Brennan's heart

Ultimately, she will save his life that night.

And in doing so he will save hers.

oOo

They are chasing Mark Watley through the field when she first stumbles and he catches her and pulls her up and along with him until their prey sends another shot their way. Instinctively, he pulls her with him to the ground, takes a knee and lines up his shot.

But Watley is moving again, and he loses sight of him briefly in the growing dusk.

"You okay?" he asks and her response is a breathy one, but he only takes a moment before he is up on his feet again and crashing through the field.

The chase started at Watley's farmhouse and has taken them into this clearing, past the fields once ripe with tobacco. Brennan, ever the observer, actually looked at the map of Watley's property earlier while they were in the SUV and has suggested that he may be headed for an older farmhouse on the other side of the woods.

They had only come out to ask Watley a few questions, find out what he knew about Leslie Madison's disappearance 7 years ago. He seems to be the most cooperative of witnesses offering to do everything he can to help. Booth sees it first, but doesn't make the connection: Watley is wearing a St. Dominic medal, patron saint of astronomers. Leslie was an amateur astronomer who loved to come out to the farm country to look up at the stars and the 25-year-old woman disappeared in this area doing just that. Brennan is doing what she does, looking around the room, observing, cataloging, evaluating, when she sees something that doesn't quite fit: there's a telescope on his back porch, a model similar to the one that Leslie owned. The lens cap is cracked and dusty and she asks Watley about a constellation in the night sky. Only then does Booth make the connection to the medal and their victim. And Brennan seals Watley's status as their number one suspect when she unearths an astronomer's logbook nestled between two pornographic DVDs on his shelf. The log is in Leslie's very precise handwriting.

It happens quickly, too quickly to do much more than react. Watley grabs a potted plant from the table and flings it at Booth scattering dirt and leaves and shards before running through the back door.

Brennan is behind Booth by a few steps, keeping up with the torrid pace. Watley is a tease, only a few paces ahead of Booth all the way until they hit the forest. The difference in light between the open sky of the field and the dense canopy of the woods requires some adjustment and Booth loses sight of Watley for a moment.

He should halt the pursuit, pull out his cell phone and call for backup, but he is too pissed that Watley slipped through his fingers and because of that he won't give in. Watley is too close to let him go just yet. He pauses for a second more only to pull his backup from the ankle holster and hand that to Brennan when she catches up. She automatically fingers the safety like he's taught her. He signals for her to keep low and circle below where Watley entered the woods while he will complete the arc above their prey. It takes only seconds and they are both on the move again.

If Watley tries to veer off, either he or Brennan should be able to adjust and to follow. If Brennan is right, and he trusts her to be right, they might be funneling him toward the farmhouse and between the two of them, they can corner him there.

He considers several scenarios and thinks about simply stopping and calling for backup when he hears a gunshot.

Instinctively he crouches and calls out, "Bones?"

He shouldn't call out because it will give away his position, but he does it anyway, more worried about her safety than his own. He holds his own position a moment longer before he hears, "I'm fine, Booth."

He is now even more determined to catch Watley and he begins to pick up the pace, weaving in and out of the trees and the scrub when he finally sees what Brennan has told him about. It is the farmhouse, a stooped old woman weary and gray with neglect.

Brennan pulls out of the woods several yards away and several seconds after him.

But no Watley.

They both hear crashing in the woods behind them growing more distant and he's aggravated that the man has slipped through their grasp. He's decided: he will give up the pursuit for now; he won't risk their lives. The sun is beginning to set and they need dogs and flashlights and a lot more men than the two of them.

He also can feel the sting of scratches on his face and he knows Brennan is sporting a small slash of blood near her right eye.

Had he made the connection sooner, had he recognized the St. Dominic medal at once, he might have been able to subdue Watley at the house rather than make this mad dash across farmland and through forest. He was within an arm's length of Watley and he should have grabbed him when Brennan asked about the constellation. He is decisive while Brennan is deliberate and he should have acted quicker.

