It started as a fog. He was lost. Dark grey and blue clouds swirling around him. He was stumbling as he ran. He knew that he had to find his way out. He just didn't know which way to turn. Everything was jumbled. He could hear her voice. Far away in the distance. He just had to concentrate and follow it.
Christine sat in a chair next to her father holding his hand. The doctor was sitting opposite her, a bundle of thick files on his lap.
"We are not sure if he is waking up or if his brain is just experiencing some major electrical impulses prior to shutting down" he said. It was difficult talking to her. She had this way of staring at him with those eyes. Cornflower blue, intense and serious. She was beautiful. He could see the resemblance to her father. The dark hair, the wide brow, strong nose and sensitive mouth. He almost expected the man to open his eyes and they would be that same blue.
"So what are you trying to tell me Doctor. Just spit it out. I'm not a child. I'm twenty one. I'm his legal guardian now. I need to know exactly what is happening to my father." she said firmly.
As she spoke his hand started to shake in her hand. His fingers curling around her hand and then opening. She turned and watched his face. There was a twitch in the corner of his mouth. His eyes suddenly opened, then closed again.
"What does all that mean? He's been doing it more and more." she said placing his hand on his chest and gently resting her hand on his forehead. She looked at the Doctor. "Are you saying he's not going to wake up ever?" She stood up and yelled "I refuse to believe it. He's opening his eyes. His mouth moves and his hands" she dropped back down into the chair and covered her face with her hands.
The doctor stood up and put the pile of files on the chair and patted her shoulder. "We just don't know Christine. He's lived far beyond what the initial expectations were. I've read most of these files and he's a miracle. All I can say is the care that your mother set up for him before she died has probably been one of the main reasons he has done so well. You are the other reason. The medical community has established that many coma patients can hear everything around them. We don't know if they process it or retain it, but they hear it. All I can say is he knows you. He's always known you and you may just be the reason he is fighting right now." He picked up the files and walked out of the hospital room.
Christine turned and stared at her father. "I'm tired Dad." She dropped her face into her hands, her elbows pressed into his bed next to his arm.
"water" his voice croaky and barely audible.
Christine's head flew up and she was staring into the bleary, bloodshot eyes of her father.
"Dad! Doctor! DOCTOR!" she screamed as she ran to the door and yelled into the corridor "Somebody quick!"
She ran back to the bed and he was laying with his eyes open. She hadn't imagined it at all. She smiled and stroked his face "Hi Dad. You're awake!" she cried.
Booth frowned "awake? " he asked, his lips dry and cracked. "water?" Christine grinned through her tears as the doctor came running into the room.
He stopped short when he saw the dark brown eyes of the man who he had been looking after for three years. "Oh my god" he said staring at him. Christine turned and looked at him, tears running down her face "He wants water." The doctor stepped up to him. "Hello there Mr Booth. We'll get you a drink in a moment. We just need to do some tests first. Do you know where you are?" he asked gently.
Booth looked around the room, his neck was stiff. "No" he mumbled. The doctor nodded and patted his shoulder "That's OK. You're in hospital. But you're alright. We've been looking after you."
Christine backed away from the bed, and grabbed her phone out of her pocket and dialled.
"Angela. He's awake"
Christine had sat by Booth's bedside for eight hours straight after his initial waking. He had closed his eyes shortly after the Doctor had seen him and had not opened them since. The doctor told her that it was normal. His body had been shut down for so long, that few minutes had probably completely worn him out. He may have been in a coma, but he really had not slept.
Angela had come in and checked that she was alright. Jack had brought her food and they had left.
She sat staring at him, waiting for those eyes to open again. For him to see her.
She could feel her own eyes starting to grow heavy. She fought it, but she was just so damned tired.
She didn't know how long she had been asleep. Somewhere in the recesses of her brain she heard him. She opened her eyes and he was staring at her, a frown on his face.
"Hi Dad. It's me" she said gently.
Booth licked his lips. "Chrissie?" he mumbled.
"It's me. Christine. Your daughter"
Booth frowned and stared at her "You got big" he said. Christine frowned, but remembered the doctor's advice, not to overload him with information. "I did" she said softly. He looked past her and around the room "I'm sick?" he asked. Christine nodded. "But you're going to get better now Dad. I'll help you." she said stroking his face and tucking a stray grey curl behind his ear. He needed a haircut badly, but that was the least of her concerns right now. She had her Dad back. She had so much she wanted to talk to him about. But she knew she had to take it very slowly. Talking could wait.
Booth stared at the girl next to him. He couldn't believe how big she was. She looked so much like him. And she had her mother's eyes. He looked around the room again. Christine could see he was looking for something.
"Are you OK Dad? Can I get you something?" she asked standing up.
