I've got one legit author's note and one rant. Feel free to skip over one or the other or both to get to the story.

Author's Note: Okay, so I updated a different story today and had this huge, epic rant right there in the author's note, and after I posted it I was like, "What are you doing? This doesn't even have anything to do with your story." So I went back and cut it all out, but there were a couple things I typed that I couldn't quite get out of my head. And so I gave myself an hour and a half to write a piece and this is what came out. There will be a second part posted probably exactly a week from now.

Rant/Explanation: Does anyone watch CSI: NY? I mean, not necessarily now because it's not that great anymore… they kind of stopped trying after they let Danny and Lindsay get married. Anyway, my point is, I feel like this whole weird Booth business is really reminiscent of when Danny cheated on Lindsay. Yeah; remember watching that scene for the first time – seeing Danny coming out of the bedroom all half nekkid throwing together omelettes in the kitchen – and grinning because you knew Lindsay was waiting in the bedroom? And thennnn the phone rang. And it was Lindsay on the other end. And while you were still going "…umm, huh?" thennnn out came Next Door Neighbour. Ouch. It ripped out my heart and I could not, could not get my head around it. And after that there were a million angsty stories posted revolving around that episode and Danny's shitty behaviour in the ones following it, and some of them were brilliant. Like, those stories where the writer just captures everything about the characters flawlessly, you know? And I was loving the angst and the poignancy of it all (fanfiction wise, NOT actual-episode wise), and then this story came out that just blew everything out of the water. I don't even remember what it was called or who wrote it, but she had this author's note that was like, "Yeah, Danny's an ass. But why do we have to have Lindsay crying over him all the time? I want her to be as pissed at him as I am." And I remember just stopping and being like… she's right. Seriously. She's so right. Which brings me back around to Bones.

After the 100th episode (which I loved, LOVED, btw) I felt sympathy for both of them. I saw two different sides, two broken hearts, and I thought it was just beautiful. They were still them back then. Kind of. Sometimes. Now it's just… ugh. The whole family has fallen apart. Anyway, so that's my rant and my motivation for this piece. Like I said it will be in two parts, because I am absolutely incapable of leaving things off without a ray of hope shining at the end (I mean, real life is depressing enough… I like angst as much as the next girl but there's got to be some resolution at the end of it all) I hope nobody stones me after this. I feel like it's going to be pretty love it or hate it. Everyone's got a right to their opinion. It'd be nice if you liked it though, lol. :)

The Well of My Forgiveness Has Dried Up

Thank you for making me
feel like I am guilty;
making it easier to murder your sweet memory.
Before I go, tell me,
were you ever who you claimed yourself to be?
Either way I must say good-bye.
You're dead to me.

The Undertaker, Puscifer

They're all standing on the platform around the metal table and it's uncomfortable, but no one draws any attention to that fact because it's been uncomfortable for weeks and they're all getting used to it. Like seasonal asthma or shin splints or bones that ache when it rains. Human beings are adaptable.

It's Hodgins that sparks the spiral. Because he's so happy with Angela and he just wants to believe that they can all be happy as a unit again if someone just gets the ball rolling. So he does. And that gargantuan ball starts rolling and it keeps rolling, and it crushes them all.

"So, are you bringing Hannah with you to the banquet next Saturday?" He asks with a conspiratorial grin.

Angela gives him a look that tells him she thinks he's being insensitive, and he shrugs. Cam and Booth exchange a whole different look and Booth clears his throat after they have a silent conversation.

"Hannah went back to Afghanistan last week."

Brennan notices that he addresses the room as he speaks and still somehow manages to make her feel like he's keeping her out of it. No one else seems to notice though and Angela leads the way in condolences and it should be really awkward, but Angela's gift with people is just as good as Booth's in a slightly different way, and it all comes across as entirely genuine.

Minutes tick by and it feels like they've been talking forever, but that's generally the way it goes when a group of people are having a conversation in front of you and you've got nothing to contribute to it.

"Great. Let's all discuss Booth's failed relationship until we've thoroughly analysed every insignificant aspect of it. Because it clearly matters more than cause of death." She mutters to herself.