He waves Brennan over and he walks slowly toward the porch of the old building catching his breath while he pulls out his cell. It is the right thing to do and the wrong thing to do because the moment the light of the phone touches the growing gloom, it shatters in his hand. Gunshots explode around them and he pushes-pulls Brennan onto the porch and splinters the door as they crash through the old wood like a battering ram.

They land in a heap on the floor, but with the door gaping open behind them he knows it is not safe and he scrambles to his feet and pulls her up beside him to move deeper into the house. He tries to calculate where Watley might be given the sounds of the gunshots but those thoughts evaporate in a different kind of explosion as the floorboards beneath them give way and they are falling though the rotted wood before his head slams into something on the way down and everything goes black.

oOo

He wakes to Brennan practically pummeling him. "Booth! Booth! Wake up!"

It takes time to orient himself, but he is lying half submerged in water and Brennan is under him, her legs angled beneath his head holding him up.

His words are scattered as are his thoughts and Brennan has to explain it to him several times before he understands and even then he only understands in bits and pieces.

"Water . . . root cellar. . . fall. . .concussion. . . ."

He finally puts it together: he hit his head somehow on the way down through the floor of the farmhouse and now they are in a root cellar below the actual cellar.

And Brennan is sitting under him in the mud and muck and brackish water to prevent him from drowning.

He can look up through the floors they've passed through and see the night sky.

She fills him in on what she knows about Watley—she has heard movement, but not seen him; that doesn't mean he isn't still out there. She tells him about the knot on his head, just a few inches from where the scar from his brain surgery is.

Everything is slowly making sense, but his headache radiates from the lump. He tries to remember what happened at the farmhouse, tries to hold onto the images. It's more important that they get out of this subterranean mess, but he's trying to sort out the images and snippets of conversation. He needs to remember. He needs this to focus.

"What did you ask him?"

"What?"

There are probably a thousand other things to ask her at this moment, but he asks her about the last question she posed to Watley before he took off and chased them down this rabbit hole.

"At the house. Watley. What'd you ask him?"

"If he could see Ursa Minor and the Little Dipper from the porch."

"Ursa. . . ."

"Small bear."

"I know. I know, Bones." His head feels like a bear has been let loose inside his brain.

"Ursa Minor and the Little Dipper are the same constellation."

He knows this. He closes his eyes and Brennan shakes him.

"Booth. You can't fall asleep." She pleads with him. "I think you have a concussion."

She tells him how many concussions he has had and he has her repeat the information twice before it sticks in his addled brain.

She knows his medical history almost as well as he does.

"We're sitting geese, here, Booth. We have to get out of here. Watley can come back at any time."

"Silly goose. Sitting ducks." It's actually kind of funny and he starts to laugh. "Silly goose, it's sitting ducks. We're sitting ducks, you silly goose."

She pushes on him with her legs. "We need to get out of here."

It takes all of her resolve and their combined strength to push and pull him up, but it's hard as his foot is caught in something. They slip several times in the cold water, his head too big for his shoulders and one good foot is not enough to stand on, but they make it to upright positions although he is off-balance. He leans on her, uncertain he can balance the thing that is his head on one leg. They have left the stagnant water below, but its smell follows as does the clammy feeling of wet leather and denim.

His foot is caught on something and he tries to focus on that rather than his head or the stinging in his hand. Leaning on Brennan, he tries to pull himself free, but he practically pulls them both back down into the foul water with his attempts.

That's when they hear the house creaking above them, the floorboards groaning. He tries to step out of the water onto what is left of the basement floor, but he cannot. Leaning against Brennan and what's left of the floor, he tries again to pull himself free, but his ankle and foot are wedged deep in something that seems to be cemented around him.

"Gun. Bones, where's my gun?"

He pats his pockets and feels for his holster, but both are empty.

"Bones? Find my gun."

She puts something in his hand, wet and cool to his touch. It's his back up. The Colt .22.

"Keep an eye out for Watley."

