Sinking Like Stones, Chapter 2, When You Wake
-broilthesuspect-
Rating: T
Summary: Follow-up of sorts to my OS "Good Enough For Me" (you're welcome to leave now and read that first, it's fairly short). Takes place as Booth wakes up from his brain surgery at the end of S4. My take on what would happen if the neurosurgeons were not able to remove all of the tumor in Booth's brain. AU, Brennan's POV.
Advisory: I do not own the show Bones or the characters involved in this story. I just enjoy filling in gaps and re-writing my version of the show we know and love. This story will not have fluffy bunnies running rampant, however, I am inclined to say that if you read it, you will be touched in some way by it. Hell, you might even enjoy it.
This Chapter: We're headed back in time... this chapter takes place right where my last story "Good Enough For Me" left off. Booth just had brain surgery. Now, on with the drama.
The title of this chapter is from a song by one of my friends way back in middle and high school that is now a budding artist with a hauntingly lovely voice.
I'm no flower in a vase
I am both the leather and the lace
I will not say no
And I'll only go the way I want to go
But I want to be your goddess when you wake
Want to be the one to make you stop and pray
And I want to be your goddess in the sun
The one you turn to when the day's begun
-Kerri Lowe, "When You Wake"
The sun crept in the window, assaulting my face as I attempted—albeit unsuccessfully—to get some sleep. I groaned and pulled the thin, scratchy blanket up my body and over my head.
It was day six of this restless vigil, and I had had about enough of sleeping in such an uncomfortable chair. I was nearly certain that sleeping on one of the Jeffersonian's examination tables would be more restful than the layback armchairs provided at the hospital. Not to mention the blankets which obviously needed replacing – too many cycles in an industrial washer with premium-strength disinfectants had turned the baby-blue waffle knit blankets to rough, ineffective tatters (the quality time spent sitting with nothing to look at but these linens allowed me to form a solid opinion about them).
Knowing it was a waste of time to attempt to salvage some assemblance of rest, I gave in to Ra's fury burning its way into the east-facing window. I pushed the offensive blue article to the floor and glanced at my watch. 6:15. I reluctantly lifted myself from the chair and began the day by doing exactly as I had the previous five.
First, I brushed my teeth and cleansed my face. I changed my clothes after giving myself what Angela calls a 'whore's bath,' and applied makeup heavy-handedly over the dark circles and dry skin I'd acquired in the last week. I then prepared a small pink basin of warm water and a washcloth and carried it back to the main room in the hospital suite.
In my years as Booth's partner, I've always admired the way that he presents himself. He is fastidious in his appearance, making sure that he looks his best at all times. In his opinion, first impressions are 'key,' therefore he must convince suspects, jurors, and families that he knows what he is doing before he even opens his mouth. Seems like a good enough reason to keep such a handsome face well-kept, after all.
I assumed that this attention to his appearance would carry on despite the fact that he had not yet emerged from his medically-induced coma after his brain surgery as quickly as was initially predicted. The anesthesiologist indicated that it could take up to a day for Booth to wake. As Booth's medical proxy (a decision for which I am qualified but highly uncomfortable with), I advised the surgeons before the procedure began that Booth's consciousness is, in Booth's words, 'tricky.' He is trained to awaken at the slightest movement and disruption from being a sniper, however, he is highly responsive to even small amounts of anesthetics and narcotics. A medical anomaly.
Whether this warning was heeded or not, Booth would be disappointed if he woke up and smelled as if he had just completed the Iron Man competition after consuming pounds of garlic and asparagus (a smell which he has mused about, but I would never like to partake in). Given the newest revelation in our partnership, I assumed the role of ensuring his cleanliness was taken care of. Nurses came in often to clean up waste and his catheter, but I found it pleasant to perform the more personal duties for Booth.
I washed his face and neck, careful not to wet the bandages holding the loose portion of his frontal bone in place. I then used a small and somewhat unproductive razor to shave him. Although I rather enjoyed the look of scruff on his face, it made him look taken care of to be clean-shaven. I spread some aftershave on and selfishly did as I had in the days before, leaning in and kissing him on the cheek, careful to brush his with my own and inhaling his scent. These selfish little breaths were not as satisfying as when we'd be out in the field, however. Occasionally, a gust of wind or the warm air in the government-issued vehicle he drove would waft towards me and I felt as if I was stealing something. Taking a breath of his scent without him knowing. On this day too, it was stealing, only the rush of his scent was not sufficient as I had no risk of being caught.
