Hey lovelies :) During an emotional moment (which happen more than usual in these past few days *sigh*) I wrote this, originally it was going to be included in my series "Word after Word", but somehow I thought it deserved its own oneshot… It has no definite temporal setting, I'd say it's s5 pre-100th, but there are no spoilers. Hope you like it!

Thanks to my beta Shin/Bonesbird and to all those who support me in my always growing writing experience. And Bones… still not mine … if it were I'd order a season with 52 episodes and no hiatus at all!

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Open Wounds

"Stop"

Booth raised his eyes from the floor, looked at his partner and raised an eyebrow.

"Stop pacing, you're making me feel agitated." Brennan said.

He glared.

"As I told you numerous times during the last hour… I am fine." she said, softly but determined. She winced "Hey, watch what you're doing or I'm going to do it myself."

The nurse looked up sternly. "It's you that keeps moving, Miss Brennan. I'm doing my best"

"I am Doctor Brennan. Doctor, not Miss. And as I said in the ambulance, I don't even need this."

The nurse sighed to gather courage and spoke up: "Your file says you're PhD, Doctor Brennan, not MD. Doctor Hall, on the other hand, is a MD and she said you need stitches. So please let me do my job."

Brennan's eyes widened at stared at the nurse. Booth snorted appreciatively and received a glare from his very infuriating partner. She sat back on the ER's white chair, moving again in the process and wincing as the nurse, named Lisa as written on her nametag, stitched again.

"Do you need some more painkillers?" Lisa asked.

"No. I didn't even want the first dose." she refused "I don't like painkillers. They cloud my judgment."

"Were you under the effects of painkillers before?" Booth suddenly asked.

"Oh, now you're talking?" she said ironically. Another glare flew across the room. She sighed. "No, I wasn't. Why would I have been? I wasn't injured."

"So why was your judgment clouded?"

"It wasn't."

"Sorry to disagree, but it was. Jumping in front of the suspect like that was a bad call. A huge lapse of judgment!" he scolded her.

"No, it wasn't! He was running towards and you didn't see him! It was your lack of attention, I was only protecting you." she replied, trying to stay calm.

"You're blaming me that you're in a hospital?"

"No!" she said forcefully, making nurse Lisa sigh again in frustration.

"Well you should, because I am! He had a knife, Bones!" he raised his voice, releasing the worry and panic he had tried to subside for the past hour.

"I know! I saw it!" she said loudly, all her self control out of the window "If I hadn't come in the middle it would have been you here! And maybe not with just a scratch."

"First, that is not just a scratch" he said pointing at the nasty wound on her upper right arm that Lisa was finally bandaging, "and second… second it would have been better that way!" the words slipped out of his mouth without him being able to stop them.

Her eyes widened and she suddenly felt slightly lightheaded, this time not because of the painkillers.

Lisa finished bandaging Brennan's arm and stood up, looking at the two partners, whose eyes were still locked. "I'm done here, now I'm going to get your discharge papers and painkillers prescription. Wait here for me. Everything is fine. It will hurt for a while but it should heal perfectly." she turned and headed to the door "If any of you care" she mumbled, noticing that neither of them showed signs of hearing her.

As soon as the door shut Brennan jumped up from her chair. "Why the hell would you say that?"

"Sit back down" he said quietly.

"No I won't. I. AM. FINE!" she said frustrated. "Now answer me. Why would you say that it would have been better?" she challenged him, her voice icy but filled with emotion.

"I am the one who is supposed to protect you! Not the other way! I don't want you to get hurt protecting me… damn it, Bones, I don't want you to risk your life for me!" he almost yelled, desperately trying not to break but feeling on the edge.

"And what about you?" she said quietly, slowly absorbing the meaning of his words. "What about your life?" she continued, pain not caused by the wound spreading in her body and heart "What about your son? What about me?"

Seeing his eyes widen made her realize that she had said the last question out loud, when it was only meant to be a silent one.

"You die for your partner, that's how I see it." he whispered, his voice low but determined and sincere "I would die for you, Bones."

She swallowed painfully. The words he had already said long before hit her stronger than ever. Feeling her head spin and her legs growing weaker, she sat down on the chair again, closing her eyes and trying to keep her breathing under control.

Booth looked closely at his strong and fearless partner as she sat and trembled slightly, worry starting to build up in him again. He just wanted to take her in his arms and hold her, but he knew he couldn't. He knew they would both break if he did and he couldn't allow that. "Bones?" he tried "Are you ok?"

He heard the softest sob. "You did."

"What?" he said confused.

"You already did." she breathed, eyes still closed and hands clutched on her lap. "You already died for me. I didn't die in your arms, you did."

The metaphorical penny dropped with a deafening noise.