She practically falls back into the water and he teeters without her there to support him, but he steadies himself, kicking water at her as he tries to peer upward and keep his balance. The action is disorienting, but he closes his eyes and stills his stomach which is revolting against the vertigo and the headache.

Her hands are around his leg and ankle and his skin is too cold to really feel anything except a sharp ache as she searches around the water. "Bones?"

"Watley. Watch for him, Booth." Her voice is steady, but he hears worry in her tone. "I need something for leverage." She searches for something to pry him loose and grabs at several pieces of wood floating nearby.

His eyes are open and he sees only a smattering of shimmering lights in the night sky. He must have been unconscious a long time for the sky to have become so dark and glittery. He tries to pull out his left foot, but all he succeeds in doing is knocking Brennan in the head with his knee.

A sharp rap on his leg reminds him to focus on what is above them. She will work on what is below.

He tells himself to focus and he tries to assess their situation. He is standing below the first floor, somewhat sheltered by part of the wooden floor of the cellar they've fallen through. Brennan is kneeling in the water, crawling around in the muckish mess, trying to find a way to free him.

They are wrapped in shadows.

She pushes at his leg and grunts as she wraps both hands around something under the murkiness and starts to churn the water.

"Shhhh!" He's heard something above and he flails at her head to get her attention.

She knows enough to keep quiet, to avoid giving away their position, so her elongated "Arghh" vibrates against his leg as she buries her face against his wet jeans and tries to dig around him. He cannot even feel what she is doing near his leg. His head throbs and sends streaks of thunder through his brain.

His legs are numb in the cold water and he cannot imagine how Brennan can kneel in it, poking and prodding beneath its surface. Looking up, he knows what it feels like to be the bullseye of a target.

He seems hopelessly cemented in place.

"Do you have a knife?"

Her soft voice is edged with desperation.

"No," he whispers back. "You aren't going to cut my leg off."

"Why would I do that? I need to pry this loose."

His head is still battling the rampaging bear. "What about your kit?"

It's back at the SUV along with her cell phone, a knife, a small tool kit. The floorboards announce that Watley is getting closer. He checks the Colt; each position in the cylinder is full save for the safety chamber. He lines up one bullet with the hammer and reaches down and pulls Brennan's head closer to his leg. He wants them to be a smaller target for their prey.

So they wait.

And wait.

The house's groans settling into the cool night air are different from the footsteps above them and he forces his battered brain to differentiate between them, read them like an audio map of Watley's position. He can feel Brennan's hands still at work beneath the surface of the water, feeling around his twisted leg, digging beneath the water, searching out a way to free him. He ignores the cramp in his leg and the activity around it.

Looking up is dizzying and he leans against Brennan who is doing her best to hold him up as she kneels in the muddy water. He trusts her hands to know what they are doing. He trusts her to free him.

All at once the water around them becomes alive as bullets whiz around throwing up little splashes of muck. He hears Brennan gasp as the bullets rain down. He looks up and ignores the stinging in his arm as a bullet slices through flesh. He aims.

It is a gamble, but it is the best he can do since he cannot see Watley so he squeezes off a shot. A spray of splintered wood rains down on them. He sees a small glint of light and that is all he needs; the next shot hits something. He can hear the soft exhale of air, a grunt, then a thud as something hits the floor above them and a shower of dirt and splinters hits them below.

For several seconds he's wiping dirt from his face and trying not to fall over. He looks up, then listens, but all he can hear is his own breathing and the water churning below. Brennan is still battling whatever is holding him rooted to that spot. "Booth, can you. . . ?"

She grunts then begins to push on his leg and pull at something around it when another storm of bullets pelts the gunk around them and her words are lost in the cacophony.

Suddenly he is free and falling and Brennan is pulling at him and they scramble to safer ground, and they crouch in a small space beneath the floor of the cellar.

Testing his legs, they seem to belong to someone else because he cannot control them well. "My legs," he grunts, "my legs need to work." Brennan begins to rub them down trying to get the blood to warm them, trying to feel for injuries. His ankle throbs and Brennan's face is smudged. Her intensity never wavers.

