After Booth tucked Bones into bed and made sure she was covered up, he took up the bag of pills and all the other instructions, and brought them out to the kitchen, closing the bedroom door behind him. He laid them all out, shaking his head again at all the different things she was supposed to be taking at different times of day, then went to his desk and fished out some paper and a ruler. He felt like he was in sixth grade or something, drawing out lines for the hours of the day and an opposite axis for each of the medicines, but after it took him a half hour to fill the whole thing in, he was glad he'd done it. He wasn't as smart as Bones or the squints, but he could usually keep track of a lot of disparate details in his head. If this was this confusing, there was no way Bones would keep track of it either, at least as long as she was on so many painkillers. They made her so sleepy, and he definitely didn't want to let her take the wrong thing or too much of something by accident.

He pulled open her laptop then, and started to look things up to see if there was anything else he should know, and maybe save Bones the trouble of having to explain some of the more embarrassing stuff. He was nauseous for Bones all over again at how she must be feeling when he finished reading—so many different things going on all at once. He didn't think he ever knew that much about female anatomy, ever. They sure hadn't covered all the hormones and stuff when he had high school biology.

He made a few notes on the notepad he'd gotten out of stuff to look into further, and then dealt with the first order of business.

"Angela Montenegro."

"Hey, Ange, it's Booth."

"Booth, sweetie. Are you guys home now?"

"Yeah, we are." He sounded tired. No wonder. He didn't really look like he'd slept much when Bren was at the hospital—he was watching her like a hawk most of the time, even when she was sleeping, the times she and Jack had been there.

"How's Bren doing?"

The G-Man paused on his end of the line. "She's sleeping right now. She's uncomfortable, and there's a billion different things she has to take—she's got pills for side effects from other pills."

"Well, if you guys need anything, you just let me know," Angela offered.

"That's kind of why I was calling," Booth said. "I, ah, was checking out what stuff she might need, and one of the things I read said she needed female stuff."

Angela winced for the poor Agent. "The hospital didn't send her home with anything?"

"No, just pills and instruction sheets. What should I get?"

"Oh, sweetie, don't worry. I'll go pick up some things and bring them by after work, okay? You don't need to worry about that stuff on top of everything else." She could have sworn she heard a sigh of relief on his end, and maybe she did.

"Thanks, I appreciate that, " he said.

"Do you need anything else?" Angela asked.

Booth laughed tiredly. "No, you guys took care of everything else already. Thanks. I'm gonna need the name of your cleaning lady, though. My place hasn't looked this nice in a dog's age. Although now I'm going to be self-conscious knowing that somebody washed all my boxers."

Angela smiled to hear him trying to make a joke. He was pooped, everyone was. Picking up "female stuff" for Bren and stocking his fridge was the least they could do.

"Well, anything to know that you have Jack O'Lantern and Snoopy boxers. Though I promise not to pants you just to see if you're wearing them, okay? You call me if you think of anything else, otherwise, I'll call you after I've left the store to let you know I'm on my way over, okay?"

"Great. Thanks again, Angela." His voice sounded a little thick to Angela, so she started talking again, managing to keep her voice steady. They didn't need her getting all weepy on them, too.

"Hey. You just concentrate on Bren, and let me and Jack help with the details, okay? I'll talk to you later."

She hung up the phone and sighed, looking at it, only to hear a throat clearing behind her.

"That Seeley?" asked Cam.

Angela nodded. "Poor thing. The hospital didn't send Bren home with any pads or anything, and he wanted me to tell him what he needed to go get. I told him I'd take care of it."

Cam shook her head. "God. He does not need that, on top of anything else. The poor guy 's got enough to deal with. I just hope things stay quiet for a bit."

"Me too, Cam. Me too."

