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Chapter Text

The Christmas lights twinkled along with the lights of the police cars in front of Christine Booth's childhood home. She sat on the steps of the front porch, watching her father talk to the officers who were visibly intimidated by him and were hiding it very poorly. She looked at the way one of the officers was standing oddly, subtly favouring one leg and wondered why he would have taken the cast off so quickly when it was clearly still bothering him. The hubris of law enforcement professionals really never ceased to baffle her no matter how many she came into contact with over the years. They always seemed to think they could get away with pushing through their bodies' limits. She had seen her own father's x-rays before and seen the anti-inflammatories that he took when he thought nobody was looking. That was clear proof that it all caught up with you eventually.

"Christine?" She blinked as her dad's voice cut through the lights and sirens. She raised her eyebrows in acknowledgement.

"Sweetie, why don't you go inside," he suggested. "Go keep your brother company. We're good here." She nodded and headed inside without a word. She knew it was just an excuse to get her away from the scene of the...well, it wasn't a crime. What would it be called? The scene of the disappearing? The scene of the leaving? None of that felt accurate, considering they didn't even though if this was the place where her mother disappeared from. It was just the last place she had been seen. What would one call that?

Whatever it would be called, she was happy for an excuse to get away from the scene of it.

3 weeks later

"They didn't have any more of the blueberry muffins so I got poppyseed instead," Christine said to Michael, collapsing into the chair next to him in their apartment.

"You know those are not even remotely the same thing, right?" Michael said, still grabbing one of the muffins. 

"Hey - you're lucky I even got out of bed today Michael Vincent," Christine replied, reaching over to him with her foot and pushing him. "Be grateful you got any muffins at all." Michael and Christine grew up going to each other's houses for play dates and sleepovers and were basically related in all ways but blood. They had always gotten along - minus some petty squabbles over crayons or toys when they were younger. Christine always told Michael everything and vice versa. To say they were best friends would be an understatement.

"Ow! God, you're annoyingly strong," Michael said, "and don't call me Michael Vincent. Makes it sound like you're mad at me."

"I am."

"No you're not," he said, handing her a muffin. "But you can be if that helps."

Christine groaned, picking at her muffin. She hadn't had much of an appetite for the last few weeks after everything that had happened when she had gone home for the holidays. 

Everything had seemed completely normal. She had gone home a couple weeks before Christmas. Her parents were making a big deal out of it like they always did. Her brothers had both made an appearance - Parker had stopped in before heading back to England to see his mom, and Hank was home briefly for the holidays before heading back to art school - and both her uncle's family and Michael's family were planning on coming over for Christmas dinner. 

Her mom and dad had been planning and prepping for the big event. Nothing out of the ordinary stood out to Christine no matter how many times she played it back in her head, trying to remember some detail she had clearly missed that would solve everything. All she knew was that everything was fine and then she woke up the next morning and her mother was gone.

She didn't come back that night. Or the night after that. It had been 3 weeks since and she still hadn't shown up. 

Her dad went into action as soon as she went missing. He was Seeley Booth after all, and if there was one thing he knew better than solving murders, it was his wife, Temperance Brennan. But you didn't need to know her as well as he did to know that it was extremely out of character for her to just up and leave out of nowhere. At least not without a very good reason to do so. And there was nothing indicating a very good reason. 

Which meant there were only 2 other options. She had been kidnapped, or she was dead. 

Whoever or whatever had happened had really covered their tracks. So far it was really presenting like a forensic anthropologist who had spent decades solving unsolvable murders had orchestrated a perfect disappearance. One of the officers made the mistake of suggesting that out loud and got an earful from her dad. It was satisfying to see, but the words rung in Christine's head like her mother's own voice was whispering them to her directly. As improbable as it felt that her mother would leave their family out of nowhere, the facts of the case did really seem to point in that direction. She couldn't tell if it was intuition, logic, or fear that made these thoughts so loud, but she couldn't stop thinking them.

It made it near impossible to focus on anything else. Not school, not work, and definitely not muffins.

