Yes, I am still alive, dear readers! I've been very busy, I'm sure you know how life can get sometimes. Anyway, here's a new chapter. This one is dedicated to Bindiya, for going through the trouble of emailing me to let me know that she liked the story. I hope you like this chapter as well!

I still don't own Bones, there's talk that I never will.

- AllysonHale

Truth Be Told – by AllysonHale

4th theme: Dark

"Doctor Brennan?" Grad student and assistant Zach Addy slid his magnetic card through the slot, before entering the forensic platform. He held his arms close to his sides and walked with quick strides, passing others in blue lab coats without throwing them a single look. Brennan stood bend over a gurney with a human skeleton. She too was dressed in a blue lab coat and held what appeared to be the right tibia in her gloved hands. Upon hearing her name, she straightened her back and looked up.

"Yes, Zach?"

"You requested me to notify you whenever Agent Booth was trying to contact you?" Zach hesitated. He took a few quick glances around as if making sure that nobody was going to jump out right in front of him. Lucky for him, everybody seemed very focussed on their tasks at hand. The only sounds that could be heard all through the auditorium were the beeping of computers and the soft humming of the airconditioning. Papers rustled, here and there a shoe squeeked on the smooth floor. Brennan sighed and shook her head slightly before turning her attention back to the bone that rested in her hands.

"Never ever put him through, I don't care what Doctor Goodman says. Tell him to go to hell or call the forensic anthropologist in Montréal. Or both…," she said, stepping forward to the gurney and grabbing another tibia. Squinting her eyes, she compared both bones underneath the light, before reaching out to glance it over underneath the magnifier. The hardness in her voice caught the attention of another doctor present in the room.

"Woah, what ever happened between you and Agent B?" Doctor Jack Hodgins asked, turning around from the computer screen to the right of the platform. His blue eyes met Brennan's for a second before she closed her mouth and shook her head slightly, once again averting her eyes. Zach thoughtfully decided to refrain from any further clarification. Doctor Brennan had enlightened him with the short version and specifically asked him to keep that knowledge to himself.

"Don't ask," she commented. A sly smile started forming on Hodgins' face, a familiar glint in his eye betrayed that he believed the reason for their argument to be quite humorous. He dropped his hands in his pockets and then turned his attention to Zach as well.

"This is probably good! I should tell Angela about this," he said, half-smiling. Doctor Brennan looked up from the gurney to roll her eyes in annoyance.

"Angela is very much aware of the situation between me and Booth, believe me," she muttered in a low voice. She cleared her throat before frowning in confusion at the knowledge that Zach was still present in the room and staring intently at her. "What's wrong, Zach?"

"Agent Booth is not specifically trying to contact you," he said. Brennan's frown furrowed deeper and she had to remind herself to be a little more patient with Zach. Like her, he was not keen on sharing more details of information than was strictly necessary. "He is downstairs in the parking lot."

"So…?" Zach took a deep breath before voicing his thoughts in one breath.

"He appears to be unconscious."

Three people entered the crowded parking lot as they came running from the stairs. Brennan was the first one to cross the lot, with Zach and Hodgins following close behind her. Zach did not have to give her any directions. Although she had only worked with Booth once, she could recognise his car out of thousands. Whether it was the fact that his car was so extraordinarily big, she was good with remembering number plates or merely because his car had tinted windows, Brennan was able to hurry right towards it.

She walked to the driver's side and looked through the side window. Zach was right. Booth was sitting behind the wheel with his eyes closed, his face relaxed. Brennan looked him up and down. No visible trauma, no blood, nothing.

"Did you try to wake him up first?" Brennan asked, sliding her hands back in the pockets of her lab coat, reaching for her cell phone. She did not take her eyes off of Booth yet. She could not really tell for certain whether or not he was breathing. He was encased in one of his suits. If needed, she could probably break the window.

"No I did not," Zach admitted, earning him looks from Brennan as well as Hodgins.

"You mean you didn't even tap on the glass?" Hodgins frowned at him in disbelieve. That kid was supposed to be a genius? Hodgins shook his head and looked around the parking lot. There were several camera's around here and the lot was dimly lit. No matter what had taken place here, they would surely be able to find it out.

"Booth?" Brennan called out, not too loud. Booth did not respond. "Booth?!" Louder this time, but still no sound or movement came from within the car. Brennan slapped against the side window with a flat palm, but still nothing happened. Brennan looked at Zach and Hodgins for help before they all turned to the car.

