two caskets in front of him; in front of the group of them.

Angela stands to his right, sobbing her eyes out on Zach's shoulder. Zach doesn't appear to know what to do; he looks dazed. Cam is on his left, biting her lip and staring straight ahead, her arms crossed firmly across her chest.

Booth keeps his gaze focused straight ahead as well; if he focuses too much on Angela's pain he might break out crying himself. His eyes are already watering as it is.

Caroline is listing all of Bones' degrees and achievements, but he finds it hard to listen. That was the other part of her, the Dr. Brennan part. It's the Bones part, the soft yet super intelligent part that argued with him and made him care so much all at the same time that he will always remember... will always miss.

The speech turns to Hodgins, and Ange breaks into a fresh wave of sobs. Booth reaches over and gently pats her back. She pulls away from Zach and turns to cry on his shoulder instead. Zach looks even more confused and lost now that he is standing alone.

Caroline places a rose on each coffin, and Booth steps forward out of the line, placing a daffodil and a daisy on Bones' and a rose, the same as Caroline's, on Hodgins'.

He stands there for a long time, just staring at the shining black casket as one by one the others step forward to place roses. He watches as Angela gently places a white rose for Hodgins, brushing tears away as she carefully strokes a hand along the edge of the casket and then, shaking, moves to stand next to Booth again.

Together they watch as their two friends, two loves, are lowered into the ground. Gone to them forever. He is lost, he is floating in a black hole of pure despair. He is with her as the dirt is packed in on top, he is in that car as her last breath leaves her, he is holding her close as her cerulean blue eyes slide shut, he is beside her as she fades... as she vanishes. She is pulled from his grasp, she disappears into darkness, into the folds of a blanket of a moonless midnight.

Stars explode before him, blinding his vision, and everything in front of him becomes a blur as the tears in his eyes overflow. He does not try to hide it. No one here will blame him. They are all crying anyways. Even Zach, he notes later, has a redness around his eyes.

The days are all the same. They are all one long day. They are all her, all her face and those blue, blue eyes. All of them, all of everything, all of the world, is trapped in the infinite moment of her last breath, of her last moments.

It is wrong. Explicitly wrong; she should not be gone.

She deserves so much more; she deserves a full life, a life with her family and with her friends. She should have gotten to find her father again, should have gotten the chance to reconnect with Russ. Her life should not have ended.

But it did.

It did.

He no longer knows where he is, who he is, what he's meant to be doing.

Years could have passed, or it could have been mere hours. Life, as impossibly as it sounds, went on. It couldn't have... yet somehow it has.

It should have stopped. The whole world should have stopped.

And then, one day as he sits in his office, his head resting on his hands as he stares blankly at his desk, his gaze only able to focus on the framed photo of a smiling, laughing Bones and himself. A past life. A life that couldn't have existed, it was so perfect.

"Booth." A voice, soft and caring. A voice he never could have heard. A voice that never existed, that never belonged to him because it is gone. Because he lost it.

He looks up nonetheless.

A woman stands in his office. She wears a well-fitted shirt and a pair of jeans. Her auburn hair frames her face and her eyes are beautiful, wonderful blue. So blue he wants to never look away, wants to just be lost and stay there. A faint smile, a smile that makes his heart nearly stop, forms on her lips.

"Bones?" he whispers.

She smiles wider, showing her straight white teeth.

He only stares. There are no words.

"I'm sorry," she whispers calmly, and her eyes show the truth of it.

"I loved you," he says the first thing that comes to mind, the words that have echoed through his mind for all eternity since her loss. The words he should have said all that time ago.

"I know," she responds. "But, Booth," her voice saying his name makes him melt and the pain feel all that stronger. He has missed it more than anything, almost as much as those eyes and that gentle smile. "You can't stay like this. I want... I want you to wake up."

"I am awake," he says, then frowns. He can't be; he's talking to Bones. There's no way it's real. It's too good to be real. Not that it matters. Not while he can see her, hear her.

She shakes her head with a knowing smile, "In the literal sense you are. Not in the mental sense. Go back to the Jeffersonian; see Ange and Zach and Cam. Work on cases. I wanted you to remember me, and now I want you to move on. Don't forget, since I know you can't, but live. It's not right for you to do this."

"I... I can't..." he whispers.

"I think you can," she responds. She walks closer to him, and leans over his desk. He feels a faint brush over his lips, and her sweet scent washes over him. His eyes slide shut, and when he opens them she is gone. But yet, she is still there, with him. He gets to his feet and obediently does what he is told; he goes to the Jeffersonian, and he can now feel her as though she walks by his side the entire time.

So, was that heartbreaking enough for everyone? Maybe it deserves... I don't know... a review? Please?