"It doesn't help, but it distracted me for a second," she said, furrowing her brows.

"Any word from Uncle B?" Michael asked.

Christine shrugged and took a bite of her muffin. "He checked in," she recounted. "There's no news. He said not to worry and to focus on getting ready for the semester because that's what mom would want me to do."

"He's not wrong," Michael said, "and you know they finally passed over all the security tapes to my mom, right? I'm sure she'll find something the regular team missed."

Christine nodded, but the uneasy feeling in the back of her throat only grew stronger knowing that they hadn't found anything out of the ordinary on their home security system's tapes. She knew that her overly cautious and slightly paranoid parents (although, knowing their history, she understood why they were so paranoid) had set their home security system up to only be able to be accessed by their immediate family. Not even Aunt Angela knew how to access it, and she was her mom's best friend and the holder of all her secrets.

Christine looked at the clock on the wall and sighed. She was meeting with her academic advisor - something the school had very firmly suggested that she do in a way that made it very clear that it was not a suggestion - in 45 minutes.

"I'd better get ready," she said, leaving behind three quarters of her muffin on the coffee table. "I need to at least look somewhat presentable."

"Good call - if you show up looking like that, they'll definitely suggest that you take a leave of absence," Michael said, gesturing vaguely at her and then muttering only partially under his breath, "which wouldn't be the worst idea in the world considering -"

"Don't start," Christine cut him off."

"Chris, come on," he said, giving her a look that she could only interpret because she knew him so well. It said you know I'm right. It said don't be such a stubborn idiot. It said hey, you've been through a big, traumatic event and nobody would fault you for taking some time to be with your family. You shouldn't try to push through this because you're going to collapse at the most inconvenient moment and you know it. 

"There's nothing I could do to help, so why would I take a leave?" she asked, "just to sit around and mope?"

"Okay, okay, I get it. Don't shoot - I'm on your side," Michael said, raising his hands in surrender, "I was just saying. Most people would mope, but that's on me for thinking you would be most people."

Christine sighed and looked at the clock again. She did really need to get going. And she really didn't want to go. On some level, she did want to mope. And cry, and scream, and probably hit something. Instead, she would go and talk to her stupid academic advisor and try and convince them that she was of sound mind enough to remain in her graduate program for the semester.

"I have to go," she said, "and I know you're on my side - it's just not a great side to be on because I kind of suck right now."

"Don't be an idiot," he waved her off with a fond look, "things suck right now, not you. Now go get ready and get out of here before you're late and your advisor thinks you're traumatized and have bad time management skills."

"Right," Christine said, rolling her eyes.

-----

"Ms. Booth," Christine's academic advisor said to her from across the table in her office. The room was musty in the way most rooms that had many old books lining the walls were. Some of the built in furniture was original and had been maintained, but the desks and chairs had been replaced more recently, causing the atmosphere to have a lack of temporal cohesion in a way that made Christine feel uneasy. "I know we have discussed this at length via email, but I do want you to reconsider my suggestion to -"

"Yes, we did discuss it and I am very set on continuing on this year," Christine said, not letting her finish her sentence. 

"We were all very sorry to hear about your mother," her advisor said, slowly articulating her words as if she was afraid that she would trip over them somehow. Christine hated the way she said it. It made it sound like her mother was dead and she was in mourning. Her mother wasn't dead. At least, nothing had been confirmed yet. "And of course your instructors would understand if you needed to take some time -"

"I don't -"

"if you needed to take some time with your family," her advisor didn't let her interrupt this time, continuing on, "and, of course, your spot would be held for you until you return. I'm sure your mother would want you to be there with your family right now."

Christine knew that her mother, if she was in this position, would likely be doing the exact same calculations in her head that Christine was doing. She also knew that if anyone would understand the desire to throw herself into her work, it was Dr.Temperance Brennan. 

"I'm going to email you a recommendation for a professional who you may want to talk to," she said, holding her hand up to stop Christine from interrupting again before continuing, "and I want you to take a couple weeks. Take some time. You have some time before the semester starts to make a decision."

