Ch 3
"But what if he has to get a metal plate in his arm like you were saying," Parker continued. "Will refrigerator magnets stick to his arm afterwards? Will it turn him into Magneto?"
"I have no idea who or what a Magneto is," Brennan said. She had answered all of Parker's questions about Booth's injury and the likely courses of treatment, but he was running out of logical, legitimate questions and venturing into the land of wild speculation. While Brennan appreciated his inquisitiveness and desire to learn, she was losing her patience as the questions became less and less relevant and plausible. "But no. refrigerator magnets will not stick to his arm. Parker, he's going to be fine. If you're talking nonstop because you're worried about him, you can relax. He should be back soon, and he really will be ready to go home very soon."
Parker, who had been wandering around the room touching everything he could get away with without her telling him not to, came back over to her quickly. "Really?"
"Really. I told you that already. Here, if you want to learn something, I'll teach you something useful, all right? Come here."
More to keep him still than anything else, because his endless moving around the small room and touching things was grating on her nerves – since it was basically a visual representation of how anxious she was also feeling – she pulled him back into her lap and held him in place securely with an arm around his middle.
She pulled out her cell phone and showed it to him. "How did you call me on your dad's phone?" she asked.
"I guessed," he said. "I pushed one and send."
"That was a very smart thing to do," she said encouragingly. "But what if you needed to call me and you didn't have your dad's cell phone?"
"I dunno."
"Do you know your dad's cell phone number?"
"Um… on my mom's phone it's 7 for cell phone, 8 for apartment."
"You know your own home number, right, and your mom's cell phone?"
"Yeah, she made me learn it when I went to school."
"Okay, then I think it's time you learned some other numbers."
"It's hard," he complained, squirming a little.
"No, it's not. Not if you come up with a special way to remember. Here, we'll try a few things and see what works for you…"
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The lesson didn't last nearly as long as she'd thought. Parker was too smart. She was trying to think of another way to keep him occupied when his stomach growled loudly underneath the arm she had round his middle.
"Are you hungry?" she asked.
"Yeah. We were gonna have dinner after we finished with the caster board."
"Well, I don't know if there's much around here that you'll be willing to eat, and your dad should be back soon… let's go find a vending machine."
"I get to eat candy?" he asked eagerly.
"No," she said quickly, thinking that the last thing she wanted was him on a sugar high in this small room. "You don't get to eat candy now. We'll find something you can have now and if you PROMISE not to ask me for it, I'll get you some candy and give it to you later, after we get back to your dad's."
"I promise," he agreed immediately.
"Okay, let's go. You can leave your coat; we'll be back soon." She led him into the hallway and they quickly found the small vending machine room on their floor. She got herself a cup of coffee and perused their choices.
There was a sandwich machine, but those prepackaged sandwiches had always seemed suspicious to her. There was a candy machine. Parker immediately pointed out the candy bar he wanted. She gave him the money and let him push the buttons while she looked at the remaining choices.
She finally selected a bag of microwave popcorn, a package of cheese crackers, and a little bag of mixed nuts. While they waited for the popcorn to pop in the small microwave next to the coffee pot, she also got two bottles of water.
"This is a weird dinner," Parker observed as they carried it all back to the room.
"It's not dinner. It's just to fill you up for a while until I take you home."
Parker made a picnic of the snacks on the bed in the room. Brennan, more than a little hungry herself now that food had been brought up, ate some of the popcorn with him, trying not to glance at the clock more than once every ten minutes or so.
The food seemed to calm Parker down; when he was finished, they threw their trash away and he climbed into her lap again, pulled out his video game, and started playing.
Within fifteen minutes he had nodded off to sleep, video game still loosely in his hands. He was drooling on her sweater, but she didn't want to risk waking him up by trying to move him. She knew he had been better behaved than most children probably would have been in such a situation, but it had still been stressful to her trying to keep him from worrying about Booth and keep him from winding her up while they waited.
She didn't like to wait. Especially in hospitals. So a lot of it was probably more her fault than Parker's, she admitted to herself, and rested her cheek on the top of his head briefly.