I stood back and admired him. He was so handsome, and if what he'd said in the operating room was true and not an impulsive effect of the tumor pressing onto his frontal lobe, then it was acceptable for me to admire – and desire – him in the way that I was.
"Temperance?"
I had been gazing at our hands, still intertwined, still unbelieving of what was about to happen. His utterance of my first name, a name that was rarely used and even more rarely by my partner, took me by surprise.
"Booth," I responded, unsure of where he could be going with this. I held back tears as I sensed that this was another serious discussion meant for a different moment.
"Are you going to interrupt the guy with the brain tumor, or are you going to listen?" I laughed. He had that effect. To turn a serious moment such as this into something light-hearted. It was a gift. I nodded him on, allowing him to continue.
"I need you to know that since the moment I saw you, I knew you were something different, something special. Even after you hated me after our first case, I knew that I had to get you back. So I held you at that airport and somehow forced you to come with me – until you forced me to take you out in the field. There were some days that I thought you were a lost case, that there was no way in hell that I could put up with your arrogance and demeanor. I'm glad I waited. I'm glad I took the time to find out that that arrogance was founded – and in all honesty was your way of showing confidence." He did not waver. It was if he had this speech memorized. Although in all honesty, knowing Booth, he didn't memorize it. His best spoken lectures were always off the cuff and unplanned. He was an intelligent and eloquent man. It just took the right circumstances to see it.
He continued, now causing me to flush at his complimentary words."You've made me better. Not just professionally, but personally. You've encouraged me to strive to be better, faster, stronger, and more determined every day that we go out. You remind me that the object of our professions is not to right some cosmic balance sheet I've come up with, but to make our little corner of the world a safer place."
I remembered speaking with him about this balance sheet. He'd given himself this sort of ultimatum to avenge as many lives as he'd taken. He was a good man following orders and in the depths of his… heart, for lack of a better term, he knew that too. However the pain was too great and this was his way of coping with it, something he said I would never fully understand unless I took as many lives as he had. I'd only been responsible for the death of a few criminals, but the weight of those deaths alone made me wonder how he dealt with his.
"You've saved my life, Bones. Literally and figuratively. I'd probably be homeless and gambling my life away by now if it weren't for you. So here I am, laying here as weak and exposed as I can be. I need you to know that I love you. I love you with every one of the 206 bones in my body."
I smiled at the reference to his bones and felt tears begin to streak down my cheeks. It hadn't been the first time I'd become emotional that day, but it was the first I'd done so in front of Booth. I didn't want him to see my weakness, my pain at seeing him vulnerable like this.
He must have sensed this, reaching the arm unencumbered by IVs and monitors to my face and wiped the tears as they fell to my jaw line."I need you to know that you are loved."
That subtle distinction between the fact that he loved me and that he wanted me to know I was loved were not lost on me. Even in the moments before his own potentially life-threatening surgery, he wanted me to be taken care of. He wanted to offer me comfort.
I placed a light kiss on his forehead, hoping that it was all Booth speaking. I lingered a little as I contemplated that day before taking leave to the cafeteria to try and find something to ease my sudden gastrointestinal discomfort.
Later that day, friends came and went. Angela and Cam stopped by with a nice salad for me at lunchtime, and my dad came in and talked about baseball as if Booth and I were both listening. Even Jared stopped in to check on his older brother. I'd kept in touch with Rebecca, updating her to talk with Parker, however, Booth made it infinitely clear before his surgery that he did not desire for his son to see him in any sort of incapacitated state. I supposed this was because of his pride, but Sweets suggested that Booth wanted to protect Parker from the harsh realities of human mortality that Booth dealt with daily. I accepted this premise, knowing there were a lot of things that Booth refused to talk about with Parker until he had 'hair under his arms.'
