Disclaimer still in effect: Not mine.

Author's Note: Still here? You must be the romantics, then. :D

~Q~


Chapter 9 – I Still Have My Heart


~Q~

Leaving her alone over the last few days had been hard, just about impossible, but Booth knew he needed time to retreat, regroup, and figure out how they could recover. She deserved better than to be abandoned just when everything between them was rushing to hell on a greased rail, yet being in her presence had loomed as the most excruciating form of torment.

Feeling every bit like a man who'd lost everything, he'd left the Founding Fathers in a daze on Friday. Cam had wrestled him into a cab and ensured he made it safely to his bed before leaving him with a mixing bowl, a bottle of water, his cell phone, and a note: Call if you need me. It's going to be OK.

Saturday morning he woke with a steam train thrashing his head, filling what used to be a reasonably sharp intellect with mayhem and noise. He blinked open bleary eyes, recalling first Brennan's luminous eyes and then the reality he'd rather hoped would turn out to be a dream. Submerged in a ragged purposelessness he hadn't felt in years, Booth dragged himself to the Hoover and fell into his chair.

Looking over his desk to the edge where Brennan often perched, he felt again the utter disorientation of not knowing what was real. She'd stripped him raw. She'd been so thorough—if he hadn't witnessed her tears and obvious distress, he might be tempted to accuse Brennan of sadism. For it had been cruel, what she'd done. Could cruelty be a form of kindness? He knew that's what she thought she was doing, protecting him from a worse cruelty. That really did not make it hurt any less, however.

It was while he was agonizing over their last conversation—her total annihilation of him—that he turned to an odd form of comfort. He'd pulled out the Gemma Arrington case file. Not being able to trust his direct memories of her, of them, Booth followed his investigator's instinct to look for any evidence for what was true. Something that could be verified independently. He needed something to do and something to believe. Maybe he could find it in the past, in the history he'd recorded with her.

Flipping through endless incident reports, interview logs, evidence forms and crime scene photos, he reached the end and started to close the massive folder. A blank manila envelope at the back of the file teased him, almost seeming to whisper, "open me." He found his hand-written case notes tucked inside and when those small note cards fell onto his desk, something caught his eye. Her name.

Temperance Brennan.

Hardly daring to breathe, he gazed down at his partner's name and felt the world right itself again.

His heart sputtered back into life and he knew what he had to do.

He spent the next two days gathering evidence.

~Q~

Booth found his partner in Limbo standing next to a set of bones, lost in thought. Her face glowed in the soft white light. Despite the shadows under her eyes enhanced by the lights overhead, she still looked achingly beautiful. He shook the thought away and stepped into her work area.

He had a file folder tucked under one arm. "Bones?"

She broke free of her reverie, startled by his presence. "Booth? I didn't expect to see you."

Acknowledging his prolonged absence the first time she'd turned him down, he shrugged and offered a white flag. "We're still partners, right?"

"Yes." She smiled weakly. "Of course."

"What do you think about grabbing lunch?"

The question surprised her. She gazed at him curiously. "Sure. I have to put away these remains. It will take some time."

Booth grabbed the poker chip from his pocket, twirling it around his fingers as he watched her. She moved with practiced efficiency, packing the bones up carefully and sealing the bin.

"Bones…."

She paused from gathering up the paperwork, glancing up again at the hesitant pitch in his voice.

"About what we discussed the other day."

Though she was tempted to stop him because she wasn't sure she was ready for another heart-crushing round with him this soon, Brennan resisted the urge by tensing her jaw and keeping silent. Her eyes told him to continue.

He saw her nervousness and decided it might be a good sign. "I don't believe it."

She nodded slowly, a tendril of hope creeping into her soul. "What part don't you believe?"

He put the poker chip away and faced her with a resolve that was unmistakable. "The part where magnets can tell what I feel about you."

Brennan set down the files she held, very carefully stripped off her latex gloves, and stepped around the end of the exam table. Stepped right next to him and tipped her head slightly to the side. A small grin tugged at one corner of her mouth. "You know that it's magnets?"

He grew visibly more relaxed when she smiled. "I'm not as dumb as I look," he teased.

"I don't think you're dumb, Booth. Dumb is an outdated and inappropriate term for someone who can't speak—"

"Bones," he chuckled. "We're talking about my MRIs. Remember?"

Her smiled softened even further. "I remember everything."

"There's something you may have forgotten," he countered.

Her brow creased as she quickly searched her memory. After coming up empty, she returned her gaze to him and waited, sensing he was going to tell her.

"Tell me, did I get regular MRI scans, or Functional MRIs? And when did I get them, exactly?"

She paused, calculating her reply. "Functional, all three. The first was at Dr. Jersik's order, the day I took you to the hospital. The second was during your coma. The third was two days after you woke up."

He nodded, smiling at her. "And tell me, how do fMRIs work? What do they measure?"

