AN: Sorry it took me so long to get this up. 4th year is kicking my ass. Plus I had a crappy two weeks which did not exactly put me in the writing mood. I've got news! I've written the epilogue for this story after a bizarre train of thought that could rival Lorelai Gilmore. I'll give you a teaser, it's sweet and cheesy and I got the idea from an episode of Call the Midwife.

Thank you all for the lovely reviews and follows! They mean so much to me!

On with the show!

After they came back from the consultation room the partners sat beside Elizabeth's incubator for hours and eventually it had gotten late. Booth had begun getting worried about Brennan. It had been a long day and she was getting tired and she was falling asleep with her head perched on the table next to Elizabeth's incubator. Booth moved over to Brennan and put his hand on her back trying to wake her.

"Bones. Bones, c'mon, wakey wakey."

"No, I'm sleeping.

"Bones, you're not going to get any rest here. Let me call Angela and get her to pick you up so you can go home and get some sleep." That jolted Brennan out of her sleep induced haze.

"No Booth. I'm not leaving you here alone and I'm not leaving Elizabeth. Also, what about your back? Your back won't be any better off than if I stay and don't get any rest." Booth and Brennan stared at each other, both knowing that the other was right but neither willing to give up. Finally, Booth broke the staring contest. "Fine." His eyes lit up as he got an idea. "I'll be right back!" Brennan watched Booth as he sprinted (as much as someone can sprint in a NICU) to the nurse's station. She couldn't hear what they were saying and suddenly the nurse he was talking to walked out. Booth stayed leaning against the nurse's station. He turned his head and looked at Brennan, he smiled at her in such a way that she knew that he had come up with a ridiculous plan and put it in motion. At that moment, the nurse came back into the NICU with an actual chair. It definitely looked more comfortable than the stool that she was currently sitting on though it was still a hospital issue chair.

"Booth? What are you doing? You're going to hurt your back." Brennan said as Booth lifted up the chair and brought it over to where Brennan was sitting next to Elizabeth's incubator.

Booth smirked at her as he put the chair down next to her. "Well since neither of us will leave and there is no way you could get any sleep propped up while sitting on that stool I figured that at least one of us could get some sleep."

"Booth, if you spend the whole night on one of these stools your back might go out completely."

"Bones! I'm not a fragile old man."

"No, you're not. But, certain vertebrae in your spine are weaker than the vertebrae of other men your age."

"Bones! You know what fine I'll sleep in the chair simply so you'll stop talking about my old vertebrae." Booth sat down in the chair while Bones repositioned herself to try and fall asleep again.

After a while, Booth looked over and realized that Bones was falling asleep and he was sitting in the chair that he specifically got for her to sleep in. For a few minutes Booth watched Elizabeth then his eyes flitted back to Brennan who was out cold. "Oh, Bones," Booth whispered as he got out of his chair. Before he fully realized what, he was doing he scooped Brennan up bridal style to carry her back to the chair. Brennan mumbled a little and curled into Booth as he carried her. "Go back to sleep Bones," Booth spoke against the top of Brennan's head as he moved her from the stool to the chair. "I'm just moving you so you'll be a little more comfortable." As he sat down Brennan mumbled something that sounded a little like 'ok'. Booth sat down with the sleepy anthropologist in his lap. Booth still couldn't believe that Brennan had spent so much time helping him and now refused to leave his daughter alone in the hospital. As Booth was thinking about how lucky he was to have a partner like Bones he fell asleep.

Booth and Brennan were startled awake by the beeping of machines over Elizabeth's incubator. Brennan practically leapt off Booth's lap to get to the incubator without paying any attention to the very intimate position that she and Booth had been sleeping in. Before Booth had fully registered what was going on Brennan had discovered that the alarms had meant that Elizabeth had stopped breathing. Booth watched as Brennan jumped into action and started rubbing Elizabeth's back trying to coax her to breathe. "Come on Lizzie, you can do it. Breathe for me baby girl." Booth got up and was about to go over to Brennan and see how to help because he wanted to do something but knew that right now it would be best if he let Brennan work. He watched Elizabeth closely waiting for her to begin breathing again while Brennan rubbed circles on her back with one hand and tapped her foot with the other. This lasted for 10 seconds before Elizabeth took a breath and once she did Brennan and Booth sighed in relief.

Booth was again able to focus on what was going on around them and noticed that a few nurses were standing around and a different doctor then Dr. Lothian was watching from the nurse's station. Brennan looked up at the nurse across from her and without skipping a beat starting relaying information to the nurse. "She had an apneic episode that lasted about ten seconds and responded to stimulation in her lumbar region." Booth was amazed that she had not only managed to get Elizabeth breathing again but had timed it and relayed all necessary medical information to the nurses. If it had been him alone in the room while that happened he wouldn't have been able to do half of what she had just done. The doctor had come over and examined Elizabeth and checked her cpap and oxygen. While the doctor was examining her Booth had sat back down on the chair and Brennan had moved the stool she had been sitting on earlier to be next to the chair that they had been sleeping on so she could be closer to Booth.

