Okay, so this is an ALTERNATE ending to Aliens in a Spaceship, one of my favorite episodes. Warning, it does not end happily, and there is major character death. It will be a two-shot.

Letters from Aliens

Temperance takes a deep breathe and presses the pen to the paper. Her handwriting isn't as neat as usual, given the circumstances, and she frowns whenever the pen skids or the words don't form correctly.

But that isn't the important part. The important thing is what the words themselves say. What she's forcing herself to write because... because maybe this will be the last memory of her anyone will get to have.

Hodgins watches as she signs her name and folds the paper with careful hands. Despite her precision, her hands still shake uncontrollably as she makes the last fold. He reaches forward and slides the paper towards him to do it for her, handing it back a second later.

She nods her thanks and then sighs and tucks it into her jacket pocket. He's already written his farewells; most certainly there was a long letter to Angela. She hopes Hodgins put in that he really loved her, because although she put that in her own message to Ange to make sure her friend got to know, she'd rather if it was read in Hodgins words first. She's certain Angela will read Hodgins message first; she knows that her best friend loves him back.

Hodgins murmurs, "Just think, they thought those other victims were aliens. And now... now we are like aliens too. Have you ever felt like this?"

"What? This far away?" she whispers. She shakes her head in response. "No, never like this... never."

She thinks about how far away she does indeed feel. Not only in actuality but in mind frame as well. Booth, Angela, Zach, and Cam are all somewhere very far away, in the real world. In a few days they will have given up, she realizes. They will be forced to go on with their lives and go back to work, doing what they usually do. They will never understand exactly what happened to her and Hodgins, how they slowly ran out of air, how they tried all sorts of things to extend their air supply and call for help, how the enclosing frame of the car seemed more suffocating than the thinness of the air and the impending doom... even if they got out of here she was certain she'd never forget this feeling. This helpless terror.

She feels horrible for Hodgins, who is so much worse off than her. Not only does he have extensive and incredibly painful injuries, but he's also never had anything like this happen to him. She's been kidnapped before; she knows what its like to have her life so close to an end.

He's never been forced to experience this.

She wonders briefly, feeling her thoughts start to swirl and her vision start to go out of focus, where Booth is right now. The message... they must not have been able to decipher it. He must be blaming himself, she thinks sadly. He always does that, with his alpha-male tendencies...

She finds herself hoping they will find her and Hodgins before they become like the Kent boys. She doesn't want them to have to identify them through DNA testing or facial reconstruction rather than by just sight. Not that they wouldn't immediately know who they must be just by the fact they were buried alive.

Hodgins invites her to join him in the backseat, and he offers his hand for her to shake in farewell. She looks at him, and a slight sob escapes her throat as she leans forward and wraps her arms around him instead in a tight embrace. She closes her eyes and feels a few tears slide down her cheek. There is sorrow in her eyes as she pulls away and then holds up her end of the wire. Their hands shake as they push the wire tips together.

And then nothing happens. The explosives don't work. She drops the wire and buries her head in her hands.

"I'm sorry," she whispers to Hodgins.

He shakes his head, "It's alright. We've done all we can; if it doesn't work then it must not be meant to. There's nothing we can do anymore."

She nods, more tears sliding down her cheeks. She sees tears in his eyes too.

They've failed.

She feels her strength failing and fights to keep her eyes open but has no success. They slide shut, and then she knows no more.

Booth stands to the side, his face a blank mask; emotionless. The digging crew is working all around. He doesn't interrupt them. There's no need to be frantic, no need to have the slightest bit of hope like he might have two days ago.

He'd asked the squints, or what was left of them, if they'd wanted to come. Angela stood beside him now. Cam and Zach were back at the lab, working. Cam wasn't the type to get all mushy and sorrowful when she could try to keep everything business-like. She'd spent the past few days upset, so now, when there might be a break in the case, she was staying focused. Zach... well it was expected that he wouldn't see the importance in coming.

Angela; she was a real mess. She'd been crying practically non-stop for the past few days. Right now she was biting her lip, and although there were no tears streaking her cheeks, her eyes were red and puffy.

When the crane hauls the car into view she breaks into all out sobs. He puts an arm around her and she buries her face in his shoulder. He watches silently as his Bones' car is lifted from underground. The windows are covered with dirt; he can't see anything inside.

The crew is shouting to one another and space is cleared. The crane lowers the vehicle down a short ways from the hole.

Booth carefully untangles Angela from him. She doesn't protest, and she wisely stays behind, shaking slightly, as he walks away from her and towards where he knows what to expect.

The crew stays out of his way as he approaches.

