Temperance "Bones" Brennan

Although Brennan seemed to have a relatively normal childhood, her parents disappeared when she was 15 years old.[10] Her older brother Russ (Loren Dean) was unable to care for her and she was put in the foster care system. By the time she started college she had been to 12 different schools and has specifically said that she hated the lack of consistency.[11]

There has been contradictory evidence about her time in the system; in one episode, Brennan states that her grandfather got her out of the foster system,[12] but in a later episode, she indicates that she never knew her grandparents (possibly the two references are to two separate sets of grandparents, paternal and maternal).[13] However, taking into consideration the fact that Brennan's parents had assumed new identities when she was three years old, the grandfather who had taken her in from her time in the foster system may not have been her biological grandfather.

Her time in foster care was quite traumatic and abusive; Brennan indicated that she was once locked in the trunk of a car for two days because she broke a plate,[14] and in the episode "The Finger in the Nest", she reveals to Booth that she walked into her elderly neighbor's house to find the woman dead. In the same episode, she also mentions to Booth that her parents were very concerned about her afterward, because she started faking her own death. In Season 2, she mentions that during her time in the foster care system, she kept a list of foster homes she had been kicked out of on the bottom of her shoe.

In the first season, she hands Booth the file on her parents' disappearance and he agrees to look into it as a personal favor.[15] It is later revealed in Season 2 that her parents, who were bank robbers specializing in safety deposit boxes, changed the family's identity after they stole some damaging FBI documents regarding the murder of an FBI agent and the false imprisonment of civil rights activist Marvin Beckett (Lou Beatty Jr.). Brennan's birth name was Joy Keenan.[7] Her mother (real name Ruth Keenan, known under the assumed identity of Christine Brennan) had hoped to someday return to her children and family, but made a tape for Brennan to watch on her 16th birthday in case that never happened. Brennan later discovered that Ruth/Christine was murdered in 1993, two years after she and her husband went on the run.

Her father Max Keenan (Ryan O'Neal) re-entered Brennan's life when she and her brother were being threatened by an old acquaintance, who turned out to be Booth's boss, Deputy Director Robert Kirby (Ryan Cutrona).[16] Max evades capture after killing Kirby, and takes Russ into hiding to protect him.[16] Later, Max allows Booth to arrest him in order to improve his relationship with his daughter.[13] At trial, Max is acquitted of murdering Kirby (due in large part to a defense Booth indirectly came up with, positing an alternate theory of the crime in which Temperance was the killer instead, creating reasonable doubt), and he begins to rebuild his life.[17]

He temporarily works at the Jeffersonian as a guide for children visiting the place and demonstrates his brilliant talent as a former science teacher. However, Brennan is concerned about a convicted felon having access to a lab that investigates crimes.[18] Max also introduces Brennan to her cousin Margaret Whitesell,[19] portrayed by Deschanel's real-life sister Zooey Deschanel.

Brennan is best friends with her coworker, Angela, saying in the 6th-season premiere that she loves Angela "like a sister" and is going to be an aunt to Hodgins and Angela's newborn child. It is revealed at the end of the season six finale "The Change in the Game" that Brennan is pregnant and the father is Booth.

In Season 7, Episode 2 "The Hot Dog in the Competition", Brennan and Booth found out they were having a baby girl. Their daughter, Christine Angela Booth (named for Brennan's mother and best friend Angela), was born in a stable during the episode "The Prisoner in the Pipe". In the Season 7 finale, "The Past in the Present", key evidence in the death of her friend, Ethan Sawyer (Darrin Toonder), is linked to Brennan. Max convinces her to go on the run along with Christine, saying that if she is arrested, even if she is found innocent, she may never see her daughter again.

In the Season 8 premiere, it is revealed that while on the run, Brennan was communicating with Angela via flowers and eventually used this as a way to communicate with Booth. Despite being on the run, Brennan risks her safety and decides to meet directly with Booth in a hotel room after months of being a single mother. Eventually, they arrest Sawyer's murderer, Christopher Pelant (Andrew Leeds), and Brennan is allowed to return to her family. Although Pelant blackmails Booth to prevent him from accepting Brennan's proposal by threatening to kill five innocent people if Booth accepted, also warning Booth not to give a reason for his refusal, this threat is removed when the team manages to kill Pelant, and Booth and Brennan marry in the Season 9 episode 6, 'The Woman in White'.

