Ok guys, I'm even appalled at myself that this update took so long… but I hope it's worth it!

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"Booth! I swear if you do that one more time, you are going to end up on Cam's autopsy table with something very sharp protruding from your frontal bone!" Brennan seethed in her partner's general direction.

"If I wasn't so bored standing here for hours and hours I wouldn't be tapping my pen on the desk! Hell, I might stick something sharp in my forehead just to escape this room!" He retorted snappily tapping his pen all the more.

"Please do. The world will be well rid of your ego."

He crossed the platform in three steps. "My Ego!? What about yours Miss I've-got-a-doctorate-so-ya'll-better-just-hit-the-bricks?"

"I don't know what that means!"

"You wouldn't!"

"Egomaniac!"

"Squint!"

She stared. He stared. Eyes inches apart. Neither moving, breathing nor backing down. Eventually the angry face she was making began to wear on the muscles in her face, so she let it fade. Stepping back she dismissed him without a trace of the malice her voice had held just a minute earlier.

"Just go wait in my office Booth, I'll be done soon."

"Fine."

……………………..

Sigh. Her office was so boring without her in it. He paced the floor and picked his way along the shelves, looking at the old bones or artifacts from her many trips over the years. Reaching the end towards the top there was a shelf of large leather photo albums. Their spines were labeled with the names of the many countries she'd visited over the years. Booth reached up and pulled down the first one opening to the first page. A paper fluttered to his feet; a faded letter addressed to his partner. He picked it up skimmed it. It was from a university in Morocco, inviting her to oversee an archeological dig on some centuries old civilization. He shrugged it off and went to stick it back in the photo album, until he noticed the first picture. A younger version if his partner smiled up at him from underneath a straw hat above a caption that read 'Morocco- My first time running a dig! - Being the boss is really terrifying!'

Booth couldn't help but smile; curious, he picked up the letter and read the date on the envelope- May 2000. She had only been 24 when she ran her first professional dig! His heart swelled with pride, she was such an amazing woman. Suddenly he felt a twinge of guilt for calling her a squint; he was a lucky guy to get to work with someone like her, even if she did argue with him and cause him nothing but grief sometimes.

He sat down with the album and leafed through. Most of the pictures were of old bones or people he didn't know, but every so often there was a picture of Temperance, smiling like a maniac, and looking so excited and passionate about everything that was going on around her.

Booth sat at her desk for nearly an hour looking at all of the albums one the shelf. The 6th one ended with her latest trip to Guatemala and as he went to place it back on the shelf he noticed another album, smaller and a quite un-academic shade of pink. He pulled down without another thought and opened it up.

This one was more like a scrapbook than an album. Smirking up from the first page was a young blonde girl wearing a 'who me?' face. Next to the picture was a dedication.

Tempe! Hey Girl! This present is so that you never forget your awesome undergrad roommate when you go off to that fancy grad school of yours in Maryland! Northwestern was such a great time in our lives, I hope you remember it with the same fondness that I do. I'll never forget the time I ordered a turkey sandwich in Turkey... haha, and you'll never let me forget it either. Love ya! –Lizzy

Booth chuckled as he turned the page, and then laughed out loud. In front of him was a collage of pictures labeled 'Remember the night you bought your first camera freshman year?' it was full of Brennan and the girl, Lizzy, making dozens of ridiculous faces and poses. The woman he knew as the rational squint who rarely cracked a smile, grinned, laughed, frowned and pouted out at him across the years. He leaned closer, looking at each picture one a time. This must have been the pre-Angela Angela, because anyone who could get an abandoned teenager just out of the foster system to grin like that had to be just as wacky as his partner's current best friend. He moved and sat on the couch with the album, eager to see what the rest of the pages held. The next page held a list of the pairs various inside jokes, as well as a large picture of them, obviously in chemistry class, decked out in goggles and white coats, laughing hysterically at something behind the camera.