"Booth! Booth!" All three of them were now shouting his name while banging their hands and fists to the side of the car, desperate to earn at least a slight response from him that indicated he was still alive. And a response they got…

Booth sat up straight, startled out of his mind at all the noise and his body jumped up from his seat. Fighting the urge to immediately draw his gun and start shooting like a mad man, he looked over to his side to look in the concerned eyes of the beautiful Temperance Brennan, another man and a kid. Trying very hard to keep his breathing under control as the banging ceased, Booth needed several seconds to collect himself as he closed his eyes and opened the door.

"Bones! What the hell?!" he demanded. He kept his eyes closed and slumped forward in his seat again as he felt like the car was swaying. Brennan leaned back and sighed, visibly frustrated.

"Oh great, he was just asleep. Zach, the next time you find him here, you can just let him die," Brennan said, before getting up from her bend position. She was already turning herself around, preparing to walk off to get back to her remains as quickly as possible, when Hodgins spoke up.

"Dude, you don't look so good…" Booth raised up a finger.

"Okay, for one, I am not your 'dude', alright? And second, my migraine is killing me. I'm very light sensitive. I can't come into daylight without my head exploding, " Booth noted, all the while keeping his eyes closed.

"Almost like a vampire," Zach diagnosed.

"Almost like a gambling addict who drank too much," Brennan added salt to the wounds. That man had some nerve!

"Gambling? Drinking? What's all that about?" Hodgins wanted to know. Brennan shook her head and knelt down again. She took a pocket light from a pocket in her lab coat and clicked it on.

"Open your eyes for me," Brennan requested demandingly. Booth sat up straighter at the feel of doctor Brennan leaning in so close to him. He could feel her breath ghosting past his cheek.

"What?" he did not understand why she was asking, but he obliged anyway. When he opened his eyes, he saw Brennan peering into his eyes with a light. The brightness sent needle sharp pains right to his brain. "Argh!" Instinctively, he pressed his eyes close again to ease the discomfort. Brennan, however, pried his left eye open with her fingers. "Hey, watch it with the light!" She then moved on to the other eye, ignoring Booth's protesting grunts, before dropping her hand with the light and letting go of him. She sat back and clicked off the light.

"Well, his pupils are responsive and not severely dilated, meaning substance abuse is unlikely," Brennan diagnosed.

"I haven't been drinking! I told you, it's the migraine!" Booth complained. Brennan put the light back in her pocket as Booth shielded his eyes with his hands.

"Good luck with that. Sun sets in about five hours. You might want to wait for that if you are as light sensitive as you claim to be." Brennan squinted at him before she got back up on her feet. Hodgins, leaning against the car with his hands in his pocket, looked from Booth to Brennan and back.

"You have a dark office, doctor Brennan, and a couch for agent Booth to rest on," Hodgins suggested. Brennan turned her head towards him with a jerk. Oh, if eyes could shoot fire, doctor Hodgins would have been burned to a crisp right now. Hodgins replied it with a slight nod of the head in Booth's direction. The man could not help being ill! It could happen to anybody! Surely, if it had been her in his position, she would not appreciate rotting away in a car for five hours in a cold parking lot that smelled like gasoline and motor oil.

"I have work to do in my office," Brennan claimed.

"But you were just working on the forensic platform," Zach chimed in, blissfully unaware of the fact that he was putting his job on the line as Brennan shot him a look as well.

"My computer is there," Brennan defended her disposition. Hodgins stepped forward and placed a friendly hand on Booth's shoulder. On every other occasion, Booth would have shrugged or slapped it off, but now he felt in too much pain to even care. The cocky smile that usually graced his lips was now untraceable and nowhere to be found.

"I'm sure that he won't mind, do you Agent B?"

"I'd appreciate it a lot, Bones," Booth opened one brown eye to look up at her. Brennan felt like she was standing with her back against the wall as three people awaited her response. She bit her lip and nodded, not so much in agreement but rather in defeat.

"Fine, but you have to be out by sunset," and once again, she turned around and walked off. Anger radiated off of her. "And don't call me Bones!" Hodgins finally allowed himself to let a chuckle escape from his throat.

"Dude…you really pissed her off!" Hodgins enlightened Booth, who grabbed his coat from the passengers seat and tried to put it on with his eyes still closed.

"Well, it didn't take much," Booth replied. Zach found himself in a position again in which he was not sure of his task or the value of his presence. His eyes rested on Booth with an uneasy frown.

"Should I get a gurney down here?"

