Title: The Ghosts in the House
Summary: Brennan and Booth in a real haunted house on Halloween...
Rating: G
Pairings: Booth/Brennan
A/N: My second entry for Cullen's BullPen this month. I was waiting for a beta, but didn't hear back from her and was running out of time... So this is unbetaed. My apologies for any mistakes.

The Ghosts in the House

"Bones, can we go already?" Booth asked, stifling a yawn. He glanced around the empty crime scene. "Everyone else is already going home for the night. We should leave too."

Brennan threw a glance over her shoulder at him. "I'm not done examining the scene, Booth."

He gave a deep sigh. "We've been here for an hour already. You've seen about all there is to see." Brennan gave him a look that clearly said 'so what?' and he sighed. "Bones, it's like twelve o'clock on Halloween night and we're in a creepy, old, falling-down house." He glanced around said house at the cobwebs, creaky floorboards and rotting walls. "Not that I'm scared of the house or anything," he quickly added. "It's just I'm tired, and would actually like to go home sometime soon."

The forensic anthropologist stood—from where she'd been kneeling on the creaky floor where a set of bones had been found—planting her hands firmly on her hips. "Booth—" She abruptly stopped, and glanced down the hallway. She turned back to Booth after a moment. "Did you hear that?"

Booth frowned. "Hear what?" he asked. She didn't answer, and Booth laughed. "Maybe it was a ghost, Bones."

"Ghosts do not exist," she retorted.

"Where's the fun in believing that?"

Instead of answering, Brennan turned again towards the dark hallway. She looked back to Booth again, eyes wide. "You didn't hear that?"

"Hear what?" he started. But before he could get the words out, Brennan started at a quick run down the hallway she'd been looking at a moment before. "Bones!" he called after her.

She didn't stop.

After groaning, Booth set out after her.

"Bones?" he called.

She didn't answer.

"Bones, you can't go running around in this old house!" he continued calling when he lost sight of her in the dark hallway. "You're going to step on a week spot and fall through the floorboards…" He cringed at the thought and paused. He didn't hear her footsteps anymore. "Bones?" he called again. When, again, there was no answer, he softly and hesitantly called, "Temperance?"

-------

Brennan was drawn mysteriously onward by what sounded like someone screaming. The fact that Booth apparently couldn't hear it made it all the more interesting.

She didn't hear any of her partner's calls whatsoever.

Brennan followed the scream through a series of barely lit rooms, and came to a halt when, at least three rooms later, the screaming stopped. Bewildered, Brennan looked around the room she was in. Unlike the others, this one was at least halfway lit by a fireplace on the far side of the room.

Concentrating, she made out the shape of an recliner chair against the edge of the fire's glow and slowly made her way towards it.

"Come closer, Temperance," said a raspy voice.

Brennan was astounded and a bit frightened to hear a voice break the silence. She was tempted to turn and run back the way she'd come, or at least take a few steps back, but she stood her ground. Squinting, she could just barely make out the shape of an old woman sitting in the arm chair, and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Were you the one screaming?" she asked the elderly woman.

The old woman looked up to her, and laughed in a way that was rather unsettling. "Nobody's screaming here, child."

"Wait a second," Brennan said, glancing around at the cobwebbed, dusty, and rundown surroundings. "I thought this house was abandoned."

"Abandoned?" the old woman laughed. "Oh, no. It's far from abandoned. My husband and I live here and own the house."

"They said this house was abandoned." Brennan frowned. "Why didn't you say something when the forensic team was here?"

"There's no one here," the old woman replied, looking at Brennan as though she thought her crazy. "Just you and I, child."

"No," Brennan answered, turning to point back the way she'd come. "My partner's here too, down the hallway… He—"

"Darling, give up and call the man your boyfriend," the old woman interrupted. "All of this new age calling a boyfriend a partner thing is very silly."

Brennan's eyes grew wider and a blush rose to her cheeks. "Booth is not my boyfriend."

"So you might say, dear. But your heart believes otherwise." She glanced past Brennan. "And dear, there's no hallway that way."

Glancing over her shoulder, Brennan's eyes grew wide when she realized that there was no doorway where there had been moments before. She walked over to the wall where the door had been, and felt along it, but she found no trace of the doorway whatsoever.