Booth frowned staring at her. How did she get so old? And tall? How long have I been sick for? Why isn't she here? He started getting a bit agitated looking around the room again. Christine, lay a hand on his arm "What's wrong Dad? You're safe. It's OK. Don't worry. You're in hospital, remember?" she said trying to soothe him.
Booth looked into her eyes. He had to know. "Where's your mother and brother? Are they coming soon?"
Christine rocked backwards away from him. What was he talking about? Her brother? She didn't understand what he was asking. Didn't he know? Did he still think her mother was alive?
She felt panic rising in her. "I have to go for a minute Dad. I'll be back soon" she said. She had to get out of there. His question about her mother and a brother completely threw her brain into a spin.
She ran down the corridor and bumped into Booth's doctor. "He's talking. He's asking me about my mother. And my brother. Doctor what is going on! I don't have a brother. He thinks I do. And he was in the coma before my mother even got pregnant with me. He can't possibly believe she's still alive can he? He's waiting for them to come. I have to go. I can't" she stammered, she felt faint "I have to "
The doctor caught her just before she hit the floor.
Booth had a clear memory. He and Brennan, Christine and Harry (his son, named after his grandfather Hank), his business with Wendell and Angela. Their house. To be told that it was all in his head. A dream? It had devastated him.
Booth shook his head for the hundredth time. Christine was the one constant. Hers was the voice that he always heard in the distance calling out to him. She was why he woke up. He was convinced of that. He loved looking at her. Watching her draw in her art book. Angela had sparked an interest in drawing when she was young. And she was really good at it. He loved her laugh, her smile, but mostly he loved her eyes. Her mother's eyes.
Temperance. Bones. Just saying her name hurt his heart so much.
To learn that she had gone ahead, taken the gift he had given her and used his sperm to have the child she had desperately wanted, and then died during childbirth was almost too much for him. That he had not been there to support and help her. He covered his face with his hands, tears pouring down his face.
I'm so sorry Bones. So sorry I took so long to wake up. Maybe. Maybe things would have been different if I was there with you.
But he knew that wasn't so. Even if he had been by her side every step of the way, she still would have died.
Now, he had to concentrate on recovering. His body would never be the same as it was. He was an old man now. In his sixties. His hand ran through his hair. The first time he had looked in the mirror and seen himself, he had been taken aback. His once thick dark brown hair was now grey and thinning. His face lined and gaunt. He had lost so much weight. His muscles had wasted so much despite the endless physical therapy he had been given. He had been told he probably wouldn't walk again on his own. Learning to do basic functions like eating had been a major challenge as well. But he was getting there slowly. Eating baby food had it's good and bad points he had decided.
He knew he was going to be in hospital for a long time still. But he had been able to be taken out by Jack and Angela for outings. The real world had changed so much. Watching the news reports that Jack had been recording for twenty years had been a lot to take in. Wars. Advances in technology. The economy. It had been overwhelming and surprising and shocking. Angela and Jack had been so excited for Christine when he woke up, but very worried at the same time.
The fact that his brain had survived so well, was nothing short of a miracle the doctors said. Very few people awoke from a chronic long term coma and were able to function in a relatively normal way.
There were times when Booth wished he hadn't woken up. When visions of Bones filled his head. When he heard her voice echoing in his memory. Her laugh. He could feel her touch when he closed his eyes. Remember how she felt when she hugged him. The fact that they had never been together as a couple did not cloud his feelings. He had loved her. He just wished he had told her. Had the balls to tell her before he went into surgery.
Clearly she had loved him. And Christine and Angela had told him how much she had loved him. Angela showed him photographs she had taken. Brennan was not always aware that she had done so. She had put them in an album to give to Christine to show her how much her mother had adored her father. Now, she had given it to Booth.
Pictures of Brennan, sleeping. Her head resting on the bed beside him. Brennan brushing his hair. Brennan, heavily pregnant, with a foetal monitor attached to her belly, headphones on Booth's ears. Photo's of Brennan reading to him, talking to him, laughing. Then there were the photo's of Christine as a baby. A tiny slip of a baby, curled up in a ball on Booth's chest. Her little face nuzzling into his neck. Every stage of her life, with her father's arms around her. They had brought a lump to his throat.
His life had basically been taken from him. He had a choice to make now. Did he fight to have what was left. Or did he just give up and let it all go.
Then she walked into the room. All bright and shiny and golden. Her hair pulled up into a messy ponytail, curling down the back of her neck. Her face, washed clean, rosy cheeks. Her smile. Wide with large square teeth. And those eyes. Bright, shining, and so blue. She ran across the room and wrapped her arms around him, hugging him so hard it hurt, and he knew.
He wanted a life. He wanted to be a dad. He wanted a family. He wanted it all. For as long as he could.
He was going to fight.
