But it was not your fault but mine.

And it was your heart on the line.

I really fucked it up this time.

Didn't I, my dear? Didn't I, my dear?

A suitcase and a duffle bag. It was all she had traveled with in foster care and it was all she had packed to move today. She was sure that their new living arrangement wouldn't last long and she'd be back in the comfort of her own apartment in no time.

Brennan stood outside of Hodgin's house trying to will herself to go inside. She knew the moment she entered that house she would be flooded with memories, accompanied by pain. She couldn't handle anymore pain right now; she just wanted her friends back. Taking a deep breath, she finally managed to open the front door. She was greeted by Booth who immediately put a finger to his lips when he saw her.

"I just got Katie down for her nap," Booth explained softly.

Brennan nodded and quietly closed the door behind her.

"That all you brought?" Booth asked, gesturing to her luggage.

"It's all I need," Brennan shrugged. "When you travel as often as I do, you learn to pack light."

"This isn't a vacation, Bren, it's our life."

Brennan crossed her arms over her chest. "I still don't see why this was necessary. Our apartments would have sufficed."

"We're doing this for Katie. It'll be easier on her this way."

"She's one. She won't remember ever living here. And if you're implying it will be easier on her to not have to go back and forth between our apartments, look at Parker; he turned out fine."

"They left Katie everything and they left her to us, so basically they left us everything. It's Angela's sick way of pushing us together from beyond the grave. Besides, this place is way nicer than my apartment…and yours."

Brennan sighed, drawing her duffle bag higher up on her shoulder.

"It just doesn't feel right being here," she confessed, catching a glimpse of a framed photo of the couple from a few years ago. Her chest constricted with pain recalling the day the photo had been taken. The Jeffersonian had hosted a company picnic and the whole team had been in attendance. In fact, her favorite photo of her and Booth and been taken on that same day. And currently that photo was stashed in the back of her closet…

"I know…I know it doesn't feel like our home yet, but that's because our stuff isn't here and theirs is."

"Our home?" Brennan repeated. "You're actually considering permanently living here…with me?"

"Well, like I said it's a hell of a lot nicer than my place. And we can't sell it because it belongs to Katie and not us."

"But you'd actually want to live here with me? We don't get along, Booth."

"We used to."

Brennan looked him directly in the eyes for the first time in what seemed like years. That old spark of theirs danced behind his amber orbs. She felt her chest constrict with pain again, but this time for entirely different reasons.

"Oh! I got you something, sort of like a housewarming present," Booth said, scurrying into the kitchen.

"Booth, you didn't have to –" Brennan started after him, leaving her luggage in the middle of the foyer.

He reappeared brandishing a large bouquet of daffodils. Brennan gasped as she took them from him and brought them up to her nose to inhale their scent.

"You remembered," she whispered, feeling a blush color her cheeks. "Thank you."

"I thought they might make the place feel homier," Booth shrugged. "So which guest bedroom do you want?"

"It doesn't matter to me," she replied, aimlessly fingering one of the petals. "But I'd prefer the one closer to Katie's room."

"So then it does matter to you."

Brennan laughed lightly. "Yeah I guess it does."

"I know this is going to be hard, but we can do this, Brennan. And someday, everything is actually going to be okay again."

"I hope you're right, Booth. I really do."

It was around one in the morning when Booth got up to use the bathroom. On his way back to bed, he noticed Brennan standing outside of Katie's room, watching her sleep.

"Is this why you wanted the room closer to her?" Booth asked, coming up behind her.

She startled at the sound of his voice, not expecting him to be up.

"Do you think she knows?" Brennan asked instead of answering him.

"That her parents are gone?"

She nodded without taking her gaze off of the child.

"Probably. But I bet she just thinks that we're watching her. She doesn't know they're never coming back."

"I thought Russ was just watching me. I failed to believe that they were really gone. And then Russ left me too…that's when I knew. That's when I knew that nobody cared about me."

Booth was taken aback by her openness. In the past, it would have been a standard comment in this situation. But with their current tension and issues, he was very surprised that she had so willingly opened up like that. Her past was a very sensitive subject for her.

"Hey, people care about you –"

She didn't let him finish. "I want Katie to know that she has people who care about her. Even though her parents are…I just don't ever want her to know what it's like to feel completely alone."

He wanted to hug her, but he was afraid she would just reject his comfort like she had at the funeral.

"We'll make sure she knows," he said softly.

Brennan turned around and nearly ran into him, not realizing he was so close to her.

"Well I'm going back to bed," she said, side-stepping around him.

He knew he should've left well enough alone, but he just couldn't help himself. "When was the last time that you felt completely alone?"

"Booth…" she trailed off, running a hand through her hair.

"I'm serious. When you were in foster care? College? What?"

"It's late. I'm not getting into this with you right now."

