I was just guessing at numbers and figures pulling the puzzles apart.

Questions of science, of science and progress do not speak as loud as my heart.

Tell me you love me come back and haunt me oh, and I rush to the start.

I'm going back to the start.

Death was something she dealt with everyday. Day in and day out she stared at human remains, determining the cause of death and identity of the victim. She gave the dead a voice and their families closure. Children, adults, double homicides, she'd seen it all. Brennan wouldn't go as far as to say that none of it bothered her anymore, because it did, but things had certainly improved. It had become routine, normal, something she couldn't escape. She had gotten use to death plaguing her daily routine.

And yet this was different. This was like the time she had discovered her mother's body in limbo, but it was ten times worse. Brennan had always assumed that her parents were dead since they never came back for her. So finding out that her mother really had been murdered wasn't as big of a shock as it could have been.

Losing Angela and Hodgins, on the other hand…hours before they had been taken from her, she had seen them, spoken with them, and laughed with them at their house. She hadn't been ready for them to leave her too. Her rational side couldn't figure out why their deaths were affecting her so much, when death was so common in her life. But then she would hear Angela's voice in her head telling her, It's because you loved us, sweetie.

Brennan closed her eyes and bit down on her lower lip, trying to fight back the tears. She'd been standing outside of the Jeffersonian for ten minutes, trying to will herself to go inside. It was her first day back and she just wasn't sure if she could handle it. Their offices would still be exactly the way they had left them; smack dab in the middle of solving a case. And she just couldn't…

"Dr. Brennan?"

She turned to the sound of Sweet's timid voice.

"Dr. Sweets," she replied flatly.

"First day back?" He knew it was. He was just using that stupid psychology she hated so much on her to try and fix her. It wouldn't work.

"You know it is."

"How are things with Katie?"

"She's fine."

"And Agent Booth?"

"We're fine. Look is there something you wanted other than to use your psychobabble on me out here on the middle of the sidewalk?"

"Well Cam –"

"Noticed that I've been standing out here a while and called you in to see if you could help? Well you can't. Not unless you can bring my best friend and her husband back, you can't. And seeing as how we buried them, that's physically impossible. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a job to do."

She pushed through the main doors of the institute without looking back, just trying to get away from him. Subconsciously, she knew that this had been his plan all along, but she refused to acknowledge the fact that it had actually worked on her.

The lab seemed larger than usual. Perhaps it was because it felt so empty. Brennan just wanted to run to her office and hide there, but she soon realized that either path she took to get there would force her to pass either Angela's or Hodigns' office and she just wasn't ready for that yet.

"Dr. Brennan! Welcome back!" Cam greeted from her place on the platform.

Brennan just sighed in response and made her way up to meet Cam. Clark was busy examining what appeared to be a new set of remains beside her.

"New case?" Brennan asked.

"Uh, yes," Cam started. "We found what they had been working on in their offices and it was umm…enough. Case closed. Mr. Edison, care to catch Dr. Brennan up on what you're working on?"

"Of course," Clark replied. "Male. Mid to late thirties. There are compression fractures on the L3 through L6 vertebrae. There also appears to be remodeling of the right radius and ulna, suggesting a severe break that occurred about 5 years ago. Cause of death is yet to be determined."

She barely heard Clark as he listed the victim's multiple injuries. She was too stuck on the fact that they had gone into her friends' offices and used whatever they had been working on that night to solve the previous case. Hodgins thought he had discovered some new plant species again and he had been so obsessed with trying to ID it, that his last trip home from the lab had proved fatal. Brennan figured Angela had finished the facial reconstruction in the time it had taken her husband to ID the mysterious plant. In the end it just wasn't worth it. She'd rather be stuck with an unsolved murder case than feel as alone and abandoned as she did right then.

"Dr. Brennan?" she heard Clark calling her name.

"Right. Sounds great. You've got this one under control." Without much thinking, Brennan walked off of the platform and headed for Angela's office. She faintly heard Cam calling after her as she approached the artist's space.