She touches something on his leg and at first it stings then something slices through his body and he practically convulses with the pain. He stills her hands with his. Her hands are ice.

"Booth," she whispers and points, but he signals to her to be quiet. He listens for movement above them. For something. They are sitting ducks for Watley, they are silly geese. He closes his eyes to help him focus, and Brennan twists his jacket and shakes him to keep him from passing out and falling over. He opens his eyes.

He's figured it out, figured out Watley, figured out a way to even the odds. Without hesitating, he locates a chunk of wood and throws it to where they were. Another hail of bullets pelts the water sending up sprays of water. When the storm ends, he staggers back into the muck, points the gun in Watley's direction and fires.

This time the thud is clearly a whole body smacking wood above them. He sees a silhouette haloed by the night sky and feels Brennan next to him, holding him up. When the silhouette moves just a fraction, he fires once more into the shadow's center.

There is no more movement.

oOo

Brennan becomes his crutch, supporting him as they slowly stumble their way up a rickety stairway and outside. His head throbs as the bear paws inside his brain. When they finally kick their way out of the cellar door, she turns him toward the way they came and they begin a stumble step back to the first farmhouse. With his arm slung around her shoulders, they lean against each other. The bear clings to his leg, digging its claws into the muscle while another continues to paw intermittedly at his brain and arm. It takes them forty minutes to make a trek that had only taken a fraction of the time before but they are guided by moonlight and a vague sense of direction and he cannot move faster with his throbbing leg.

When they get to the SUV, both are shivering with cold and exhaustion. He is the first to notice that Watley has left them an additional insult to their injuries—two tires of the SUV are flat. Each "damn" that he exhales causes the bear inside his skull to rage and he forces himself to stillness to ease the pain so that they can evaluate the situation. But Brennan has already retrieved her cell phone and is dialing emergency services. She leans against the SUV and he wonders if she's so weary she cannot stand any longer. He braces himself against the SUV and looks upward at the sky and looks for Ursa Minor, the Little Dipper. Brennan gives someone their location and names and she says something extraordinary: "We need an ambulance immediately for two gunshot victims."

Then she collapses to the ground.

oOo

For the next 52 hours he feels like one of Parker's science fair projects. He can't imagine how Brennan feels in ICU.

Cam and Hodgins keep him informed of how Brennan is doing two floors above him. While the doctors and nurses have tried to explain her condition, it is Cam who cuts through the mumbo jumbo and simply spells out the worst of it: she took two bullets and lost a lot of blood.

Booth knows there was nothing simple about what Brennan did.

Max stops by on the first day in hospital and thanks him for saving his daughter's life. Booth tells him the whole story, tells Max how Brennan saved him.

He's seen Max Brennan in many guises, in many moods. He doesn't wholly trust the man, but he trusts the emotion in the man's eyes when Max wipes at them and nods his head and says, "I'm still glad it was you who was there with her."

It is Hodgins who supervises the retrieval of Brennan's mother's ring from the pit of muck. Booth hears the story later, much later. Brennan mentioned the ring to Angela, mentioned that she had lost it as she tried to pry the debris and rock and mud from Booth's leg to free him. Angela had made it her mission—actually Jack's—to get it back.

"Had to sift through barrels of that stuff before I found it," he says simply.

Hodgins also finds the St. Dominic's medal on a broken gold chain.

Hodgins will take the ring back to the lab and clean it using one of his microscopes to make certain the ring retains no trace evidence that it had been sacrificed as she tried to pry Booth loose.

The 52 hours in the hospital, the 52 hours apart, practically drive him crazy. The reports from his friends are meant to ease his mind, assuage his concern, but he needs to see her for himself.

After he is discharged, Booth makes a U-turn and heads for the elevators to see his partner.

When he sees her for the first time in 52 hours, she is not wearing the ring. She is sleeping, sedated, her skin pale, almost translucent. Her hands are still raw and red and bruised, yet he takes one gingerly and wraps his hands around it before placing a kiss on it. Tubes run from her right arm to several machines monitoring her vitals.

