Title: Missing Pieces

Author: SplishySplash, Ihave207Bones

Disclaimer: I own nothing, special thanks to Rachel who held the light at the end of the tunnel, who is an amazing writer and I am proud to be her co-author.

Episode: Wannabe in the Weeds

Chapter Title: Grieving on Her Own

I'm sorry Doctor Brennan, we couldn't save him.

The words echoed through the empty halls of the hospital. A harsh silence grew around the group that had waited for over three hours to hear news of their injured friend as a shock settled among them. The loud humming in her ears made her unable to hear to the sobs from her friends and the shock made her numb to their touch.

She turned on her heels and walked away.

Brennan exited the hospital and unaware of where her feet was leading her. She crossed the street and bumped into a woman heading in the opposite direction and without an apology she kept walking with her thoughts swimming on what ifs and why me's of denial.

A loud horn and a flash of light brought her out of her revere as she found herself on the ground with Sweets on top of her, having pushed her out of the way of car. "Doctor Brennan, are you alright?" He asked breathlessly and the truck drove away into the darkness.

"I. . ." She started and then cleared her throat. "I guess I wasn't watching were I was going." Her voice laced in the confidence that Sweets was used to. The street light overhead lit up her wet eyes, but the rest of her face held no emotion.

"You walked straight into traffic, I was behind you." He said getting to his feet with his heart racing. After she had left the hospital, Cam had asked him to follow her as she and Hodgins tried to console the hysterical Angela.

She got to her feet and dusted the dirt off her pants. "I wasn't watching where I was going, I'm fine. Now if you will excuse me, I have things I need to do." She said harshly and walked away.

He moved in front of her to block her way and she shoved passed him."Can I give you a ride or call a cab?" He asked, trotting to keep up with her. He was worried about her and even though her ability to compartmentalize was envious, her ability to compartmentalize the death of her partner was going to be unpredictable and possibly self destructive. "Or we can talk about what happened."

She turned on her heels with the look of fire in her wet eyes and she pointed her finger at him. "I don't need you to coddle me, Doctor Sweets." She said, her voice rising in pitch. "I was alone for fifteen years before he or you came along and I can handle being alone again."

"But Doctor Brennan," Sweets started, placing a hand on her shoulder and she pulled away as if she was burned by his touch. "It's alright to grieve to loss of someone you love and part of grieving is to talk to someone. . ."

"No." She snapped. "I don't need you to lecture me on grieving, I should have allowed myself to get so close." She turned on her heels and ran away, leaving the psychologist standing under the light.

He pulled out his cell phone. "It's me, she bolted." He hung it up and a hand through his hair with a sigh. It was going to be harder than he thought as he walked in the direction that she had disappeared in.

*~*

Her head laid on her arms with her hair fanned against her back. She had fallen asleep at the farthest table in the back of Limbo surrounded with three sets of completed remains, sometime in the early morning her eyes grew heavy and the tears had fallen freely that she allowed herself to succumb to the sleep and in her hand was a small toy.

The latch of the door resonated throughout the large room and after a while the footsteps neared the sleeping anthropologist and a timid hand was placed on her shoulder. "Doctor Brennan?" Came the timid voice belonging to Zack Addy.

"Booth?" She whispered as she sat up slowly with a surprised sigh. "Zack? What time is it?" She asked, thick with sleep.

"Almost eight in the morning," Zack answered, his eyes were red from lack of sleep and the loss of his friend. "We've been looking for you all night."

She jumped to her feet and a small figurine fell from her lap, with a deafening thud. Zack leaned down and picked it up to reveal the small blue Smurfette that Booth had given her after a case that he recognized usually sat on her desk next to her computer. He handed it to her and she took a hold of, but not releasing it from his grip.

"I was hoping it didn't really happen . . ." She said and started to sob uncontrollably. The young scientist stood there awkwardly until he wrapped her in his long arms as his shirt grew wet from her tears. He opened his mouth to say something, but thought against it.

"I'm so sorry Doctor Brennan, I know how much you valued Agent Booth friendship and hard work, he was a good man." He said after awhile.

"It should have been me." She cried. "I know it's useless to. . ."

