A / N – OMG thankyou for your amazing reviews. I wasn't going to update so soon but all your comments have spurred me on. I just hope chapter 2 lives up to your expectations. Again, based around a song - Wake up alone by Amy Winehouse.

Please note rating change to T. It might get pretty angsty.

Disclaimer – they all belong to someone else. Sadly.

Temperance Brennan opened the bottle of Chardonnay and poured. She flicked on the stereo and gently fingered the CD's in the rack until she found the one she was looking for. Taking a mouthful of wine she scrolled through the play-list to find the lyrics that had seemed so meaningful when she first heard them in the grocery store. Not that she had actually come away with many groceries. The melody began to echo around the vacant spaces. Inside her apartment, inside her head.

It's okay in the day I'm staying busy
Tied up enough so I don't have to wonder where is he

Temperance smiled weakly. She had. The lab had been exceptionally busy. Even if he had been around she probably wouldn't have had time to accompany him to any crime scenes, suspect interrogations, lunch dates...

Got so sick of crying
So just lately
When I catch myself I do a 180

And she knew better than most the effect that an excess of hormones could have on a person. So... she had developed a hormone imbalance. Nothing unusual. There were prescription drugs she could take to fix that.

I stay up clean the house
At least I'm not drinking

Run around just so I don't have to think about thinking

Temperance Brennan took another mouthful and re-filled the glass.

That silent sense of content
That everyone gets
Just disappears soon as the sun sets

That sounded about right. In the day she could focus on her work. True, her friends knew something was wrong but she maintained a professional distance.

It was the night times, like now, that she would play that day over and over, each time hoping it would end differently. But it always happened the same way.

He'd walked away.

If I was my heart
I'd rather be restless
The second I stop the sleep catches up and I'm breathless

The same questions embedded themselves into her thought processes. Given the chance again would she stop him, should she stop him.

Could she stop him from going?

This was all she had been able to ask herself over and over for since he left nine days ago.

This ache in my chest
As my day is done now
The dark covers me and I cannot run now

Everything reminded her of Booth. The beer in the chiller, the empty space on the sofa. The coat he had wrapped around her hung by the door. She had found his spare house key in the pocket, along with a receipt from a meal they had enjoyed together a few days before. He'd insisted on paying "because he had made her leave the lab early". Remembering had made her smile. Just for a moment.

My blood running cold
I stand before him
It's all I can do to assure him

And when she slept she dreamed. Of him. Of them. Together. She'd had sexual dreams of him before and rationalized that it was natural. He was a man. She was a woman. They spent a lot of time together. Her subconscious would latch on to familiar aspects of her life to make it seem real.

When he comes to me
I drip for him tonight
Drowning in me we bathe under blue light

For a moment she was lost in him. Over the years that they had worked together she had seen him in various states of undress, recognizing and remembering his scars. The ones from childhood or from active duty.

The ones he had gotten from protecting her.

In her dreams she would touch him, tracing her fingers across the raised flaws.

This face in my dreams seizes my guts
He floods me with dread
Soaked in soul
He swims in my eyes by the bed

And when she woke in a cold sweat, as she had every night since, her dreams haunting her. Each different. Each ending in tragedy. She had told him that she would not be at his next funeral. And she meant it. Because if she did, it would take more strength than she had not to crawl into the casket and lay down beside him.

Pour myself over him
Moon spilling in
And I wake up alone

Temperance had always savored her independence. Sleeping alone did not bother her. It was practical, sensible. To sleep with another was an unnecessary disruption. But lately, she had begun to crave the warmth of him, not just when events caught up with her. She had needed him a lot after Zach. She hadn't realized just how much until now.

The shrill sound of the phone interrupted the moment and Temperance took a sharp breath as she checked the caller ID, exhaling in disappointment she answered the call silently.

"Hey Sweetie, Look, I know your gonna tell me your fine and all. But you've been kinda distant at work lately and well... you seem a little down. And don't try to tell me otherwise cause your listening to Amy Winehouse." Angela paused. "Happy people? They don't listen to Amy Winehouse. So talk to me. How are you? Really."

"Comfortably... numb"

"Are you high? Cause you shouldn't be alone if you've taken something. You want me to come over?"

"Not unless you count vast quantities of alcohol. And no. I'd rather be alone."

"Sweetie. He will come back. And I bet that right this minute, somewhere, he's thinking how unfair this all is too. And probably working out the fastest way to get back to you."

Angela waited for her to speak, but when silence dominated she continued.

"Bren, we all love you to bits and we're worried about you. I know you find it hard to talk about this kinda stuff but it does help."

"Angela. He asked me if... if I knew that he loved me...and...I don't know...

"Woah, no! Please do not tell me that you don't know what that means.

"No, what I mean is...I don't know how he meant it. Like... you just told me that you guys all love me, but you mean in a friends that care about each others welfare type of way. Is that how Booth meant it? Or...?"

"Well, I would like think of it in a 'lets make lots of babies' type of way, but I suppose you could be right... Maybe we shouldn't assume that until you speak to him again.

" Booth knows I don't want children!"

"Too literal sweetie. But hey, never say never, right!"

"Goodnight Angela. And thank-you."

"Night Bren. Sleep well"

And I wake up alone

Temperance reached across to the almost empty bottle on the coffee table and drained it into her glass before she slumped down on the sofa. Despite Angela's wishes she knew her ability to sleep well had left her the same time as Seeley Booth.

And I wake up alone

Was this love? This amazing connection between two individuals that Booth had tried to explain to her so many times, that was now causing her so much pain. When she had believed he was dead she was sure it was grief. So what was this?

"Oh!" she spoke out loud to the empty room, confusion masking her beauty.

"I'm in love."

And I wake up alone