Brennan was beginning to feel restless the fourth morning home from the hospital, though she was still in a lot of pain and easily winded. But her mind was beginning to spin faster, having caught up with the painkillers. She'd decided to start taking fewer of the sedatives—she needed to deal with things, rather than let her emotions feel a little wooly most of the time. She was unamused by the irony of not wanting to think about how she felt about things, but of nonetheless admitting the necessity. She was curled on the sofa, working on an outline for the next chapter of her novel, when the phone rang. Booth, who'd been sitting next to her, reached over the back of the sofa to the table behind it to pick up the phone.

"Hello? Oh, hi," he said, looking less than excited, to Brennan's view. "Yes, she's doing better, thanks. What?" Booth's face rapidly changed from tired to angry. "You've got to be kidding me. No. Absolutely not. She can't spend all day in court." The emotion rolling over his face was like a fast-moving thunderstorm. The clouds were turning black, right now. He continued listening, then spoke again. "No. Her energy's too erratic."

At this point, Brennan motioned to Booth to give her the phone, but he clenched his jaw and ignored her.

"Booth, give me the phone," she said, sternly. He turned and gave her a mulish look, and she added, "Now."

"Hold on, will you?" he said, to whomever was on the other line. He handed her the phone, but didn't let go until he said "You can't do it, Bones."

She took the phone, giving him a look that would freeze lesser men. Booth was not lesser men. The heat of his anger was rolling off him as she answered the phone.

"Temperance Brennan."

"Cherie, it's Caroline Julian. Look—that murdering son of a bitch doctor's lawyer is moving to quash the grand jury without your testimony. Says your report isn't complete enough, and is necessary for the indictment to stand."

Brennan closed her eyes for a moment, suddenly exhausted. "It probably isn't," she said. "I didn't write it, the team did, and I signed it. I've got to admit, I don't really remember what's in it. I was on a lot of medication."

The prosecutor sighed on her end of the line. "That's what I was afraid of. I hate myself for asking, really, but I need your butt in a chair to testify to how you figured out it was him."

Brennan was about to agree when another cramp passed her, and she had to grit her teeth. When she opened her eyes, Booth was giving her this angry, pleading look. He was right. There was no way she could sit in a court room.

"Is there any way to videotape it? Caroline, I've got to admit, I'm not up for much right now. If we could do it someplace where I could take a break when I needed it, them maybe."

Booth looked only slightly less dismayed as Brennan made this suggestion.

Caroline replied thoughtfully. "I could arrange that. His lawyer's got no right to be there, so it would just be me, you, and the court reporter." And Booth, Brennan thought. Even if she didn't want him there, there was no way he would let her out of his sight right now.

"When do you need me?"

"The judge only gave me until tomorrow afternoon. I could get something set up this afternoon."

Brennan paused, then agreed. "Fine. We'll be there by 2."

"Thank you, Cherie. I'm sorry, but I'll see you then."

Booth silently took the phone from her, at a loss what to say. Brennan stared back at him, likewise tongue-tied. He pulled her into his lap, then, wrapping his arms around her tightly.

"Bones…" he began.

"He's not going to get away with it," came her voice, muffled from where her head was pressed into his chest. "Any of it. We can't let him." Her desperate tone broke Booth's resolve, so he said nothing, just began rocking her gently. He would just have to make sure she took lots of breaks and rested, even if he had to turn the damned camera off himself. After several minutes had passed in silence, he said, "I'd better go get you a suit and some things from your place. Which one do you want?"

"Something dark," she said. "I'm not in the mood for color. There's a red kit in the bathroom with makeup in it. Pick whatever you want." Booth's heart twisted at her sad tone, and the fact that she had to face this again so soon—but there wasn't anything he could do but agree with her. If she didn't go, then the bastard won, and they'd lose. Maybe everything.

0 0 0 0

They arrived at Caroline's office with fifteen minutes to spare. The trip from the car to the building and through the lobby, then up in the elevators, had been riddled with averted gazes, mumbled hellos, and silenced conversations in their wake. Brennan had tried to nap after Booth left to go get her things from her apartment, but found her mind racing. She didn't dare take a sedative and let her testimony be impaired, so she lay on her back and tried to do the breathing exercises she'd learned in karate. They worked only until the second person they passed on their way into the Hoover sent a shocked glance their way. Then, the tension she thought she'd breathed off came back tenfold.

She was glad of Booth's hand at her back. It used to annoy her, but right now, concentrating on it kept her knees from wobbling as they walked.

Once they reached Caroline's floor, things were better. People greeted them soberly, meeting their eyes, then carried on their normal conversations after the two partners passed.

Caroline, meeting them at her office, was to the point as ever, a relief for the both of them. "Y'all can use my couch, I've got coffee and tea and food. I got us the conference room across the hall. I'm sorry to ask this, Cherie," she said, taking Brennan's elbow and steering her into the conference room, "but you'll be making a difference."

Brennan nodded. "Let's get this over with, then."