As she had suspected, the office looked unchanged. The Angelator hummed softly in the background as Brennan picked up the family photo sitting on her desk. Katie was riding on Hodgins' shoulders as Angela looked at the two of them lovingly. She had taken that photograph four months ago on Independence Day. Placing the frame back in its designated spot, she spotted an old picture of her and Angela. It had been taken years ago, and she couldn't help but think about how young they both looked. Clutching the photograph to her chest, Brennan moved over to the couch and sank down onto the cushions.

She couldn't figure out how she could live so easily in their home, while simply being in Angela's office was upsetting her so badly. What was it about this place? Brennan brought the photograph up to her face for examination as she felt another wave of tears sting her eyes. She couldn't keep going on like this; she just needed the pain to stop.

"Excuse me, Agent Booth?"

Booth looked up from his pile of neglected paperwork to find Greg standing in his doorway.

"Need help on a case, buddy?" Booth asked drily.

"Well…no. With your partner actually."

Booth snorted. "She hasn't been my partner in over a year. She's your partner now. Whatever it is she's trying to do; just let her do it. It's how she works."

"That's just it; she's not trying to do anything. I've got the bosses breathing down my neck on this case and she's refusing to come out of that artist's office."

"That artist has a name," Booth ground out through gritted teeth. He ran a hand over his face. "Did she tell you why she won't leave? Why she's not working? She seemed completely fine this morning when we left the house…"

"I uh…I didn't ask."

"Why not?"

"Dr. Brennan…well…she scares me."

Booth had to laugh at that. "Are we talking about the same Dr. Brennan here? The woman who is terrified of snakes and loves the Smurfs?"

"I don't know those kinds of things about her. All that I know is that she tries to bite my head off every time I so much as enter her precious lab."

Brennan had never been that strict about him being in the lab before. Maybe when they first started out as partners, sure, but it hadn't taken her long to give him an access card for the lab. He wasn't sure if that made him special or if he'd hurt her one too many times for her to trust FBI agents.

"So what do you want me to do exactly?"

"Well, none of her people can seem to coax her out of there, so we were hoping that maybe you could say something to her?"

Booth looked down at his backlog of paperwork. He guessed he would have to put it off even longer. Sighing, he followed Greg out of his office and over to the Jeffersonian.

She was lying on Angela's couch with her back to the door when he found her. She was holding something that looked like a picture frame in her arms.

"Bones?"

She didn't move so he walked over to the couch and knelt down beside her.

"Bones?" he tried again. Still, he received no response. "Hey, what happened? You were doing fine when we left this morning. And yesterday? Things felt almost normal then."

"Depends on your definition of the word," she parroted his previous day's response.

"Hey," he whispered, reaching out to rub her back. "Let me be that guy who holds you when he knows you're having a bad day."

She rolled over to look at him then, her baby blue eyes rimmed red from crying.

"Because guess what?" Booth continued when she still didn't say anything. "They found him over there in Afghanistan. He wasn't dead, just suffering from some short term amnesia. And he would really like to be your best friend who loves you again if you let him."

Wordlessly, Brennan sat up on the couch, making room for him. She set the picture frame on the floor and he noticed it was an old shot of her and Angela. He sat down beside her before pulling her into his lap. She wrapped her arms around his torso, letting her head fall onto his shoulder. Booth held her close to him, relieved that she was letting him do this.

"I don't know why it hurts so much to be here," Brennan confessed.

"Maybe it was too soon for you to come back?"

"But why am I okay living in their house?"

"Because Katie's there. She's your daughter now, Bones. Your maternal instincts are trying to keep you strong for your daughter."

"But she's –"

"No, it doesn't matter that you're not her biological mother. We're not your foster parents. We actually love her; we would never hurt her. We're all she has left." Booth began rubbing small circles on her back. "So when you're here at work, Katie's not around for you to be strong for. You're finally allowing your mind to fully comprehend what happened. It's nothing to be ashamed of, Bones. We lost our friends."

