Chapter Thirteen: Confessional.

Sibley Memorial Hospital,

Washington, D.C

June 1st 2011

She ends up staying out of Booth's room for a couple of hours. The ICU staff are happy to let the others visit him now, but they want to keep it to a single person at a time and so Brennan lets their friends visit, and takes the time to figure out how and when to tell Booth about her pregnancy.

Part of her reluctance stems from a concern about his health, not that he won't recover, she knows now that the worst is definitely over, but she doesn't want to stress him in anyway, or elevate his blood-pressure, and her news has the potential to do both.

But most of her is just afraid that once she's told him, he'll never look at her in the same way again, and the loss of his trust and respect is something she knows she'll never fully recover from because it's as priceless to her as he is.

She rehearses what to say over and over in her head, but nothing she plans sounds right, not that there is a 'right' way to say to someone, 'FYI, I used your stuff when you told me not too, and you're on the hook for twins here . . . Happy Father's Day!'

'Just be honest about it Bren . . . and I mean emotionally honest, not just factually honest.' Angela says as she comes to take a seat beside her best friend; easing her rotund form down slowly now that she has very little time remaining in her own pregnancy.

Brennan looks sideways at Ang, amazed as always that Ang always seems to understand the direction of her thoughts when she's saying nothing.

'I don't understand what that means.' She says, confused further as the corners of Angela's mouth twitch upwards in a smile.

'Yes.' She says. 'You do.'

Brennan shakes head. 'Honesty is a factual accounting; emotion has nothing to do with it. Being honest with Booth means telling him factually what I did.' She replies.

'Bull.' Angela retorts. 'Factually, yes you need to tell Booth what you did to end up pregnant with his twins. But the decision you made to conceive using his semen was something you did entirely based on emotion. In order for Booth to understand that decision, for him to empathize with what you did and forgive you; then you have to explain to him the emotional state that you were in at the time and that you made this decision under the influence of your emotions.'

'I was going to tell him that.' Brennan says.

'You have to start with that Bren. You have to tell Booth again that you love him and use the words 'love him' in a sentence. He has to understand that first, the depth of that love, before you can explain how heartbroken his engagement left you. Leave your scientist self outside that room Bren; you have to speak only from your heart right now.'

Brennan nods looking thoughtful but she says nothing for a long moment. Finally she meets Angela's gaze again.

'What do you think he'll say?' She asks. It's a question she's asked Angela before, the night she came home.

'I told you I think he'll initially be angry, but I still believe he'll understand Bren, in the end.'

'Sweets doesn't think I should say anything until Booth gets out of the hospital.' She confesses.

Angela looks puzzled. 'Did he say why?' She asks.

Brennan nods. 'He thinks Booth is already feeling guilty about Hannah, about hurting me and that he'll react badly to the news as a way of minimizing his guilt.'

'I think Sweets is underestimating Booth. What do you think?' Angela asks softly.

'I think that the longer I wait to tell him, the worse he'll feel, the bigger the betrayal it seems.' Brennan replies.

Angela smiles. 'Good girl, right answer.'

'So you think Sweets is wrong even though he's the psychologist?'

Angela's smile widens. 'Sweets has been wrong as often as he's been right with you two. This time I think he's wrong.'

'Then I'll do what feels right to me and tell him now.' Brennan says, sighing hopelessly.

Angela reaches out to squeeze her friends hand gently. 'No time like the present.' She says firmly.

Brennan straightens her shoulders and stands, she squeezes Angela's hand back before releasing it and then she heads back towards Booth's private room without a backward glance.

She opens the door slowly, wondering whose visit she's disturbing, when she sees that it's Cam she finds herself smiling shyly at her former boss. Cam must read her intentions in her face somehow, because she immediately excuses herself from Booth. Rising she leans over his bed to kiss him on the forehead, before she grabs her purse and pulls Brennan into a quick fierce hug on her way past. Brennan returns it just as fiercely, taking Cam's whispered word 'Courage' as a sign that Cam also thinks as she and Angela do that this cannot be dragged out any further.

When her eyes find Booth's she notices the relief in them at her reappearance. He smiles awkwardly, and Brennan's heart misses a beat in her chest to see his color returning, he looks better already.

'What did I miss?' She says in as light a tone as she can manage.

'Short visits from everyone.' He says, 'and I met my surgeon while you were gone . . . he's very happy with me, I get to move out of ICU tomorrow.'