"What is there to get into? It's a simple question."

"It's not that simple. And the fact that you can't see that…you know I had really thought that things had gone back to normal today, but now I realize that nothing's changed."

Booth grabbed her by the arm and dragged her away from Katie's room. He was afraid that their arguing was going to wake her. Brennan pushed him off of her in a manner that he found more aggressive than she needed to be.

"Nothing's changed?" he spat. "Everything's changed. Angela and Hodgins are dead. They're dead and they left their daughter to us. So here we are, living in their house, raising their child, together. How is that anything like the way it was before?"

"You're still an ass," Brennan said bluntly.

"Excuse me?"

"The guy I used to know? He wasn't anything like you. Sure he knew that daffodils were my favorite flower and he was good with kids, but he always seemed to know exactly what was wrong with me, sometimes even before I did. And you can't even figure out when the last time I felt completely alone was. And he would pull me into his arms and hold me when he knew that I was having a bad day. He couldn't stand to see me sad or upset. He was in love with me. And you know I would really like that guy back because he was my best friend. But that's never going to happen because he died. He went to Afghanistan and he never came back."

Booth stood with his mouth open in shock, unable to do anything besides stand there and watch Brennan cry.

"Forget it," Brennan whispered, turning on her heel. "I'm going to bed."

"You never answered my question," Booth said, staring at her retreating back.

"Oh but I did," she said without turning around.

Booth was silent waiting for her to continue. He wasn't sure why he was torturing himself like this. This past year he'd done nothing but blame her for their falling out. Now, however, he realized that he was entirely to blame for everything that had happened. And with each biting, desperate word Brennan spoke tonight, he felt like she was stabbing him directly in the heart.

"You really want to know?" Brennan asked, turning to face him again.

"Yes."

"Fine. Now. Angela is dead. Hodgins is dead. You… I feel alone right now. I felt alone when I was in Maluku. I felt alone every single night that you spent with her. I felt alone when we stopped speaking. But even through all of that, I still had Angela and Hodgins. And now, I have no one. Katie and I are alike in that respect. Angela and Hodgins didn't just abandon her, they abandoned me. Just like every other person in my life who I ever truly cared about."

And then Booth was forced to watch helplessly as Brennan's knees buckled under her and she fell to the ground crying harder than he'd ever witnessed. Not being able to stand it anymore, he crawled to her and gathered her up in his arms. She clung to him like she had so many times in the past.

But this time was different than all of those times before. He hadn't just saved her life nor had she just saved his. She hadn't just returned home after one of her trips. This wasn't just another guy hug.

This time she was openly expressing a vulnerability that was entirely new to both of them. This time was a result of one of their bitter fights. And this time he could feel the genuine pain radiating from her.

So Booth did the only thing her could. He held Brennan in his arms as she completely broke right before his own eyes. He berated himself for letting it come to this. How had he not known that she'd been hurting this bad? She was right; the guy he used to be would have never let this all get so out of control.

Booth estimated that 15 minutes had passed before she finally started to calm down. Her shoulders stopped shaking so violently, but she still shivered in his arms. Brennan made no effort to move and he wondered if this was her silent form of forgiveness.

"Thank you," she whispered, wiping at her eyes.

"You're not alone, Brennan. You were never alone."

He felt her tense up at that.

"What is it?" he asked, gently.

"It's nothing," she responded, shrugging him off.

And just like that, her mood had changed again.

"It's never 'nothing' with you," Booth told her, watching her get to her feet.

"Do you realize that you have been calling me Brennan ever since that night at Founding Fathers?"

"That's your name."

"Not to you it isn't." Brennan shifted her gaze to the floor. "Look, thank you for listening tonight, Booth. I really am going to make it to bed this time. Good night."

"Good night, Bones."

He heard her draw in a sharp breath as her old nickname escaped his lips.

"Say it again," she whispered, pausing in her doorway.

"Good night, Bones."

He saw her nod her head a couple of times before she closed her bedroom door on him. She was right yet again; he hadn't called her Bones since that night when their relationship had turned to shit. And he had done it on purpose; hoping that distancing himself from her by taking away his name for her would make it all hurt less. However, while it had helped him, it had only served to hurt her more.

Booth hadn't been thinking that night. He had been drunk and was tired of getting turned down by the women he loved. And Brennan had been there, ready to pick up the pieces Hannah had left. Up until now he had been pushing the real reason he had first hooked up with Hannah out of his head. But now the memory came flooding back, and he was dreading the day he would have to tell Brennan. Booth reasoned that he better do it soon while things were still on edge between them. Because if he waited until they were their old selves again, his world would once again come crashing down around him.

When Booth came down to the kitchen the next morning, Brennan was already up trying to get Katie to eat something that looked like applesauce. All traces of her breakdown from the night before were gone. Her hair was wet from the shower and the ends were curling around her shoulders. It made him realize how much he'd missed seeing her wear her hair curly.