Once friends and family left and I felt sure that we could be alone once more, I retrieved my laptop from my briefcase and opened the document containing the little progress I'd managed on my next book. Ever since Booth and I came back from London, my publisher had been pressuring me to write another book, one which they have slated to be marketed heavily in both the United States and United Kingdom. I found this pressure to be irritatingly flattering, so I had begun work on the first chapter in recent months.
Part of my process in writing is to write within the flow of my consciousness and leave the editing for later. This editing typically manifests itself in the form of reading the story aloud to ensure there are no errors in my grammar and tenses. Since I was the only conscious person within earshot (aside from the occasional nurse that would hover outside the door long enough to hear a paragraph or two), I saw no harm in reading the story aloud in front of Booth. In fact, I'd imagined his reactions to the words in my mind (something I would never admit for fear of being accused of hearing voices like Booth).
In these daydreams, most of the time he'd nod along, offering his advice on the character Andy Lister. I would never tell anyone – especially Booth – but the character was most certainly modeled after him. After all, the best way to write the truth was to speak from experience. I imagined he'd become quiet and flushed as I read what little I had to contribute to Kathy and Andy's sexual encounters in the story. All of this was imagined, however, as Booth sat stagnant, mouth slightly agape, unresponsive to my words.
But this day as I read, I noticed something different. Booth's breathing became deeper. Slight movement in his fingertips caused me to stop mid-sentence and nearly throw my laptop across the room. I stood at his bedside, allowing the tips of my fingers to still his, hoping the touch would further his movement and possibly awaken him.
His eyes shuttered lethargically as he smacked his lips before he licked them. He then mumbled something unintelligible, causing me to take his hand in one of mine, and grab the call button with the other. I anxiously pressed the button, summoning the nurses to his room. He began looking around the room, appearing perplexed at his surroundings. His nurse, whose name I still cannot recall, smiled as she entered the room and began taking his vitals.
Booth stopped his movement and finally settled his eyes on me. His look was a mixture of what I interpreted to be pain and confusion. He huffed a few times before finally being able to form a coherent sentence.
"Where… are we?" I backed away from the bed slightly, doing an abhorrent job of hiding my dissatisfaction with the fact that he seemed to have amnesia. I held firm to his hand however, knowing that this length of comatose state was statistically impossible to wake from without the threat of amnesia. The nurse padded slowly out of the room, most likely trying to avoid a heartbreaking scene she'd seen before.
Calmly, I attempted to answer his question without immediately alarming him. "We are at the hospital. Do you remember who you are?" I hesitated for a moment, debating on whether or not to ask my next selfish question. "Do you remember who I am?"
In a moment of what I can only describe as pure Booth, he smiled crookedly and responded, "Yeah, I'm Scully and you're Mulder." I laughed in relief and he chuckled lightly, wincing at the pain wracking his skull. Before our second case, Booth had agreed to allow me into the field. Because he had been so back-and-forth in the past with my hiring and firing and subsequent re-hiring, I did not really believe him.
"What, you want to spit in my hand? We're Scully and Mulder."
Since that case, we'd had many other cases together working in the field. He'd even forced me to watch episodes of The X-Files featuring the characters Scully and Mulder. While I had to be truthful and make it known that I did not believe in the extraterrestrial, I did admit to Booth on several occasions that I enjoyed the banter exchanged between the fictional partners.
My smile faded slightly as I accepted that I didn't get the full answer from Booth that I wanted. I asked again, "But what are our real names?"
He shook his head slightly and hoarsely gave in to my request. "I am Special Agent Seeley Joseph Booth. You are Doctor Temperance Brennan." His use of my first name, although I'd heard it before as he'd introduced me in the course of countless cases, gave me a slight chill. I recalled his use of my name a few days prior in a slightly less professional setting. I couldn't help but wonder, again selfishly, whether or not he remembered that too.
"Do you remember what happened just before the surgery? What we talked about?" I bit my lip in nervous anticipation. I was very sure I knew the answer, but hoped that this was going to be one of the rare times in my life I would be proved incorrect.