She's been making leaps and bounds in the sarcasm department. Unfortunately she says it a lot louder than she thinks she has – isn't that always the case? – and everyone goes silent. Everyone. Even Angela. She might as well have bitch tattooed across her forehead. But while she looks at Booth and sees a combination of fury and embarrassment, in Angela's face there is only understanding. Because Angela still gets her, and even though she believes now more than ever that love is ephemeral, if ever there comes a time when Angela is no longer her best friend, she is confident that she will always remember this moment and remember love. She will remember what it feels like to have one loyal friend when it seems everyone you know would rather you disappeared.

Booth grabs her arm as he passes – because he's private and uptight as usual and won't have this conversation in front of the team – and she cocks back her free arm and hits him in the face as hard as she can. Because they're back at the beginning again and he doesn't know not to try and control her and she doesn't know how to use her words.

No one intervenes. Angela saw this coming and Cam thinks he deserved it, and everyone else is too shell shocked to move.

It takes him precious seconds to speak as he compartmentalizes the pain and she knows he's itching to rub his jaw but he won't do it. She hopes she leaves a mark.

"Don't hit me." His voice is low with tightly lidded anger.

She ignores him. She may not do it as subtly as he does, but she damn well gets her point across.

"If we're done here, I have work to do." She makes brief eye contact with Angela, Hodgins and Cam. She doesn't bother with her interns. Maybe when they gossip about this amongst themselves later it will instil enough fear into the person who continuously leaves the drawers open in bone storage to inspire him or her to change. "Call me after the bones have been cleaned."

She steps gracefully around him – so gracefully it's almost like she steps through him, and that's the point, isn't it? – glides down the stairs and disappears into her office.

He follows her.

She half expected he would but she really doesn't know him anymore, no better than he knows her, so there's still a small degree of surprise when her office door opens and closes abruptly. Suddenly he's there and he's angry, but it's okay because this is her safe place, and she's been both "there" and kind of angry for a while now and he hasn't taken any notice.

At first she tries to ignore him and she types determinedly with lightning fingers across her keyboard. But then he's standing over her and glowering, and the fact that he's literally looking down on her irks her so she stands and leaves an inch of space between their faces – because with her heels on they are all but evenly matched – and she stares until she forces him to be the one that takes a step back.

"I'm going to keep trying. I will be happy."

"You're not happy, Booth." She suddenly sees him with crystal clarity. She looks into his eyes and she stares right into his metaphoric soul, and something about this moment sparks a revelation. "You haven't been happy for a very long time. If you had been, you wouldn't have put so much effort into figuratively shoving it down my throat."

"Everything just has to be about you, doesn't it?"

"When was the last time any of this was about me?" He gives her that blank face she's used to drawing from other people when something they believe to be absurd comes out of her mouth. The face she gets when it dawns on them that she's not normal. It makes her furious, because he's been giving her that look a lot recently and from someone who's had a pretty good grasp on her for years (this one excluded) it just doesn't make sense. "Don't look at me like that. I know you know what I'm talking about. Why do you do that?"

"What is this about, Temperance? Why are you so hell bent on making me miserable? You didn't want a relationship. And then I found someone else. And then you didn't want me with them-

"I never once said-

"You didn't have to!" He yells. "I know your face! I saw it!"

"And so you're punishing me?" She yells back. "I was nice to her. I never did anything vindictively. What you're doing now is cruel."

"It sucks, doesn't it?"

"Is that what this is about?" She laughs incredulously. Nothing about this is funny, but she can't help it. She supposes it's probably yet another human adaptation that's been ingrained in her DNA to help her survive. "I crushed your heart, so you're crushing mine?"

"Don't act like a victim. It's your own fault that-

"No. No, this is not all my fault, Booth!"