The door opened, finally, and Booth was wheeled into the room on a gurney, meaning there were now two in the room.
Alarmed that he'd acquiesced to being wheeled around in the bed, she sat up quickly, still holding Parker so he wouldn't shift or fall, and asked quietly, "What happened?"
"I threw up in the MRI. It made a big mess," Booth said. He looked very pale.
"You threw up? I thought you didn't have a concussion."
"I don't," he said, a bit defensively.
A doctor and another nurse entered before she could question him further. The doctor was carrying sheets of films. Seeing an easy solution now that there were two beds in the room, she got up carefully and carried Parker to the empty one that he'd eaten his snack on before and laid him down, holding her breath as she did so as though that would somehow keep him from waking up.
Booth looked at Parker and asked, "Is he okay?"
"Yeah, he's just tired. It's almost nine." She had already turned from Booth to the lighted panels where the doctor was now putting the X-rays up side by side. She thought she heard her partner mutter something about his broken bones being the only bit of him she was interested in, but decided that he probably hadn't meant for her to hear that even if she had heard him correctly, and regardless, the small crowded room they were in definitely wasn't the place to call him on the remark.
"As you can see, this is a typical distal radius fracture, an inch from the end of the radius," the doctor said quietly, mindful of the sleeping child.
"Yes, it looks fine," she agreed, scrutinizing every inch of the x-ray for anything else they might be overlooking.
"Setting and casting is very straightforward. The cast will be on for four weeks; we'll check it again then and determine if he needs another two."
"His bones knit fairly quickly."
"Hello, I'm still here," Booth pointed out. He always got annoyed when doctors – or squints – talked about him like he wasn't there. Especially when they did it with their backs to him.
He felt fully justified in his current state of annoyance too. He knew his arm wasn't close to the worst injury he'd ever had or anything like that, but that didn't mean that it didn't hurt, dammit. And he'd been in pain way longer than he needed to be because everyone was so worried about checking out his head when all he'd done was bang the back of it on the pavement.
Okay, so it hurt like hell too, but it wasn't broken, and his arm was.
Throwing up in the MRI hadn't helped matters either. Not only had it slowed everything down even further, but they'd ordered a CT also just "to be thorough."
All of that to conclude…
"No concussion, no brain trauma of any kind," the doctor was telling Brennan, who looked relieved. "Just a good bump to the back of the head. Might have a headache for a few days, but the pain in his arm should dull that too."
"Great," Booth said sarcastically. "I always like it when I have multiple injuries, because then I only feel the worst ones one at a time."
"I think we should go ahead and give you the local, anti-inflammatory, and pain killer before we set that arm, Agent Booth," the doctor said cheerfully, although he waved the nurse with the tray of filled syringes over with an unnecessary amount of haste.
"Finally," Booth said.
To give himself something to do while he got stuck with the various needles, he turned his attention to his son, who was still sleeping peacefully in the bed four inches away. His partner misinterpreted the look on his face, because she turned her attention back to Parker, covered him with the blanket at the foot of the bed, and said somewhat defensively, "I fed him."
"What?" he asked with a little yelp as the nurse stuck a long needle right into the spot on his arm that was already killing him.
"He was hungry. I fed him. Um, they didn't have anything really healthy. I gave him popcorn, crackers, and mixed nuts. And water. He went to sleep right after."
"Thanks. I'm sure he's fine, Bones. I'm just a little surprised he's sleeping through all this, that's all."
"He was terrified when he saw you get hurt, Booth. His system was flooded with adrenaline and a bunch of other chemicals you'd probably rather not know the name of just like yours was. He crashed. His body is smaller, so the results of fluctuations are more intense. It's one of the reasons why children frequently have such higher fevers than adults when they're ill and don't sustain brain damage…"
"You're giving me brain damage just from talking," Booth interrupted with a wince.
"That's impossible," she countered, but stopped. She sat down on the edge of Parker's bed facing Booth and said, "How are you feeling?"
"Like I should've gotten him a wii instead of that damn caster board."
"What's a wii?" she asked.