0 0 0 0

Bones had often spent days on the stand, but after 45 minutes, Booth could see she was seriously worn. He made the "cut" sign across his throat to Caroline, and she and Brennan wrapped up their question. Even under the makeup she'd put on, Bones' color was poor. Though she was fair, when she was healthy, there was always the lightest pale pink tint in her cheeks. Not so now. "Drained" still described her.

Booth worried further when Bones didn't protest as he half lifted her out of her chair and walked her across the hall to Caroline's office. She'd lowered herself onto Caroline's couch as Booth shut the door, and didn't resist when he sat at the other end and pulled her over so she head was in his lap and she was curled on her side. Her hand groped for his until she found it, and she clenched it so tightly her knuckles turned white. She said nothing as she lay with her eyes closed, breathing into the physical pain and squeezing her raw-again grief and anger into Booth's hand. His hand, on her back, rubbing slowly and gently, worked with her breathing to calm her almost imperceptible shaking, and after about twenty minutes, she opened her eyes to look at the things on the table in front of them. "I'll take some peanut butter on half a bagel," she said, as she pushed herself up to sitting. She straightened her hair and makeup, then found her eyes welling ridiculously when she saw she'd left a trace of face powder on Booth's pants. "Bones, I've got it," he said, when she started swiping at the fabric, biting her lip. "You just eat."

He poured her some black tea while she ate, and she took the cup when she was done, using it to swallow down another painkiller. He made her drink another mug before he helped her up from the low-slung couch, then made sure she was settled with him bearing most of her weight back in her chair.

He sent Caroline an unmistakable glare, and the prosecutor, who'd never been on the receiving end of one of Booth's stares before, nearly crossed herself. She was already minded to make this as short as possible-- Booth didn't need to remind her of what she could clearly see. The doctor was poorly.

She began again, and Brennan gave her usual precise and clear testimony, though her hands were clasped, white knuckled, in her lap, below camera level. After another half hour, Booth called for a break again—her hands were now visibly shaking. "Wrap it up, Caroline," he said tersely, as he walked Bones across the hall again. He shut the door while still holding on to her, then physically lifted her and settled her in the same positions they'd taken before.

"I hate this," he gritted out, while smoothing some hair from her forehead. She let out a ragged breath, mumbled "almost done," and closed her eyes again. Booth concentrated on rubbing the knots that accumulated in her neck and shoulders in the mere half hour that had passed. He squashed his urge to find out where the sick bastard was being held. There'd be time for that, later.

0 0 0 0

Booth sat quietly, by sheer force of will, during the last twenty minutes of Bones' testimony, rather than pick her up immediately and carry her out of there. She was right that they had to do this, but it was killing him to realize all over again that she bore the entire physical brunt of it. She looked no better, now, than she had when he first saw her in the hospital, just over a week, now.

Brennan's thoughts, as she finished her testimony, ran in different circles. If she couldn't take care of herself before to stay healthy enough for she and Booth to have been able to make a reasoned decision, then at least she wasn't going to let the killer get away with his crimes toward their victims, when it was her own acts that made her too weak to testify. If she hadn't insisted on going in with Turner to arrest him, this never would have happened, and her victims' justice wouldn't be endangered.

The prosecutor didn't keep them after Brennan was done, other than to thank them solemnly again. She'd never seen the doctor looking so poorly, and wasn't sure if she'd make it out of there on her own steam. "Poor children," she thought to herself, as she watched Booth steer Brennan to the elevator.

Booth's phone buzzed as they waited, and he was inclined to ignore it except that he saw it was Cullen. "Yes, I'm still here. No, we were just leaving. If it's only going to take five minutes, then fine. Fine." Once they stepped in to the thankfully empty elevator, he said, "Cullen needs me to sign something on McFadden. Said he left it in my office. Will you be okay if we swing by there? You can wait in there while I run it over to him."

She nodded, and walked with him down the mostly empty halls to his office. It was the end of the workday, past it for some, and most office lights and desks were dark and empty. Booth had gotten a couch right before he'd left on his mission that he'd put on the inside wall of his office, out of the view through his door, and hadn't actually gotten to use it yet. Instead, he got Bones settled on it, then flipped through the folders on his desk before he found what he was looking for.

"I'll be right back," he said, bending down over his Bones, who'd curled onto her side, to press a kiss on her forehead. She nodded, wishing for home.

Booth couldn't have been gone more than five minutes when she heard two womens' voices out in the area outside the Agent's office. He'd left the lights off and the door open; Brennan doubted they knew she was in there.

"I heard she was in today to give taped testimony in that case with the doctor."

"I did, too. Shirley said she looked awful."

Brennan knew she should announce herself, or put her hands over her ears, but she was too exhausted to do anything except listen.

"Someone told me it wasn't even Booth's," the first one continued. "And now, she's got him at her beck and call."

"Well, how dumb can you be not to know that you're pregnant?"

"And, she's known to be reckless in the field. She would have probably lost it anyway, even if she did know. The poor child's better off."

Brennan clapped her hand over her mouth, biting down on the flesh of the base of her thumb to keep herself from making a noise. Booth's deadly cold voice joined the womens' outside.

