So...we up for a little BB angst/fluff?? Heeeerrrreee we go...

It was past midnight when Dr.Brennen heard the soft knock at her door. She put down the file she had been reading on the couch and walked over to the door.

"Who is it?" She called. She never used to do that, but Booth had scolded her so many times for opening the door without asking who was there that she started doing it just to shut him up.

"Bones it's me."

"Booth?" She was slightly surprised to hear Booth's muffled voice come through the door. "Come in."

Booth, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and jacket felt a little akward standing in front of Tempe, who wore a light blue tank top and pajama pants.

"It's late." She commented.

"Yea, I know, but Angela said you were taking home some files to work on so I figured you would still be up."

Brennen nodded. "Want a beer?"

"Sure."

Brennen handed him a cold beer from the refrigerator and went back to her work on the couch. She was used to having Booth around so it didn't bother her that he was at her apartment in the middle of the night.

"Whatcha workin' on?" Booth plopped himself down on the couch the way a child does and grinned at her. But Brennen saw that it wasn't a real smile. There was something bothering him, she could read it in his eyes.

She looked back at the file. "It's the file on a body found in Honduras. It's possible that it was used in a Mayan human sacrifice ritual. The Jeffersonian wants it for the new exhibit." She knew that whatever Booth wanted to talk about, she wouldn't get it out of him until he was ready.

"Sounds very…interesting." Booth said, a touch of sarcasm in his voice. He looked around the room, his sniper training taking over causing him to take in every detail of it. Everything was the same as it was the last time he was there. Every book in it's place, every painting or tribal mask perfectly straight and not a speck of dust anywhere.

Brennen watched him observe. She was finding it harder to concentrate on her work with him there. Not so much because he was distracting, but because he was a distraction. She couldn't help but admire that look he had on his face. The one that said he was thinking hard and observing and trying to come to terms with military training and civilian life all over again.

"How do you know where to put the couch?" He said suddenly breaking the silence.

"What?"

"Without a TV. How do you know where to put the couch?" He looked at her, waiting to be amused by her anthropological examination of why humans are inclined to do something or other with their furniture to show some kind of dominance or something.

"I just face it to where the TV used to be."

Booth pouted as she had not filled his expectations and Brennen went back to her file. Booth's fingers started to twitch a little the way they did when he was bored and he lightly started tapping his fingers on his knees. The tapping led to bouncing his leg up and down, the bouncing led to bobbing his head and the bobbing head led to quiet humming. Before Brennen knew what was happening, Booth was having a full on dance party at the other end of the couch.

Brennen shut the file and threw it onto the coffee table.

Booth smiled sheepishly. "Sorry."

Brennen studied Booth carefully for a few moments, fully aware of the fact that she really had no skills at reading people. But then, Booth wasn't people, Booth was Booth.

"Are you okay?" She asked, quietly sipping her beer.

Booth shut his eyes. "I am so tired of people asking me that!" He snapped, realizing too late that he would and couldn't stop himself. He watched Brennen visibally recoil back into herself and reach for the report off the table. He took a deep breath and looked at her.

"I'm sorry."

Brennen just nodded, avoiding his eyes.

"Really, I'm sorry. These cases are hard, you know? It's just..."

This time Brennen looked up, "They're all hard Booth."

He nodded.

"But this one is different. Especially now that Kayla has shown up."

Again, he just nodded, staring at his beer bottle.

"Do you know her or something?"

"No." Booth shook his head. "She just…reminds me of someone."

Brennen put the file back down, able to recognize by his tone that Booth was about to tell her something private. Something important to him.

He flicked his dark eyes toward her, making sure this was the right moment.

"I had a sister once, Bones."

Brennen tilted her head, she wasn't expecting that.

"Her name was Sarah. Cutest thing ever created, I swear." Booth smiled nostalgically at his hands, facing away from Brennen. "Brown hair, brown eyes, sweet little dimpled smile. Just perfect. She had the whole family in the palm of her hand because, well, mom and dad weren't supposed to be able to have any more kids after me, and then Sarah came along. She was like a walking miracle."

Brennen stifled a comment on the impossibility of miracles, allowing Booth to continue uninterrupted.

He sighed. "She was one of those cute kids who insisted on wearing pink but would immediately run outside and play in the dirt and chase bugs...God, Sarah." Booth shook his head slightly. "Anyway, uh, when Sarah was about three, we had a family barbeque, I was getting ready to leave for active duty so it was kind of like a 'going away party'. Everyone was there, which meant it was pretty hectic anyway, but then dad caught his apron on fire, Uncle Joe tried to put it out and only succeded in making it worse. Mom was running in and out of the house setting the table while I was calling our famiy who couldn't make it and saying 'goodbye'. On top of that, Jared and Lindsey were fighting, I mean it was like a mad house."

Booth glanced at Brennen, who was staring at him with those intense blue eyes, willing him to continue.

"No one even noticed that Sarah had wandered off. And mom and dad had never had a dog or anything so we didn't know about the hole in the fence. We were almost ready to eat when all of a sudden mom starts screaming 'where's Sarah?' Nobody even had time to start looking for her when...we heard the...the screeching tires and the car horn."

He held his breath for a second as the memory came flooding back to him. "I remember I was closest to the gate... I took off running..but I already knew what I would see when I rounded the corner of the house."

Booth held his lips tight for a moment, closing his eyes, forbidding the tears.

"I held her limp little body until the paramedics got there," He whispered, unable to muster his full voice, "but we knew it was too late. Sarah was gone."

Booth stared hard at his bottle of beer, his jaw muscles clenching and relaxing every few seconds.

Brennen hugged her knees, looking at Booth. She felt the pain in her chest was still strong from hearing Booth's voice crack with sorrowful tears.

"If she hadn't died." Booth said slowly, "She would be around Kayla's age."

Brennen nodded. "And when you met Kayla, it was like seeing what Sarah could've been."

Booth sort of shrugged his shoulders. "More like, what I never would have wanted her to be, what she never would have been in our family. Alone, terrified, unloved."

"Then, what you're saying is…you're not okay." Brennen rationalized, the only thing she really knew to do.

Booth understood and nodded, taking a long sip of beer. "But someday I hope to be, Temperence. Someday."

Brennen noticed that Booth's features remained slightly vulnerable and she didn't know what to say. She remembered, though, that a long time ago Booth had told her that when someone gives something of themselves you should do the same, she just wasn't quite sure what to give.

After a few seconds she put her beer on the coffee table, swallowed her fear and scooted down the couch so she was right next to him. He looked at her curiously, but she wouldn't meet his gaze. She then wrapped her small arms around his muscular one and laid her head on his shoulder.

"Someday you will be, Seeley. Someday soon."

They stayed like that until they lost track of time. Brennen fell asleep and not long after Booth's arm followed suit. But he refused to move it, feeling her warmth on his body, knowing how much of a struggle it was for her to be that open and honest just like he had been.

So he ignored the annoying tingling in his arm and was, eventually, able to join his arm and Bones in sleep.

One more to go tonight. If you liked it...hit the button!!