Author's Note: This is a Hodgela FanFiction. My first of this sort! Yah! I adore this couple dearly, and they have inspired me to write my own endings to scenes that were never "finished" (in my opinion). This ditty comes after the scene in Aliens in a Spaceship, where Angela invites Jack home with her. This is how I imagine the "aftermath" of that invitation would have played out.

Continuity & Correctness: I did my best to work with what the episode itself had given, but wasn't entirely certain on a few things, so I just made educated guesses. In terms of the note that Jack writes to Angela in the car, before Brennan operates on him – I know on screen we only saw him jotting for a few seconds, but I wanted the note to say more, so I just told myself that he wrote for longer than pictured. Hey, it's my story, right?

Bring on the Wonder

Jack Hodgins had been staring into the microscope so hard and for so long that he felt his eyes were about to pop from his skull.

He sighed and leaned back in his chair. He was the master of identifying organic matter – slime, dirt (though, if you called it dirt to his face you would get an earful and a steady glare). He could identify rare beetles in their larval stage, and could tell you exactly which region the bug had come from. So why couldn't he get anything from a simple sticker?

He shook his head, and tried to ignore the steady ache in his leg. The drugs they had given him were doing a great job of masking the sharp pains, but he couldn't help but think they were fooling with his brain. He promised himself that tomorrow he would stop taking them, so that his mind could be free and clear to continue this work. But as for now…

"You just about ready?"

He glanced up to see Angela Montenegro standing before him. She looked about as exhausted as he felt, and though her hair was neatly styled and make up carefully applied, he could see the strain in her beautiful eyes.

"Yeah," he answered, packing away the objects before him. "I … I'll get back to this tomorrow."

"It is tomorrow, silly." Angela consulted her watch. "It's past midnight, Jack. The day is over."

The longest day of his life. Hit by a speeding vehicle, kidnapped, operated on – twice – all in the span of a day. A day that had ended in a heroic rescue. In a kiss, and an unexpected invitation from Angela…

"About what you said earlier, Angela…" he began.

She downcast her eyes. "Yeah?"

"If you don't want … I mean, you don't need to…"

She came to stand before him, placing her hand on his arm. "I meant it. You need a friend right now, someone to be there for you. And I want to be that person."

"Okay," he said, and stood. A friend. That's what she said. But what did she really mean? A "friend" doesn't tell you that you should "come home" with them. A "friend" doesn't give you a passionate kiss when she pulls you from the brink of death.

But he was much too tired to analyze it now. So instead, he let himself be led from the building and to Angela's car.

The ride was quiet, the roads still dark. Soft music played on the car stereo, and he settled into the passenger's seat, careful not to extend his achy leg too much.

Her apartment building was a small 3-storey walk up. She apologized for the lack of an elevator and allowed him to lean on her the way up. The apartment itself was relatively large, spacious with lots of modern art, sculptures and funky furniture.

All he had brought with him were the crutches he had "stolen", and the bag of clothes the hospital had sent home. He wanted to analyze the items later at the lab, but didn't trust leaving them there without him. He let Angela take the bag and place it on a tall table in the living room.

They sat together on the couch, he with his leg up on a pillow placed on a coffee table.

The silence between them stretched, until Angela turned to face him. Her eyes were large with concern, her mouth pulled down at the corners.

"Jack," she began.

"Nah," he shook his head. "It's really late, and I've had a hell of a day. Now is really not a good time for this talk."

"Well too bad," she said, reaching her hand over to take his. "Because I need to get it out, and you need to hear it."

His deep blue eyes met hers in a steady gaze. She took a deep breath, and forged on, not once breaking eye contact.

"You almost died today. And we were all going crazy in that lab, trying to figure out a way to reach you and Brennan. Cam was pushing us to try harder, and Zach was trying to solve the technical aspects. Booth … I think Booth was more afraid of what we would find when we found you both, and I think he had major issues with not knowing where Brennan was…"

Hodgins laughed. "Yeah, those crazy kids … when are they going to just admit their feelings to each other?"

"My point is," Angela continued. "We were all doing our best to find you guys and bring you home safely. But when that time ran out…" She sucked in air, and expelled it noisily. "When we thought your air supply was depleted, I…"

He gave her a minute, watched her mouth tremble, her eyes close briefly.

"All I could think of was that I never gave it a chance."

"Gave what a chance?"