"Doctor Sweets says that it's healthy for you to talk about your feelings, though I am not sure what talking has anything to do with your health."Zack said contemplating what Sweets had said, forgetting slightly that the woman was still crying in his arms.

"Thus proving the point that psychology is a soft science." Brennan said through her tears. "Grieving isn't biological."

He sighed and laid his cheek on the top of her head, allowing her to cry into his chest. His eyes closed as relief washed over him that she didn't hurt herself like Sweets said was a high possibility. Her sobbing subsided after a few minutes before Zack spoke again. "If you do need someone to talk to, Doctor Brennan you know where to find me." Zack said softly, hoping that it was the right words to say to his mentor.

She nodded and untangled herself from him, folding her arms protectively around herself as he stood awkwardly as shuffled his feet on the floor as a voice rang out from the stairwell. "Did you find her, Zack?" The voice belonged to Hodgins as his footsteps made their way towards the back of Limbo. "Doctor Brennan?"

She wiped her tears on her sleeves as she was pulled into the entomologist's arms. "Are you alright?" He asked softly. He wasn't much for Angela's Mulder and Scully theories, but he knew that she cared deeply for him and their time in the car showed just how much faith she had in the man. Looking at the normally strong woman looking like she had lost everything was heartbreaking for the entomologist to see.

"I'm fine, I just fell asleep. I need to head back to my office, I have work to do." She said, straitening her lab coat and left the two doctors standing at the table. With her eyes set forward and her shoulders squared, prepared to do her job.

Hours later she looked up at the sound of something being placed onto the desk to see Zack's back leaving towards the door and a fresh cup of coffee sitting in place of the empty one. She couldn't muster up a thank you as he glanced back and nodded his acknowledgment to her, taking his seat on the platform with the rest of the team.

"Well if she's here, I think she will be ok." Cam said sadly, leaning against the table across the room from the doctor. "If she's not willing to talk about it, at least here we can at least keep an eye on her."

"I still think she might still become self destructive if she doesn't find some outlet." Sweets pouted, leaning against the table. "Her hyper rational. . ."

"Will you shut your mouth, please?" Snapped Hodgins from his seat on the lab table. "I don't have the patience to listen to your psychological speech." His hand went to his forehead to ward off the imminent headache showing his raw ring from the rubber band that hung loosely his wrist.

Zack didn't say anything only watching her movements through the door way and soon he jumped to his seat, pulling on a lab coat and sat in front of a microscope. "What are you doing?" Asked Cam, folding her arms tightly across her chest.

"Doctor Brennan would want us to keep moving forward and doing our job." He said, turning to look into the microscope of a skull he had started to work on the day before. "I think Booth would want us to go on too."

"I will continue doing my job, tomorrow." Hodgins said and he got up to leave to his girlfriend who was at home crying.

"I guess you get the first shift, Zack. I'll be back in a couple of hours." Cam said sadly, clasping him on the shoulder and took notice of the dark stains on his shirt underneath his lab coat. Unlike what Sweets thought, Doctor Brennan was handling things in her own way and the mascara stains proved that she had started to grieve for her partner and best friend.

Both anthropologists worked in sync with each other, moving across the platform working on remains from limbo in silence. Brennan finished the paperwork on the singer that was found in the weeds as Zack had wandered back to limbo to finish his task that he was going to do before he found her only to return awhile later to find her sobbing silently on the same stool he had left her on, the remains sitting in place inside a coffin awaiting for the family to come pick it up and a completed file in front of her.

He placed the cup of coffee that was for her on the closest table before placing a hand on her shoulder, she jumped and turned around to be enveloped into the younger mans arms. "I can't believe he's gone." She cried into his stomach. "I don't know what to do."

*~*

Two weeks and ten pound lighter and dark circles under her eyes later Doctor Brennan stood at the table on the forensics platform analyzing a set of remains with Zack at her side. ". . .shows a value of negative sixty percent."

"Supporting the theory that the deceased was born in France." Zack added.

". . .In the sixteenth century." She concluded at the rest of the team made it up the stairs and surrounded the anthropologists all dressed in black.

"It's time Doctor Brennan."