Chapter One

"I'm telling you, I SAW her!" Dr. Temperance Brennan definitively retorted, drawing one step closer to her partner, Agent Seeley Booth. The two were bickering in Booth's apartment. Bones had come over abruptly minutes earlier, out of breath, and talking a mile-a-minute about a conspiracy theory involving Dr. Camille Saroyan.

"I first noticed it two weeks ago when Cam got me to do that ID on that priceless Roman-era skull. She asked me right out of the blue to do the scan, and then 3 days after I closed the case the skull goes missing! Then, the diamond necklace on that crash victim case we got last week also went missing, and Cam was the last person in the room with the body. Booth, I'm not the person to jump to conclusions. You know me. I'm all about the emotionless-fact-based-rational knowledge. I knew no one would believe me so I set up a digital recording device –"

"Bones, you're crazy! Do you have any idea what you're suggesting? She's the head of your department! And you have no evidence –"

"Well if you would let me FINISH for once. She said herself she came to the Jeffersonian for the 'facilities'! I have a recording of her encoded on my computer in my office; it's a video of her stealing – "

"Bones for once in your life listen to me. Ok? You're acting crazy, and I know this has nothing to do with Cam. This is about you and me. I can see how jealous you are of Cam, look I'm not with her anymore okay?!"

"Booth don't be so self righteous! This has nothing to do with you. I am purely telling you, an FBI agent, this out of concern for the Jeffersonian Institute – "

"Typical Bones, mask all of your personal issues under the façade of that lab. You know, if you could just face up to how you ACTUALLY feel and not be so guarded to everyone you know, you wouldn't have to throw yourself into work so much to convince yourself you're happy with your life. If you only knew how much I –"

Booth stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the damaged expression on Bones' face. He had said too much. Hit too close to home.
"Temperance, I –"

She wordlessly turned and left his apartment, closing the door silently behind her as one tear fell from her face. The tear hit Seeley like a shot in the back; he had just hurt the one he loved the most.

Bones headed towards her car, tears flowing freely from her pale face to the cold concrete beneath her. She leaned against her car, not bothering to climb inside. She let the sobs come and go, and replaced them with determination. She would prove Cam's guilty of theft, and then she would get herself as far away from Seeley Booth as possible, regardless of her feelings for him.

Bones drove straight from the parking garage to the Jeffersonian. She headed straight into her office and, as Booth so accurately put it "threw herself into her work". She started by finishing compiling all of the evidence she had against Cam, and put a hidden link to them in the last chapter of her new novel. All she had to do was wait until FBI headquarters opened and bring them straight to Cullen.

Bones sat there in her chair and thought a lot about Booth. She cared for him a great deal, and she knew that he was right about the things he said to her. She wanted to tell him how she felt, but knew that it would take pretty intense circumstances for her ever to be that truthful with another human being.
It was coming close to 2AM when Bones momentarily left her office and approached the forensic platform. The singing "ding" of the ID pad was the only sound in the lab other than the clicking of her own shoes. There was nothing on the forensic gurney, but Brennan went to pick up some mineral samples to test before Hodgins came in. Out of no where, Bones felt two strong arms link from behind her and a white pad was pressed to her face. She tried to resist, but the strikingly pungent odor from the pad penetrated her nostrils and she fell forward into a dark sleep.

Minutes passed. Hours passed. Bones reentered consciousness to find it nearly impossible to open her eyes – they were caked with her own blood. The room she was in was small, wet, and dark and there was no sign of anyone in sight. Her blood was all over her and continued to stream down her face as she moved. All of the blood was coming from her head – she must have hit it on the corner of the forensic gurney when she fell. The pain was almost unbearable, and it wasn't just coming from her head. Bones glanced down toward her legs which were both bent in impossible directions – clearly both seriously broken; broken to prevent escape. Her arms were chained upwards and she was slumped against a brown brick wall. She opened her mouth to cry for help, but all that came out was a muffled gasp.

Booth paced his apartment; physically and emotionally weary. Cam a thief? Of federal property?