Something inside her breaks and now she's not just trying to provoke a reaction from him. Because he's about to go back to that night. It always goes back to that night. And she is done beating herself up about it. They missed a moment, but she's come to realize that they've missed a lot of moments over the years and before, they always came back together. The centre always held. Even when they were awkward and she was dating his boss and he was dating a biologist that looked vaguely like her, they held. She has realized that they always held because both of them wanted to hold, even when they were scared and confused, and when one half of the centre simply stops giving a damn, that is when things fall apart.

She's ready to be honest about that night even though they've never really talked about it; the whole unit has already shattered into a million pieces. She has nothing left to lose.

"I was scared, and I acted irrationally, but you… you changed everything. You were the best friend I ever had, Booth. We stopped having dinner and you never texted me jokes, you started talking to me the way I see you talk to people you're meeting for the first time… and maybe I wouldn't have noticed that before, but I did notice, because you used to talk to me like I was different in a good way. Like I was special. How could you have thought that wouldn't matter to me?"

"All you had to do was say 'yes.' I spent five years waiting for you!"

He gets it. Some part of him must be getting it. And she thinks maybe he's intentionally missing her point and clinging to this defence for the same reason he tries so hard to convince everyone he was happy. So she keeps pushing. Because he pushed first and if she can't live safely in denial – denial of her feelings for him, of feelings in general – then he doesn't get to either. He will be the one beating himself up over his monumental screw ups from here on in, and maybe then he can stop throwing that night in her face.

"You're the one who's supposed to have faith for both of us. Can you count the number of times we've had dinner together? Drank together? Talked until sunrise? You want to talk about that night, Booth? You believe in the existence of some omnipotent, supernatural being you've never seen, and yet you saw me every day, you knew me, and you couldn't do the same. You've never stopped believing in God; not when you were tortured overseas, not when people you loved died, not when you were a degenerate gambler… how could I have known you would stop believing in me? How could I have known you would stop believing in love? How could I have known?"

He doesn't answer her. He hides behind that face again, and this time she can't even bring herself to be upset about it. Because she knows he understands her. She knows she's making sense. And that's enough for her. Her part in this is over. She's pretty sure that they are over. And she has nothing left in her to try and give.

"Get out of my office, Booth," she says. And it's only now that her voice has quieted to normal that she realizes she has been screaming. "I think we need a break from each other."

He slams the door behind him and the blinds tumble off the wall as the glass flexes and shudders, and she sees everyone in the lab staring back at her and she knows that they have heard every word. All of her and Booth's dirty laundry out in the air for her co-workers to judge. And she thinks that maybe there's a little bit of stoic Dr. Brennan left in her after all, because as they stare, she doesn't feel a thing.

When she opens her e-mail there's a message waiting for her from Booth. It's the first he's spoken to her in a week, and while one would think that seven days would provide enough time for her to be ready for a discussion, she's back to feeling angry. Booth, however, has no apparent hang-ups.

Dear Bones,

Just wanted to remind you about our session with Sweets today. Also, I don't know which loud mouth squint told him about Hannah, but he knows and he apparently thinks that means we need two sessions a week for the next little while. Brutal, right? I know we haven't talked since we had our little argument, but I wanted to give you a heads up. Meet you there. Let me know when the DNA results come in for our case.

Booth

She's wondering how she didn't see through this before. How she had let Booth's faux cheer and plastic smile confuse her into thinking she was picking up on something that just wasn't there. Back when she had still thought that if enough time passed they could just fall back to the way they were and she had asked, "What's wrong?" and he had smiled back, "Why would you think there was something wrong?" and she had assumed that she had got the emotional interpretation wrong again.

And with a sinking feeling she realizes that had always been his intention. He has taken advantage of the way she trusts him to tell the truth.

She hits reply on the e-mail and begins to type.

Dear Booth,

I hate you. I hate you I hate you I hate you. You're a terrible friend and an even worse human being. You should be glad there is no God, because if there was one you would go straight to hell.

From, Temperance

She stares at the screen and then she hits backspace and watches the words disappear one character at a time. In the end she doesn't reply to the e-mail, and she doesn't show up for the session with Sweets. Because what's the point?