She opened her eyes and focused on his face. "Us, Jack. I never gave us a chance to be something. As my best friend was running out of air, I was thinking of you."

"Well, I'm sure if Brennan had taken you on an awesome date to the swings, you'd be thinking of her too." He joked.

But Angela's face remained unchanged; her eyes dangerously close to tears. "Be serious for a moment here, Jack. I couldn't bare the thought that you were trapped somewhere, slowly suffocating. Not knowing that … that I really did want something. That, despite my speech on being friends, I wanted to give this a chance – to see if it could become something amazing."

He leaned forward and, ever so gently, he kissed her.

When they broke apart, she smiled her beautiful smile at him. "I'm really glad you're okay."

He grinned right back at her. "So am I. And as much as I'd love nothing more than to sit here all morning and kiss you … I really need some serious sleep."

She showed him to her bedroom, largely occupied by a massive canopy bed in the middle. He lay down beneath the sheets, and she sat beside him. As his eyes fluttered, she stroked his cheek softly, whispering,

"Sweet dreams, Jack."

And sleep came.

-------------

Once she was sure he had fallen asleep, Angela tiptoed back into the living room. She really hadn't been prepared for this, for the way she had reacted to the day's ordeal.

Jack Hodgins had always been her friend, the guy she worked with who was majorly into science and bugs, and dirt. A serious "squint", as Booth called them. But despite the geekiness, there had always been something sexy about him, and she could never figure it out. Was it the gorgeous deep blue eyes, or the long lashes that framed them? Or the soft, springy curls that adorned that intelligent brain? Or was it the passion he had for his work, for his friends?

Or maybe it had been the way he had mercilessly flirted with her over the past year. The comments he had let slip, like the one about a forensics lab being a strange place for two people in love to end up. Or the glances he gave her on a daily basis when he thought she wasn't looking.

When he actually asked her out for a date, she hadn't really been as shocked as she thought she would be. A part of her knew it was coming, and an even bigger part of her knew that she'd eventually say yes.

And the date had been … mmm .. perfect. She wasn't lying to him when she'd said it was one of the best. She had been on some seriously rotten dates – to monster truck rallies, and to burger joints. And she'd also been on some classier ones, to expensive restaurants, to the beach. But never before had somebody done anything quite so simple as taken her on a date to the swings.

It had nearly broken her heart to turn him away afterwards, and she knew it had done worse to him. He had avoided all contact with her afterwards, except when absolutely necessary. Yet she had convinced herself it really was for the best, that it was necessary and they could not move forward with a relationship.

Then the Grave Digger had kidnapped him and Brennan, and she had experienced a whole mix of emotions. She had realized that despite what she had tried to convince herself, she really did have feelings for him that she couldn't deny.

She was getting up from the couch when she spotted the bag of Jack's things on the table. She saw a folded stack of papers on top of the clothes, and figured he must have thrown his notes in with the bag.

She walked over and unzipped the bag, taking out the stack of pages. Maybe she could make sense of what he had jotted down. Maybe, just like this afternoon and on other numerous occasions, she could decipher his ramblings and help the case.

The top page was small, the size of a paper torn from a hard-covered novel. As she studied it, she saw that it was just that. Small print covered one side, and the name Temperance Brennan jumped out at her. What was Jack doing with a page of Brennan's novel?

As she flipped the page over, she saw the title of Brennan's book, Bred in the Bone, and a small jumble of words in Jack's handwriting below. As she read the words, she felt her heart soften, the tears return to her eyes.

Angela, the words began. I'm sorry I never told you that I'm in love with you. Over the moon, stupid in love. I wanted to give you the swings, and the innocence of childhood. Swing high, jump before you stop. And fall. Fall hard, and fall fast. You never know when a moment will be your last.

She brought her hand up to her mouth, and stifled a cry. As she was trying to absorb the words, she heard a moan come from the bedroom, a cry. And she ran to him.

------------

The car was filling with gravel, and he was alone. Brennan wasn't there with him, and the air was now being replaced by tiny rough pebbles. He was gasping, the air slowly escaping his lungs. He clawed at the air, and felt his hand close around something soft…

"Jack. Jack, it's all right. I'm here. I'm here."

His eyes fluttered open at the sound, his gaze came to rest on her face.

"Angela," he whispered. A smile broke across his face. She was there, like she had promised. She was there to bring him back.

He held tight to the hand of the woman he loved, and for the first time in the entire ordeal, he felt safe.