In the Season 10 episode, "The Eye in the Sky", Brennan learns that she is pregnant with her and Booth's second child.

Brennan has had a number of relatively short relationships, including an ill-fated date with a man who turned out to be a murderer[43] and the re-kindling of a romance with her former thesis supervisor. In the series' pilot episode, she has stated that although she does not always feel the need for a committed emotional relationship, she has engaged in casual relationships to "satisfy biological urges".[44] In one episode, she was spending time with two men, one for his intelligence and the other for his sexual prowess.[45] In Season 5, episode "The Plain in the Prodigy", she tells Booth she lost her virginity at the age of 22. When he asks her why she waited so long, she says that the decision was "important to her". After much character growth, Temperance Brennan is now married to her partner Seeley Booth, and they have a daughter and a son together.

At the start of the series, FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth is Brennan's partner, and the principal liaison between the Jeffersonian and law enforcement agencies. He is also Brennan's principal love interest throughout the series, with the two marrying and having children by the end of the series. Although his working style initially clashes with Brennan's,[5] they have since become full-fledged partners. Their compatibility has become one of the central points of the show, with many new characters mistaking them for a couple and co-workers, especially Angela, constantly speculating that they are "more than partners".[24] Booth and Brennan have repeatedly risked their safety to save each other, including when Booth took a bullet meant for Brennan.[25] After Booth rescues Brennan from the corrupt Agent Jamie Kenton (Adam Baldwin), Booth lifts her off the hook she is hanging on by putting her tied hands around his neck, even though he himself is severely injured.[46] In "Two Bodies in the Lab", in season 1, and in "The Rocker in the Rinse Cycle", in season 5, Brennan and Booth's mutual love for the Foreigner song "Hot Blooded" is mentioned; Booth even refers to it as "our song" in "The Rocker in the Rinse Cycle". Brennan once comments to Wyatt that she "[couldn't] think of anything [she] wouldn't do to help Booth."[47]

Initially Brennan is mostly dismissive of Booth due to their opposing worldviews and work styles – which is a source of friction and banter between them. Although she refuses to admit it at first, Brennan enjoys working with him from the beginning, even after they have a brief falling out after Booth gets her drunk and "fires" her. In Season 1, she cajoles him into launching an investigation after finding three bone fragments on a golf course so he can work with the Jeffersonian team on the case, despite the fact that the FBI technically has no jurisdiction.[15] She often unknowingly offends him on a number of occasions during the first few seasons with her tactlessness, only realizing after being gently admonished by Angela or another member of the team.[48][49][50] She comes to admire his ability to connect with people and read behavioral cues when interrogating suspects after coming to terms with her own lack of social skills. After finding out about his abusive childhood and haunted past in the Army, she also begins to respect him as a person. Booth, who is particularly taciturn in revealing emotions or speaking about his past, begins to open up to and confide in her. Since entering a relationship with (and eventually marrying) Booth, she is shown to be extremely supportive of him,[51][52][53] even at the expense of her friendship with Angela.[21] Additionally, she put aside her own misgivings several times for Booth's benefit; for example, she agrees to have Christine christened into the Catholic Church and references the Bible when trying to convince Booth to forgive his mother. In later seasons she is shown to be very protective of him and has inflicted physical pain on suspects who have harmed him, as seen in the season 11 episode "The Brother in the Basement" where she barges into the interrogation room and demands the suspect tell Agent James Aubrey (Philip Aubrey) where Booth is. She also punches a misogynistic suspect in "The Murder of the Meninist" to prevent an already irate Booth from doing so, which would have cost him his job. During their brief separation in season 10 due to the relapse of his gambling addiction, she also refuses to criticize him in front of her colleagues or Aubrey.

Brennan acquires the nickname "Bones" from Booth. She initially dislikes it, but comes to regard it with affection. Booth and his son Parker are the only characters in the show she permits to use it and the former rarely addresses her by her first name or "Tempe".