His eyes narrowed. "I don't remember coming here. The last thing I remember is having dinner with Gordon-Gordon and taking Sweets home afterwards." He must have seen my eyes grow wider only momentarily, because his next question implied the gap in time.
"How long ago was that?" He would not abandon his hold on my eyes until I looked down at my own feet.
"It was approximately a month or so ago…" I loosened my grip on his hand, "…but I… I can confirm that with Sweets if you need me…"
His hand grasped mine firmly, showing no intention of allowing me to slip away from him. I wanted to slink into the shadows of the dimly lit room. I didn't want to accept what was happening before me. Only hours earlier, I'd mused about the possibilities of our new relationship. Foolishly, I may add, considering my knowledge of the human nervous system and statistics about post-traumatic amnesia.
"Bones," he tried, squeezing my hand again. "what did I say that has you so concerned?" he spoke slowly, regaining his awareness and consciousness bit by bit.
"It was nothing," I lied. It wasn't that I didn't want to tell him exactly what transpired in the OR, I was just unsure of how to tell him. Or unsure if he would even want to know at all. Perhaps it was in fact the tumor pressing on his brain causing him to be impulsive in what he conceived to be his final moments. I pushed this thought deep into my brain, wanting to avoid the thought of him dying again.
While he'd forgotten some things, he'd retained others. He read my facial expressions (which were admittedly not as well-contained as I thought) and pressed his inquiry further. "Don't beat around the bush, Bones. What happened?"
He finally relinquished control of my hand, allowing me to push my chair closer to his bedside. I sat softly on the edge of the seat and began relaying the story from the point at which he'd last remembered. Occasionally he'd drift off in thought and ask a question pertaining to a case or minute details of what he'd eaten on certain days or what clothing he'd worn. However, there were parts of the story I didn't realize I was not prepared to tell; how we'd solved the murder of his colleague's sister, how I'd decided I wanted to have a child and requested his sperm, and how he'd told me he loved me. He was caught in the trivial details, and I was struggling to just admit the things he really wanted to know – but wasn't aware he did.
Somewhere after explaining the case involving a college student killed and loaded into a school mascot, Booth grew tired and asked if we could stop for the night. I glanced at my watch for what seemed like the thousandth time that day. 3:27. I agreed that this would be a good stopping point and that we could continue the conversation in the morning. Truthfully, I wasn't sure I wanted to relay everything that happened to him. Knowing, however, that Angela, Hodgins, and the rest of our friends and family would fill in the details I'd left out, it had to be me. Besides, aside from the surgeons and nurses in the operating room when Booth made his speech about loving me, I was the only one that witnessed this admission of love.
As Booth drifted off to sleep with the help of some mild pain medication, I thought about whether he'd believe me or not. He could see right through a lie. I, of all people, was most susceptible to this innate skill of his. Over the years it seemed he'd studied me, learned my habits and my 'tells' as he put it in his gambling terms. He could tell if I was lying almost immediately, sometimes before I even had the chance to do so verbally. I didn't lie often, and when I did it was mostly to avoid subjects that I didn't intend upon discussing with him. The only times he did not call me out for this were when we met with Sweets. Sweets, too, had an uncanny ability to decipher a lie from the truth, but he didn't know me as well as Booth, and often would believe me simply because he had a lack of information supporting the contrary.
On days like this, we would leave our sessions with Sweets quietly or sometimes jumping right into the case as we walked to his office or vehicle. Often, as soon as Booth felt we were in a safe place where we would be guaranteed to be the only two privy to the conversation at hand, he would ask me about what I'd avoided saying.
On one occasion of this type in which Sweets asked us both to tell one thing that came to our minds daily that stemmed from our childhoods, I'd casually mentioned that I checked the stove every day, somewhat irrationally, because it was what my mother did every day before she left for work.
"And this was comforting to you?" Sweets asked, biting at the metaphorical bait I'd dangled in the form of my mother's memory.
"Yes," I lied. "It gives me something to connect to her and only her." I was quickly running out of fallacy, as my rational brain fought with the mostly made-up story.
