He didn't want to panic. He held on to her. It was getting more and more difficult to breathe. He was cold. "Not a good sign," he thought, but he wouldn't let go of her. her tears were falling on his face and they kept him aware. She was calling for him, but her voice was getting farther and farther away.
"Booth! Booth, please. Don't leave me," she begged. He didn't have time to think about what it would be like to leave his son, to leave her. All he focused on was her hand, which he clenched and her gaze, which seemed to pierce through him as if she was trying to desperately seek a connection and rope him to her. She was beautiful, even with so much pain in her face. While certainly the bullet hurt as it had torn through him, the real pain was within his heart. He wasn't ready to go. He never got the chance to tell her how he felt. He couldn't leave without telling her. "Temperance, I love you. I've always loved you. I'm so sorry," he gasped and yet carefully chose to use her given name. Almost immediately, she disappeared and he was alone.
Dr. Brennan was screaming "Booth, no. Please Booth no. Don't leave me. You can't leave me!" While he had finally found the courage to profess his love due to impending death, she never heard him. His lung had deflated, refusing to let his body dispel any extra air.
He slipped out of consciousness and she began to grasp at him, desperately trying to wake him. The very moment his heart stopped, hers clenched. Its beat had become very loud and it shook within her as if it were going to break her into infinite pieces. Physical death would feel like an inviting journey compared to the loss that slowly overtook her. But as she slipped away and saw him without life, her rational self began to resurface.
She set him flat and began to press into his heart. Jack ran to them and pressed on Booth's open wound. She stopped and moved to his lips and wrapped them into hers and for a moment (however brief) she consciously felt their warmth, their softness. She was determined to fight for him and everyone in the room could feel that bold determination. Chills ran down their collective spines. They were in the presence of true love, albeit unprofessed. She breathed into him forcefully, almost commanding his body to nourish and heal itself from within. Minutes passed and he would not re-awaken. She lost track of the events as they continued. She began to only see flashes: Booth on a stretcher. Bones demanding to go with him. His blood on her hands. "Clear! Charging. Clear!"
When he was being wheeled into surgery, she had lost control of all that was rational. The ambulance had gotten there before their friends and for a moment, she was alone and in total silence. While many were walking about, she could not register them. She had turned inward, unable to really focus except on his gaze moments before his heart stopped. His eyes had always been intoxicating. She often challenged him and tried to remain unaffected by their strength and vulnerability all at once. And sometimes she had allowed herself to gaze back and get lost, especially in those moments that she really needed to feel the human connection she subconsciously shunned. On a very irrational level, she thought she could keep him alive by gazing back at him, almost challenging him to not give up. At this thought, she began to laugh and bawl at the same time. "You've really softened since working with him," she pondered. And there, in one heart wrenching, soul chilling moment, she realized what his death would mean to her and within a second, her body overtook her brain. A brain whose strength and intelligence rivaled most in the world.
Dr. Brennan fell back, knees no longer able to prop her.
Angela found her in a chair, eyes open, no tears but with a chilling look within them. Something had shifted in Dr. Brennan, as if her heart muscles had contracted with such force, that it caused every organ, every neurotransmitter, to clench as well, causing a catastrophic shift in her very core. Angela hurried to Dr. Brennan's side and quietly prayed that she would come out of this, that she and Booth would survive this. She held Brennan close, but Dr. Brennan could not react. Her mind suddenly went blank and she remained unfocused.
The surgeon came to her and began to speak. He had blood on his scrubs and looked weary. He spoke words she refused to hear. The rational scientist within was stating with certainty that he lost too much blood, he did not revive quickly enough and he could not have survived such a long surgery. She kept on and on in her mind and was jolted into focus as the surgeon grabbed her shoulder tightly. "Dr. Brennan, Agent Booth suffered severe lacerations to his lung and he lost a great deal of blood. We revived him and ceased the bleeding but he has since slipped into a comatose state. We can not be certain as to whether he will reawaken. And even if he were to do so, the oxygen that he was deprived may have affected his brain function." "He's alive," she stated flatly. "Yes." "Can I see him," she asked as if daring the surgeon to say no.
The next few days were a blur for Dr. Brennan. Countless doctors and nurses tended to him and she watched over them with a scrutiny that was so powerful that it caused them to move about quietly and carefully. Their friends came and went and yet she stayed. They begged her to at least go home and change and maybe even try to sleep but she refused to leave him. The hospital gave her scrubs and save for the few moments she used to freshen up in the bathroom, she clung to his hand. She hadn't slept in days and finally, in a state of delirium, a doctor convinced her to receive a sedative. She still refused to lay down in the provided cot. So she swallowed the pills and firmly sat in the chair she pulled up to his bed four days prior.
The nurse came to check on him and she gasped incredulously when she found Dr. Brennan asleep with her head on Booth's stomach, her hand entwined in his. She tried to wake her but the sedative was powerful. The nurse felt the connection between them and she gazed at their hands for a few moments, not realizing that her patient had finally opened his eyes. The nurse and Agent Booth were both looking in the direction of the entwined set of hands. He mumbled something and the nurse immediately focused on him. "You are a lucky man, Agent Booth. We weren't sure you would come back to us."
He tried to remember what had happened to him. All he could retrieve was Bones' face, her tears and holding on to her. "How much time had passed," he pondered? "You are going to be just fine. You are incredibly blessed," the nurse mused. At those words, he focused on the nurse. Her next words would make his thoughts reel. "That woman loves you with every bit of her heart and soul. You are a blessed man to have such a loving woman in your life." "She's my work partner," he whispered. The nurse didn't have much patience today. She had been dealing with Dr. Brennan all week so she just got straight to the point before there was any chance Dr. Brennan would awaken. "Agent Booth, I've been a nurse for thirty years. I've seen a lot of death and even some miracles. I know true love when I see it. That woman died a little the day you were shot. She hasn't left your side since you came here and if it wasn't for the sedatives we gave her, she would be jumping all over me for not having changed your bandages quickly enough or making sure I gave you the correct antibiotics or whatever else she has been monitoring 24/7," the nurse said with a satisfied smirk. She finished her work and as she headed out the door, she murmured under her breath, "these young things, too blind to see into their own hearts."
Dumbfounded, Booth was now alone with a sleeping Bones. He thought about the nurse's words, thought about having almost died, but mostly he thought about what it felt like waking up from a coma with Brennan's head atop his stomach, her hands clenched around his. He liked that she was too stubborn to let go of him, even in a medicated state.
It was a testament to her natural beauty that even after all she had been through in those last few days, she still exuded beauty in her sleep. Her lips were slightly parted and he got lost in his thoughts of touching them. They looked so soft and when he noticed how close his thumb was to them, he couldn't help but reach out and caress them. He was so happy to be alive and so grateful she was there.
Hours passed just like this. He stroked her hair, stroked her face and eventually drifted off to sleep while gazing softly in her direction.
When Dr. Brennan awakened, she was startled at the sight before her. In front of her was an empty bed. Her mind raced at the possibilities of what it meant and she began to panic, until she heard the bathroom door opening behind her. She had turned so quickly that she became dizzy and the sight of him standing kept her from falling. "Booth!" She threw her body in his direction. He caught her in his grasp and held as tightly as his wounded body allowed him. Time stood still, as it often does when pure emotion is demonstrated. He could feel her hot tears on his neck and it took all his strength to hold back the ones that were forming within him.
For two people who did nothing but verbally spar every moment they spent together, they didn't have anything to say at that moment, and so they stood in silence and motionless, other than the soft whimpers that resonated from her.