"With respect, I have already decided," Christine said, making her tone as firm as she could without sounding overtly hostile.

"Then in two weeks nothing will change," she replied, typing something on her computer. "I've sent you the recommendation via email. We can talk again in two weeks."

It was clear that the meeting was over, but Christine sat there for a moment, fuming and a little stunned, before getting up and leaving without saying anything else. Yeah, she really wanted to scream and hit something now. 

Her phone beeped as she left the building, alerting her that the email from her advisor came in. It was the name and number of a psychologist. 

Nope, absolutely not. There was no way in hell that she was going to talk to a shrink about her mother. It was too cliche. She got in her car, sent a text to Michael Vincent to let him know where she was going, and started driving back home. If she was being forced to 'take some time', she wasn't going to mope around her apartment. She was going to do something. 

Chapter Text

Christine arrived at her childhood home - only a few weeks since she left it last - and walked through the door to find her dad sitting at the kitchen island, looking over what looked like case files. She wondered if those had officially been given to him or if an over-eager agent had given him access to the documents when they technically shouldn't have. He quickly closed the files and looked towards the door when Christine entered.

Well, that answered that question.

"Honey, what are you doing home?" he asked. She loved that her dad still called it her 'home' even though she hadn't lived there full time since she was 19-years-old. Of course, she came home for the holidays and sometimes the summers, but she had been in college, and now grad school. But even so, she still felt the most 'home' when she was here.

Although maybe not right in this moment. The absence of her mother loomed heavy over the whole house. It was as if she was haunting the place. Her books were on the coffee table. Some weird artifact she had been looking at for some museum was sitting in a crate in the dining room. Her coffee cup was still sitting in the sink, a brown ring staining the bottom where the leftover coffee had slowly dried out over the 3 weeks her dad had neglected to wash it.

A second question entered Christine's mind. She wondered if her dad could bear to stay living in this house if they never located her mom. 

She shook her head as if to dislodge the horrible thought from her brain before answering her dad's question. "They told me to 'take some time', whatever that means", she replied, fighting the urge to roll her eyes, "and they want me to see a shrink."

"Well, okay then," he said, his brows knitting together for a moment before he schooled his expression. "That might be a good idea."

"Dad, you hate shrinks."

"Not all of them," he said, shrugging. "Just the shrinky ones."

"Well I'm guessing this one is a shrinky one." Christine sat down next to her dad at the kitchen island. She tried to peak over at the files he had, but he moved them out of sight as soon as she sat down. "Is it mom's?" she asked.

He grunted noncommittally - a confirmation without having to confirm anything. 

"Can I see them?" she asked.

"Absolutely not," he said. Oh, so that he was willing to answer. "I'm not even supposed to be seeing them."

"Can you tell me what's in them at least?" she asked, really not willing to let this go. He shook his head and piled all the files on top of each other and put them in his briefcase - out of sight, out of mind. Christine did notice that there was a good stack of them. Was that a good thing or a bad thing, she wondered. Did that mean they were doing a very thorough investigation? Or did it simply mean that there was a lot of background information on her mom because she had worked with the FBI for so many years in her role as a forensic anthropologist? 

"It's nothing you need to concern yourself with," her dad said, "all you need to know is that everyone is doing everything they can to find your mother."

"And? Have they found anything?"

Christine watched her dad's face darken and his lips become a thin line when she asked that question. So they hadn't found anything at all - at least nothing that would help them find her mother - and he was trying to decide the best way to tell her without crushing her. She decided to beat him to the punch so he didn't have to agonize about it.

"Nothing," she stated, trying to keep back the frustration she felt from her voice and only partially succeeding in that endeavour. "I guess if anyone could go missing without a trace, it's mom."

"Sweetheart -" he started.

"I'm tired," she cut him off. She knew she wasn't handling this well and that it was in both her and her dad's best interest for her to leave the scene before things got ugly, "I think I"m going to take a nap."

Her dad nodded and patted her on the head like when she was little. Unexpectedly, she felt tears sting her eyes and had to blink them away as she got up and made her way to her room. 