"Ok." The doctor looked over to Booth and Brennan and began explaining next steps. "As this is the first time this happened I'm not overly concerned and since your wife knew how to get her breathing again we avoided a much more severe problem." Booth flushed with embarrassment while Brennan spoke up, "We aren't married we're just friends and work partners."

"Oh sorry, my mistake. Well, we're going to watch her and see if this happens again, but right now we turned her oxygen flow up a little. If this does happen again we'll have to consider changing her over to a bipap instead of a cpap. The cpap is simply blowing air while the bipap would force air into her lungs, essentially breathing for her. It's not as invasive as a ventilator but it does relatively the same thing."

"How long until we would know if it's a one-time thing or if this is something we should be worried about?" Booth asked the doctor.

"Well, that's tough to say but if this doesn't happen again in the next 24 hours I'd say that the odds of this becoming a severe issue are minimal."

"Ok, thanks." After the exchange, the doctor and the nurses had gone and once again left them alone in the curtained off area. Booth then realized that Brennan hadn't spoken during the exchange with the doctor and he knew how rare it was for her to be silent anywhere, especially in an environment where she would be knowledgeable. He looked over at her and saw that she had her eyes closed and she was slumped over that if she relaxed anymore she would have fallen out of the chair. He reached over a squeezed her shoulder. "Bones? Are you alright?" The normally impassive anthropologist had her emotions written across her face. She had been scared to death and she was crying. Booth got out of his chair and knelt down in front of her and rested his hands on her knees and started rubbing little circles on them. "Oh, Bones. It's ok." Brennan just shook her head at him.

"No, it's not Booth. I was so scared and I haven't felt like this since Pam Noonan shot you." Booth hadn't realized how much being shot and faking his death affected her. He got up off the floor and wrapped her in a hug. "It's ok Bones, I'm right here." He held her as she cried and he thought about how the last time he saw a reaction similar to the one Bones was having was when Jared was 15 and had totaled their Pop's car and nearly got himself killed in the process. He watched as his grandmother sat by Jared's bedside after he got out of surgery and prayed. She silently prayed and cried because she loved him like a parent should. At that moment, he realized that Brennan loved Elizabeth as if she was her own daughter, and that thought made him so happy. This woman who claimed that she didn't have an open heart loved his daughter.

"Hey, Bones." Brennan simply responded with a muffled 'hmm' because her face was still buried in Booth's shirt. "Do you want to go see Elizabeth?"

Brennan pulled away from Booth a little but still stayed in the circle of his arms. "What are you talking about Booth? I can see her from here."

"No, I mean do you want to get close to her and hold her hand? It might do you both some good."

"She's a baby. She doesn't understand what's going on."

"Ok, well it might do you some good. Plus, you haven't had a chance to touch her besides getting her breathing again."

"Ok, yeah. Let's go." Booth leads Brennan over to the incubator by keeping an arm wrapped around her upper waist. Brennan slipped her hand in the incubator and ran her finger along Elizabeth's hand. Elizabeth moved her hand and wrapped her hand around Brennan's finger. The two of them stayed quiet as they looked at Elizabeth and Brenan held her little hand in hers. Booth was hesitant to speak but wanted to say something to Brennan before he forgot in whatever chaos would be coming there way tomorrow. "Bones?"

"Yes, Booth?" Brennan spoke so softly he had to almost strain to hear her.

"Thank you for everything. For sticking around and for getting her breathing again. Just thank you."

"It was really no problem Booth. It was a problem I knew how to solve." After a few more minutes of silence Booth spoke again. "Where'd Lizzie come from?"

"What?"

"When you were trying to get Elizabeth breathing again you called her Lizzie. I don't mind, actually I kind of like it but, where'd it come from?"
Brennan looked up at Booth and was silent for a minute as she shifted through old memories and debated whether or not to tell him. She took a deep breath and told him how the nickname came to be. "When I was a little girl my mom bought me a doll. It wasn't a Barbie doll like all the other girls had. It came with removable organs that I took out and leaned everything there was to know about organs. My mom got it for me because of my love of science and I loved it. I took it everywhere and for a while, it was my only friend. I named the doll Lizzie. I still had it when I was 15 and when I went into foster care I took it with me but I lost it or it got stolen." Booth chuckled a little and he quickly realized the heartbroken look on Brennan's face.

"No Bones, I'm sorry. I was chuckling thinking that my daughter's nickname came from your favourite childhood toy." Brennan just smiled tiredly up at Booth and leaned into him as his hold around her waist tightened to keep her from falling over. "C'mon Bones. Let's go back to sleep."

Brennan just nodded and let Booth lead her back to the chair. Booth sat down in and once he got settled he pulled on Brennan's hand to get her to follow him. She sat down on his lap and curled up with no protest. Before long they were both fast asleep and stayed that way for the rest of the night.

AN: I know it's a little OOC and I took some creative liberties with Jared's backstory. In all fairness it wouldn't shock me AT ALL if that actually happened. And yes I got the inspiration for the Lizzie doll from Anatomy Jane from Grey's Anatomy. I watch a lot of TV. It comes with the territory of having a rare disease. Netflix is your best friend.

Review if you please!