Without You Chapter 3, a bones fanfic

Disclaimer: TV shows and everything related to them are expensive. I'm poor and have always been such. Do the math.

AN: Thanks to everyone who reviewed, especially people who told me what they did and didn't like. Thanks so much! Well, I seemed to get a lot of negative reactions to Tessa, so, well, you'll find out. Sorry for the delay in getting the chapter up, I was having severe writer's block. I hope you enjoy!

Without You – Chapter 3

Hoping that the phone call would be someone from the FBI with information on Parker, Booth had wasted no time in answering it, not even glancing at the caller ID. But all he heard was silence and a click, then nothing.

Tessa wondered over to Booth, her clad in just his shirt, him wearing only his pants, and came up behind him to wrap her arms around his waist. "Seeley…" she whispered.

Booth just stood there, staring down at his cell phone. "I think something's come up," he told her, gently removing himself from her embrace. "I have to go."

"Why?" she said with a pout. "Come on, Seeley, I haven't seen you for months."

He just kind of looked at her, disbelief etched onto his face. "Why?" he repeated. "My son has been missing for days and you ask me why. You know, Tessa, when you said that you wanted to help me I thought it was because you cared about Parker."

"Seeley…" she said for the third time, but before she could say anything more, the doorbell rang and Booth hurried to answer it. Tessa followed him down the hallway to see who it was, but stood a fair distance back because, quite frankly, she could care less.

When Booth opened the door, Rebecca stood before him, bags under her eyes and what seemed like ten more years of wrinkles gained in once week's time. Not in the mood for pleasantries, she cut to the chase. "Anything on Parker?" she asked desperately.

Booth hesitated a minute, looking at anything but her, then shook his head. "Nothing."

Rebecca had looked past Booth in the moment that he had hesitated and saw her, sexily leaning against the archway to the hall behind him. She looked at Booth, then at Tessa, then back to Booth again.

"Well, no wonder there's nothing!" she exploded, too overwhelmed by her missing child to care anymore. "I thought you cared about our son, Seeley. I really did. I thought that when I told you, you wouldn't stop until you found him. But I come here to find that you are taking breaks from you search – if you're even searching at all – to screw your little slut-bag lawyer. And that's just…disgusting. You probably see this as taking the responsibility of having a child of your shoulders, don't you? You don't even care. I knew it. I knew there was a reason I didn't marry you."

And with that, she was gone.

Once Booth had slowly closed the doors, Tessa advanced to him again. "Seeley, those things she said, they don't matter."

He turned her direction, but didn't meet her eyes. "They do matter. She's right."

"Just forget about it for now, and lets just – "

"Ignore the fact that my son is missing more than we already have?" he angrily finished for her.

"Not ignore it, just relax about it," Tessa shrugged. "It isn't that big of a deal. You've got other people working on it."

He just couldn't think of anything to say. Scratch that. He could think of one thing.

"Get out."

"What?"

"Get. Out." he said more firmly.

Anger showed on Tessa's face as she went into the back room to get her things and returned, still wearing his shirt, but with her jeans below that.

"Your loss," she said before slamming the door behind her.

Temperance had finally let herself cry. She didn't cry for a victim, she didn't cry because she was the victim, for something from the past or for anything else that she had ever cried for or about before.

She cried because she had messed up.

Big time.

She knew when she got that phone call that something was wrong. She hadn't wanted to do what they told her at first, but when they threatened something so precious to her, she felt like she had no other choice.

But of course she had another choice. She could've told him the truth. She could've told someone, anyone, the truth. But she had known that would have gotten them endangered, too. And that wasn't going to happen. Enough innocent people had already been pulled into all of this.

So she had just dug herself a hole and wouldn't stop digging.

Tempe knew, though, that it wasn't just the fact that she had done what they told her to do. It was the fact that she didn't think twice about it, and she told herself that it was a good idea because of all the reasons she made up to justify her actions.

She told herself that it was because of the reasons she had told him. She told herself it was for his safety. She told herself so many things, but deep down, she knew she didn't believe any of them. And so the digging continued.