He started to answer, but the doctor interrupted with a slightly impatient cough. "Agent Booth, can you feel this?" he asked, pressing on the skin around his injury lightly, gradually increasing the pressure.
"Just the pressure. The pain's… muffled. Listen," he squirmed a bit uncomfortably. "Can she set it and do the cast, please? No offense, doc, but, she's kind of the expert…"
"Booth, it's a simple injury, I'm sure Dr. Nivens is more than qualified…"
"Uh, listen, I'm not offended or anything, but it's really a matter of insurance and potential hospital liability. I can't really let her set your bone here. If it'll make you more comfortable, after I set it, she can check it before I put the cast on."
Booth was eager to get home before midnight, if possible, before there were too many dangerous drivers on the road. And he was starting to feel much more agreeable with all the medication now coursing through his veins. "All right, que sera sera."
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"Great, I'm good as new, let's go," Booth said, sitting up quickly as soon as the cast was finished. He patted Brennan on the leg and got to his feet quickly, swaying slightly as the sudden movement made him dizzy.
The doctor was still writing prescriptions for pain medication and anti-inflammatories.
"You still have a lot of paperwork to sign," the doctor said, handing him the prescriptions.
He shoved them into his pocket before Brennan could take them from him. But she held her hand out for them anyway. Not putting it past her to go into his pocket for them, he handed them over.
"I know you're not going to get them filled," she explained, uncrumpling them and putting them carefully in her own pocket as the nurse started showing Booth where to sign on a mountain of paperwork.
He was holding the pen clumsily, and after two completely illegible signatures, he said angrily, "You just had to put my thumb in the cast too, didn't you, doc?"
"Yes, he did, actually. You're far more likely to be healed to sufficient FBI standards in four weeks if your thumb is immobilized as well."
"Still… I can't do anything now," he complained, scratching a few scribbles onto the next line the nurse pointed him to. "What time is it?"
"Ten thirteen," Brennan replied promptly, helping him into his coat. "Do you want me to wake Parker up or try to let him sleep?"
"Sleep. If you don't mind."
She shook her head and picked Parker up carefully, draping his coat over him like a blanket for warmth when they got outside. They were both rushing the hospital staff through the last stages of the release process, heading to the door with Parker to indicate they were leaving, whether or not they got all their paperwork signed.
This sped the process up considerably, and Brennan was trying to buckle Parker into his booster seat without waking him ten minutes later. It wasn't easy – he was too floppy asleep.
He whimpered a little when she tried to hold him upright while getting the seat belt around him, leaning forwards. "Parker, come on, sit up just a little…"
He opened his eyes sleepily. "Are we going home?" he mumbled.
"Yes, we are. It's okay, you can go back to sleep."
He nodded and leaned his cheek on the seat belt, using it like a hammock for his head. She put his coat back over him and shut the door as quietly as possible, then leaned in the front passenger seat, because Booth was taking a long time getting himself in the car as well.
Eyebrow quirked in amusement, she buckled his seatbelt as well, deciding that a knowing smirk was just the right amount of mocking.
"Yeah, very funny, mock the injured man," Booth grumbled as she shut the door and went around to the driver's side.
It was early enough that traffic was still relatively light. She waited until they were close to Booth's apartment and then drove through the nearest 24-hour pharmacy.
At his apartment, she carried Parker upstairs and took him to his room, assuming that was what Booth wanted her to do. After putting him on his bed, she pulled off his shoes carefully and tucked him in, deciding it wouldn't hurt anything if he slept in his clothes.
When she came back out into the living room, Booth was making himself comfortable on the couch, toeing off his shoes and flipping on the television to the Times Square countdown pre-party thing.
"Do you find it at all ironic that the guy who annually rings in the new year for the entire country hasn't aged in about thirty years?" he asked her.
"I don't know what that means."
"Dick Clarke, Bones."
She gave him a blank look. He started to look mildly frustrated, so she added, "I'm assuming you know that even with the most advanced surgical procedures, it's impossible for someone to stop ageing at all, let alone for thirty years."