"Interesting," Sweets commented, eliciting a groan and eye roll from Booth. Thankfully, he picked up on this quickly and moved on to what he thought would prove to be a more fascinating story. "Agent Booth, how about you? Do you have any memories about your parents that are brought forth on a regular basis?" Booth rolled his eyes again and flipped the chip in his hand between his fingers a few times before even acknowledging that a response was expected from Sweets.
"I tell ya what, Sweets, I can't really think of any." He stared right at Sweets, most likely attempting to intimidate the poor young doctor as he had so many times before. After a few pregnant moments of silence, I offered a solution I assumed all would be satisfied with. It just so happened that this solution was another lie.
"What about the pie, Booth?" His head and eyes snapped towards me immediately, silently questioning my intentions. I continued, hoping he'd play along so that we could finish this session before any more divulging had to take place.
"Remember you told me, Booth? About your mother? How she made excellent pies for special occasions?" His bottom lip raised towards his nose and he nodded, first at me, then morphing into a one-sided smile as he turned to Sweets.
"Booth has told me about the pies his mother made. She usually made them just for neighbors with sick family, or for their co-workers' birthdays or company parties, but occasionally on special days, she'd have one ready when you came home from school and you'd eat it for a snack?"
Booth laughed a little and added, "That blueberry was my favorite. Mom knew that. Jared liked strawberry-rhubarb more, but mom had a favorite, too." Booth looked back at me and smiled wider. "I can't believe you remembered that, Bones. You don't even like pie," he scoffed.
Sweets looked between the two of us, smiling in his uniquely juvenile way. "And you shared this openly with Dr. Brennan, Agent Booth, or did she ask you?"
Booth's smile broke as he grew tired of the questioning. "I probably offered it up, Sweets. Didn't seem like such an important detail at the time, but maybe it meant something to Bones." His suggestion gave Sweets something to think about as Booth retrieved his phone from his pocket. Glancing at the outer screen, be began to stand. "Well, Sweets, it's pretty upsetting to me that we've made all this grand progress, but I am afraid that duty calls for the bone lady and I here." He gestured to me with his hand. I took it and allowed him to help me stand from my seat.
As Booth reached for my coat on the rack, Sweets protested. "Aren't you two interested in why this is probably the reason that Agent Booth orders pie almost everywhere he goes…"
Booth interrupted, "Whoa there, Sweets. I don't just eat any pie. You make me sound like a pie whore!" He laughed as he held the collar of my jacket, allowing me to slip my arms in to the long trench.
"The reason Booth eats so much pie is probably because he enjoys the taste of it, Doctor Sweets." I tied the belt to my coat as Booth ushered me out the door. Booth said a quick goodbye and closed the door behind him, shutting in the dissent of the young psychologist as we headed towards the elevator.
As we sped down the road towards our next destination, Booth decided to approach the subject of that morning's session with Sweets. "Thanks for that, Bones." He looked over at me and smiled, obviously delighted. "Ya know, for coming up with something for Sweets to shrinkolate on instead of making me come up with something myself. Quick thinking. I liked it." He wiggled his eyebrows in a suggestive manner, causing me to laugh a bit.
"It was no problem, Booth, although I do feel a little bit guilty having lied so much to Sweets. He seems to have good intentions… for the most part." I laughed again, thinking about all the times he'd probed us for more information – more personal information at that, attempting to open old wounds that neither Booth nor I were willing to venture.
"Yeah, uh," he hesitated, looking to me again briefly before returning his eyes to the road, "you may have fooled the good doctor in there, but I'm wondering just how far off the reservation you had to go to tell that little lie of yours."
The car was silent for a few moments as I considered a course of action. Typically, Booth was pretty good about allowing me to simply say that I didn't want to talk about it. He'd turn up the music and drop the subject immediately. Alternately, he had been good about listening without commentary lately when I had decided to divulge memories or especially difficult stories. That day, I felt that I could trust him with this truth.
"In my last foster home, I would often be responsible for making sure that the younger children of the house were fed before we left for school. Usually this meant pouring cereal into bowls and making sure that before we left, all the dishes were in the sink. One day, I decided I would make a more complicated breakfast to treat my foster siblings." I paused. He nodded me on to continue.