He couldn't grasp it. Cam may not be a great person but she can't be capable of that, she values her job so much! It wasn't really the theft suspicions that was robbing Seeley of his sleep – he felt terrible about his heated argument with Bones, he was much too hard on her. "Darn it Booth you always have such a backwards way of telling that woman how you feel!" he thought to himself as he started and watched the seconds tick past on his clock.

Booth couldn't sleep at all last night. He tossed and turned, images of Temperance's face etched into his mind. Going through every probably conclusion of her suspicions towards Cam, and how any feelings Bones may have reciprocated towards him were undoubtedly obliterated by his harsh words. He was awake when his alarm went off, and smacked it out of pure frustration.

That morning Booth decided he needed to confront Bones and tell her everything – he just couldn't live like this anymore. He parked his car and walked up to the door where he nearly bumped into Angela. "Whoa you look like crap! Hot date?" she coaxed in her all-too-perky voice.

"Good morning to you too Angela. Hey have you spoken to Bones since yesterday?" he asked as they approached the forensic platform inside the Jeffersonian.

"No, she didn't answer her phone at all last night, so I figured she was with you. Hence my hot date theory..." Angela retorted.

"She wasn't." Booth muttered as he headed in the direction of Bones' office.

"Booth!" Angela called in a wavering voice. "Check this out". The two crouched down by the far side of the forensic table to find remnants of what used to be a large pool of blood. It looked as if someone had tried to clean up the mess but had done a very poor job of it, as the sticky pink residue remained visible on the cold white floor. Booth said nothing as he followed the smaller consecutive pools of blood which led off the platform, and then they no longer continued. "What are you thinking?" Angela asked to break the silence.

"This is a forensic lab, some intern probably just did a crappy job with some experiment. Don't clean it up though. Get Hodgins to run a small smear sample and run it through a series of positive matches. Check test subjects, employees, janitors, everything." He headed towards Bones' office, "And let me know if you find a match."

Booth approached her office door. "Bones it's me open up. I need to talk to you." He spoke to the wooden panel. No answer. "I'm not leaving until you open this door. I know you're upset but there are some things I need to tell you." He knocked even harder and the door opened a crack by itself.
"Bones always locks her door…" He thought to himself silently as he entered her room.

Three lamps were on in Temperance's office, casting a soft glow about the room. Sitting on the desk was a half empty cup of stale tea and masses of paperwork sitting by her computer. Booth took a moment to savor being in a place that was "all" Temperance. Her life, her worries, her happiness, even her perfume lingered in every inch of this room.

He walked over to her computer, noticing a minimized chapter of her new book. Resisting the nearly overwhelming urge to open it, Seeley logged onto the Jeffersonian Main Server and checked into the employee entry data bank. Whenever anyone entered or exited the Jeffersonian, they swiped their card key and their ID number and information was collected on the entry server. He glanced over the list for that particular day, starting from 6AM to 9AM.

Saroyan, Dr. C – 6:32 AM

… (the list was very long) …

Hodgins, Dr. J – 8:07 AM

Booth, S – 8:31 AM

Montenegro, A – 8:32 AM

Addy, Z – 8:47 AM

He read the entire entry list and there was no sign of Bones at all. Puzzled, he logged onto the day before and checked all possible times, when he saw her name:
(day before)

Brennan, Dr. T – 10:56 PM

There was no account of Bones ever leaving the Jeffersonian, "So she must still be here…" Booth thought to himself thankfully. "10:56 – that's about 20 minutes after she left my apartment. And then she stayed here all night…" Booth thought guiltily to himself, his need to apologize to Brennan heightening by the second. Booth got up from Bones' computer and headed out of her office toward the cafeteria, thinking that she may have taken a break. But when Booth heard Angela's worried voice he knew in his heart that there was something very very wrong.

"Booth!" Angela shouted running toward him.

"Angela, what is it? What's wrong?"

"That blood on the floor – it's Tempe's blood. All of it."

All of the colour drained from Booth's face as he and Angela stared from the test results and back at each other.