"Yeah, yeah. Listen, thanks for taking care of Parker and getting me to the hospital and everything, Bones."
Her hands settled on her hips at the tone in his voice, and she shifted her weight from foot to foot, thinking, before finally asked, "Are you asking me to leave?"
"Well, I want you to get home safely and the later you're out on New Year's…"
"I know the statistics," she interrupted. "What about your wrist? And your head?"
He shook the little white bag of prescription pills with a fake smile.
She rolled her eyes. "Booth – if you even take those pills, which I doubt you will of your own volition, half of them tend to cause extreme drowsiness. What are you going to do with Parker?"
He had to admit, she had a point. Parker was unlikely to sleep straight through the night – if Booth knew his son, Parker would wake up hungry within a couple of hours since he hadn't had a full dinner, remember that Booth had promised him he could stay up late, and force himself wide awake again in the middle of the night.
When he finally risked looking at his partner again, she was biting her lip and had that look that meant she really wanted to ask him something but was afraid of his reaction to the question. "Are you trying to get me out of here before midnight because of the societal traditions revolving around the so-called 'ringing in' of the New Year with those around you?"
"No," Booth said, chuckling and sounding defensive even to himself.
"Really?" she asked, and this time he detected not only genuine curiosity, but a hint of nervous concern.
"Really," he sighed. "Look, Bones, if you want to stay, stay. But you're right about Parker. He's going to wake up eventually and want dinner, and call me old fashioned but I think those people with two opposable thumbs should be in charge of all meal preparations…"
"I don't mind… although, for the record, you do still have two opposable thumbs, Booth. You just can't use one of them at the moment."
"If I were you, I would stop arguing with me and try to get some rest before Parker gets up," he suggested.
"Good point," she conceded, sitting down at the other end of the couch, after he pulled his legs up to make room for her.
"You can change it if you want," he offered, after she'd stared at the television screen for a few minutes like she was thinking about doing a new field study.
"It's sort of interesting, in its own way," she said absently, not taking her eyes off the screen. "Presumably, parties all over the country, like Angela's for example, are now full of inebriated partygoers reveling in camaraderie and their joint intoxication, yet even those groups feel the need to turn to this televised group of partygoers to feel connected to the rest of the country for one moment in time a year…"
While she paused to breathe, Booth glanced at the screen. Three young men who looked like the definition of frat boys were screaming at the camera with their tongues hanging out, holding giant beer steins. The one in the middle didn't have a shirt on. He found it hard to find much anthropological significance there. But then again, he wasn't the anthropologist.
"If you say so," he shrugged absently, tossing a throw pillow onto the coffee table so he could swivel around and put his feet up on that now that he didn't have the whole length of the sofa to himself.
She toed off her shoes a minute later and curled her feet up underneath herself. He waited a minute and tossed the blanket from the back of the couch over on top of her.
"Thanks," she said around a yawn, spreading the blanket over herself and relaxing into the couch even further, using the arm rest for a pillow.
He waited until she seemed to either be asleep or very close to it and reached slowly into his pocket. He pulled out his floaty pin and resisted the urge to tip it over so that the tiny cartoon lady's clothes fell off. He had more important things in mind for the pen at the moment. Trying to block her potential view by shifting slightly so his shoulder was in the way, he quickly stuck the pen down the cast and tried to scratch that spot that was driving him nuts.
He let out a sigh of relief before he could stop himself.
"Booth!"
She was leaning over his back and wrestling the pen from his grip before he could do more than yelp. She glanced at the pen and rolled her eyes. "Very mature," she said, tossing it onto the coffee table.
He wasn't sure if she meant the design on the pen, or the fact that he'd been using it to reach down his cast. He supposed it didn't matter much at the moment. She was now standing in front of him, scowling, with her hands on her hips, and he had to bite his tongue to keep from making another joke like the librarian remark he'd made on the plane to China a while ago. He still wasn't entirely sure whether or not she'd been sincerely puzzled by the remark, or had just pretended not to get it to keep the situation from getting awkward. It was probably better not to know.
"What?" she demanded.
"I didn't say anything," he said meekly.