The next couple pages held more of the same: glimpses of a happy silly Brennan the likes of which he'd never seen. Booth hoped that someday she'd let him witness some wacky, but then that was unlikely to expect from the woman that she had become. Somehow he'd known that underneath it all she was a normal type of weird, not just squint weird, and to see the proof was just fuel to the fire; a fire that had begun to burn the day he met her. He looked out through the glass walls of the office and let himself watch her for a moment, trying to see if any of that silly sparkle still remained. He was sure it was in there somewhere.

Staring off into space wasn't really advisable while you were snooping through the photo scrapbook of someone who could probably kick your ass. He snapped back into reality and turned the page quickly. No silly faces greeted him here, taped to the page were two plane tickets to Istanbul. The comment written above them read: ' Senior Summer interning on the dig in Turkey-- both of our first time out of the country! But it was perfect wasn't it? An adventure to go down in history!' Booth was intrigued; she'd never mentioned Turkey before. He turned the pages, slowly absorbing the rich colors from the pictures of mosques and architecture. Ending the album was another full-page photo, the backs of two girls, each with an arm wrapped around the other's shoulder, watching the sunset in the desert. The amber tone of the sand and the darkening tones of the sky framed the breezy silhouettes of their white linen tunics. He tenderly traced the outline of the figure he knew so well and let his mind escape him once again, not noticing her approach.

She quietly stepped into her own office, unsure of what was awaiting her. Booth had been uncharacteristically quiet for the past few hours and she knew something was up.

"Boo…" The whispered word died on her lips when she saw what was in his lap. He seemed to be… what was that phrase he used? 'Spacing out'? Not wanting to break the deafening silence, she sat down beside him and placed a hand over his tracing fingers. He broke out of his reverie and met her eyes, handing her the album. She looked down at the picture from the desert so many years ago and began to trace the figures herself.

After a while she spoke. "This was the best moment of my life. Logically not the most important, but it was just so…alive."

He replied softly. "I can see that, you two must have had a lot of fun together."

"So much fun." And as much as she despised pure emotion, a wave of it washed over her and a single tear fell to the page.

"Hey, hey. What's wrong Bones?"

"She-She died four years ago. In a car accident; it…was all very sudden."

Booth didn't say anything; there wasn't anything to be said. Instead he placed a strong hand on her back, rubbing it up and down gently, letting her know that he was there. Minutes passed as they stared at the beautiful photograph. He eventually stole a look at her and saw the mask of grief that had escaped from behind the walls that surrounded her heart. He wondered if she had ever talked about that grief before, and if she knew she could with him. Tipping her chin up with his finger to tear her blue eyes from picture he met them with his brown ones. He smiled apologetically and turned back the pages in the album.

"Can you tell me about these Bones? I'd like to hear the stories behind them." Booth offered sweetly, pointing to the first collage of silly pictures.

She considered him for a minute, looking from him down to the pictures and back and then decided that this is what Angela had meant about offering something of yourself to solidify a relationship. Booth had talked to her about the things he had done as a sniper, and here he was offering to hear something about her. She knew he would listen. She smiled softly down at the pictures.

"Well… one day I decided that I should buy a camera and when I brought it back to our room, well, this happened. Lizzy had a way with people, getting them to do things they normally wouldn't, her charisma didn't just extend to me…"

Booth watched as his partner's eyes began to sparkle with joy instead of tears, and her face began to glow as she talked.

"…One time during that summer in Turkey, she charmed a waiter at a Turkish-Italian restaurant to make her a turkey sandwich, even though they didn't serve them. She had her own version of the 'charm smile', and with her self-proclaimed 'killer blonde hair' she could get people, especially guys to do just about anything she wanted… I was always amazed at her nerve. You remind me a little of her Booth."

He laughed. "Is that who taught you what a charm smile was? She looks like quite a girl. And I think it's great that she made you smile so much. It's nice. You should do it more often."

Her attempt not to smile failed miserably and he smiled in return.

"See? Smiling is fun."

"I guess."

He turned to the page with the photo of them in Chemistry class. "So what's the story with this one Bones?"

"That one is a little bit longer and sillier… Remember when I said that I missed organic chemistry class?..."

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I know I have no right to ask after two weeks of no new chapters, but wanna review? I'll take anything, random stories, thoughts, grocery lists, even hate mail for the lack of new chapters…