"I'm interested to hear your thoughts on my partner. Cullen will be, too." There were gasps and protestations, but Booth shoved past them, harshly, then shut, too late, goddamnit, too late, the door to his office behind him, and turned on the lamp next to the couch.

"Temperance?" he said softly, sitting gingerly next to her completely huddled form on the couch. "Bones, sweetheart," he said, gathering her into his lap and making her look at him. "Those bitches don't know what they're talking about, okay?"

Booth's arms around her acted like the lifting of floodgates. She'd cried a little before, yes, but she'd managed to stop it before she could really focus too much on her own fault in this. To hear it from strangers—she couldn't avoid it, and the tamped-down bitter grief over this rawest part of it all burst, as if from a dam.

She sobbed brokenly into Booth's chest, harder than he could ever recall seeing her cry before. He'd heard the whole conversation, he thought, and their vicious scape-goating was just jealousy. Both were desk agents who'd failed in the field. He tried rubbing her back and telling her that he loved her, and that it wasn't her fault, but she only sobbed harder.

Bones was crying so forcefully that she was unaware when Cullen, who'd come down to ask Booth one last question, pushed open the door and stopped short. "Talk to Carla and Andrea," the agent practically growled, and Cullen nodded and backed out the door, intent on new prey.

"Temperance, stop it," Booth finally said, when her tears remained unabated. "You can do this at home, but right now, you're only giving them more fodder for gossip." He swallowed bile as he said it—it was harsh, but it worked. With a shuddering gasp, Brennan swallowed her tears, and drew in a few deep breaths.

"Good girl," he said, helping her up to her feet and leading her over to her desk so he could blot her face with the tissues victims' families usually used. As if there was any difference right now, he bitterly thought to himself.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled, as she blew her nose into some tissues.

He took her chin gently, looking deep into her eyes. "Don't apologize, please. Just, don't. But let's get out of here and go home, okay?"

She nodded, and sniffed, put on as close to a calm face as she could manage. His poor Bones. While he privately thought Bones often pushed herself too hard, she was just flat-out-wrong to think she had any blame in this. She was even more pale than before, so he abandoned his usual hand in the middle of her back for a more secure arm around her waist. She didn't protest as they made their way to the elevators again—just leaned into him.

0 0 0 0

They made it down to the lobby and saw Dr. Sweets exiting from the opposite bank of elevators. Despite his youth and their occasional awkward interactions, he was one of the ones who could look them in the eye as he walked over to greet them. He was privately dismayed to see how Dr. Brennan looked, though he'd heard the two had had to come in today.

Booth, meanwhile, was certain Bones wouldn't make it back to the truck unless he carried her, and had been torn between leaving her here to go get it, or dealing with whatever fit of pride she might manage if he tried to carry her the rest of the way. The therapist's presence solved that problem.

"Sweets," he said, after they'd exchanged basic hellos. "I parked like three miles from here. Will you humor my alpha male tendencies and hang out with Bones while I go get the truck?"

Brennan half-smiled at his attempt to salvage her pride by self-deprecation, and managed a watery smile at the therapist. Sweets agreed readily. "I'd be glad to, I've been meaning to ask Dr. Brennan about her thoughts on a paper I read, in any event."

Booth nodded, and Sweets trailed them to some chairs just inside the entrance, and averted his gaze as Booth half-lowered Dr. Brennan into the chair, then jogged out the door and down the street.

Brennan paid the therapist the courtesy of playing along, asking about the paper immediately, and sharing what thoughts she could muster between her pain and exhaustion, and then need to just cry until she couldn't any more. Sweets was even more dismayed as he spoke with the doctor—she was as physically and emotionally exhausted as anyone he'd ever seen, and he became more distraught as he saw the overt stares and hostile looks she was getting as people came and went from the building. He'd stayed away from his patients, knowing his own life experience left him nothing to offer but a spare expression of sympathy, but he couldn't imagine, despite his psychological training, what would prompt such jealous or morbidly curious or hostile reactions from people who barely knew either partner. He supposed it was jealousy. Their excellent reputations and high rate of success preceded them. Add physically attractive looks and on the doctor's part, financial success, and he supposed it was a sure fire recipe for vicious, impersonal jealousy. But he couldn't understand it, in the face of such a clear and personal tragedy.

Both saw Booth's truck pull up immediately outside the entrance, as the agent double parked and exchanged some words with some Bureau person standing on the sidewalk. "Everybody's an asshole," he muttered as he came back in, then helped Bones out of the chair again, pulling her securely against his side. Brennan didn't even roll her eyes at Booth's manhandling—she'd been feeling increasingly worse since even before those women upstairs, and wasn't quite sure she would manage the newly-short distance back to the truck on her own. She wouldn't dare ask Sweets for his arm—that was too much overlap between personal and work.

"Thanks again," Booth said as he noticed the therapist trailing slightly behind them as they got out to the sidewalk. The therapist was in the perfect position to grab Dr. Brennan's shoulders when her knees buckled, and the two men let her down onto the pavement. "Sorry," she gasped, bent over on herself as Booth knelt in front of her. "Sorry," she said again, then her eyes rolled back into her head as she sagged.