Disclaimer: I don't own them, I didn't create them, and I certainly don't profit from them. I do however thoroughly enjoy them.
Author's Note: This is dedicated to my cat sitter who so kindly set the VCR to tape so that I could watch "Wannabe in the Weeds" when I got home from my vacation.
It wasn't rational. Not rational at all. And still Brennan felt compelled to do something that she couldn't explain through logic and reason. It seemed silly really considering the gravity of the situation. But here she was standing outside the door to Booth's hospital room with a stupid piece of that pie that Booth loved so much from the Royal Diner. So many memories had been created over that table in that booth in that diner while he ate a slice of that pie, so maybe it was logical after all that of anything she might try to smuggle into the hospital she would choose a piece of that pie.
Of course the fact that she felt compelled to smuggle anything wasn't rational in and of itself, but since that moment when Booth had stepped in to take a bullet that was meant for her, she wasn't sure how much that really mattered. In a split second she realized how many things had been left undone between them; how much she had come to rely on him over the past three years; and how much of her life was intertwined with his. After that split second had come hours of uncertainty; hours that seemed to stretch into days in the way they seemed to pass so slowly. All of her desperation in the club as she had put pressure on his wound to try and stop the bleeding couldn't compare to the helplessness that she felt sitting there in a hard utilitarian chair in the waiting room while he was in surgery. She had a faint recollection of Angela sitting there with her; fingers curled around hers in comfort until a surgeon had appeared with a cautious smile on his face that Booth had made it through surgery. There would be days still in the hospital, but he was going to be ok.
A heaviness had settle around Brennan that she hadn't really understood as different ones slipped in to visit Booth over the last several days; all of them seemingly much more joyous than she felt. So here she was now, standing outside of his room with a piece of pie that seemed so insignificant in the grander scheme of things. She couldn't help the quirk of a smile that spread across her face as she pushed the door open to find him just sitting there watching TV; he couldn't be happy about being stuck in the hospital, but surely he was much happier here in a private room than in the ICU where he had been right after he'd gotten out of surgery.
"Bones," Booth sounded a bit winded and his voice was a little raspy; aftereffects of being intebated. Despite that, he smiled at her.
"I brought you something," Brennan settled herself in a chair next to his bed and pulled a take-out container and a plastic fork from her purse. As she noticed the questioning look in his eyes, she felt an unsettling stirring of emotions that all of her logic and reason simply couldn't explain.
"Is that pie?" Booth awkwardly opened the Styrofoam container with his left hand and grinned at her, "Thanks, Bones." He could tell by her expression that she was troubled because he could almost feel the weight of the world on her shoulders.
"I thought you might want something besides hospital food," And if she was honest with herself, there was something about sitting across the table from Booth while he ate his pie that seemed to produce these heart to heart talks that had created pivotal moments in her life. Her brow was furrowed and she nibbled her lower lip thoughtfully.
"You want some?" Booth knew that she thought pie tasted too sweet, but somehow it seemed fitting that he ask since she'd gone to the trouble to bring it to him. With the container resting on the bed next to him, he poked the fork into the pie.
"No, it's for you," A hint of a smile appeared on Brennan's face as Booth dangled a forkful of pie in front of her face.
"You sure? It looks really good," Booth raised an eyebrow in question. This was after all, apple pie – America's pie.
"No, really," Brennan felt like her smile was forced. She could see with her eyes that Booth was going to be ok, but there was still something so irrational about these feelings she was having that she wasn't sure how to articulate them.
"Ok," Booth shoved the fork gingerly into his mouth even as he carefully watched the face of his partner. She looked so conflicted.
And suddenly as if the gears had finally slipped into place to unlock a door she hadn't known was there, the words just tumbled out, "I thought I was going to lose you, Booth." She had certainly experienced enough loss in her life for ten lifetimes. It was because of Booth that she had gotten so much of it back – her brother, her father, and in a sense her mother too because she'd finally gotten the closure that she'd longed for. Somehow the idea of losing him was something she didn't want to ever entertain again.
"I'm gonna be ok, Bones," It was a simple statement, but his voice betrayed him with the emotion swimming behind it. She had visited him in the ICU, but he hadn't really been able to talk having been so drugged up and intebated at the time that he couldn't really tell her that he would do it all again for her without a moment's hesitation.
"Intellectually I can see that, but what I don't understand is this irrational fear I have that this isn't real – that you're not really here anymore," Her voice seemed to waver and she felt the warmth of Booth's hand envelope hers and she realized that he'd abandoned the pie.
"I'm real, Bones," He brushed his thumb gently over the back of her hand. There were so many things he could have said just then, but he hesitated because he didn't want to interrupt her train of thought and they lapsed into silence for a few minutes as Booth continued to stroke the back of her hand.
Clarity descended on Brennan like drops of rain on parched earth and she found herself looking into those chocolate brown pools of warmth that had seemed so lifeless on the club floor, "I fell in love with you when I wasn't paying attention." The relief of those words seemed to free up the tension that she had been carrying around since that gunshot had rung out and threatened to destroy her little world.
Booth felt like his heart had suddenly stopped as his brain tried to process the words his ears had just heard and then he gave her hand a squeeze and brought it up to his lips as he pressed a gentle kiss against it and finally found his words, "I fell in love with you a long time ago."
The shock on Brennan's face was palpable and then a wide grin spread across her face and a giggle spilled out as she awkwardly launched herself out of the chair to perch on the edge of the bed as she leaned in and welcomed the soft feel of his lips against hers as his arm wrapped around her waist – the container of pie effectively smashed between them.
For all the damage that Pam Nunen had caused with a single gunshot, she had accomplished the one thing that even three years of Angela's pushing and cajoling hadn't – they had both finally left denial firmly behind them.
And Brennan noted as she leaned in for another kiss, pie when it was a la Booth tasted the best kind of sweet there was.
The End