"Better not try to open the doors just yet," A man advises him quietly. He nods silently and reaches out a tentative hand to scrape the filth from the driver's seat window. He clears a circle, his mind all the while flashing back to watching Bones clean the window of the vat they found the other victims in. He squints and peers in. There's her seat, but its empty. There are wires hooked to the wheel and the other controls. There are cell phones and pens all over the passenger seat. He can't see the backseat from this spot.

He steps to the window to the right and takes a deep breath before rubbing at the dirty glass. It's too dark; not much is visible. He faintly sees the outline of a human figure, completely still. His heart clenches. He steps back, "Open it," he orders. He's surprised at how calm his voice is, given that inside he's filled with a million different emotions at once.

A crew member hesitantly tries the handle. Unshockingly, it doesn't budge. The crew quickly sets to work and a moment later a wedge pries the metal apart. The door pops open, and they hurry back to give the FBI agent room.

He steps around the door and bends down to look inside.

Hodgins is closest. The squint is lying there limply in front of him. His hair is a mess, his skin pale. Booth knows he's dead. He'd known it before he'd even seen him, though. He'd known there would be no rescue today.

Now he forces himself to look past the man to see the other side of the backseat. She's facing him, her eyes closed. Her face looks peaceful, as though perhaps she's only sleeping. She's not. Temperance is dead.

He can see the tear streaks on her face, and her hair has fallen across her face. He has the strangest urge to tuck it behind her ear, but he doesn't. He can't reach her, anyways. She looks like he remembers, the only difference being that she's a bit paler, her soft ivory skin no longer healthy and vibrant. Her lips are cracked, and he sees the empty water bottles on the floor. They must have run out of water long before they ran out of air. He faintly notices that the back of the seat has been torn open; they had managed to get more air. Not enough.

Not enough.

He wants to hold her, he wants to see those beautiful blue eyes open, and that wonderful soft smile form on her face. He wants to run his hands through that long brown hair as the sunlight dances on it, making it auburn. He wants to have her back. He wants to have Bones back.

But he can't. He can never have her again.

She's gone.

He steps around to the other side as they pry open that door. He wants to be the one to take her out. The crew immediately takes over on Hodgins' side. They pull him out and load him onto a gurney.

He hears a soft cry from Angela, "Jack!" and does his best to block out her words, but fails. "Oh, Hodgins... no..." Her voice cuts into him like a knife to the heart. He feels the injury cut so deep that he can hardly stand upright. He grips the side of the car and then gets hold enough of himself to lean into the car on the passenger side.

She's right there, right in front of him. When he reaches his arms out and brushes her skin he half expects her to stir, to jump in alarm and turn to glare at him for disturbing her. She's ice cold. He pulls her to him; she's limp and lifeless.

It hits him hard, again and again.

Temperance is dead. Bones is dead.

He climbs further into the car to get her, and ends up sitting in the seat, the seat that she must have spent a good portion of her last moments in. He can smell her scent wreathing around him, along with the stench of the car, but he blocks out all else but her.

Tears form in his eyes as he sits there, holding her in his arms. All the things he wanted to say were lost to the winds of fate, gone in one swift moment. His thoughts become a cloud of sorrow and despair.

Love, come and gone. Never truly real in the first place.

Where was she, his beautiful Bones? This was not her, lying in his arms so empty and silent. Where was her rebellious spirit, where were her flame-tipped words of argument, telling him she didn't need his help? Where were those thoughtful ice-blue eyes now? Surely not still behind those soft eyelids, closed so peacefully. Her hair brushes his arm, and he catches a strand of it gently between his fingers. The light from the sun outside reflects off of it as he tilts it, and it glows beautiful auburn. He lets it fall back and then he cautiously brushes the rest of it from her face, stroking his fingers down her cheek.

No... no she couldn't really be gone.

"Sir?" A voice murmurs softly from outside. He brushes the tears away and carefully pulls himself from the car, still holding her.

Angela lets out a fresh sob as her best friend is brought into view.

He lays her down on the gurney they have brought over, and very slowly releases his hold on her.

She looks so small, so fragile. Her head falls to one side as his arm comes out from under it. One arm is draped over her chest, the other has fallen by her side. When he takes a step back he feels as though he has been pulled under the surface of a freezing ocean. Waves are tearing at him, throwing him back and forth, ripping him apart. He cannot find the surface.

He does not want to.

There is no surface.

There is nothing anymore.

They draw the white sheet up over her, and he continues to stare at where her beautiful, gentle face was even as it vanishes. They wheel her away, and still his eyes stay trained on the one spot. Even when the crew is long gone, he does not move.

He turns back to the car finally and sees a single white sheet of paper lying on the seat where it must have fallen when he was getting out. He cautiously reaches in and picks it up. The handwriting on the outside is familiar, and it burns into his brain as his heart beats faster.

These are Bones' words. Her words to him.

Okay, wasn't that sad? :(

I'll add the second half soon, and don't worry, the letter will be read.

Review please??