Brennan didn't know where she was going.

Rain poured down from the dark heavens. Her hair was soaked. Her clothes were so drenched they were making movement damn near impossible. But it didn't stop her. Street lights were her only companion. Occasionally a car would pass by. The glare from the headlights would bathe her body for a briefest of moments before moving on. It was late at night. She was a woman walking alone in the rain. Nobody cared. Why should they?

She couldn't believe what a mess her life had become. Actually, what a mess she had made it become. Everything that had happened was all her own fault. Normally she prided herself on being logical. Rational. So how could she have let all her guards down? Why had she allowed herself to be so foolish? So careless? Now she was paying the ultimate price.

Down another street she turned. Another car passed by her dangerously close. The jeopardy didn't even register in her rattled mind. She was too absorbed in her thoughts. Worries. Anxieties. What was she to do with herself? What would she tell her friends, when she could barely even accept the truth herself? What would she tell Booth?

A jagged bolt of lightning cracked the sky in two. In addition to the rain now hard icy pellets bounced off her head and shoulders. Still, she didn't feel it. She was numb completely to the core. In the back of her mind she could hear someone calling her name.

"Come on, pick a hand. Pick any hand."

Brennan propped herself up on one elbow. She looked across the bed at the man smirking back at her. Both of his hands were behind his back. She raised an eyebrow. "You only have two hands. I have a fifty fifty percent chance of picking the right one."

"So just pick one already!" He chuckled. "Quit leaving me in suspense here!"

She rolled her eyes. Her fingers brushed over his right arm. He drew his hand forward and extended an airline ticket. Hastily she plucked it from his hand. "What is this?"

He pulled his other hand around to show her an identical ticket. "Lets get away. Just the two of us. We can forget work." He playfully tackled her and pinned her down against the mattress. "It can just be us." He kissed her with force. To Brennan, it felt like passion.

She beamed brightly up at him when their embrace ended. "Just tell me when."

"BONES!"

Hands grabbed a hold of her shoulders. Brennan was spun around. She found herself face to face with Booth. Her partner. Her best friend. He was dressed oddly, in sweat pants and a simple gray tee shirt. Shoes weren't even on his feet. Obviously he'd left in a hurry. "What are you doing?"

She blinked at him cluelessly.

"You've passed by my apartment at least three times now. What's wrong?"

Her eyes held his with that same vacant stare. He didn't like what was going on here. "Come on." He put an arm around her shoulders. Protectively he led her to his apartment. She leaned into him. To balance her he reached across himself and settled his other hand on her waist. This was the most affection she'd seen from him in a long time. Not since Hannah had entered their lives. And certainly not since she'd left him.

They climbed up several sets of stairs until they reached his front door. It'd been left open, which again Brennan found strange. Just what had he seen in her that had caused so much panic? Maybe if her head didn't feel as though it were filled with cotton… maybe if she could think straight…

He eased her down onto his sofa. Then he bent before her. "Bones? What's wrong?"

"I'm cold." She finally found her voice. It was small. Quiet and strained.

"I would think so." He half smiled. "Go take a shower. If nothing else use my blow dryer and dry your hair. I'll see if I can't find something for you to change into."

"I have to go home…" She murmured in a far away voice. Her eyes drifted to the door.

"Whoa no. I don't think so. I'm not letting you go anywhere tonight. Not like this." The way she was acting was frightening him. He'd never seen her in such a state. He was half tempted to call Sweets once she was locked away in his bathroom.

Normally she'd argue with him. Her fierce sense of independence was something he'd always loved and respected about her. But whomever this was in front of him was a nothing more than a mere ghostly shadow of his partner. Brennan just nodded. She tried to stand up, only to land back down onto the sofa cushion.

"I'm just going to make you a bath, okay? Stay here. Don't move." He ordered, pointing his finger at her as though she were a child. He checked on her one last time before going. Fearfully his heart pounded like a bongo drum. What had happened to her? He'd never in all the years he'd been around her seen her like this. Whether she knew it or not she had obviously sought him out for a reason. Why else had she been pacing the block outside his apartment?

In the tub he turned on the faucet. Warm water began filling the porcelain basin. While it ran he went back for her. Just as before he had to support her. Outside the tub she managed to stand long enough to attempt to wiggle out from her clothes. The fabric refused to move from her body. Booth found himself reaching in to help. Over her head he gently removed the sweat shirt she'd been wearing. Don't stare at her don't stare at her don't stare at her. He directed his eyes up to the ceiling and tried very hard to ignore the fact that she was half naked right besides him. "There's soap and stuff next to the tub. Uh, if you need anything else, just yell." He fled like a terrified child.

Brennan finished undressing herself and eased her body into the tub. The warm water greeted her like an old friend. She laid back, burying herself deep underneath a blanket of bubbles. Her eyes closed. In the privacy of Booth's bathroom she let herself go. A few tears fell from her eyes. She wouldn't sob. She was done with it.

Sharp pain started penetrating through the numbness. It felt like a dagger to her heart. More tears cried out, falling steadier until her body shook softly with the effort of her emotion. Still, she made no sound.

The bathroom door opened slightly. Booth quietly tip toed in. He noticed Brennan's tears before anything else. Badly he wanted to reach out and console her. He wanted to hold her and dry those tears away. But since they didn't have that sort of relationship anymore he wouldn't cross the line. Instead he left one of his shirts for her on the edge of his sink. Then he left undetected.

It was some time before Brennan crawled out. She dried herself with a bath towel. In a smaller one she wrapped up her hair, which she'd scrubbed with some of Booth's shampoo. She realized later she'd end up smelling like him. But for tonight that was fine. Perhaps even comforting.

Over her shoulders she pulled on his shirt. There were no shorts or pajama bottoms; nothing else to go along with it. Everything he had was bound to be too big on her. But the hem of the shirt fell to her knees, turning into a makeshift nightgown. It would do.

She emerged from the bathroom. A shiver went down her spine from the sudden change in air temperature. She took the short walk into the living room where Booth was waiting. Tentatively she took a seat down on the couch next to him. He offered her a steaming cup of cocoa which he had made specifically for her. She accepted it and appreciatively took a sip. The warm chocolate soothed both her raw throat and nerves. "Thank you."

"What's going on, Bones? What's wrong?"

She flinched. "Why would you think something's wrong?"

Really? Was she really going to make a game out of this? Push him into bullying her for the truth? "Lets see. It's past two in the morning, you were outside walking circles around my apartment," he checked his list off on his fingers. "And you're not… you. If it wasn't you we were talking about here I'd think you were on drugs, or something."

She looked down at the mug she had her hands wrapped around. "Your observations are all correct. Except I haven't taken any mind altering substances."

Booth cracked a smile. "I wouldn't think so there, Bones. So what happened?" Carefully he removed the mug from her hands and placed it down onto his coffee table. Then he took her palm into his. "Talk to me."

She looked down at their joined embrace. This was the Booth she had missed. The man she'd fallen in love with, rejected, then regretted her chance. The man she'd tried to find in someone else and had failed, miserably. Booth was one of a kind. And while she'd always known that she'd tried to convince herself it wasn't true. "I made a big mistake." She admitted.

"What happened?"

With his rapt attention she began to replay the scenes which had led them to this very moment.