She didn't believe it even though she had consciously convinced herself that he had done something, though she didn't know what, to deserve the treatment she was giving him. To deserve the uncaring air she had about his predicament.

That was, at least until she found out that they had been talking about Parker. And that just made it all the worse.

It was then that she realized just how deep she had dug. And it wasn't just a hole for herself, but somehow, Parker had been thrown into her self-dug hell-hole of selfishness and guilt.

And the only way out was to call his name and hope he still had it in his heart to forgive her and reach out his hand to her. But she could only hope.

Brennan almost reached for the phone again, but then stopped herself. She was just going to get scared again and hang up, if he answered at all. And that was not an option.

She had to tell him.

He had to know.

Booth had just stopped by his office to grab a few things before he went out with more search teams to find Parker. He was in a daze after what Rebecca had said to him, and was mentally beating himself up for being so goddamn retarded.

But when he turned, his anger at himself turned outward. "What do you want?"

Bones – Doctor Brennan, he reminded himself – stood in his doorway, avoiding his eyes.

"Booth…" she said quietly.

"It's Agent Booth, remember, Doctor Brennan?" he said, voice iced over. "What do you want?" he repeated, then stopped. "Oh, right. Nothing to do with me," his voice was full of sarcasm and she still wouldn't look at him.

She seemed to be at a loss for words. Thank God.

Booth slid past where she stood in his doorway. "Now if you'll excuse me, Doctor, I have something to do. I'm going to find my son." He then turned again and stormed down the hallway and out to his car.

And to his delight, she didn't follow him.

Crap. So much for him having it in his heart to forgive her.

Normally, she wouldn't have even let him past her without forcing him to listen to her. But this time, there was something in his eyes that told her not to tell him anything. That he didn't want to hear it. Either that or it was her convincing herself of that because she just didn't want to see what he would do.

Either way, it was her knowing that if she told him, it wouldn't end well, and her knowing that it was that side of Booth that she did not want to face.

And for once in her life, she completely admitted to herself that this time, what she eventually had to face was something that she was truly, deeply and deathly afraid of. And that one thing was Seeley Booth.

As he drove to the location of the next search area they were doing, Booth let his thoughts wonder to the reason that Brennan had showed up at his office. She had told him that she didn't want to be his partner, and that she didn't even want anything to do with him.

Booth just figured that her visit was out of pity for the fact that his son was missing, and she had probably only come to give him some crazy anthropological explanation to why children wonder off or some other scenario.

But quite frankly, he couldn't care less what the anthropological explanation was. If she wasn't going to tell him who had his son or where he was, then he wasn't looking to ever see her again. He really just didn't care.

He drove for a little while longer, thinking about Parker and how much he hated Tessa and the fact that she couldn't care less about his son, and how incredibly right Rebecca had been about him taking a break from his search to "relax". And every time the thought about how disgusting he was, he cringed on the inside. God, he really hated himself.

The ring of his phone tore him away from his thoughts and he dug it out of his pocket. He didn't recognize the number. "Booth," he answered.

"Agent Booth, you're going to listen to me."

"Who is this?"

"It's Doctor Brennan – DON'T you dare hang up." She seemed to be watching him, or at least knew him so well that she knew he had been about to.

"You've got my attention," he told her honestly.

He heard her take a deep breath, and then begin. "I have some information. Information that I know you need to further your search for your son. I know I told you that I want nothing to do with you. I still don't. But this isn't about you. It's about Parker. And if you want him to live, you're going to get your ass over here and talk to me in person."

Before she had even finished her sentence, Booth's heart was racing as he made a U-turn, heading to the Jeffersonian.

"You had better not be screwing around, Bones." His tone was freezing cold but he let the endearment slip out of habit. She didn't seem to notice, or care. "But I'm coming."

And just before she was the one to end the phone call, he heard her say "You're damn right you are." Then nothing.

AN: Please review. You're opinions really help me with where I'm going to take this and where I know I'd just be crossing the line…or something along those lines. So please tell me what you think. Thanks!