Disclaimer: I bought a crystal skull while I was in Disneyland. Such an expense drained the savings I had for my master plan to buy the rights to Bones. Damn overpriced skull.

AN: My humblest of apologies, my dear readers, for taking nearly a month to update and giving you only this. I have been vacationing. I wrote most of this on the car ride there, so I apologize ahead for any and all mistakes. And, I wanted to make it longer, but…couldn't.

Please enjoy anyway.

Without You – Chapter 12

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"Twelve point match" was all that came over the line when Brennan picked up her cell phone. She knew it was Booth, but she didn't know what he was talking about.

"What?" she asked.

"Twelve point match," he repeated, as if that would help her understand it better. Booth was obviously excited about something.

"What's a 12 point match to what?"

"The fingerprints on the car that weren't Angela's and weren't Parker's. It's a match to one Jonathan A. Mattia."

"The son?"

"You got it."

There was a pause as they each thought about that. Brennan spoke first. "Are you going to go talk to him?"

"Yeah, I thought you might like to come and ask a few questions of your own." Booth sounded like he was smiling.

Brennan sighed, her own smile slipping across her face. "Alright, I'll come. Give me ten minutes?"

"Done."

Brennan hung up and turned back to the case on her desk. All she had to do was sign here and there and the release form was done. She loved having an assistant. She set the form aside and pulled up her latest chapter, having to add one last thing she just thought of. Once that was done, she closed everything in her office down and went out to the main area to wait for Booth and tell Zack a few last minute things.

-

As terrible as it sounded, Booth was actually looking forward to seeing Brennan. He knew that that in and of itself wasn't necessarily a terrible thing, but he just felt a little guilty given the circumstances. His son was out there. But, he reasoned with himself, they knew he was alive and unharmed, but they didn't know how long that would last. So all the better to get to Brennan faster and asking the questions sooner. Of course that was it.

When he arrived at the lab, Brennan already had all of her things in order and was ready to leave right away. Good. The faster, the better. Booth was actually excited to get on to finally questioning Johnny. Or maybe he was anxious. After all this time, they were finally getting closer to solving the case. To finding Parker and Angela. To getting this whole ordeal behind them and getting back to their normal lives.

The hour long car ride they hadn't quite made before was spent in anything but silence. The two of them bounced ideas of motive off of each other, talked about what they had planned for the past week that went down the drain because of the case, what they planned to do once the case was solved.

"I'm gonna spend as much time with Parker as Rebecca will allow me. There's no way I'm ever gonna pass up another opportunity to spend time with him ever again," Booth told her. "Other than that, I'm not really sure. I think I'm gonna buy Angela something really nice, too."

"Any thoughts as to when you're going back to work?" Brennan asked.

Booth gave her a side glance. "I'm not really sure. Why?"

"Well, I heard from the Agent who's been doing your job at the lab that there was some talk about you resigning. Because of this whole thing with Parker," she explained. "I was wondering whether or not it's all just a rumor."

Booth didn't react at all for what felt like hours. It was actually less than a minute. "After we couldn't find anything on Parker, I was really discouraged. Plus, I thought that one of the main reasons I loved my job hated me." Another side glance. Brennan noticed, and her cheeks flared. "I was in a crappy mood and told Cullen to replace me at the lab. He asked if it was permanent. I didn't give him an answer."

"Do you have one yet?"

"What?"

"An answer."

"…no, I don't." His tone told Brennan that the conversation should be left at that.

The rest of the car ride they talked about everything but themselves. When they reached the small town-like gathering of houses, it took less than a minute to find the only apartment complex in the area. But as they drew nearer, it didn't look like anyone lived in a single one of the apartments.

Still, they went to the number that Booth had from the file. When they reached it, Booth motioned for Brennan to stand back a few steps while he knocked, his hand on the butt of his gun. Both were expecting Booth to have to kick the door down, but they were surprised when who they assumed was Johnny Mattia opened the door after the first series of knocks.

"Jonathan Mattia?" Booth asked.

"That's my dad. I'm Johnny," he replied.

"Uh-huh. I'm Special Agent Seeley Booth from the FBI. I need to ask you a few questions."

