A/N: Thank you everyone for your kind words and support for this story. I had so much fun writing this one and I hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. As sad as I am to see this one end, I am really happy with how it came together. Enjoy!

Chapter 25: Epilogue

September 2005

Angela was late. Very late. As she frantically scanned the arrivals board for the flight that carried her best friend back from Guatemala, her ire grew when she saw that the board was malfunctioning.

"This board is broken. The arrivals board is not working. Uh, did anybody meet the flight from Guatemala? Aviateca airlines? What gate? Yeah, right. I'm late."

She ran over to the desk where she assumed a man who worked for the airline sat, typing frantically on his computer.

"Excuse me, uh, you have a computer glitch at the arrivals board," Angela said, leaning over the counter, trying to get the man's attention. He hadn't even made eye contact with her yet.

"Hello! Sir, excuse me, yoo-hoo…" Angela tried again and grimaced when the man held up one finger from his typing to silence her.

"Great," Angela said. Time to move to plan B. Thankful that she wore one of her more racy bras today, she ripped open her shirt, pleased when finally the man behind the desk looked up, suddenly interested in what she had to say.

"Yeah," Angela said, smirking at the man's expression. "Hi. The flight from Guatemala?"

"Tell me you tried 'excuse me' first," she heard from behind her. Turning around, she saw the person she was waiting for.

"Sweeeeetie," Angela drew out, quickly buttoning her shirt back up as she met her friend. She looked really god in her eco-warrior look. She looked tired but Angela could tell she looked content, happy with her dig. "Yes, I did," she said as she wrapped her friend in a hug. "Welcome home. Are you exhausted? Was Guatemala awful? Was it horribly backward?"

"And yet I was never reduced to flashing my boobs for information," Tempe replied, smiling at her friend's antics.

"Flash them for any fun reasons?" Angela came back with and Tempe couldn't help her widening smile. Angela had a way of helping her cut loose.

"I was literally neck deep in a mass grave, not romantic," Tempe told her.

"Well, that's good, because I'm pretty sure that husband of yours, your very own knight in FBI standard issue body armor, would have killed anyone who tried to hit on you, neck deep in a mass grave or not."

Tempe couldn't help but agree as they walked through the busy airport. She couldn't wait to get to the lab for two reasons: one, she wanted to drop off the skull that she currently had in her bag and two, she knew her son was probably still at the Jeffersonian daycare and she couldn't wait to see him after being gone for two weeks. She had debated about going on the dig for weeks before she decided to go, Booth finally convincing her that he and Parker would miss her terribly but would be okay. He knew that she still loved field work and she loved the fact that he didn't make her feel guilty about leaving her family for a couple of weeks.

"So sweetie, I know for a fact that there is a little blond boy who can't wait to see his mommy," Angela told her when they were in the car, headed toward the Jeffersonian. "He told Jack today that you were off looking for dinosaur bones."

Tempe smiled at what she was sure her son had told everyone. Tempe didn't believe in lying to children but Booth assured her that in this case, it would be better to tell Parker that she was indeed looking for dinosaur bones instead of digging through a mass grave. After thinking it over, she couldn't help but agree.

"I missed him so much, Ange. I love being in the field but I can't wait to have a quiet evening with Booth and Parker."

"Both your men are going to be so excited to see you that you will have anything other than a quiet evening. Sometimes, I don't know who has more energy: Booth or Parker," Ange said and Tempe laughed, agreeing with her statement.

As Ange talked, getting her caught up on the happenings in the Jeffersonian, Tempe's hand moved to her lower abdomen, resting over the life that she found out was growing there after the first week of the dig. She originally thought that the nausea was her body's reaction to the extreme change in environment but became suspicious when it persisted. After a blood test, she found out that she was indeed pregnant. She and Booth had been trying for a little over a year and a half now, ever since Parker was three and a half. But after being on birth control for so long, they knew it could take awhile but she had starting growing frustrated when it didn't happen. Now, she couldn't wait to tell her husband.