"Hey!" she exclaimed at the old woman. "There was a door here!"

The old woman cackled again. "Oh, no, child. There was never any door there."

"Yes there was!" Brennan insisted. "I came through it!" She continued pounding on the wall, searching for the door she knew must be there. "Booth?" she called, for once hoping against reason that he would hear her voice and respond. "Booth?"

"Your boyfriend cannot hear you," the old woman said.

Brennan glared over her shoulder at the woman. "Booth is not my boyfriend," she repeated firmly, not even bothering to hide her growing annoyance with the woman. She turned and began feeling along the wall again. She would not be trapped in here with this crazy old woman.

After a moment of Brennan's futile searching, the old woman's voice rang out again. "Temperance, admit you care for him and you can go."

Brennan whirled towards the old woman. "I will not answer to an ultimatum," she said firmly. "Now let me out of here."

"You can only go when you have admitted how you feel about your partner," the old woman replied. A very unpleasant smile split her face. "If you do not, you will never leave this room."

"Listen," Brennan said. "Booth is my friend and my partner at work. Nothing more."

The woman gave a quiet tongue-click of disapproval.

With a sigh, Brennan leaned back against the wall, then slowly slid down it until she was sitting on the floor. Her head drooped forward to rest against her raised knees. For a long moment, she just sat there like that, but finally she spoke.

"Okay," she said resignedly. "I admit I've had the occasional fantasy about him and me. And…" She paused, then forced the words out. "And I like him as more than a friend."

Brennan waited, but there was no reply. She looked up, and saw that where the woman's chair had been by the fireplace before, there was nothing. No fireplace, no chair, no old woman. Just a big, empty room. Puzzled, she frowned at the empty space for a moment before turning to look back at the wall.

As she halfway expected, there was again a door there.

Astounded and a little frightened, she turned and hurried her way through it. "Booth!"

-----

While Brennan was having a chat with the crazy old woman, Booth continued looking for—and failing to find—her. Reaching the end of the hall, he actually turned the opposite way that Brennan had—unbeknownst to him, of course—and continued looking for his partner.

He walked into a dark room.

"Bones?" he called again.

"Who's Bones?" came a voice from the dark shadows to his left.

Booth instantly whirled towards the source of the sound and drew his gun. After it was drawn and aimed, a figure slowly stepped out into the faint light leaking off of the hallway, hands raised. It was just an elderly man. Booth quickly re-holstered the gun.

"Sorry," he quickly apologized. "I thought the entire forensic team had already left."

"Obviously not as you're still here," the old man retorted. "Why in the world are you wandering around hollering at this hour of night?"

"I seem to have lost my partner," Booth replied, sighing. "She ran off this way somewhere."

The old man snorted. "Not a smart thing to do in this old place, sonny," he said. "The way things are around this house, she's liable to fall through the floor or have a ceiling beam come down on top of her."

The flame of Booth's growing fear was strongly fanned by that statement. A flash of his worry passed across his face before he said, "I really hope not."

"Booth!"

He was surprised by her voice, but turned instinctively towards it, stepping out into the hallway. He saw a flash of Brennan's form coming out of the dark rooms on the opposite side of the hallway from where he'd been.

Whether she tripped or not, Booth didn't know, but Brennan fell right into his arms.

And held on tight for a long moment. When she finally let go, she looked up to Booth and he was surprised by her slightly frightened expression.

"Let's get out of here," she said.

Booth turned over his shoulder to say something to the old man he'd been talking to a moment previous, but noticed he wasn't there. His eyes searched through what he could see of the dark room, but he didn't spot the man.

"Uh, yeah," he said. "Let's go."

----

An "elderly man" and an "old woman" stood, watching through a window as an FBI agent and a forensic anthropologist hurried out to a black SUV and climbed inside. The SUV quickly drove down the driveway, and then down the street.

"We almost had them, Maurice," the old woman said.

"Mmhmm," the old man agreed. "We must be losing our touch, Lyda."

The old woman grunted her agreement. "Oh, well. Better luck next time."

And the two vanished, waiting until Halloween Night next year.

(Hint: This story was inspired by a specific season 6 episode.)