Mid December. 14 months since THAT Wednesday

Brennan attached the last ornament to her tree and stepped back to give it a critical evaluation. 'It's beautiful.' She was actually surprised at her decorating prowess since it was the first time she had ever put up a Christmas tree. Angela had finally talked her into not going on her annual Christmas dig this year. "You have a family now Brennan. You have your dad, and you have your brother and his family, and you have me, Hodgins, and little Michael Vincent. Christmas for all of us would be a little less bright without you." She didn't actually believe that, but she finally relented. So she decided that she would have a tree for the first time. She knew that most people had a mix of new and beloved family ornaments, but she had lost just about everything from her childhood when she found herself in foster care. So, for the last month, she had been shopping for Christmas decor. If she couldn't have pieces with history, she would buy only pieces that she really loved. She shopped online. She shopped in large department stores. She shopped in small boutique shops. She shopped in museum gift shops. She even went to New York City one weekend and found some wonderful ornaments. This afternoon, she had gone with the Hodgins family out to the country, and he chopped down trees for themselves and for Brennan on a Christmas tree farm. On the way home, they stopped at a small coffee shop that was all decorated like a Christmas Wonderland and sipped hot chocolates with mini marshmallows and munched on warm just-out-of-the-oven scones. Little Michael Vincent was enthralled with the lights and all of the festive decor around the shop. Temperance Brennan, for the first time in her life, was starting to understand the magic of Christmas. She wondered if all it took was the presence of family?

When he brought her tree into the apartment, Hodgins secured it in the stand for her then headed home to do the same with theirs. So Brennan decided to try immersing herself into the Christmas spirit. Music - she needed music. She found a local radio station playing all Christmas music and started playing it on her surround sound system. She wrapped the lights around the tree using the technique that Hodgins described to her. Once that was finished, she went around the room lighting candles and then turned off all of the lamps. She plugged in the lights on the tree and the room began to sparkle. 'Okay. Getting a little Christmas spirit in here.' Next she brought out boxes and boxes of the new ornaments and decor items. She spent the next two hours humming Christmas songs while she meticulously placed all of the ornaments on the tree. Being Temperance Brennan, of course, she made sure that they were evenly spaced and the colors nicely balanced. When she had emptied all of the bags and boxes of ornaments, she found places to display the reindeer and Santas and little trees and small snow covered village pieces. When she was finally finished, she stepped back and marveled at how her home had been transformed. She put the teakettle on and put away all of the boxes and bags. Then she sat down on the sofa with her cup of tea and another scone purchased earlier from the coffee shop. She listened to the festive music and just took in the whole room. 'Magical! Booth was right all this time!'

It seemed like everything she did or thought always came back to Booth. Since Cam shocked her with the news two months ago about the breakup and Booth's brush with death, Cam had stayed in touch with him and gave Brennan updates on his recovery. She told her just last week that his doctors had released him from desk duty and took away the rest of his restrictions. Brennan was relieved and really happy for him because she knew how much he would hate desk duty. Cam had also told her that Booth wasn't dating anyone, and she didn't think he had tried jumping back into the dating pool since Hannah left.

The more updates she got about him, the more she started to wonder if there was a chance they could ever mend fences and try to be friends again. She had forgiven him long ago for the decision to sever their partnership. It made sense. She had really been too close to the relationship between Booth and Hannah, and she couldn't blame Hannah for feeling threatened by her. Booth had already been unraveling their friendship, and she should have seen that and gone to him with a suggestion that they both look for new partners. When you love someone, aren't you supposed to care for their happiness over your own? By stepping back from the partnership, she and Booth could become friends who see each other only occasionally. And that would be the best thing for his relationship with Hanna. Booth seemed to think that Hannah was the lifelong partner he had been seeking, and Brennan should have been willing to do anything to help him reach that goal. But, looking back, maybe she was selfish trying to hold on to the piece of him that she had. She just didn't know. Maybe if Booth had come to her and proposed the partnership split, stressing he was only suggesting it because it was becoming a strain on his relationship, she might have agreed. It would have been painful, but she would have agreed that it was the right decision. And it would have avoided the mess that transpired.

As far as forgiving him for the way he handled it, well, that took a lot longer. But you can only hold on to that kind of anger for so long before it starts to eat you up. Looking back, she realized that she was starting to feel a little of that peace around the time that she signed back up on that dating site. That was when she felt like she was ready to open her heart again. Well, that was a bust. She had two dates with the dreamy doctor, but they parted amicably after the second date because they realized they had almost no interests in common. So, she tried again, this time looking closely for someone who seemed to share her interests. She found what she thought was the perfect candidate - he was a staffer on Capitol Hill whose profile looked like a mirror to her own. It turned out to be the worst date of her life. An hour into the date she realized that he knew nothing about any of the subjects he had listed on his profile. She suspected he had read Wikipedia articles about all of them and could only skim the surface, and then looked at her blankly when she tried to go deeper. And she also realized that he was on the exact opposite of the political spectrum from her. It all added up to a really lousy date and the next day she announced to Angela that she was putting her profile back into hibernation for the time being. Angela tried to get her to reconsider. "Third time's the charm!" But she was resolute. Maybe it was just time to leave it to fate. 'Fate? Oh no. There he was getting into her head again. When did she start believing in fate?'