-----

2 weeks ago - Christmas day

Christine had tossed and turned the whole night but she must've eventually fallen asleep because she found herself waking up. Knowing the following day was Christmas Day had made it really difficult to quiet her mind enough to sleep. She stared at the ceiling for a while before mustering up enough energy and willpower to get up and face Christmas.

A whole lot of nothing had been happening in their home since last week when her mother had gone missing. Well, actually, the first few days had been a whirlwind of statements to police and strangers in their home. They had taken pictures of everything and samples and swabs before leaving in the same flurry of action and hectic energy they arrived with. After that, it was just them and the eerie quiet in their typically loud and lively home.

After getting ready, Christine went downstairs to find the tree decorated and lit with lights and the presents they had put away placed around the tree. For a moment, Christine's wishful thinking moved faster than her brain and she heard herself call out, "mom?"

She clapped a hand over her mouth as she caught up with herself and reality. She suddenly felt like she had had the wind knocked out of her. Up to that point, she really hadn't felt much of anything at all - maybe she hadn't let herself feel it - but in that moment it all came crashing down on her. 

She became aware that she was sobbing but she couldn't hear herself or feel the tears on her face.

She couldn't even hear what her dad was saying to her when he found her moments later, and she couldn't feel it when he carried her back upstairs and held her while she cried like she was a little kid again. 

-----

Present day

Christine opened her closet, maybe looking for something more comfortable to wear than the business casual look she had on, maybe just out of habit. She stared at her nearly empty closet for any options and found nothing.

Against her better judgement, she decided to look in her mom's closet for something to wear. 

While she was rummaging around for some sweatpants and a t-shirt of some kind, she found a small cardboard box full of labelled USB sticks and stopped dead in her tracks. They were voice recordings from her mom. She picked a couple up and read the labels.

Dr. T. Brennan (2025-10-05). Dr. T. Brennan (2025-11-12).

"Oh my god," Christine whispered to herself. She picked up a few more, looking for the most recent ones. Her mom had been recording herself leading up to her disappearance. She had always dictated notes at work, and Christine knew that she sometimes dictated notes for her books or any personal projects at home. Nobody had picked these up and listened to them. Either they missed them entirely or thought they wouldn't have anything important on them.

Dr. T. Brennan (2025-02-12). Dr. T. Brennan (2025-03-12). Dr. T. Brennan (2025-04-12).

Three consecutive days. All leading up to the day she went missing.

Christine had no idea what it meant - if it meant anything. But she knew she needed to listen to them. And she knew she had to keep it to herself. At least for now.

Chapter Text

Christine suddenly regretted not packing before driving home, cursing her own temper and impulsivity for leaving her unprepared. She couldn't help but think that her mom was right and that she too often let herself get swept up by her own emotions. She pocketed the three USB drives and went back to her room. She thought she might have an old laptop lying around somewhere.

Christine's childhood bedroom was largely unchanged from how she left it when she moved out. Her parents had kept their children's rooms as they were, leaving them as landing spots for any of them to return to if they needed. She opened a drawer that had remnants of stickers she had stuck on and then later tried to peel off on the front of it. She couldn't remember exactly what the stickers were, but based on the colours they might've been cars, or flowers, or maybe frogs? Inside the top drawer were stacks of notebooks from high school that she had tucked away and, as she suspected, a couple old laptops. Apparently past Christine had designated this drawer for old stuff she didn't need but wasn't ready to throw away yet.

She silently thanked her past self for being a bit of a hoarder and plugged in what looked to be the newer of the two laptops, thinking that it probably had the better chance of actually working. She opened the first of the files on the USB once she got the laptop booted up.

The majority of the trauma to the skull appears to post-mortem in nature - 

Christine quickly paused the recording when she heard her mom's voice. Her fingers hovered over the buttons while she steeled herself. It was strange to hear her mom's voice come out from the speakers. The subject matter was what Christine should have expected - no matter what work or leisure activity Temperance Brennan took up, bones always seemed to come up - but there had been a small part of her that had silently hoped that her mom would have just left behind some handy coordinates to where she could be found and that this whole thing could just be over. Christine chided herself for the irrational thought, took a deep breath, and pressed play.