"You don't seem to be nearly as upset as I am."

"That's because I'm trying to be strong for you."

"You don't need to –"

"Yes, I do. If we both fall apart at once, who will take care of Katie?"

"The nanny's taking care of her right now," Brennan stated, lifting her head to look into his eyes.

Booth rested his forehead against hers and he could tell she was a bit taken aback by the intimate gesture. However, she made no effort to move away from him.

"I just hate that they're gone. I hate that they left Katie, and us, and…you. I hate that with Angela gone, you feel like you have no one. You've got to know that that's not true, Bren…Bones. You have to know that I…"

"What?" Brennan asked, pulling back to look at him.

"I was going to say that I'll be there for you no matter what, but look how good I've been at keeping that promise."

"I'd say that you've been quite excellent at it."

"Ha. Right."

"I'm serious. Ever since they…you've been here for me. You put away your anger and resentment, and all of your bitter fighting words, and… you've been there. You're here now. And I know I haven't been too accepting of your comfort, but…thank you." Brennan settled against his chest again. "Thank you."

As Booth held her, he felt all of the emotions he'd been suppressing overcome him. There was just something about her that made him crack. He tried to think back to the last time he had cried in front of her and he couldn't remember. Brennan gently wiped the tears from his face.

"Witnessing you cry isn't in my definition of normal," she said softly.

"Well I guess we're just not there then yet."

"Booth?"

"Yeah Bones?"

"I'm glad you got your memory back." She reminded him of a child the way she said it. It was such a simple statement and she just seemed so childlike wrapped up in his arms. "Because I don't think I could handle you being dead still too."

Booth placed a soft kiss on the top of her head. "I'm not going anywhere, Bones. I promise."

Twenty minutes later, Booth and Brennan finally emerged from Angela's office. Brennan quietly made her way up to the platform to assist Clark, and Cam approached Booth before he had the chance to leave.

"What did you say to her?" she asked.

"To calm her down?"

Cam nodded.

"I just…I held her."

"And she actually let you do that?"

"Well yeah."

"Have you two talked yet?" Cam asked.

"Sort of," Booth replied.

"Seeley…"

"She talked. I listened. Listen Camille, I know you're trying to help, but don't you think you should back off a little?"

"I'm just trying to protect her. With Angela gone…"

"With Angela gone, she has me."

"You're exactly what I'm trying to protect her from! I know you, Seeley, don't forget that."

"Look, I'm not going to hurt her again, okay?"

"But you still haven't talked to her. How do you know that what you have to say won't hurt her? Take it from the woman who was your substitute Brennan for a year, it's going to hurt her."

"So, maybe I just don't tell her."

"Oh that's a great way to start a relationship, keeping things from each other."

"I can't tell her, Camille, you said it yourself. She can't know. She'll…she'll never forgive me for that."

"Which is why you should tell her now, before things get too serious."

"I can't tell her now. Things are finally good between us again, I can't ruin that."

"So what are you going to do when she finds out years from now and you two have kids of your own?"

"Okay first of all, getting a little ahead of ourselves aren't we? And secondly, how is she going to find out if I don't tell her?"

"Dr. Saroyan, you might want to come take a look at this," Clark told her.

"We're not done discussing this," Cam said to Booth before joining Clark and Brennan on the platform.

"Oh I think we're plenty done!" Booth called after her.

At that comment, Brennan looked up from the remains to meet his gaze.

"I'm going to head back to the Hoover, if that's okay," he told her.

"It's fine. This isn't your case, anyway."

Booth felt a pang in his chest at that. This used to be his team; these were his squints. The problems were that he was two squints short, two friends short, he'd allowed his partner to trade him in like a used car, he didn't work Bones' cases anymore, and he was keeping things from the woman he was living with.

