Later, Booth couldn't swear honestly that he'd ever seen so much blood come from one person—or at least so much that scared him so much. There was always an ambulance parked at the Hoover, but in the thirty or so seconds that it took Sweets to sprint down the block to get them, Booth was sure this was it. He picked Bones up himself, handing her in to the EMTs, as he told them what they were dealing with. By what little grace there was, they had both her blood type and platelets. He stooped long enough in the back entrance of the ambulance to toss his truck keys to the dumbstruck therapist standing by, and call, "Here, call Angela, or Jack. And move the truck." Sweets' hand automatically came up to catch the keys. A few moments later, when he finished his call to Ms. Montenegro, he went to move the truck, then shuddered as he went to turn the ignition. The keys had left a bloody print on his hand where he'd caught them.

0 0 0 0 0 0

Sweets met the two squints at the main entrance to the hospital, then followed them in, at a loss other than to grab from the back what he thought might be a bag of Booth's things. Booth was nowhere to be found, but Sweets collected himself enough to flash his own FBI badge and inquire as to Brennan's whereabouts. The nurse obediently made a call, then advised them that Brennan was already in surgery. That likely explained where Booth was.

The three made their way to a bank of chairs in a far corner of the waiting room, as Sweets haltingly told them what he'd seen and heard about the partners' day. Both Angela and Hodgins listened gravely, a few tears leaking from Angela's eyes, and each asked a few questions to clarify. When he finished, the therapist felt lost. "I… I should probably go," he said, thinking there was no way he would really be welcome.

Angela reached out and laid her hand on his arm. "No, stay. Bren can use all the good vibes we can give her."

Sweets nodded and sat back, then concentrated on sending the best vibes of his life.

0 0 0 0 0 0

Booth came down two hours later, looking grey. He registered the three, and said in a monotone, "They've got her stable, but she lost a lot more blood this time, and they had do redo all the stitches, plus more. It'll be another hour, maybe more."

Angela stood, and took him by the arm. "Here, sweetie," she said, "come with me for a minute." She steered him down to the bathroom and closed and locked the door behind them, then pulled his suit jacket off his shoulders. "Hold on a sec," she said, as she unflinchingly rolled up his bloodied shirtsleeves to the elbow, and clucked to herself at the stain on the front of the shirt. She ran the hot water, and wondered if she'd have to push his hands under the water like she'd had to with Bren, less than half year ago. "Here, Booth," she said, patting his back. "Wash your hands and your face, okay? They won't let you see Bren when she wakes up if you're all dirty, right?" The skin on the back of her neck crawled as she realized she'd said almost the same thing to Bren after the Checkerbox.

Booth nodded and stepped forward, managing it himself, watching half-fascinated as the pink soapy swirl circled the drain. He shook himself then, like a wet dog, and dragged his clean hands over his face, the heat of the water reviving him slightly, even as it dripped under his collar.

"Thanks, Ange," he said, when she handed him a wad of paper towels. He dried off, then loosed his tie, noting the artist's concerned look in the mirror. This wasn't the time to fall apart in front of even just one of the team, even if Angela would be the only person besides Bones who he'd choose. He took his jacket back from her, folding it over his arm, and dropped a kiss on the top of her head.

Angela, meanwhile, wrapped him in an embrace. Recalling some of what the therapist had told her about the day's events, she looked up and said fiercely to him, "You just keep telling her until she believes you."

He nodded, and kissed the top of her head again. "Let's go," he said, opening the door and giving her the worst attempt at a smile Angela'd ever seen in her life.

0 0 0 0 0

Booth declined anything when Hodgins went to the cafeteria. He was so nauseous he wasn't sure he'd ever eat again. Between the thought that he'd lose Bones all over again, and then the scene in the operating room… he squashed that memory flat, for now. At one point, Sweets' phone buzzed, and the therapist walked out to the hall to answer.

"Lance Sweets," he said.

"It's Cullen. What the hell happened?"

Sweets described what he'd seen, and what they currently knew, prompting only a "Jesus fucking Christ" from the Deputy Director. If Sweets believed in God, he'd curse him right now, he supposed. He went on to say that they expected to know more shortly, and received a "call me as soon as you know" in return.