"Cam?" He calls for Cam to re-enter the room she's just vacated for him and Carrie. Angela follows her in. Max shadows the doorway to her room peering in.

They have ignored the duty nurse and squeeze in five visitors. Cam explains in hushed tones that doctors will not perform surgery on Brennan until a small fever breaks. They are keeping a close watch on her vitals which are strong despite everything. Except for discussing her case with the doctors and Cam, or asking about Booth several times, she has been resting, mostly sleeping.

They will not operate on her for another two days and they will not discharge her for another three.

It takes Cam and Angela and Max to convince him to follow Carrie's advice to go home.

Only after Carrie has exhausted the list of things she's done at the apartment to help him convalesce and they are riding home in silence does he remember. It is something from his time as an altar boy and celebrating feast days of saints; St. Dominic is the patron saint not only of astronomers, but also of scientists.

He sends a prayer of thanks toward the heavens for an atheist scientist.

oOo

He doesn't know how they got to this point, but they have and he talks louder as if that will somehow magically make her see his side of the argument.

"Was that one of your substitutions, replace the rational with something irrational?" He leans in. "Because if it was it was a damned stupid time to do it."

She is only a day out of surgery and he is already bickering with her.

"No, of course not."

"Well, it sure seemed like it from where I was sitting."

"You could barely stand, Booth. And sitting wasn't appropriate given the fact that you were severely concussed and. . . . "

"I get the picture."

"Would it have changed anything?" She is sitting up in bed, but despite the anger propelling her, she looks frail against the white linens. "We still had to deal with Watley. We still had no way of calling for help. Would it have changed anything had I told you I was shot?"

"I could have gone for help." The doctors tell Cam who tells him that Brennan risked death as she was walking back toward the farmhouse and it unnerves him. It unnerves him more that he had not known she was injured. "I could have walked back. . . ."

"Walked? Booth, you were injured. You had a concussion. You were shot. Your foot and ankle were. . . ."

"But you, you should have gone for help immediately after we fell into that cellar. You should have gone back to the Sierra and called for help."

"You could have drowned, Booth. It only takes six inches. . . ."

"But no, no, you have to be Miss Independent. . . ."

"Who is Miss Independent? What the hell are you. . . ."

"Hey! Enough!"

They have both forgotten that Carrie is in the room. They have not bickered like this in front of Carrie before. She is already annoyed with him for dragging her back to the hospital to see Brennan after her surgery. Carrie is already annoyed with him for not taking his pain medication, for not resting like he should at home.

Brennan is also annoyed with him. His is a losing argument, but it makes no difference. He wants her to know she doesn't have to do anything heroic for him. He wants her to know that she doesn't have to risk her life or her hands or anything for him.

He wants her to know that he would put himself in danger again for her.

Carrie doesn't understand this. She doesn't understand them.

And she is annoyed with him. Probably annoyed with them.

"Enough, Seeley. Enough. Temperance needs her rest," she says, pulling on his arm, "as you do. We're going. Say goodbye, Seeley."

He wants to yell at Brennan some more and tell her she was a damned fool to risk her life like that for him. He wants her to yell back because he will know that she is on the mend.

And he wants to draw her into his arms and hold her and hear her heartbeat against his chest to be sure.

But Carrie is waiting. She is the woman who loves him and will marry him. The woman in the bed will die for him, but will not love him.

He leaves with Carrie.

oOo

After he has climbed the stairs to his apartment, step-by-agonizing step, after he has agreed to take his pain medication and has plopped down in front of the TV, after Carrie disappears into the kitchen and he hears plates and pans and the refrigerator door opening, he realizes that there are more silences between them now than before.

Before, they used to fill the silences with talk or laughter; before, he couldn't wait to wrap his arms around her, kiss her, love her; before, he only wanted to feel her near him.

He knows that all couples go through various levels of intensity. He has convinced himself that this is one of their less intense times.

That will change.

He knows that Carrie was—is—frightened by what happened. The concussion, the gunshot wound, the ankle injury. Before all the scars on his body were merely stories.