Johnny stepped back out of the doorway to let them in, and led them to a worn couch. He sat, motioned for them to do the same. "How can I help you guys?" he asked.

"We're conducting an investigation on the disappearance of two individuals," Booth began, keeping it professional. He pulled out a picture of Angela, then one of Parker and set them both on the coffee table between him and Johnny. "Do you recognize either of these people?"

There was a moment of tense silence as Booth and Brennan waited to see if he would tell the truth. His prints were found on Angela's car, they knew he was guilty. Didn't they?

Johnny looked up from the pictures and smiled at them. It was a creepy smile, one full of knowledge of something the other two were completely oblivious to. Booth and Brennan both hated it.

"What?" Booth asked.

Johnny kept smiling. "I left my prints on the scene, didn't I?"

Booth's face hardened. "Where are they?"

Johnny pointed to the picture of Parker. "He's staying with my dad. Last I heard they were going on vacation somewhere. I'm not sure where." He pointed to the picture of Angela. "She's just recently taken up residence in this building." The smile never disappeared. Booth was ready to pounce on him when Johnny added one last thing. "You caught me, alright? That's totally cool, my bad. I'm willing to give you full cooperation, Agent Booth, cuff me now if you want."

Though confused, Booth did just that. "Where is Angela?" he asked as he tightened the cuffs.

"Twelve-A."

"You wanna lead us there?" Booth asked angrily, twisting the cuffs. He led them to the door, with Brennan trailing behind. They walked down the stairs and to apartment 12-A and opened the unlocked the door.

The second the door was open wide enough to see what was inside, Brennan was bolting past Booth and his captive to get to what was in the middle of the empty apartment.

"Angela!"

"Brenn? Brenn, is that you?" Angela asked.

Brennan took the blindfold off of Angela's eyes, then worked on the rest of the ties that held Angela's body to the chair. Booth took Johnny to make sure no one else was in the complex. Once Angela was untied, Brennan hugged her for a long time, neither of them knew how long. But Brennan eventually pulled back and looked over her best friend.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

Angela just smiled at her. "Yeah. You found me."

"Booth did." Brennan wrapped her friend in another embrace. "I'm glad you're alright, Ange."

While the two of them had their little reunion, Booth called in someone to take Johnny off his hands and give him a ride back to the Hoover building. He came up behind Brennan and got her attention away from Angela for a minute. "I called in someone to take our guy back to DC and give me a ride to the Hoover building," he said. He handed her a hundred dollar bill. "Go get yourselves fixed up and go somewhere nice. My treat."

Brennan took the money with a look of confusion. "Booth…I can't take this," she said, trying to give it back to him.

He just closed her hand around it. "Yes, you can."

"Why?"

"You deserve it. Both of you."

Brennan gave up and smiled. "Thank you," she said seriously. "You won't be joining us?"

Booth shook his head. "I've got a kidnapper to question and a son to rescue. There will be no fine dining for me." He changed the subject, handing her his keys. "Take my car."

Brennan took the keys and smiled again, turning to walk Angela to the car. Once Angela was in and secured, Brennan walked back over to Booth. Before either of them could say anything, Brennan wrapped her arms around Booth's neck. His arms found their way around her waist and held her for just long enough to get the point across: the whole hating each other thing was of the past.

Once they released each other, Brennan leaned in and kissed Booth on the cheek. She then whispered in his ear, "You're a good man, Seeley Booth. I don't doubt that you'll find Parker and get to do all the things with him you told me about. Good luck."

She didn't look back, too embarrassed and blushing too hard to bring herself to meet his eyes. She climbed into the car and turned the key in the ignition. Angela noticed.

"You're blushing."

"What? Not I'm not…" Brennan argued. But by the way her cheeks were burning, she knew Angela was right.

"I saw that, by the way. I saw you kiss him."

"It was just on the cheek."

"A kiss is a kiss, Brenn. You need to tell me what I missed. Now."

Brennan sighed in surrender. There was no hiding from it.

-

AN: Sorry to disappoint anyone with Brennan's aim being a bit off to the side with the whole kiss thing…but I'm saving the good stuff for later.

Please review.

I promise chapter 13 much sooner.