Sweets was less than surprised after the call. It was a badly kept secret that Cullen was most likely grooming Booth to replace him, and that he'd been in Dr. Brennan's camp since his daughter's death. Sweets had essentially been under orders to keep the two partners together, though until recently, he'd thought it was because of their close rate. Now, he suspected that Cullen had suspected for a while what it had taken Sweets much longer to twig to—the two weren't just deeply attached best friends, but completely in love. As he looked back in at the Agent, who despite looking exhausted, was still consoling the other two team members, he sagged a bit. He was supposed to be a source of emotional recourse, but right now, seeing his patients so anguished, he just felt uncentered.

0 0 0 0 0

Brennan woke to feel Booth's hand worrying her own. There were monitors, and a tube up her nose, but she felt strangely unmoored from her body. "Hi," she managed, and Booth's eyes teared as she spoke. He shifted to sit next to her, then stroked her cheek.

"No going anywhere for you for a week," he said tenderly, then answered her yet-unspoken question. "No gory details, either. You can read your chart later."

"Too many painkillers anyway," she managed. "Everything's fuzzy."

"Well, you'll be fuzzy a bit longer," he replied, then shifted to sit behind her and take her in his arms. "They want you to stay put for a bit, okay?"

Brennan nodded, though a detached part of her brain said it was clear she hadn't much choice. "How long was I out?" she asked muzzily.

"No gory details, Bones," his voice said in her ear. She half turned and tried to make a bratty face at him, but was so drugged she lost focus and just stared at him instead. "I will tell you two things, though, Bones," Booth said, tracing the line of her face. She blinked sleepily at him, then turned her face into his neck. He tucked her head under his chin, and kept talking. "It wasn't your fault, Bones, and I love you. You got it?" Brennan heard him saying something, but she was so sleepy, and he was warm. She loved when Booth held her. He was repeating himself, but she couldn't be sure what he was saying. Something nice.

0 0 0 0 0

Booth regretted the necessity of telling the squints and Sweets that the doctors had decreed no visitors at all for the next two days, and promised to call Angela daily. The four of them had stuck it out for six hours, but Bones was so out of it that there was no way they'd get any sense out of her anyway.

"They really want her mostly asleep the next few days," he explained, reluctant still to tell them how bad it had been. "They said she's going to be here two weeks, probably, just to keep the stitches from reopening, so there'll be time to visit her later. I'll make sure she knows you were here." Angela suspected there was more going on, but she'd take the agent's assurance that whatever had happened before, Bren was stable enough for him to stop looking so grey.

The three nodded, reluctantly, and Sweets hauled out the duffel and keys he'd brought in from Booth's truck, handing them to the agent. Booth's "Thanks, kid," as he clapped him lightly on the shoulder for once didn't bother Sweets. He was a kid, compared.

0 0 0 0 0

Brennan would wake intermittently, still at a remove from her body, and still incredibly fuzzy. She tried glaring at Booth, since she knew she must have a tremendous number of drugs in her system, but he just squeezed her and said, "doctor's orders, Bones," before repeating some reassurance to her as she drifted off again.

Eventually, though she had no way of gauging how long it had been, she started waking up for longer periods, and having strange, half-remembered conversations with Booth, who didn't seem to have moved. She wasn't sure if it was the third or fourth time she woke like this that she found herself loopily asking Booth t o tell her a story.

"What kind of a story?" he asked, shifting them so she was nestled to look up at him. Under any other circumstances, the idea of Bones asking for a story would be funny, but she still looked like hell, and felt more fragile than eggshells.

"I don't know," she said, unaware of the effect of her words. "I don't know any stories."

Booth's heart stopped, then pounded once, hard, at her statement. He liked Max and Russ, really, he did, but it was things like this that made him wonder what Bones' life had been like even before her parents disappeared. "Well, how about I make one up, then," he suggested.

She nodded sagely, then snuggled into him trustingly, her face wide open. "Sounds good."

Booth paused for a long moment, thinking, and then, he began.

"Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess who was also a brilliant forensic anthropologist, who helped the families in her kingdom by giving them back the treasures that they'd lost. There was also a handsome, brave knight, who rode his horse all over his kingdom chasing dragons and highwaymen that went after the people in his kingdom. Both the princess and the knight were really good at their jobs, and inclined to be a little cocky about it."

Bones snorted as she listened to him. "'M'not cocky, 'm just'fiably proud of m'accomplishments. You too," she said, trailing off.

Booth squeezed her gently, then kissed her temple. "Shh, it's my story, quit interrupting me. Anyway… Princess Temperance and Sir Seeley were really good at their jobs, and one day, the kings of Squintland and Coptopia got together over a tanker of mead and decided that both kingdoms' subjects would be better off if the princess and the knight worked together.