He'd correctly separated functional from standard MRI scanning, and he knew that MRI scans were done with magnets. Brennan realized Booth had done some research over the last day or two. The sense of anticipation grew in her as she answered his query. "They use a pair of powerful magnets to align nuclei in the brain and then excite the nuclei. As the nuclei return to a quiet state, the more highly magnetic deoxygenated blood flow registers differently from oxygenated blood, thus allowing us to visualize neural activity within the brain via the movement of blood to active areas."

"So, it tells you what I'm thinking about?"

She nodded cautiously. "It can be used to identify types of thoughts and emotions, to an extent."

Smiling, nodding to himself, Booth advanced to the next point.

"The first MRI was taken right after you caught me hallucinating. Can you guess what I was thinking about?"

Brennan frowned. "You were worried."

"Right. Not a romantic moment by any stretch of the imagination. So, it's probably not surprising that my scan showed me not thinking about love, or you. I had other things on my mind that day."

"That's … true," she conceded.

Booth leaned in a little, his eyes twinkling. "What do you suppose I was thinking about the next time I got scanned?"

"You were in a coma."

"I was dreaming of you." His pupils had expanded, his interest in her blatant.

"Because I was reading to you."

He took her arm and pulled her closer. "What do you think I was thinking about during my last scan?"

"I don't know exactly, but you were excited, romantically." Warmth swirled around her, seeping in from the man standing so close to her. He was different today, showing her a side she'd never seen before. Flirting, potent.

He was so close she was feeling slightly dizzy. Brennan's heart had begun racing.

"You were standing a couple of feet away, remember?" At her clumsy nod, he smiled with just a hint of predatory joy. "Just before I went into that MRI machine, you squeezed my hand and gave me one of your reassuring smiles. I went in there thinking you're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

Her eyes widened, but she took it in stride and kept up her end of the argument. "I'd already read my book to you."

Abruptly, he pressed a warm kiss on her, then released her and walked a few paces away. "I need to stand over here."

Brennan gaped at him in bewilderment. "Why?"

"Because, my dear genius, there's a perfectly logical explanation for why you're always accusing me of being not as smart as you."

"Your IQ is lower." It came out in such a matter-of-fact way that she could have been remarking 'your eyes are brown.'

He paused, shook his head, then made an unmistakable gesture. "A man can't think effectively when there's a beautiful woman diverting resources."

Her brow furrowed and her nose wrinkled while she pondered that. Not giving her chance to distract him again, Booth continued quickly. "Those MRIs picked up the two times I was thinking of you … and the one time I wasn't."

She had gone very still, a hope flaring in her eyes that hadn't been there a moment before. "You're using logic on me?"

He laughed tenderly. "I know you, Bones. Since the day I met you, you've never made anything easy for me. You expect me to fight for you, to prove you wrong. Is that what you want?"

Brennan drew in a sharp breath, unnerved and pleased and more than a little astonished that he'd come to that conclusion so quickly. It had only been a few days. She found his eyes. "Yes." Please prove me wrong, she begged silently.

"You are lethal with your logic, I admit. Friday night I felt like you'd ripped my brain right out of my head and showed me it was empty."

He paused, watching remorse flood her features.

"I was ready to give up, I really was. Fighting you on your terms, that's terrifying. You caught me unprepared in a blitz attack and you won that battle."

"You came to me," she pointed out. "You asked me to explain. It wasn't an attack."

Chuckling, he advanced on her again. "It was a full-out offensive operation."

One of the things he admired about Brennan was her tenacity, her intensity, and her unwavering courage. She'd waged a war against him and herself because she thought she had to. Standing her ground as he approached her again, she was looking at him now with a wary hopefulness that told Booth he was finally on the right track.

"Bones, you're the brain person, but I'm the heart person. I've still got my heart, I know what's in there, and that's you. You've been in my heart and on my mind since the day we met."

With a Cheshire grin, he pulled a pale blue index card out of his jacket and handed it to her.

"What is this?" She glanced at it.

"Proof." He watched her brow gather itself into a slightly puzzled frown, so he elaborated. "You were on my mind that day. Notice the date?"

She turned the card over, seeking the date. To her surprise, it was a note card from their interview of Gemma's boyfriend.

"You were in my heart already," he pointed out quietly.

Brennan's eyes fell onto her name, tucked neatly inside a hand-drawn heart laced with flowers. He'd doodled it in the margins of one of the cards, a juvenile moment when his mind had clearly been on her instead of the interview he'd been conducting.

"Booth," she sighed in protest. She'd already debunked his love-at-first-sight hypothesis.

In a flash he was right there silencing her with a deep kiss that robbed her of her breath and any notion of continuing. When he finally drew away, the heat in his gaze nearly burned her. "Shhh. Don't interrupt. You had your say last Friday. Today it's my turn."

~Q~


Author's Note: Booth is about to make his final stand...