The Heart in the Director

Alternate ending/beginning to eps. 3.15/4.01. After being told Booth is dead, Brennan demands that Cullen let her see his body. Cullen recognizes the relationship between the two partners and helps Brennan come to terms with her reality.

A/N: The plot bunnies are working overtime in my head, probably due to the hiatus. Even though I have two stories in-progress up here already, and several others in various stages of conception on my computer, I decided to start this one tonight. I was reading a season 3 story, which got me thinking about what happened that season, and how it ended…etc. And I always wished they would have brought Cullen back after season 1, so I decided to bring him back here as Director. This story probably won't be long, only a few chapters, so I can get back to my other stories. ;-)

Chapter 1

"I'm sorry to inform you that Agent Booth did not survive the surgery. His blood loss was too great," the surgeon said, briefly shutting his eyes. Dr. Joshua Belden wished he could close his ears, as well, as the too-familiar sounds of grief began to fill the hospital waiting room. Glancing around at all those gathered to hear the news, it was clear that this man had been well-loved. Dr. Belden understood that his job entailed telling patients' families that their loved one had passed away, but he was currently very unhappy that his job tonight included lying to this patient's family and causing them what he felt was needless pain. However, he was a good citizen of the United States, and when the F.B.I. asked you to lie about the status of an active F.B.I. agent to aid in a matter of national security, he felt unable to say no. The Hippocratic oath kept him from harming patients, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he was harming these people by making them believe that Agent Booth wasn't coming back. There was one woman in particular who troubled him. She was the one still covered in his blood, the one who had ridden over in the ambulance and then been shoved away by the emergency personnel. He had overheard enough of the conversation in the waiting room to discover that she was Dr. Temperance Brennan, the agent's work partner, and that the bullet which had wounded him had actually been attended for her. She appeared almost unemotional when the doctor had delivered the news, but Dr. Belden had been watching her closely. He knew enough about people to detect the pain behind her eyes.

The surgeon was interrupted in his thoughts by the approach of the man who was the root cause of the unnecessary anguish: F.B.I. Director Sam Cullen. Dr. Belden noticed that Dr. Brennan had been watching Cullen's movements and was now advancing toward them.

"Dr. Belden, if I could speak to you in private for a moment," Cullen said, the emotion in his voice unforced since he knew how much he was hurting Booth's friends and family.

Before the men could leave the waiting room, Brennan spoke to Cullen: "Director Cullen, when you are finished with the surgeon, I would like to speak to you privately as well." Cullen noticed the determined look in the scientist's eyes, one he had seen many times as she worked on finding the perpetrator in murder cases. He would need to tell her something personally—she was not the kind of woman to be satisfied with the surgeon's pronouncement.

"All right, Dr. Brennan. Take a seat, and I will be with you in a few minutes," Cullen said, his mind racing as he tried to decide how to deal with the difficult anthropologist.

"Agent Booth did not survive the surgery." These were the only words that Dr. Brennan's genius mind could comprehend. Booth is dead. Booth isn't coming back. Her mind restated this terrible fact in multiple ways, trying to help her consciousness absorb the devastating truth. She knew there had been a chance of this—she had seen him get shot in the chest, and she had felt his blood spurting out of the wound as she tried to hold it back. The EMTs had seemed to have the bleeding under control by the time they reached the hospital, although Booth had not regained consciousness. Brennan knew that Booth was strong and had been shot before and lived, so she had not truly prepared herself for the possibility that he might not recover. When the surgeon had entered the waiting room and had not looked positive, she had tried to keep her protective walls strong. However, she had not been able to completely repel the feeling of intense pain which had assaulted her when she heard the news. She knew she would only regain her equilibrium once she had a clinical assessment of his injuries, and once she had seen his body for herself. Merely hearing about his condition without being able to see it for herself did not seem sufficiently real to the empirical scientist. She needed proof before she could completely believe in anything , even if the person telling her the information was an acknowledged expert.

When she saw Director Cullen emerge from the anxious crowd in the waiting room, she knew that he was the person who could best help her find the answers she needed. He appeared unsurprised when she approached him and requested to speak with him. He promised to talk to her after he finished talking to Booth's surgeon. Satisfied, she sat back down to wait, hoping that her emotional detachment would not fail her now when she needed it the most.

Cullen and Dr. Belden exchanged glances once they were in a hallway out of sight of those in the waiting room. Cullen spoke first.

"Doctor, it's obvious that you are uncomfortable with lying to Agent Booth's friends, but I can assure you that this is necessary," Cullen said, trying to infuse his belief in this mission into his tone of voice. He was largely successful, although the Belden could tell that Cullen wished the situation were different as well.

"It just seems so cruel, to tell them he is dead when he will make a full recovery. He clearly has many people who love him." The surgeon was visibly upset. "I tell far too many of my patients' families bad news—it seems wrong to deprive this group of their good news. They should be celebrating!"

Cullen sighed. "I know this is difficult for you. You were very convincing in there, and we at the F.B.I. appreciate that."

Belden gave Cullen a sad smile. "It was not difficult to feel badly about telling them such horrible news, especially when that news was untrue." He paused, then continued: "I will be checking back in on the patient in a few hours, when he should be fully awake. As I told you before, he should only need to stay in the hospital for another 24 hours, and then he can be transferred to wherever you need him to go." The surgeon gave Cullen another dissatisfied look then made his way deeper into the bowels of the hospital.

Watching him go, Cullen thought about what the other man had said, especially his comment about the people who loved Booth. Cullen had suspected for some time that the feelings which Agent Booth and Dr. Brennan had for each other had progressed well beyond simply being partners. It was clear that his best crime-fighting team considered each other as friends, and Cullen was beginning to believe there might even be more to their relationship than that. His first inkling of deeper feelings was instigated by Booth's actions of several occasions. First, Booth had rushed off to New Mexico because Brennan's best friend's boyfriend was missing. Granted, that had turned out to be a murder case involving counterfeiting and international criminals, but there was no way for any of them to know that ahead of time. Brennan had asked, and Booth had immediately jumped on several flights to get himself across the country overnight. Next, only a few weeks later, he had again hurried to Brennan's side when she herself was the victim of a crime while working in the Katrina aftermath of New Orleans. After his promotion to Director, Cullen had kept an eye on them largely because of their assistance in uncovering the truth about his daughter's illness. The subsequent behavior patterns of the two partners seemed to have led to this moment, when Booth had deliberately placed himself in the path of a bullet aimed at Brennan.

Once Booth was awake and fully cognizant of the new operation, he would need to prepare a list of people whom he wanted the Bureau to inform that he was not actually dead. Cullen had no doubt that Brennan would be at the top of that list, and he knew that she was probably the most trustworthy person on it. In situations like this, usually only immediate family members were informed, and it was often sometimes difficult for them to act appropriately to convince the necessary parties that the agent in question was actually missing or dead. Cullen knew that Brennan would never do anything that would jeopardize Booth's life or his cover. He decided that he might as well tell her now, and let her see Booth, rather than make her wait and find out later.

A/N: To me, this just makes so much more sense than what they did on the show. Of course, I recognize that they had their reasons, but…