Looking at her watch when she and Angela got back to the Jeffersonian, she saw it was just about time for Booth to pick up Parker from the daycare anyway. Torn, she wanted to go see her son but knew she had to get the skull to the lab first. Angela helped her out.

"Give me the bag, sweetie. I'll talk to you later," she said, taking the bag and leaving, not giving Tempe any time to argue, as if she would want to.

She hurried through the hall of the Jeffersonian to the daycare, looking forward to holding her little boy. Rebecca and Jared saw Parker occasionally and Parker knew them as an aunt and uncle. Eventually, they planned on telling the boy but at five years old, he wouldn't understand any of that right now. Tempe could not imagine her life without him. She considered him her own, as she knew Booth did too, and he brought so much joy that it was well worth any of the exhaustion that came with raising a rambunctious five year old boy.

"Hey, Parker," she said as she walked into the daycare, seeing him playing with some Legos in the corner with another little boy.

"Mommy," he yelled, running at her as fast as his small legs could carry him. Tempe kneeled down and opened her arms, bracing for impact. She wasn't disappointed. Parker wrapped his arms around her neck in as big of a hug as he was capable of and Tempe Buried her face in his blond curls, smelling his shampoo and his distinct little boy smell.

"Mommy, guess what?" Parker started as he squirmed in her embrace, wanting to see her face. She let him go but kept her within the circle of her arms, where he happily stayed. "When you were gone, Daddy showed me how to throw a football! And we went to the zoo and saw a polar bear and I had lots of questions but Daddy said I had to ask you because you're a genius and then we went to the park again and I went down the big slide! And I missed you so much, Mommy," Parker continued. Tempe just smiled at him and nodded excitedly at his statements, energized by his excitement.

"Parker, what did you find?" she heard from behind her and looked up from her position on the floor with her son to see her husband standing right behind them, his eyes the exact same chocolate brown color as Parker's.

"Daddy, I found Mommy," Parker yelled, obviously delighted with Booth's question.

"You sure did, bub," Booth said, pulling Tempe up by her hand and wrapping her up in his embrace. "Hey, babe," he whispered in her ear, making Tempe shiver.

"Hey, hon," she replied, using the term of endearment she had used their entire relationship. She leaned back to give him a kiss, one he returned whole-heartedly. The kiss was getting a little out of hand, after all, they hadn't seen each other in two weeks, when Parker called them back to their surroundings.

"Mommy, can we go home now? I'm starving," her son said, running back inside the daycare to grab his backpack. Since he was starting kindergarten in two weeks, they had started letting him pack a backpack to daycare to help him adjust.

"Yeah, Daddy, let's go home," Tempe told him, taking one of his hands from around her back and placing on her lower abdomen. "We've got some celebrating to do."

Tempe smiled as she saw the realization dawn across Booth's face, his eyes widening as he looked down to where she had placed his hand.

"Yeah?" he asked, starting to softly caress the area with his hand. Tempe felt herself choking up at the look of pure joy she saw and quickly chalked it up to her body's increased hormones.

"Yes. It looks like we'll have to start converting our office into another bedroom because it about seven months, we are going to need it."

Booth pulled her to him tightly, almost lifting her up off the ground. "Thank you so much, Bones. I love you," he told her from where his face was buried in her neck. She stroked the back of his neck, raking her nails lightly at his hairline and couldn't help but being truly happy.

Walking out of the Jeffersonian, one of her hands holding Booth's and the other holding Parker's, she was thinking about her many labels; wife, mother, forensic anthropologist, daughter, and couldn't help but think how all of them together was nothing that she expected but exactly what she wanted.

"Oh, Bones, I forgot to tell you," he said after buckling Parker into the back seat and closing the door so he wouldn't hear. "A decomposed corpse was found this morning at Arlington National Cemetery down…"

"But Booth, Arlington National Cemetery is full of decomposed corpses, it's… a cemetery."