In Season 2 Brennan shoots and kills a person for the first time while working on a string of murders connected to serial killer Howard Epps (Heath Freeman). She is forced to pull the trigger after Epps' accomplice attacks and injures Booth with a pipe. At the end of the episode she confides in Booth of her conflicted feelings and finds comfort in the fact that Booth understands how she feels.[54]

When Brennan decides that she wants to have a baby, she asks Booth to be the sperm donor. He agrees to Brennan's request at first, but subsequently struggles with the thought of not being involved in the life of his prospective child. Eventually he tells Brennan he cannot let her have his child if he is not allowed to be a father to it. Soon thereafter, it is discovered that he has a (benign) brain tumor.[55] He has to undergo surgery, and though the surgery is successful, a poor reaction to anesthesia puts him in a coma for several days. While in his coma, Brennan reads to him from her new novel, and he has an elaborate dream in which Brennan is his wife and that she is pregnant, and that the staff at the Jeffersonian play the characters in the novel. When he awakens, he initially suffers from amnesia, not recognizing Brennan.[56][57]

Although for the majority of the series Booth and Brennan deny that their relationship is anything more than friendly professionalism, they admit to their colleague Dr. Lance Sweets (John Francis Daley) that they kissed and nearly spent the night together after their very first case together. After this discussion, Booth attempts to convince Brennan to give a relationship a try. However, she declines, telling him that she, unlike him, is not a gambler, and isn't able to take that kind of a chance.[6] They subsequently attempt to date other people,[58] although the fact that Booth once comments that he regards Brennan as his "standard" for other women suggests that he, at least, has not completely moved on. Brennan does admit to Angela that as time has gone on, she is unsure if she wants to keep doing consulting work for the FBI, as she is constantly worried that something will happen to Booth and she will be unable to save him. In the climax of Season Five, Brennan and Booth part ways for a year – he goes to Afghanistan while she leaves for the Maluku Islands in Indonesia – but they promise to meet, one year from that day, at the Lincoln Memorial.[40]

In the beginning of season six (seven months later), Booth returns from Afghanistan to help save Cam's job. Booth has a serious new girlfriend, Hannah Burley, and despite the hints of her colleagues at Brennan's unconscious jealousy of their relationship, she vehemently denies feeling uncomfortable with the new situation. Through subsequent episodes her jealousy and resentfulness become apparent as Hannah and Booth start becoming more serious. Although Brennan reveals via her vows on her wedding day ("The Woman in White") that she has been in love with Booth at least since she and Hodgins were buried alive ("Aliens in a Spaceship"), it is in the episode "The Doctor in the Photo" that she conveys her love to Booth and that she wants to be with him, but she is let down when Booth says that he loves Hannah. This prompts Brennan to conclude that she has missed her chance, later reflecting that she should move on. In episode 10 of the sixth season, "The Body in the Bag", Booth tells his girlfriend about the incident, stating that it (his love for Brennan) was all in the past and whatever he felt, he does not feel it anymore. However it is made clear in the following episode that he still has feelings for Brennan.

Despite her apparent resolve to move on, Brennan is saddened when her father noted that he always thought she and Booth would end up together. During a subsequent case involving a polygamist who would spend the night with his first wife on the night he was scheduled to sleep alone, Booth comments that, while you can love several people, there is only ever one person you love the most. Brennan asks him what happens when you push that person away, and he replies that it never truly leaves, adding further weight to the implication that he still has feelings for Brennan. Following Hannah's departure, the two begin to reconnect, to the point that, during a case that sees the two trapped in an elevator during a blackout for several hours, Booth and Brennan admit that they are each interested in a relationship but require more time to sort out their own feelings before they make such a commitment.

In episode 22 of season 6, "The Hole in the Heart", in which Vincent Nigel-Murray (Ryan Cartwright), Brennan's favorite intern, is murdered by renegade sniper Jacob Broadsky (Arnold Vosloo), Booth has Brennan stay at his apartment for her safety. Later that night, Brennan, still overcome with shock and grief over Vincent's death, goes into Booth's bedroom; they talk about the events of that day, and then she allows Booth to hold her in bed. It is implied in the following day that they had sex. In the last scene of the season 6 finale, "The Change in the Game", after the birth of Angela and Hodgins' son, Brennan tells Booth that she is pregnant and that he is the father.