/

Angela came and went with what looked to Booth like a confusing array of things, and went back into the bedroom to wake Bones and talk to her for a bit. He stayed away—he was still red from when Angela handed him a huge container of yogurt and said, "Here, make sure she eats some of this everyday." He made the mistake of asking why, and Angela looked at him with sympathy before she said "Antibiotics cause yeast infections." He'd nodded, and even as he turned red, he filed it away in his too-rapidly growing store of knowledge about internal female anatomy. This was all his fault.

The three of them had some Thai at the island, and then Angela left for the night. Bones fell asleep while they were watching some boring documentary about African tribes, so Booth picked her up and tucked her back into bed, then went out to the kitchen to make sure she didn't need to take anything else tonight. He puttered around a bit, but the place was so clean there wasn't really anything to do, and he realized he was putting off the decision about where he was sleeping tonight.

He still hadn't decided when he went back to the bedroom to pull out some sweats and a t-shirt, but Bones grumbled and turned over.

"Mmmph. Coming to bed?" she mumbled.

Well, that decision was made. "Be right there," he said, finishing changing and slipping under the covers behind her. She immediately snuggled into him, and then moreso when he wrapped an arm over her waist. She was right, and she felt right, he thought. He had his center again. They were a little wobbly, but that would pass. He hoped.

/

The first sympathy cards arrived in the mail two days later, when they returned from Bones' twice daily "walk" to the small park at the end of Booth's block. She was still stiff and sore, and inclined to get winded with just the short walk in one direction, though the doctors had said she was doing well when they went earlier that day. She was also napping a lot, and rued the fact that even sitting on the sofa for two hours wore her out. She wasn't making nearly as much progress on her book as she was hoping she would, and though she knew better, she was frustrated at the very fitful levels of energy and moods she had. She had a strong urge to whine or cry right before it was time to take more painkillers, though so far, she thought she'd managed to be fairly circumspect. She was planning on trying to ignore the pamphlet the doctor had given her today about post-partum depression, and to concentrate on willing her hormones to behave. At least Booth had relaxed a bit, she thought. His serious and tender solicitousness up through that first day home was more overt sympathy than she wanted. He had since mostly resumed his half-scolding, half-joking way of taking care of her that he'd had before he left, which was close to "normal." They needed to get back to normal, before anything else could.

She wasn't looking forward to going back to work. The physical discomfort was still present, but it would fade. It was the emotional volatility she worried about. It was okay, as long as it was just Booth, he was used to her being a mess. But how was she going to deal with people who didn't really know either of them, but knew what had happened? She couldn't very well hide in the lab with the squints. She was barely ready to talk about it with Booth— the thought of having to interact with people trying to be polite and express sympathy was dreadful.

This second "walk" had Bones totally winded, Booth saw, as she lowered herself gingerly into the couch after kicking off her shoes. Booth hated how drained she still looked, but she had lost three pints of blood. They'd put it all back, but it wasn't the same, he knew. He sorted through the mail as he watched her scoot into the sofa and then lean her head back on the arm, closing her eyes, then eyed the half-dozen greeting-card sized envelopes that had come, in addition to the regular bills and junk mail.

He and Bones hadn't really talked in more detail about what had happened since that first day, but he felt a lot better about the whole thing, or at least better able to concentrate, after he woke up the next morning and Bones wasn't any worse off than she was the day before. She'd smiled so sweetly at him when he kissed her good morning. Sweets would definitely have a field day right now, he'd thought. He was glad the kid had stayed away, other than to pass on his condolences through Cullen.

Rather than deal with the cards yet, Booth opened the bills, thinking about how the doctors said she could go back to work for "half day light work" in another week and a half. He wasn't so sure. She didn't seem like she'd have enough energy for that yet, at this pace, but he'd just focus on making sure she was sleeping and eating enough. If he was really worried about it still when the time was almost up, he'd just man up and try to convince her. She'd said she'd listen if he told her he thought she was being unreasonable. He just hoped it wasn't a conversation that would be necessary. He wanted things to be normal again.