She goes home at eight o'clock that evening but she gets restless in her apartment and she's back at the Jeffersonian by nine. She turns all the lights on in the lab and she immediately feels tranquility settle in; she's home here and she loves her work. A lot of things have changed in the months since she returned to D.C., but her love of her job has been a constant.

She chooses a box from bone storage with care and brings it back upstairs to the steel table, and everything is wonderful until she reaches into her coat pocket for her ipod and comes up empty. With a frown she sets her coat back on its hook and begins rifling through her purse, but it's not there either. It's docked in her living room.

Brennan sighs and then heads to Angela's office where she borrows a stereo that she's pretty sure belongs to Hodgins. She peruses Angela's small stack of CD's, but everything is either unappealing or unfamiliar so she resigns herself to the radio – even though she hates all the commercials and all the talking – and heads back to the platform.

For seventy three minutes exactly, things run smoothly. By minute eleven she's past her irritation with the seven minutes of commercials between songs, by minute twenty six it's all just background noise, by minute thirty two her mind is free of Booth, and by minute thirty four she enters that zone where she probably won't look up again or note the passing of time for another six hours.

Then at minute seventy four Cyndi Lauper comes on without warning and starts singing that song.

It brings Brennan back to her surroundings and for a split second she freezes, but it never takes rational thought long to return to her and after a beat she simply snaps off her gloves, picks up the remote control and tries to change the station.

The batteries in the remote are dead and nothing happens. And then that slow rage starts building. She calmly packs her bones back in their box and sets it aside, but the anger has already begun to fester and it's like when she pushed Jared off that bar stool or when she hit Heather Taffet with that briefcase; eventually it's going to go somewhere. But she hasn't really clued in to that yet.

So she puts aside her box and she approaches the stereo, and she tries to change the station manually. But Murphy's Law – which isn't even a real law – is in its prime tonight and nothing happens. Nothing. Even the power button won't work and she's stuck in Girls Just Wanna Have Fun hell.

That's all they really want, some fun; when the working day is done, girls-

Unplugging it would be sensible, but that's not what she does. Without any outward trace of emotion Brennan picks up a chair and she smashes it against the stereo as hard as she can. Crash. There is a satisfying shower of parts but it isn't anywhere near enough. So she lifts that chair above her head and she brings it down over and over again. Smash. Smash. Smash. She brings it down one final time, and the modern glass table shatters. What remains of the stereo falls to the cold floor and, winded, she lets her weapon drop from her hands to join the chaos.

That's when she notices the blood pooling amidst the debris. She frowns as she searches for the source, but when she takes notice of the split metal piping in the chair, she immediately shifts her gaze to her palms and finds her answer. The metal has given way under the force of her swing, and the fleshy inside of her hand has been cut by its jagged edge. She eyes the damage with disgust and hurries off the platform to collect the proper cleaning supplies.

She's already doused her palm mercilessly with hydrogen peroxide and bandaged it, and she's rifling through supplies when she thinks she hears a voice.

"Bones!"

She frowns and straightens from her position bent over the industrial disinfectants she has been gathering for the platform floor.

"Temperance!"

There is no mistaking it that time. Booth's voice. She suddenly understands people's propensity for melodramatic comparatives, because at the moment she believes that given a choice between merely seeing Booth and a conversation with Sweets about the supposed legitimacy of psychology in the scientific realm, she would prefer Sweets. Simply hearing Booth's voice re-fans the rage that caused her to turn on Hodgins' stereo in the first place. Brennan slams the bottle back in its place and storms toward the noise.

The sound of her heels must catch his attention, because he comes running out of her office, gun drawn, as she turns the corner. She doesn't flinch.

"Put that away," she glowers. "What do you want?"

"What do I- there's blood and glass everywhere up there. I thought something happened to you."

"Well, obviously I'm fine. I cut myself on the chair leg after I forced it through the table. Why are you here?"

"Angela said-

"Angela needs to learn how to mind her own business. If it's not about a case, you can go." She hisses.

Booth bristles. "What is your deal? You wouldn't just go destroying pieces of valuable equipment without a good reason."