This is real.

Somehow Carrie convinced someone from the newspaper to take her to the crime scene and she saw for herself the old farmhouse and the rotted floorboards and the pit that he and Brennan landed in. She has seen where they were trapped. Where Brennan took two bullets while trying to pry him loose.

Where Watley was shot and killed.

In the light of day he is sure it looks different than he remembered.

He calls for Carrie and she comes from the kitchen with a plate in hand.

"What? What is it now?"

They haven't really fought before. They've disagreed, but they were merely differences of opinion that they agreed to disagree on.

This is different.

"What? What the hell do you want to do now?"

He wants to talk. He wants to assure her that he is fine. That he will heal and they can put this behind them.

"Talk? You want to talk now? You want to talk to me or to her?"

What does that mean? he asks.

"What the hell do you think it means?"

How does he know? He can't read her mind. He wants to know what she is thinking.

"You could have died," she screams at him. "By all rights, you should have died. Both of you. You were lucky, Seeley. Damned lucky."

He knows that the technicians and other FBI agents have scoured Watley's farm and have evidence linking him to Leslie Madison's murder. Seven years ago he had been dismissed as a suspect, but in that time he had become bold and sloppy. He had set out Leslie's belongings like trophies of his kill.

He does not want to think of the trophies Watley would have taken from him or Brennan.

Instead, Booth wants Carrie to understand that he had an advantage; he had his training and his wits.

And he had Brennan with him.

She throws the plate that shatters against the floor.

And she tells him what is on her mind. She tells him everything. How scared she was when she got the call from the hospital. That Cam called her. How scared she was driving herself to the hospital, not knowing how truthful Cam had been. He's been shot, but it's only a flesh wound. He's got a leg wound, a few other injuries. The concussion is the worst of it. Getting to the hospital and seeing everyone else there ahead of her. Like they were called before her: Angela and Jack and Cam and Max. And Angela hugging her. Then being hugged and reassured by each one of them. Then hearing the story in bits and pieces. Hearing how she was there. How they ran after a bad guy. How he shot at them. How they fell through the rotten floorboards of an old building. How he could have drowned in the water in the basement. How he hit his head and she wouldn't leave him. How she wouldn't leave him because he would have passed into a coma and died. How she kept trying and kept trying to free him.

How she almost died saving him.

"Don't you think that I could go one day without hearing about her?"

She reduces Brennan to a pronoun; Carrie will not use her name.

"Bones is my partner."

Carrie is on the losing side of the argument, but she argues anyway. She wants to be his partner. His wife. That's a partnership. A damned important one. They are building a life together. That's what he wants. What they want.

She knows what Brennan did and she is grateful. She really is. She is glad that he has a partner who would be protective of him. She is glad that they are both safe.

But how long will she continue to be his partner?

How long will he continue to risk his life and their life together?

How long will he continue to look at her that way?

His feelings for Brennan are now on trial and he argues with her. He argues that he's known Brennan years, that they have worked together for years, that he cannot easily dismiss that time.

"And you are in love with her."

The words are meant to damn him as an accusation is meant to drive the guilty to confess.

And he does the only thing he can do. He admits the truth even if it is not wholly true.

Yes, he loves Brennan. He loves her as a partner because that is all they can ever be. Yes, he loves Brennan as a friend. Love between them does not have the infinite power of possibilities because their love is finite. It has lines that intersect and confine it to boxes. They are only partners. Friends.

He loves Carrie as a man loves a woman who loves him. That is a partnership of a different kind. A better kind. A deeper kind.

It is infinite.

Between the tears and the anger and the fear, there is a need to prove his love and he takes her into his arms and he holds her until the sobs subside. Then he kisses her. Kisses her until she can kiss him back. Kisses her until he can take her into the bedroom and make love to her.

When they finish and she lies in his arms and the tears are forgotten, he realizes something profound and unsettling. This is more than just a level of intensity.

He realizes that making love to Carrie proves nothing.