"You're trying not to laugh."
He couldn't help it. He smiled and laughed, but did it quietly.
She let out a frustrated noise not entirely unlike a growl and said, "Booth, come on, you've barely had your cast on for an hour and you're already sabotaging your recovery."
"Geez, Bones, lighten up. I scratched an itch, okay, I think I'll still heal."
She took a moment, clearly trying to decide which way to go with the conversation. His injury must have earned him some sympathy points he hadn't managed to use up yet, because instead of continuing to fuss at him, she gave him a sympathetic look and leaned over to examine his arm.
She felt his fingers for swelling or numbness, and felt the skin at the place where his cast stopped just below his elbow. She was so focused on what she was doing, and was being so gentle and thorough, that he almost felt guilty about looking down her sweater. Almost. Hell, she was right there, leaning over. He couldn't look anywhere else, really, without closing his eyes. And if he closed his eyes, it would just draw attention to why he was closing his eyes. That could embarrass her, and he didn't want to do that, now did he?
Maybe I've been around Caroline too much, he thought. I think I'm becoming a pretty good lawyer… I almost had myself convinced of my innocence there.
"Booth?" she prompted, grabbing his chin in her hands and peering into his eyes closely. The urgency in her voice told him she'd called him a few times already and he hadn't heard her.
"Sorry, what?" he asked, swallowing after hearing how dry his own voice sounded.
"Are you in pain?" she asked.
"It's starting to come back," he admitted. "It's not the same kind of pain exactly, more like…"
"Pressure?" she supplied, standing up and looking at her watch.
"Yeah," he said, shifting slightly and draping his uninjured arm across his lap. "Pressure. Um. Kind of like… squeezing."
"You are a little swollen," she agreed, standing up.
She leaned over the table to grab the prescription bag, and he rolled his eyes. This was nowhere near as ambiguous as on the plane – she was genuinely clueless this time. It was annoyingly endearing.
While she fiddled with the bottle, he grabbed the blanket she'd been using and threw it over himself. "You can't have any more pain medicine yet, but you can have another anti-inflammatory."
"Is it going to knock me out?"
"Maybe. It will definitely make you drowsy."
He thought for a moment and held out his hand for the pill. She gave it to him and went into the kitchen to get him something to drink.
She came back with two glasses of water and handed him one before sitting down next to him. He took the pill quickly and asked, "No champagne to ring in the new year?"
"Not with these medications," she said firmly.
"You're not a very nice doctor," he informed her.
"Would you prefer to be back at the hospital?" she asked, reclaiming half of the blanket for herself and making herself comfortable against his side.
"No."
"Then don't complain. Let me see your fingers again." She examined his hand again, no doubt memorizing exactly how swollen his fingers were so she could check and make sure the medication actually worked in whatever time it was supposed to work. "The pressure should ease up when the swelling goes down, but if you're still in pain you can have more medicine in an hour."
Determined not to apply any double meanings to anything she'd just said, he glanced at the clock to distract himself. "Great, so I get to ring in the new year with Vicodin while the rest of the country is… drinking champagne," he finished. He hadn't been thinking about champagne, but he definitely didn't want to say anything that included, alluded to, or even rhymed with 'kissing' at the moment.
Neither of them said anything for several minutes, both watching the television but not paying much attention to it.
"You know," she said thoughtfully some time later, in the tone that meant she was either going back to a conversation they'd been having a long time ago, or one that she'd started by herself in her head. "It's probably not fair of you to expect Parker to wear all that safety gear when he sees you get on his toy without even a helmet on."
"Well, now he has a wonderful memory about what happens when you don't wear that stuff," Booth said dryly.
"I'm just saying…"
"Yeah, I know. Sounds a lot like, 'I told you so,' Bones."
"I didn't say 'I told you so.' I was unaware that you intended to get on his skating thing without any protective equipment on at all ahead of time, so how could I have known to tell you not to do it?"
"Just… never mind, okay? I'm obviously not going to be playing on it again anytime soon."
She contemplated that for a moment and finally murmured ruefully, "Well, at least you learned something today."