Her eyes float over the bones lying on the table, snatching onto every detail and filing away for later reference. She observes many, many old injuries. Broken ribs, an old fracture of the clavicle, not so old head trauma, evidence of gunshot wounds... and serious remodelling of the bones in the feet.

Suddenly she can't breathe. Her phone is in her hand, again, and she's calling him, again, even though she knows now. Two days is a long time for them, but she brushed it off. He was mad at her. He was ignoring her, and she was being stubborn. The both lied. But bones don't. They tell the truth, regardless of what you want to hear.

She never, ever wanted to hear this. She wonders if she'll ever listen to a bone speak (metaphorically, of course) again.

She looks up, about to call Hodgins over in a decidedly wobbly voice. 'You need to come and look at the...'

The sentence stops. She doesn't know what to say. All her usual words – victim, bones, body, remains – seem empty and fragile, as though they would shatter under close examination. Especially remains.

What remains.

What remains, after what, exactly? After the brain stops firing neurons and thoughts cease? After the heart stops beating?

Or after something else leaves, as he was so fond of believing?

No, remains do not fit. These are not leftovers, nor are they the mere body of some victim. These bones, they have a name.

She traces the clavicle with trembling fingers, touching the thin bump where the bone broke.

My refrigerator blew him up.

Her hands cradle his arm bone gently, her thumb exploring the groove where a bullet tore through skin and muscle and, yes, bone, leaving him bleeding in her arms.

He took a bullet for me. He died. For a while.

She touches his ribs, his legs, his broken feet, until she can't ignore it any longer. She picks up the skull.

Smooth lines where surgical tools cut him open. A little healed crack, the result of one of many blows to the head ('You would think you'd have learnt to duck by now, Booth!').

You don't remember me?

And that is him. That is all that remains. He is gone, becoming nothing but a pile of bones on her clean table. Yet she feels that she is the one who is lost. Like her identity has been stolen from her, and all that is left of it is a few marks in these bones.

No. In Booth.

She's not the woman who would let a man define her. But she let him. And now he's here, but not really, so she's not really sure who she is. She was his. Now she's not. The world just stopped making sense.

Maybe the world just stopped turning.

'Hodgins? You need to come and look at Booth.'