"I made toast, bacon, and eggs that were all going to go bad soon if they were not used. When we left that morning, I made sure all of the plates, utensils, and cooking dishes were placed in the sink in hot water so that I could wash them when I got home from school that afternoon.
"That afternoon when my siblings and I got home from school, only my foster mother was home from work, which was highly unusual. She stood in the kitchen, looking angry, and I assumed it was either because I had used food she was planning on using that evening for dinner, or that I had left an unacceptable amount of dishes sitting in the sink." I paused again, this time not to gauge whether Booth was still listening or not, because I knew he was, but because I knew the next part of the story was something I hadn't said to anyone out loud in a very long time.
I continued; my voice unsteady for only a moment before evening out again. "She wasn't angry about the food or the dishes. She was irate because a friend of hers had stopped by the house that day to drop off some magazines she'd borrowed and noticed that the stove in the kitchen was still on. Her friend turned the stove off and called my foster mother at work when she got home. She told her about the stove, and she knew exactly who left it on.
"She called me all sorts of names, which was not that upsetting for me. I was used to being called names in school, so I had built up a sort of immunity to it. When my foster mother saw that I wasn't upset with my mistake, despite apologizing, she grabbed me by the neck and swung me around so that my head hovered over the eye of the stove." My voice cracked as the last word left my mouth. Booth turned to me, his eyes full of concern and quite possibly grief. I cleared my throat and calmly continued my story, now at a point of no return.
"She had turned the eye back on. As she held me over it, I could smell my hair burning on the coil. I begged that she forgive me and punish me however she wanted. I remember, she just grinned evilly at me and told me that was exactly what she was going to do. Then she proceeded to hold my head and the back of my neck against the eye until I finally managed to kick her hard enough to release me."
I looked out my window now, not sure of what I had just done. "That's why I check the stove every time I leave my apartment. Old habit, I suppose. Irrational considering I don't even cook that often." My voice lowered as I finished the statement.
Booth parked the car. I assumed we were at the house of the next suspect on our list, but I would not lift my eyes away from the car door long enough to see where we were. It was then that Booth reached his hand out to me and touched my arm with the tips of his fingers. I turned to him again and caught his gaze as he slowly moved his hand up towards my shoulder and then closer to my neck. His fingertips skimmed the surface of my neck over my carotid artery and then back to the nape of my neck, where his fingers sought something. When he found what he was looking for, his eyes met mine once more. His calloused fingers grazed the raised curves of the scars on my neck. Void of any follicle growth, they were easy to trace without looking.
His eyes drew mine back to his, searching for something missing. Perhaps he expected tears or a deep, ragged breath to try and hide my true emotion. Instead, the only visceral reaction was a shudder as the hairs on my neck rose in response to his warm touch.
As quickly as he'd come, he removed his hand and wasted no time in opening his door and exiting the vehicle. I sat still for another moment, still buckled in the seat, staring in his direction, wondering what the hell just happened.
There were few days like this, but this one often came to the forefront of my mind. Surely as I filled Booth in on the rest of the gaps of his amnesia and its causative comatose state, he would know that I was leaving things out. He would ask me. He would want to know the truth. And I would have to be the one to give it to him.
But that odd day after our partners' therapy session reminded me of something else, too. There had to be some part of Booth that cared for me deeply on that day. I knew then that there was something different going on because I hadn't pulled away from his touch, rather, I'd embraced it and allowed it to happen. Perhaps Booth loved me on that day too. Maybe Booth had loved me far longer than the day he told me in the operating room.
Regardless of his feelings on the matter, I knew the next day would prove to be a difficult one. He would be tired, most likely in intense pain, and he'd want to know the rest of the details. Those details which also included something he'd either forgotten or ignored asking about. His diagnosis. At this point, he only knew that he was having hallucinations and was now in the hospital in pain. He did not know about the tumor, and worse yet, he had no idea about his prognosis.
And that was something I was absolutely positive I was not ready to tell him.
AN: So. There's that. What exactly will this prognosis be? Are you nervous? Do you hate me yet? Are you ready for some more Boothy goodness?
Let me know. How, you say?
That little box down there. C'mon, it'll only take you a second (and you might even hear from me directly)! Happy Reviewing!
-broil