"Man, what I wouldn't give to go back," Booth muttered, as he exited the lab. "This does not fit my definition of the word normal…"

"Booth, hurry up! We're going to be late!"

Brennan stood in the foyer checking her Wonder Woman costume in the mirror. It was Halloween night and she and Booth were taking Katie trick-or-treating with Parker and Rebecca.

"Calm down! Parker and Rebecca are meeting us here. It's impossible for us to be late."

"We'll be late of you're not ready," Brennan stated, turning around to face him.

Booth was dressed as a vampire and held Katie dressed up as a bunny.

"You look ridiculous," she told him. "Vampires aren't even real."

"And Wonder Woman is?" Booth asked as the doorbell rang.

Brennan glared at him, taking Katie from his arms as he moved to answer the door. He was greeted by a zombie Parker and Rebecca dressed in scrubs.

"Going as a nurse, Becs?" he asked her.

"A surgeon, thank you very much," Rebecca corrected. "And hello to you too."

"Cool dad! We're both going as dead things!" Parker exclaimed.

"Vampires aren't dead. Are they?" Booth asked, turning to Brennan.

"Why are you asking me?"

"Because you know everything. Or at least you pretend too…"

"If I wasn't holding the baby, I would hit you."

Booth smirked at her and turned back to Rebecca. "So where's Captain Fantastic tonight?"

"Seeley," Rebecca chastised. "He's at home handing out candy."

"We're just leaving ours out on the porch along with this sign that says 'Please take one,'" Brennan explained.

"Bones, you know that's not going to work. The first kid that gets here is going to dump the whole thing into his bag," Booth told her.

"That wouldn't be very polite."

"Kids aren't polite."

"It's true," Parker agreed. "When it comes to candy, we'll do anything to get tons of it."

"So, ready to go?" Rebecca asked.

"Yes, let's," Booth said picking up the candy bowl and placing it on the porch. "Might as well give one kid a lucky night."

"Can that kid be me?" Parker asked.

"Parks, you're probably going to end up with most of Katie's candy too, so I'm going to say no," Booth told him.

"Dang. Hey! Can I push Katie's stroller up to the houses with me? Women love a man with a baby."

"Parker!" Rebecca exclaimed.

"What? I just want more candy…"

"Ah, let him do it, Becs," Booth said.

"Fine, but you're paying his dental bill next time."

Parker took Katie's stroller from Brennan and walked up to the first house on the street.

"So, how are things going for you guys?" Rebecca asked.

"Oh, they're going," Booth responded.

"Katie causing you any trouble?"

"Well, the only thing she'll eat is cereal," Brennan started.

"And there was the other night, when she would not sleep and she just kept crying," Booth added.

"Oh yeah, that was not fun."

"And you two are getting along okay?" Rebecca asked.

Booth and Brennan shot each other a look.

"Yeah, we're good," Booth told her.

Parker came running back to the group of adults. "This neighborhood rocks! They're giving out full size candy bars!"

"Yeah well, the people here are loaded," Booth commented.

They started to move down the street when Brennan grabbed Booth's arm and pulled him aside.

"What's up, Bones?"

"It's just…this feels normal."

"Yeah, it does. But that's a good thing isn't it?"

"I suppose…"

"Hey," Booth started, grabbing her shoulders. "You can't feel guilty for being happy. They wouldn't want you to live the rest of your life being miserable for them."

"I know," Brennan said softly.

"Come on, let's go catch up to them." Brennan nodded and followed after him. "Oh and by the way, Bones, you still look hot in that costume."

She couldn't help but laugh. Booth was right, she couldn't be miserable forever.

AN: Some of you have mentioned that it seems like B&B are making up real fast at an unnatural rate after what happened, but believe me, things are far from fixed. This huge tragedy happened and they both just really need someone to be there right now. Fear not, the angst is far from over.

Shout out to peeps catching the nods to Angel and Grey's Anatomy! You guys are the bestest. Keep on being the bestest and leave a review maybe?