AN: I know the S4 finale didn't need another one of these, but when the inspiration strikes, the writer writes. Thanks to redrider6612 for her faithful editing.
Temperance Brennan sat in the sterile hospital room and willed herself not to cry. She'd spent the last three days waiting for her partner to wake from a coma. He had slowly become the most important person in her life and had changed her more than she would ever admit.
At first, she had rejected his silly nickname, illogical ideas, and unwanted touches. But over time she'd come to love the nickname and need those touches. Oh, she'd known that anthropologically people need appropriate touch, but she'd never really understood how much she herself needed it until him.
It wasn't hard to see how much delight he took in children, especially his son Parker. The more she had seen the two of them together, the more she wanted that for herself. There was something so irresistible about children.
Oh, when people asked why she changed her mind, she gave them the genetics spiel – how her child was likely to be a genius and might find the cure for cancer, but honestly she craved a relationship with someone who would love her and that she could love without reserve. Even if love was only a chemical reaction in the brain and not something magical like Booth claimed, it was easy to see how it enriched people's lives.
One night a few months ago she awoke feeling so empty. Like all things emotional, it took her a while to figure out what was going on. The empty feeling disappeared temporarily when Booth hugged her, so she'd sought out someone to satisfy her biological urges. That had been a horrible mistake. In the morning, she woke to find her arms wrapped so tightly around her torso that she'd given herself bruises. Every morning for the next week, she woke the same way. To solve the problem, she hauled old stuff animal (the only one to survive foster care) out of a box and slept with it at night.
Then she'd held a baby girl and it all snapped into place. On some level her mind and body were responding to the built-in instinct to preserve the species by reproducing, but she couldn't discount years of Booth's influence.
Once she understood what was going on, she spent two weeks considering her options. And then that fateful counseling session happened, and she'd blurted out the idea she'd been toying with.
Although she told Booth he didn't need to be involved in the child's life, she hoped he would want to be. She couldn't imagine him loving their child any less than he loved Parker.
Then the brain tumor came along, and he'd told her that she could use his donated sperm for artificial insemination if something happened to him. Well, something happened to him – an allergic reaction to the anesthesia – and now she didn't know what to do.
She wouldn't admit to anyone, but she was scared. Booth always hugged her when she was scared. And she missed that. She needed him.
She didn't want her arms to be empty – she wanted both him and a child to be in them on a regular basis. If only he would wake up.