He was utterly shocked at what she had just said. She never, ever talked about that, not to him at least, but he doubted she had ever confided with anyone about it, not even Angela. He had really believed her when she had said that she had compartmentalized. He was hurt by that at first, but then he was just envious and sort of glad. Glad that she would be able to move on when it happened for real. Because surely he wouldn't be. Because if anything happened to her… he didn't even want to think about that possibility, although today he came pretty damn close.

"Bones…" he murmured, at a loss of anything else to say.

"You did. You died on me. For me. You were dead for two weeks." she continued talking. She tried to stop, but the dam had collapsed and there was nothing left to hold back the flood of emotion and pain that was running through her. "I know now that you didn't really die of course, but you did to me. For two weeks I thought you were dead, for two weeks I knew you had died to protect me. And I tried to compartmentalize, I did, but I couldn't. You, my partner, my best friend, my… whatever the hell you are, had died in order to save me. How was I supposed to live with that burden?"

Her voice broke and he kneeled in front of her, covering her hands with his. She jumped slightly at his touch but gripped on his hand. As a silent tear ran down her cheek he wiped it away with his thumb. His free hand then travelled down her arm and gently he pulled her up from the chair. She followed his lead and crashed her face into his chest, breathing him in and trying to get her control back, but failing miserably as more tears filled her eyes. His arms went instantly around her, being careful not to touch her freshly bandaged wound. He let her pour everything out as one of his hands soothingly traced circles on her back and the other stroke her hair.

Her left hand travelled up his chest to a certain place under his shoulder and stopped there, fingertips moving lightly on the fabric of his FBI T-shirt. "I held you" she whispered "In that club and in the ambulance too. I held you and begged you to make it, to stay. To stay with me. I barely remember anything else other than me keeping pressure and holding you, holding on to you."

Her fingers slowly moved again and he held his breath as she touched the skin of his neck. He looked down at her face, still wet with tears and buried in his shirt between his chest and his neck.

"Don't do that ever again… please…" she begged. "Promise me"

He squeezed his eyes to fight his own tears that were threatening to fall. He would do anything for her. Except for this. She looked up at him with red watery eyes and cupped his cheek "Please, promise me..." her voice sounded weaker than ever and it broke his heart.

"You know that I would do anything for you, I would promise you anything. I would take away from you all the pain of the world" he whispered "But I can't promise you that, Bones. Not if it means protecting you. You know that too." he said softly, trying to make her understand.

She nodded imperceptibly and closed her eyes again, realizing how close they were. She could feel his breath on her face, his heart pounding beneath her hands and resonating through her body, mingling with her own heartbeat. Heart against heart. Body against body. Strong and, at the same time, extremely fragile and ephemeral bodies.

One gunshot, one little cancer cell, one sudden unexpected movement, one wrong situation and everything could be taken away and disappear in one second, in just one of the very same heartbeats she was listening to.

"Damn" she breathed.

The hand on his cheek suddenly moved all the way around his neck as she raised on her tiptoes and her lips crashed furiously against his, desperately hanging on to Booth, to the very same person she thought she had lost two years before. No, she wasn't wasting any more time. Everything was too important, every second could be the last.

He took a while to fully understand what was happening. One moment she was crying on his shirt and pouring her heart out to him and the next her mouth was on his kissing him with all she had. Once he realized, thought, his mind went blank and he wasted no time to kiss her back with just as much passion and need.

It was not a sweet, gentle kiss. It was raw emotions, desperation and need. But it was nothing less than a kiss of love. Even if that word had not been spoken yet, love was pouring out of the both of them as they danced, this time not around each other but together.

The door opened slightly and nurse Lisa peeked in, smiling when she saw the two stubborn partners tangled in each other. "Just partners, sure…" she whispered to herself, softly closing the door. She would come back later, this was about them. They didn't notice her.

After a long time, or not nearly enough, they parted and stopped an inch from each other, out of breath and their eyes still closed. They didn't need eyes to figure this out.

"We both never die." Booth murmured.

"That is a reasonable compromise." she agreed, sighed and softly touched his lips again.

They both knew it was impossible and that sooner or later they would come to grips with the inevitable, but feelings had been exposed and spoken. In a small, white ER room the healing process had finally begun.

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Yes, I went there again... for the third time maybe? *sigh* I couldn't help it, I am so obsessed with that storyline! it's definitely my biggest Bones obsession... but now I don't think it will be revisited anymore in the show... if it did I would be a VERY happy fan, but now more than two years have passed, I'm losing hope! :(

Anyway... what do you think about it? As always let me know if you like it or not, I love to get feedback!

And keep your eyes open for the latest chapter of "Word after Word", L, it will be up very soon!