So, they did, and they caught lots of dragons and highwaymen, and returned lots of treasures that were lost to families who didn't ever think they'd get their lost treasures back. The people of Squintland and Coptopia were able to sleep better at night because the princess and the knight rode all over both kingdoms on Sir Seeley's horse, watching out for them, in between tankers of mead and mulled wine and mee krab at Princess Temperance's castle."

Bones' forehead scrunched in confusion. "Why do they always go to her castle, anyway?"

Booth kissed her forehead, and continued. "Well, the princess' castle is bigger and smells nicer, and anyway, the knight's noble abode had ghosts in it."

"Ghosts are bad," Bones said, wide-eyed.

"Right. So Sir Seeley and Princess Temperance had lots of adventures, and became good friends, and helped each other out, because that's what real friends do. Princess Temperance made a lot of Sir Seeley's ghosts go away, and Sir Seeley helped Princess Temperance find some of the treasure she thought she'd lost a long time ago."

"Did she really make the ghosts go away?" she asked, disbelievingly.

"Definitely," he said firmly, watching her file it away, as out of it as she was. "So then, the knight and the princess kept helping the two kingdoms' subjects, even though it was really hard sometimes, and even though the two friends both wondered if they'd ever get rid of all the dragons and highwaymen, or find all the lost treasures. But they kept working anyway, because they knew they'd feel worse if they quit just because they were tired."

"Tired doesn't matter, dragons are bad," Bones said emphatically. His heart twisted again. Her current condition was proof of that belief.

"Then, one day, a highwayman shot Sir Seeley, and he thought he was a goner. He was sad, because Princess Temperance was there, and he hadn't gotten to tell her that he loved her more than any princess or milkmaid in any kingdom, anywhere. When he woke up, he found out that the court jester had told Princess Temperance that he was dead, and then the princess' chancellor betrayed her and the knight to a really big dragon, and the two friends were so busy cleaning that up that Sir Seeley decided he couldn't tell Princess Temperance how he felt until the kingdoms were safer again."

Booth paused for breath, and made sure Bones was still paying attention, or at least looking at him when he started again. "Sir Seeley was really stupid to do that, because the next thing he knew, a really bad series of dragons came along. After the friends got rid of a particularly bad one and had a long night at the princess' castle afterward, Sir Seeley lost his shit for a bit, because he thought he might have hurt the princess. She straightened him out as quickly as possible, but in the meantime, an old dragon from Sir Seeley's solo knight days came back, and he had to leave to go take care of it before he could talk to the princess about what happened at her castle. He told the king of Coptopia to send another knight, and that he couldn't go, but…"

"The princess would have told him he had to go, anyway," Bones supplied, matter-of-factly and expectantly staring back at him, as if she'd guessed that was the next, natural part of the story, and was waiting for him to finish the rest.

Booth blinked, and then swallowed. They hadn't discussed that. Something loosened a little in his gut, and he swallowed the lump in his throat to continue.

"Well, the knight didn't know that then. But he got the dragon he was chasing, though it took him a while, and then he got ready to go back to the princess. What he didn't know is that before he left, he and the princess had found a treasure of their own. The princess didn't know it either, and while the knight was away, she kept helping other Coptopia knights fight dragons and highwaymen." He stopped again to trace her cheek and see if she was still following, but she seemed to be.

"Anyway. While Sir Seeley was away, Princess Temperance fought a really big dragon, and he hurt the princess and stole the treasure that neither she nor Sir Seeley even knew that they'd found. And because she was so strong and brave, even though she was hurt, the princess still captured the dragon. When Sir Seeley came back, after borrowing a really fast horse when he heard that his princess was hurt, he was horrified to find out how bad it actually was, because he knew if they fought the dragon together, the princess might not have been hurt. But he also knew that even if he'd been here, neither he nor the princess could have protected a treasure they didn't know that they had, and he also knew that sometimes, dragons stole treasures from even the bravest and strongest knights and princesses. So the knight tried to concentrate on helping the princess get better, because while he was sad they'd lost their new treasure, he was more scared of losing the princess, because she was the biggest and best treasure of all. He tried to get the princess to understand that sometimes treasures got lost, or were hard to discover, for lots of different reasons, and that it wasn't her fault. See, it broke the knight's heart to think that the princess faced such a big, strong dragon without him, and did better than any other princesses could have done, combined, and yet she still thought she'd failed."