He's talking to her as if the conversation in her office never happened. As if there's nothing wrong between them. She almost prefers the broody and cruel version of him from last week, because at least it was honest. Now he's just heaping fuel on the fire.

"Who are you to say what I would or wouldn't do, Booth? You have no idea. None."

"What happened? Is it your dad? Russ?"

"It's you." She explodes. Months and months of suppression and compartmentalization. She can't do it anymore. And that's yet another reason to hate him, because if he had just left her alone in the beginning this wouldn't be a problem now. But he pushed and pushed and pushed and now she doesn't know how to find her way back to who she used to be. "It's you, Booth. You started all this. And I will never, never forgive you. We're done."

"So it's my fault you went postal on the platform," he clarifies with a dubious smirk.

And then Brennan lets go of Seeley Booth. Because the man who befriended her would never act so callously after that kind of an emotional outpouring. Once again, they're back at the beginning. Oh, you hate me. What are you, ten years old? I'm not your dad. She thinks of the e-mail, of the way she has become so accustomed to trusting Booth's social cues that she has been second guessing herself and trying so hard to filter her thoughts, and she almost wants to hit him again but can't be bothered. He is the one with the problems. And he is no longer a concern of hers. She would have done anything for the Booth that gave her Jasper and Brainy smurf and taught her empathy and showed her the beauty of love and friendship and family. But that Booth never came back from Afghanistan, and this one is nothing to her.

"Yes," she seethes. "Everything you touch, you destroy. You think you did me this big favour by becoming a part of my life, but what have you really done, Booth? Before I met you, I was happy in my own way. I dated, I had Zack, I travelled the world… and you know what? I'm partially to blame for losing those things, but you ruined one of the best parts of my childhood. And I wish I had never met you."

He's quiet now. He's wiped that pretentious, I understand you better than you understand you look from his face and he seems to be finally recognizing that they aren't "bickering." There are no undertones of affection or respect this time around. It's about time he gets it. And she's the one who's supposedly emotionally handicapped. What a joke.

"Girls Just Want to Have Fun came on the radio. And for the first time in a very long time, hearing it didn't make me afraid. It didn't bring me back to that Karaoke bar and crush my heart. It made me furious. That memory was mine and my mother's; I don't have many of her and you took that one away from me."

He's frozen in stark confusion and she smirks, because for once he is the one emotionally in the dark and it gives her satisfaction to see him struggle. Just like that moment last week, she feels like she can see through him; she has finally managed to catch up to Booth in the one way he was always better than her. Even if her insight is fueled by anger and probably only temporary.

"The song started playing and instead of hairbrush-microphone, makeshift concerts in my bedroom with a woman who loved me, I think of blood and chaos in a shitty bar. And it still makes me furious because you're not worth it. If I had kept that memory to myself, you would still be the way you are now, but I would have Cyndi Lauper. I would have the vestiges of a me before Christmas without parents and the distinctive darkness that comes with being locked in the trunk of a car!"

"Bones…" He starts to move forward but even he can recognize the danger that glints in her eyes. They are darker than he's ever seen them before, and the unfamiliarity of it all stops him in his tracks.

Her resolve strengthens and that deadly, deadly fury pulses brighter inside her. She doesn't hide from the emotional intensity anymore; she welcomes it. Because maybe this degree of rage isn't rational, but it's sure as hell making her feel like she can do anything.

"Don't." Her voice is just above a whisper, but it is jaded and abrupt, and through it he knows he will never touch her again. "Don't you dare ever call me that again. My name is Dr. Temperance Brennan, and you will address me as such. We are not friends."

She turns on her heel to storm back to the solvents in the other room… there's still a mess to be cleaned. Blood is very difficult to adequately remove; she knows this better than most. But it's not impossible. Not for her.

Booth trails behind her but he doesn't make the mistake of touching her again, and that's good and bad at the same time. Because on the one hand he's learning, but on the other hand, remember earlier when she said she couldn't be bothered to hit him? That isn't quite true. Or maybe it was true, then, but now she's itching for him to give her a justifiable reason to punch him just one more time.