He opened the envelopes he'd been putting off, then, and sorted through the pastel images of baby angels and other religious iconography, and insincere expressions of sympathy from office busybodies. He stuffed them in the trash, and tried to decide if there was a way he could slip laxatives into their coffee when he got back to the office. Cullen had specifically told people not to send cards or flowers. Maybe he could ask Jack to set fire ants on their houses.

The people who were really sympathetic hadn't sent anything—they'd just sent messages through friends, or come to visit themselves. Turner had brought Bones some fancy caramels when he came to see her, telling Booth about how Bones had eaten half a box of a package his daughter had left in the car one day during their second case together. Bones had freely laughed at Turner's depiction of her gluttony. The poor bastard had entered Bones' room half-fearfully, probably wondering if Booth was going to tear his throat out, merely throw him out, or come over and shake his hand. Booth settled for a nod and a "Turner," without moving from where he'd been sitting next to Bones on the bed. But the visit had been fine, and Booth relented a bit when he saw how completely upset Turner was about everything, and how he seemed genuinely fond of Bones. So many agents at the Bureau thought she was an ice queen squint, but Turner had clearly made time to see that Bones was just dedicated to her work, and didn't have time for social bullshit when there were murderers to catch.

Charlie and Geier had been taking care of most of Booth's day to day department paperwork, while pretending it was part of their usual workload, and emailing him about stuff they weren't sure they should bother Cullen about. The squints had been great, too. Cam was in an awkward position, since she and Dr. Brennan were not close in the way she and Angela were—she could hardly offer female sympathy in the same way the artist could. Instead, she did what she could to delay, defer or re-route requests for Dr. Brennan's expertise on cases while she was out of the office. She'd called once on something she didn't know how to deal with, and Brennan had promptly given her the information she needed to defer the request, with quiet thanks.

Booth saw Bones had fallen asleep on the couch while he was stuffing those cards in the trash, and checked the pill schedule. She needed some more antibiotics and steroids, so he shook them out and came over to wake her. "Temperance, love," he said, and she blinked awake to see him kneeling there with more pills and a glass of water. She was sick of pills. And sick of water. And sick of being sick. And sick of sleeping all the time-- she hadn't meant to fall asleep on the couch, and her bra was cutting into her.

"Thanks," she said, leaning forward placing a soft kiss on his lips before taking the pills from him. The hugging, sharing a bed and holding parts were easy. The remembering it was okay to kiss, now, however, was something they each still felt hesitant about. She swallowed the pills down with the whole glass of water, then handed it back as she pushed herself up to stand. The incisions still hurt, a lot, if she moved too quickly, and Booth was still watching her carefully when she did things like sitting down and standing up. She wondered if he'd ever been gut stabbed—he was watching like he actually knew how much it hurt.

"If I'm going to nap, I might as well do it properly," she said, and moved off to the bedroom. "I think I'll join you," he said, meaning it, and following her. Those stupid cards had wiped him out, suddenly.

He had almost puked again when Bones changed shirts in front of him in the bedroom the second day she was home—he'd always stepped out of the room when the doctors were with her at the hospital, and though he knew where they were, he hadn't seen the dressings they'd used or how big they were. As she was lifting her shirt slowly over her head, though, he caught sight of the long vertical strip of bandage on one side of her stomach, under her ribs, and the slightly shorter stripe under her navel, and above the low waistline of her yoga pants. He swallowed a huge wash of bile at the brand new reminder. He must have had a hell of a look on his face, because after she finished changing her shirt, she came over and hugged him, murmuring, "Never was one for bikinis anyway," as she stroked the hair on the back of his head.

Now, well, he wasn't ready to puke each time he saw those bandages while she got changed, but it was still a gut punch every time. Ripping off bandaids, he reminded himself. The doctors were pretty certain that both incisions would scar, at least a little. How scarred would she be on the inside when this was over, he wondered. He shook himself as Bones said, "you coming, or not?" then patted his side of his bed. That was some indication. He had a lot of scars, and he worked around them. Bones seemed like she would, too.