At the start of Season 7, a very pregnant Brennan and Booth are a couple, but are going back and forth between apartments. Booth suggests that they should have their own place, whereas Brennan wants Booth to move into her apartment. It causes a minor rift between them, but is resolved when Booth admits why he wants to move into a new house and Brennan having some time to think over it says it is a good idea because she would need him practically, emotionally and sexually. In episode 6, "The Crack in the Code," they decide to buy a two-story house in the suburbs—which they jokingly called "The Mighty Hut"—that Booth found at a police auction and renovate it, (according to a mailed check sent to Brennan in "The Heiress in the Hill", in season 9, the "Mighty Hut"'s address is "1297 Janus Street, Washington DC, 20002"). In episode 7, "The Prisoner in the Pipe", Brennan goes into labor inside a prison just as she discovers who killed in an inmate there and Booth rushes her out with the intention to take her to the nearest hospital, but they both know she won't make it in time. This leads them to driving to an inn close to the prison. At first, they are rejected and are told to leave, but after some desperate pleading from an agonized Brennan, the two of them are led to a stall where she gives birth to their daughter, Christine Angela Booth (named after Temperance's mother, Christine Brennan, and Angela). Some time after the delivery, Temperance and Seeley both go back to their home where they celebrate with their friends from the Jeffersonian, who bring food and baby supplies. In "The Past in the Present", Brennan becomes the prime suspect in the murder of her schizophrenic friend, Ethan Sawyer, after supposedly threatening to kill Christine. Max advises Brennan to go into hiding, but she and Booth do not follow up at this suggestion. However, at the end of the episode, after Christine is christened, it is revealed Brennan decided to take her father's advice and flee with her daughter until her name is cleared. Just before Brennan flees town with Christine, she tells Booth she loves him. After she is cleared of Sawyer's murder, Brennan, Booth and Christine resume their family life.

The family reunite in the Season 8 premiere, and by the second episode, Bones and Christine have returned home. The couple have some difficulty readjusting after nearly three months apart with almost no contact with one another. Booth puts up a cheerful front, but is still resentful and bitter over the separation. They resolve their differences by the end of the episode.

At the end of Season 8, Brennan finally decides to marry Booth. However, their plans are ruined when Pelant blackmails Booth, threatening to kill five random people if Booth marries Brennan. Booth calls off the wedding but does not explain the real reason to Brennan. Brennan is devastated, but accepts his decision.[59][60] In the season 9 premiere, Brennan fears that since Booth turned down her proposal, the love from their life is fading. After talking with bartender Aldo Clemens (Mather Zickel), a former priest and Army chaplain Booth confessed to, she realizes that it was uncharacteristic for Booth to suddenly cancel the wedding as he believed in marriage and he likely had a legitimate reason to do so. Despite her colleagues' anger at Booth, she decides to stay with him, telling him that she understands that he has his reasons and has faith that he will resolve the issue. In episode 4, "The Sense in the Sacrifice", after Booth singlehandedly tracks Pelant down through an abandoned building and kills him with a single gunshot, he reveals to her that Pelant had blackmailed him. Pelant had threatened to kill five innocent people if Booth continued with the wedding or went to the police or FBI. At the end of the episode he proposes and she happily accepts; unknown to them, Caroline, Angela and Hodgins witnessed it via the security cameras. In "The Woman in White", Booth and Brennan marry at a small garden ceremony outside the Jeffersonian.

Brennan had a brief relationship with FBI Agent Tim Sullivan, whom she met while on a case when Booth was in therapy due to his grief-induced rage over his self-perceived role in the death of serial killer Howard Epps. Sully asks Brennan out on a date after their case is completed, and they begin a relationship.[61] Their relationship ends, however, when Sully decides to sail a boat down to the Caribbean, and Brennan declines to leave the Jeffersonian to go with him despite Angela trying to persuade her to follow him;[31] Wyatt speculates that this is due to Brennan being unable to live a life without purpose. Despite Wyatt's original perception as to why she stayed, there exists strong indications, especially through Angela's observations of the situation, that the real reason she stayed is because of Booth.