Bones still seemed to be following, so Booth swallowed to moisten his throat and bent kiss her nose softly. She got crossed-eyed as he did so, and blinked to clear her vision and stare back at him as he continued.

"Then, the dragon Princess Temperance captured tried to escape, and the princess had to fight him again. The knight tried to help, but because of the special powers the princess used the first time to capture the dragon, there wasn't a lot the knight could do except try to lend moral support. The Princess again made sure the dragon couldn't escape, but her wounds from before got worse, and she got very sick again, especially after some jealous squires from Coptopia tried to blame the princess for something that was only the dragon's fault."

Brennan had been following Booth's story, up to a point. Even as part of her was completely incapable of mustering her usual rhetoric under the influence of the drugs, there was a part of her brain that could still somewhat rationally observe what was going on. She thought she knew where Booth was going with the story, at least up to the part of her knowing he needed to go after the dragon, but the story he'd continued telling her after that was very different from what she thought it would be. She was confused, and a little scared to have lost the thread of what the rest of the story would be. She wasn't quite capable of expressing that, though, and could only ask, "What happened then?"

Booth shifted her a little and thought, not missing the look of confusion and uncertainty on her face. He'd found she focused a little better if he touched her face every so often, so he stroked her cheek again before continuing.

"Well, the knight was even more scared this time, and so were the court jester, and the kings and duchesses, and some of the squires and lords and ladies in waiting. Sir Seeley didn't know what else he could do except something Princess Temperance's favorite lady in waiting told him, something he'd already tried, so he tried it again. He told the princess while she was sleeping that he loved her, and that it wasn't her fault that the dragon had stolen their treasure, and that she'd done more than any five knights and princesses together could possibly expect to have done to help the subjects of Squintland and Coptopia."

Brennan swallowed, taking it in. "What happens when the princess wakes up?"

Booth kissed her forehead, to recapture her focus, and spoke again. "Well, she'll believe what Sir Seeley told her, and they two of them will go back to helping the people in their two kingdoms once the princess feels better. And they'll do it even though there are some squires and subjects who don't understand what it's like to chase dragons and highwaymen, or how hard it is to find all those treasures, and who will be jealous because all they see is the knight's shiny sword and the princess' sparkling tiara. That won't matter to the knight and the princess, because they know they love each other, and that they understand how hard it is to do what they do, even if no one else does. And they'll have help from some loyal squires and lords and ladies, and the king of Coptopia and the Duchess of Squintland, because all those people know how hard the knight and the princess work, too."

Bones had been almost staring, she was concentrating so hard on what he was saying, so he stopped, to give her a break. It was a lot to take in, he knew. But he still didn't expect, though he should have, her next heartbreaking question, asked in the smallest voice he'd ever heard from her. "What if the knight misses the treasure they lost and wants to replace it? What if the princess doesn't know if she's brave enough to try to find one again?" Any doubt Booth had that she understood what he was saying went out the window.

He took her chin between his fingers to make sure she was looking at him. "He'll still think the princess is the treasure he wants most in the world, the thing he never wants to lose, ever."

"He will?" Her eyes were wide, almost surprised.

Booth nodded. "Definitely. See, like I said earlier, the knight loves her more than anything because princess made the worst ghosts go away, and made the knight stronger and braver than before, because he could sleep at night again, instead of having ghosts bothering him all the time. He also loves her because the princess hates dragons and highwaymen as much as he does, and she never gives up, even when the dragons are stronger. He loves her, too, because not only is the princess incredibly smart and beautiful, but because she's really cute when she argues with the knight about whether jousting contests and traditional feasts in the kingdom are socially relevant, or whether it's healthy to eat all those smoked hams the knight likes to eat."

Booth said the last as tenderly as anything else he'd said since he began, and Bones exhaled deeply against him, a look of confusion warring with hope on her face, even as her eyelids started to droop again.

"What happens next?" she half-mumbled.

"That's a story for another day," Booth replied, smoothing her forehead with one finger. "Right now the princess just has to believe what the knight tells her, because he loves her, and would never lie to her."

She sighed again, her eyes shut this time. "He wouldn't," she mumbled, a slight smile curving the edge of her mouth.

"No, he wouldn't," Booth replied, shifting so she could lie flatter against him. "Sweet dreams, princess," he said, brushing his lips lightly over hers as her eyes fluttered open and shut again. She sighed, and smiled a little more, mumbling, "Want m'own horse and sword."

He smiled up at the ceiling, tears of relief filling his eyes. If she was arguing with him, she believed him.