"Come on Katie, you love applesauce," Brennan coaxed.

The child knocked the spoon out of Brennan's hand and giggled as the applesauce splattered all over her highchair.

"Morning, Bones," Booth greeted, trying to stifle his laughter.

Brennan sent him a desperate look. "I can't get her to eat anything."

"Here, let me try," Booth said, taking the cup of applesauce from her. "Parker went through this phase too. You just have to get creative." He loaded up the spoon again and turned to Katie. "Here comes the airplane, ready to come in for landing."

Booth made some plane noises, but Katie only stared at him.

"I feel like she's looking at me like I'm crazy," he commented.

"I know I am," Brennan said.

Booth turned to face her, crossing his arms over his chest in the process, and forgetting about the overflowing spoon of applesauce. It splattered down his shirt.

"You have something…umm…" Brennan was trying so hard not to laugh.

Booth groaned and moved to the sink to get a wet washcloth. "I'm glad this is so entertaining for you."

"Just watching the expert at work," she smiled.

Booth couldn't remember the last time she had smiled like that. It seemed like it had been forever since he'd last made her happy.

"Ha, like you were doing any better," Booth teased.

"Hey, at least I managed to keep the food off of myself."

A devilish grin spread across his face as he made his way back to the applesauce.

"What are you doing?" Brennan asked, slightly worried.

Booth loaded up the spoon again, but instead of trying to feed it to Katie, he flung it at Brennan.

"Booth!" she shrieked as it splattered her nice shirt. "This shirt is dry clean only!"

"Why are wearing that on a Sunday? Especially around a baby…who is messy…"

"She isn't the only one who's messy," Brennan mumbled, going to retrieve the wet washcloth.

"I mean seriously, Bones, it's not like you go to church."

"I just felt like wearing this today, okay?"

"Oh come on, that can't be comfortable," Booth started moving over to her. "You don't always have to look perfect, Bones." He gripped the sink on either side of her. "And you certainly don't have to dress up just for me."

She looked him directly in the eyes and he instantly felt their old sexual tension spark between them.

"Who said that I was dressing up for you?" Brennan asked without breaking their gaze.

"Got a hot date?"

She shook her head.

"Well I bet Katie really appreciates it then."

"I should probably go try to feed her again now."

"I bet she'll appreciate that too."

And yet she made no move to move away from him. Her gaze was locked onto his, unwavering. God, this woman, Booth thought as she bit down on her lower lip. He was so incredibly turned on right now and all she was doing was standing there.

"Are you going to move?" Brennan asked at last.

"Oh sorry," Booth muttered, practically stumbling out of her way. Her shoulder brushed against his as she passed.

"So Halloween is coming up," Brennan mentioned casually, pouring some cereal onto Katie's highchair table. Katie happily popped a Cheerio into her mouth.

"So it is. Bringing out the good ol' Wonder Woman costume again?"

"It is tradition."

"You look hot in it," Booth said, without thinking.

Brennan threw him a questioning look.

"Not that you don't look hot all of time because let's face it, you're hot."

Brennan drew her eyebrows together in that manner that he believed only belonged to her.

"What?"

"Nothing," Brennan shrugged, turning her attention back to Katie. She quickly turned back to face him, however. "It's just…no never mind."

"Okay seriously? What did I say? It was a compliment, Bren." He noticed her flinch like she had last night when he had called her that. "I mean Bones."

"Just forget it. Anyway, I was just wondering if Katie was old enough to partake in the festivities. I mean I know she's a little young for candy, but Angela and Hodgins dressed her up in that bizarre looking pumpkin costume last year and…" she trailed off at the memory, no doubt thinking about how her friends weren't here anymore to dress their daughter in ridiculous outfits.

"We can find a costume for her, take her trick-or-treating, keep the candy for ourselves…"

"Or we could bring Parker along and let him have her candy."

"What, are you too old for Halloween candy now? And besides, I've seen the stash that Parker halls in every year, he doesn't need anymore."

Brennan laughed lightly as she poured some more Cheerios onto Katie's highchair. "Well whatever. It was just a thought."

"No, no it's good. An attempt to get some normalcy back into our lives," Booth agreed stealing a Cheerio from Katie's stash. She looked up at him and made a pouty face. He couldn't help but laugh as he replaced his stolen Cheerio with a new one from the box. Katie seemed to find this satisfactory as she continued to eat her cereal.

"Have our lives ever been normal?" Brennan asked.

"Depends on your definition of the word," Booth smirked.

She smiled back and moved to put away the box of Cheerios. Booth sighed contently, thinking for the first time that this may all actually work out after all.

AN: Review pretty please with a sexy Booth…or Brennan on top…or bottom?