Ten minutes later, Booth found himself stationed on the couch of Temperance Brennan's office. His head rested on a pillow against the arm of the couch. A thin blue blanket covered his legs. He had one arm draped over his head. It was dark in here, thankfully. The temperature was pleasantly cool and not the damp suffocating heat that his own office used to know. Brennan was looking down on him from behind her desk. She was turning herself from left to right in her chair as she shuffled her feet.

"Do you have these migraines a lot?" she asked, not caring whether or not he was asleep. She heard a slight intake of breath – good, he was not sleeping – before he spoke up.

"It differs. When I'm under a huge pressure or under a lot of stress, it tends to get worse," he told her. Brennan lowered her eyes and let this information sink in for a few minutes before she looked back at him.

"What do you feel pressured about?" He replied her with a sigh first.

"Many things." There was a pause in which neither of them said anything. "Matters of the heart."

"You have a heart disease?" Brennan frowned, followed by Booth.

"What? No! What I mean is that there are things bothering me, that mean a lot to me. They are important to me, which makes it so difficult to cope," Booth tried to explain. He thought of gambling, he thought of his job, he thought of his son, he thought of bones...

"So…the heart is a metaphor for important things?" Brennan thought about it for a little while. "It makes sense. The heart is a very important muscle." Booth opened his eyes and shook his head.

"You're just not getting it, do you?" Brennan's head snapped up.

"Is this some psychology thing then? Because I hate psychology. It is not my field of expertise."

"Obviously," Booth commented. Brennan's eyes hardened and she opened her mouth to say something, but decided wisely against it. How was it that she could not talk to this man for five minutes before things got out of hand and they were bickering again? Special Agent Seeley Booth did not bring out the best in her.

"What did you come to do here anyway?" Brennan asked instead. After all, they found him in the parking lot so he must have wanted something.

"I came to make amends," Booth said. In the dark, his head ache was considerably less. Carefully pushing the blanket aside, he sat up straight. Brennan watched how he threw his legs over the edge of the sofa.

"Amends?" Brennan questioned. Booth's feet met the ground and he rested a while, his head hanging as he was sitting up again. He felt a dull ache on the right side of his head. Migraines were crazy like that. Every attack seemed different from the last time; sometimes he saw flashes before his eyes, sometimes he could pinpoint the center of the pain exactly and other times it did not make any sense at all. It made him want to curl up into a corner and die sometimes, although Booth was a man that could easily handle pain.

"Yes Bones, amends." He stood up and slowly, started to approach her. Brennan swallowed nervously, unsure of what was coming next. "I quit gambling, I'm doing the twelve-step-program. Step nine; apologise to those you've hurt. I came to apologise to you."

Another nervous swallow as he was coming very close towards her. "You didn't hurt me." Booth was now standing right in front of her desk. He leaned forward, palms resting on top of the desk.

"I have, Bones, I did hurt you. I haven't been fair to you. I was working with you, but I went gambling instead of helping you with our case. I haven't given you the respect you deserve," Booth explained, instinctively leaning into her. Their eyes locked. Brennan's breath caught in her throat. Did he expect her to lean back or to say something?

"What do you say? Will you forgive me?" Never taking her eyes off of Booth's, she inhaled deeply. There it was. Just like that, there was something other than the sheer annoyance that he always used to spark within her.

"Well, I'm glad to see that you two are making up in the dark," two faces turned towards the door. Angela stood with her hands on her hips, a very evident smile on her face that could be seen even in the dark. "What is this? 'Up Close and Personal with Booth and Brennan?'"

Brennan turned back to look at Booth. Suddenly he seemed aware of their close proximity as well as his gaze lowered towards her lips and he quickly leaned back. Brennan turned to the right in her chair. "I have to go," she said, quickly getting to her feet and following a grinning Angela out the door. Angela took a few steps back so Brennan could pass.

"I ran your scenario from the Delvin's case through the Angelator. Do you want to come and have a look?" Angela asked her. Brennan nodded at her best friend.

"Sure, you go ahead. I'll be right over." Angela shot her one last naughty smile and made Brennan want to roll her eyes, before turning around and walking off. Brennan looked back at the man, who only appeared as a shadow as she stood in the doorway. No wonder Angela was getting all these funny ideas. "You should rest," she placed her hand on the door handle and pulled the door towards her. "Feel free to use my couch for as long as you need." Brennan quickly closed the door without waiting for another reply and headed after Angela, shaking her head at no one in particular.

Oh, I like awkward moments between Booth and Brennan, can you tell? Next: Booth makes a house call to Brennan, who appears to be leaving. Where is Brennan going? And why is Booth stopping by? While you are waiting for the next chapter to come out, let me know what you think of this story/chapter so far. I'd hugely appreciate it!