'That's wonderful Booth.' Brennan says as she takes the seat next to his bed that Cam vacated for her.

She waits, but Booth says nothing else. In fact he stares at his feet and a pensive expression clouds his handsome face.

'Are you in pain Booth?' She asks, reaching automatically for his hand.

Booth shakes his head. 'No I'm fine Bones. They turned my morphine up now that I'm awake. I feel a little lightheaded from it, but that's how I usually feel on morphine.' He says wryly, and still not looking at her.

'What's wrong then?' She asks.

'I'm afraid you're just waiting until you know I'm going to really be okay and then you're going to vanish on me again.' He says quietly, Brennan's stomach tightens at the pain in his voice.

'I told you I would stay as long as you wanted me too. I wasn't lying to you Booth. I'm not leaving again.' She tells him sincerely.

Finally Booth looks up and meets her gaze. 'Then why do I feel like you're about to tell me something that will break my heart Bones?'

His hand twists and then tightens around hers, so that he's holding her captive. 'I don't want to lose you again.' He whispers brokenly.

Her eyes flood with tears and she's unable to stop them from spilling over and slipping down her cheeks.

'Please Bones. I know something is wrong . . . you can tell me whatever it is . . . you can tell me anything.' He says trustingly. She hates herself so badly in this moment, she hates not feeling worthy of his trust.

'You're right.' She mumbles around a quiet sob. 'And I will tell you Booth, but I need you to promise me something first.'

Her request, her tears, iron bars snap into place around his heart, and they squeeze painfully, she's scaring him now.

'What?' He says.

'That you'll hear me out before you say anything.' She replies.

'That's it?' He asks.

Brennan nods. 'That's it. I talk, you listen, and you don't talk . . . not until I'm done.'

'Okay. I promise.' Booth tells her.

'It started with what I told you at the end of the Lauren Eames case.' She begins. 'That case Booth, it made me face some things about myself that I knew, but wouldn't allow myself to acknowledge until that point. The most important being that I'd made a mistake turning you down last year. Seeing you moving on with Hannah . . . Booth it was . . . painful. It was . . . heart-crushing.' She darts a glance at his face and sees him watching her solemnly, but he respects his promise and says nothing. She looks away and continues.

'I told you I would adjust, and I really believed at the time that I would, but as the days went by I found that I couldn't, that I didn't know how to move forward, when all I wanted to do was move back, but you were so happy Booth, with her, and I loved you enough to want you happy even though it was hurting me.' She stops here, his sharp intake of breath momentarily making her pause. She risks another glance at him, and then understands that it's not pain in his face but amazement at her choice of words.

'I was coping.' She continues. 'As well as I could, I kept hoping it would get easier, and I made some decisions about my future that I thought would help, but you looked at me differently after that night Booth. Like you pitied me somehow, and then you told me you'd asked Hannah to marry you. That expression Booth 'hit me like a ton of bricks' – your news was way, way worse. So I fled. I knew I could not continue to be in your life when you told me that, I just didn't have the strength to watch you building a life with her, a life that would take you further and further from me. I was more distraught at this point that I've ever been in my whole life Booth, please believe that, and I wasn't thinking much. I was facing losing you and finding I could not compartmentalize it, I couldn't push it away, it was simply overwhelming.' She stops again, risks another glance at him. He looks as choked up as she is, so she continues.

'I'd already decided after the Eames case to make some changes, to go forward in my life and minimize my regrets. So while you had Hannah, I decided I would re-visit my desire to become a mother. I went back to the Douglas Clinic, I picked a sperm donor, I started the fertility treatments to maximize my odds, and then the day of my insemination you told me you were getting married . . . and I love you Booth. If you believe nothing else about me, you should believe that, because I have changed, I have and that's the most important thing about me – my love for you.'

Brennan gently frees her hand from under his and scooting closer she places his hand on her abdomen, moving it over the swell of their children. Booth's eyes flare with awareness of her condition; Brennan bows her head and forces herself to finish her confession.

'There was supposed to be another father Booth. I never intended to violate your trust, but the reality of a life devoid of you . . . I wanted something, I needed something, and so I took something Booth. I took what you'd given me and I used it . . . this pregnancy . . . these children I'm carrying Booth . . . they're yours.'

In the end it comes out in a rush of words, and in the wake of them all she's conscious of through her sobs is the hypnotic motion of his hand over her belly, pass after pass after pass.