Skull trauma was not the cause of death. The victim was stabbed multiple times with a knife. There was a longer pause and some shuffling on the recording before it continued. There appears to be some particulates embedded in the scapula and some - huh.

Christine heard footsteps on the recording. Something about the particulates embedded in the shoulder of the victim her mom was examining was apparently particularly interesting; interesting enough that her mom had gotten up without even stopping the recording. She could hear her talking to someone in the distance, but the recording wasn't clear enough to hear what she was saying. Her voice sounded different. Slightly faster and a bit higher pitched than the typically tone and timbre of her mom's voice. Was it excitement? Fear? Something else? Christine went through the rolodex of emotional states in her head to try and match it with what she was hearing - a task that was admittedly difficult to do considering the lack of context and visual information.

Take a look at that. Her mom's voice came back into focus as she re-entered the room.

Okay, I'm looking. A voice that Christine recognized as Jack Hodgins said. He must've been who her mom had rushed off to talk to. Okay, what am I looking at? 

That right there - you don't see that? There was something a bit frantic - potentially even anxious - about the way her mom was speaking. Christine wasn't used to hearing it. She felt about as lost as Uncle Jack probably did. If only she could be looking at what her mom was looking at, then she would know why what they were looking at was so important. 

Hello, bugs and slime guy over here. Enlighten me. 

Just...look. Christine heard what sounded like typing and a clicking of a mouse. There...and there. What does that look like to you? There was another long pause. Christine leaned in as if she would be able to discern what was going on better if she was closer to the screen displaying the waveforms of the disembodied voices.

You're not suggesting - Uncle Jack cut himself off before finishing his sentence. Another pause, then whispers that she couldn't make out. It seemed strange that they would need to whisper about whatever case they were discussing. 

I'll analyze the particulates you found. She heard uncle Jack say. Did you tell Booth about this?

Not yet. 

Maybe leave this part out until we know something for sure. Uncle Jack suggested. I know it's not ideal, but no need to freak everyone out until we know there's something to freak out about. Cone of silence.

Damn it. If her dad didn't know about this case, then she couldn't ask him what this was all about. It must've been something that would be upsetting to him though, if her mom would have agreed to keep something a secret from her dad. That wasn't something that Christine knew them to do often.

I don't know what that means. Christine heard her mom say. But...we should be able to figure this out without involving everyone else. At least not right away. Given the situation... she trailed off.

Agreed. Uncle Jack replied. It could be nothing.

I'll pull the case files to be certain. 

The rest of the recording seemed unremarkable. Christine noted down the important information that her mom provided about the case, but she couldn't figure out what had precipitated that initial interaction between her mom and uncle Jack. Everything else about the case that her mom had noted seemed rather mundane. There was something Christine was missing. She listened to the whole recording two more times before giving up on deciphering anything more of note from it.

"What was that about?" Christine wondered out loud to herself. It was clear that something about this case had led both her mom and uncle Jack to be heightened in some way. Were they scared? Distressed? She very abruptly realized that this kind of thing was really not her area of expertise. She had been hoping for some insight into her mom's state of being and the context surrounding it to get some clues into what had been going on before she disappeared, but all she could really garner from this was that she had been working on a case - which she often did - and that it had evoked some potentially negative feelings in her in some way. Oh, and it was something that needed to be kept a secret.

Christine supposed she could ask her dad - there was a chance that he could figure out what was going on based on the recording even if her mom hadn't told him the specifics - but she had a sneaking suspicion that he would also probably tell her not to worry and would hand over the recordings to the FBI before Christine could get any additional information from them. What she really needed was someone who could give her an expert opinion but not connected to her family or the authorities in any way. 

She had a thought and pulled out her phone to make what felt like a very ill-advised call.

"This is such a bad idea," she muttered to herself. The phone rang a few times before the person on the other end picked up. "Hello, yes, I'd like to make an appointment."