Title: Domesticating Temperance

Author: Lina

Summary: With the weight of human history weighing on her shoulders, can Temperance Brennan ever be anything other than alone?

Disclaimer: The character of Temperance Brennan belongs to Kathy Reichs. All other character belong to Fox and any other responsible parties.

Notes: This is an attempt to combine two loves of mine, I hope it executes. The narration is a bit confusing, but completely necessary. I also use lyrics for breaks in story. In this case: The Dreaming Tree.

Feedback: More welcome than GHB at a Frat Party.

Domesticating Temperance

Chapter One:

Standing here, the old man said to me

In 12,000 B.C., the Eastern World would be the first to attempt the most altering force in the history of man. Due to the changing climate brought on by the end of the Glacial Age, the precipitation and changing grassland forced early man to become more sedentary. Because they could no longer rely on their former hunting and gathering skills, early men and women were forced to take a good look around them….and watch. They quickly adapted to staying in one place, by herding the tamer of edible game and planting common edible flora. By 7,000 B.C. this practice would reach as far as the Middle East and Europe due to their own post-Ice Age climate changes. What the small world of hunter gatherers turned farmers would never know, was that by purely trying to feed themselves, they would completely change the world.

When mothers of the time procreated, they would breastfeed until the child was completely independently capable of chewing meat. The longer these women breastfed the longer their cycles would take to reengage and the longer it would take for them to procreate again. The domestication of plants and animals introduced grains into infant and toddler diet. They could chew or gum the grain and drink the milk of aurochs (ancient cows). This process would eventually cause the weaning period to greatly decrease and the amount of times a mother could become pregnant in her "prime" to greatly increase. Over the course of one thousand years, the population of the world would go from the thousands to the millions.

Long before these crowded streets

Temperance Brennan sat in the farthest corner of her bathroom she could possibly reach. Her arms were curled around her knees, bent to her chest, left cheek on her knees. She was contemplating early man. This is not an uncommon practice for one such as Tempe, she is an anthropologist after all. She often finds it comforting to contemplate such things when experiencing inner turmoil. It humbles her and makes sense of things that don't normally make sense to her. For example, in this case, early man's systematic conquering of the natural world and the population frenzy that ensues is like flipping a coin and finding that both sides are completely different from on another yet exist simultaneously on that coin. Tempe's life is very similar.

On the 12,000 B.C. side of the coin she lives all alone. She grew into adulthood all alone. She eats breakfast all alone, she studies bones all alone. She drifts from one solitary activity to the next because she no longer knows how to do anything but. Her embarrassingly short list of personal relationships have never lasted because no one else knew how to be alone quite like Tempe. She knew she lacked tact and had an over abundance of smarts and that, generally, irritated people. She hated that she irritated people, but because she'd been solitary for so long, she just couldn't bring her self to care enough to change. It was so less complicated when no one cared.

"Come on Bones, one more drink isn't gonna hurt you."

She gasped, her back straightened and she shook her head. She couldn't think about this. What was she thinking about? Oh yes. The coin.

On the 6,000 B.C. side of the coin she worked at the Jeffersonian in the Medico-Legal Lab with three extremely competent co-workers and one FBI agent. She was surrounded by people, strange people, all the time. She wasn't alone. She was a mentor, a friend, a….. partner. There people cared about what she thought, what she did. Her quirks were equaled and surpassed by those around her. If it wasn't Angela trying to take her dancing on a Friday night, it was Zach pleading with puppy-dog eyes for her approval. Hodgins spouting off torture devices and methods while Dr. Goodman's deep narration told them of ancient burial grounds and fundraisers. Then there was Seely Booth, there to whisk her away on criminal filled adventures. His sarcastic barbs a match for her stubborn intelligent snobbery.

"Jesus, Bones. I need to find my keys, where the hell are my keys?"

"Oh God, Booth. I don't know, just find them quickly, or we'll never make it."

"I'm trying. Oh god, I'm trying. It would help if we stopped."

"Don't want to stop…."

She rubbed her eyes. Trying to banish the rush of images. They wouldn't cease, they hadn't ceased at all. She checked her watch. How much time had passed. She had no idea. Time was a concept that she could comprehend scientifically, but when she had to rely on it pass it became completely foreign to her. She was used to days passing while she hunched over a glorified autopsy table. The time since it had happened seemed both an eternity and a blink of an eye ago. Certainly not enough time for this to have happened. Or maybe too much time. In the grand scheme of things this was nothing . A blip. The world's population had doubled a thousand times in a thousand years because someone had tied a cow to a post. Now she was going to increase the population because he tied her self to someone else's post. Dear Lord, now she was just getting vulgar.

His elbows locked, she was so aware of him. How he towered over her. He wore a look of wide eyed wonderment. She knew she looked the same. His palms rested on both sides of her head next to her much smaller hands completely fisted. He had a question in his eyes.

"Stop. Stop. Stopstopstop." She scrunched her eyes so tight, meaningless tears popped from between dry lids.

She opened her eyes and they immediately fell to the edge of her sink. The answer she already knew staring her in the face. She just stared and stared. Her knees contracted further into her chest, but the arms holding them were now shaking. No she was shaking. All of her. Her breath came out in short gasps.

This was it. The was where everything changed. She could mark all of the times where everything changed in her life with a red felt tip and they would line up like the eyes of a snake. Yes, all two marks. What was she thinking? What were her parents thinking?

"Oh, God."

"Oh, God. Tempe." The words were mumbled against the bare flesh where her arm met her shoulder. He chanted the name over and over, in syncopation with the movement of his hips against hers. It had never been like this before. She knew the minute her back had hit cotton sheet that she had sobered completely. It had never once crossed her mind that this was a mistake.

So this was what a mistake felt like. She'd never really made one in her life. Especially not of this magnitude. All of the faces from the coin's B-side swam in front of her face, mocking her. They told her she wasn't as smart as she looked, they told her she wasn't good enough. She shook her head against the images. All the images. She had never felt stupid before either. Even when people gave her funny looks or questioned what the hell she was talking about, she never felt stupid, she felt smart. Now, however she felt stupid. Actually she felt a little sick.

The sun streamed through the slats in the blinds, promising a new day. That's what woke her, the warmth of the sun…. and the coolness of the sheets. Sheets on bare skin. She never slept nude. That was her first coherent thought. The second was that this was not her room. No cat at the end of the bed, no large collection of books to greet her. There was however an armed forces plaque on the wall. That sunk in. She turned slowly to view a gloriously wide expanse of tanned back. That shot her upright. She forgot any modesty and got to her feet. She looked frantically around the room and spotted the satin and lace amidst the heather gray soft cotton of boxer briefs. Oh goodness. She had to go. She had to get out. She grabbed the scraps of necessary underclothing and left the room, knowing the rest of her clothing would not be there. Every time she would close her eyes for the next two months she would see the image permanently burned there. Seely Booth's bronze back striped with the glowing sun and framed by crisp white bed sheets.

She opened her eyes to relieve them of the familiar image and stared once again at the strip of plastic with the glaring blue end and knew that the coin she had so laughingly compared to her life just got thrown out the window. She wasn't alone. She would never be alone again. For the rest of her life she would have some one else to take care of.

She stood with trembling hands and reached past the life-altering object to grab her cellular phone from her discarded purse. She barely was able to find the number without dropping the phone. She did find it and after a deep breath pressed the necessary button to connect. One ring. Two.

"Angela?"

Here stood my Dreaming Tree

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tbc?