A/N: Okay, so this is my first story for Bones, so criticism is appreciated. This story takes place directly after Season Two.

Special Agent Seeley Booth sighed softly as he typed up the last few words of his report. Every single inch of his body was aching with exhaustion, from his feet, to his back, to his eyes, but he kept going, forcing his fingers to type out the familiar keystrokes that would finish the report- and end his time in this godforsaken city.

He read over the report one last time as he finished, looking for any accidental factual errors (though he would have bet his plane ticket home that there were none), and then again, looking for grammatical errors. His assistant could have taken care of that in the morning, but that would have required him to be here in the morning. He was hoping to well on his way back across the country by the time the eight o'clock shift started.

Convinced that his report was more than sufficient, he printed if off, signing his name at the bottom, and then stapling it to the top of the case file. Completed case file in hand, he then moved out into the dark hallway, walking towards the only other lighted office on the floor. He didn't bother knocking on the hard oak door. He was expected, and aside from that, the office's sole occupant didn't care much for him anyways. Not that he could particularly blame her. He assumed that the way he had treated her was just about on par with the way a seasoned baseball player would treat a high school catcher who happened to be taking his best friends spot on the team.

It wasn't that Allison Casey wasn't an excellent forensic anthropologist, because she was. A Harvard graduate with three doctorates, Dr. Casey was as good as any anthropologist on the west coast. She was just a little under thirty years old, fair skinned, with olive green eyes and sleek, raven colored locks that fell to just past her shoulder. She was sweet, funny, and had a television, so making conversation wasn't nearly as hard as he was used to, and she never complained about letting him drive. But he didn't call her Bones, and what he suspected had started off as annoyance towards Deputy director Sam Cullen, and Dr. Camille Saroyan, for not letting him bring his anthropologist with him, turned into distaste for the woman who was assigned to replace her.

But for all the shit he'd given her, though it was mostly an unconscious on his part, and all the hoops he made her jump though, she fared fairly well. He'd like to have said it was because of his good looks and charm, but since it so obviously wasn't, he assumed that it was due to either a pay raise, or more vacation time. He could definitely see that, work this case with the disgruntled, homesick, FIB homicide investigator, and we'll pay for a week in Cabo. Either way though, her relationship with him was never anything less than professional, and at times, it even seemed to verge on friendly. After all, she was at the office at ten o'clock on a Friday night, waiting for him to finish off the report for this case, so that he could be on his way.

He entered the room silently, and set the file on her desk, catching her attention with a slight cough and a knock on the hardwood desk. Dr. Casey looked up quickly, locking eyes with him fr only a second before she reached to her left, and slid open the file, signed off on the appropriate lines, and then tossed the blue folder back to him.

“Congratulations, Special Agent Booth, you can go home now.” She couldn't bring her tone to be anything short of friendly, mostly because that look in his eyes right now, was nothing short of pathetic. It was a deserving pathetic though, after all, he was in Cleveland, Ohio, and had been, for the past three months. He was tried, he missed his family, and his friends, his son, especially, and even though she knew he'd never admit it, he missed his partner.

“Thank you, Dr. Casey. It was nice working with you.” By the time he'd uttered the pleasantry, he was already halfway down the hallway, unable to find it in himself to care that she probably felt snubbed.

The small cubicle that had served as his office was already packed up. He hadn't brought much with him to begin with, so it had taken less than five minutes to throw his few pictures of himself and Parker, and the one picture of himself and his squint squad, into a cardboard box, and call it done. His hotel room too, had remained mostly empty, and to pack that up, he'd simply had to toss his toiletries into his duffel and zip it up. The standard issue navy FBI duffel was already ready and packed in his SUV.

Now, all that was left to was drop the file off in the office in box, and then drive to the airport. He couldn't have been more excited if he had of tried. After three months of working on three year old serial murder cases, he was finally on his way home.

His pace slowed slightly as he neared his office door, however, his Ranger training taking over as he heard voices coming from his office. He moved slowly, his adrenaline racing, towards his door, with his hand resting gently on his gun, prepared for the worst.

“Take your hand off the gun Booth, it's just me.” The sound of the Deputy Director's voice, coming from his office, had Seeley lost in limbo, unsure whether he should be worried, or excited. He settled on careful neutrality as he crossed the rest of the distance to his office, and then stepped inside.

True to his word, Booth found it was just Sam Cullen occupying his office when he made it inside, and found the older man comfortably seated in the office chair that sat behind the two-by-three desk he had been alloted here.

“Nice place, you've got yourself here.” His voice was seething with a practiced sarcastic humor as both men thought back to the office waiting for Booth back in Washington, an office that came complete with floor space, windows, and the desk his mother had bought him as a graduation present.

“Yes, sir.” Booth replied warily, still unsure of what exactly was going on, and, where he, after nearly three months of constant complaining, stood.

“You probably want to know why I'm here.” The older man chuckled lightly as Booth nodded, though his smile fell as he saw Booth's eyes catch on the blue case file that sat on the desk. “I'm sorry Booth, I know you were looking forward to going home, but I need you here.”

“I don't mean any disrespect sir, but you promised me I could leave after this case. You sent me here to solve a murder, and I solved it. And then you gave me another, and I solved that one. And it has been three months, and you promised I could go home. You promised I could see my son, my family my friends. What the hell is so important that all the sudden I have to stay in this goddamn city for another case?” Booth's face, already red with rage, contorted in confusion, as Cullen simply stepped aside, and then led him out the door.

Any anger, any rage, fell immediately from his face as he inhaled sharply, his heart stopping for a second, in panic, as he took in the sight in front of him.

Standing just a few yards to left, looking as always, startlingly professional in contrast to his “I'm leaving in three hours” tee shirt and jeans, was Temperance Brennan, pacing the dark halls of the almost empty Cleavland, Ohio FBI building, a disturbingly calm expression on her face, and a little girl gently bouncing in her arms.