Alright, here we go, another chapter. No cliffhanger this time. Angela is dominating most of the chapter this time though. Thanks a lot again to all of you. I do hope you like it.

Angela Montenegro had always hated hospitals. Sure, that's where babies were born and people got better, but for her the hospital always meant bad things. Like when she broke her left arm in the third grade or when she discovered sculpting was not quite her thing, the carving tool slicing her arm which then required six stitches. More recently it meant going to visit her friends after they'd been buried alive or shot or blown up. It was never a good thing, never a happy place. This time was no different.

She'd been in a cross of a frenzy and a trance since Booth had called her. His damn obscure message telling her nothing aside from the fact that her best friend was hurt. What did hurt mean? How did hurt describe anything at all? Hurt can range from a paper cut to being near death. Unfortunately for Angela, the second scenario kept repeating itself in her mind.

Hodgins was faithfully at her side, of course. He'd driven her to the hospital and had been trying to talk, obviously a very sweet attempt of trying to keep her mind off of things, but she hadn't heard a word. Hodgins took over with talking to the registration nurse, guiding her to the elevators and then through corridors to a waiting room. Sometimes she just knew she took him for granted, but right now her main priority was not to make sure Hodgins was aware of how grateful she was.

Her eyes scanned the room, searching for Booth but finding only strangers. Worried girlfriends and wives, pacing husbands or impatient boyfriends; they sat mostly quiet, some crying from time to time, some disappearing, some getting a name called. They just sat there though, in silence.

Anxiousness bubbled in her stomach, questions running through her mind at the speed of light and no answers were being provided. It made her even more nervous. She needed to know something, anything. For starters it'd be nice to know if Brennan were alive or where the hell Booth was and why he got to be with her but they couldn't. Was she awake? Was she aware of what happened? What happened to Refton? "What department are we in?" she asks, turning to Hodgins in sudden curiosity.

"Intensive care," Hodgins says quietly to her, aware of the sudden tighter grasp on his hand. "They said they were bringing her here once she was through with surgery," he explains from the beginning, noting only now that she must not have heard anything to begin with.

"Surgery? For what?" The panic rose in her voice some. Intensive care was bad enough but to go from surgery to intensive care? That's what they did with people who had their chest ripped open or their brains poked at. That wasn't something they did to people who needed a couple of bandages and some fluids. Intensive care meant on the brink of death.

"I don't know," was his simplistic answer.

"Well why the hell don't we know?" she questions, her voice now finding anger and adding volume. A few of the guests to this lovely waiting room turned to look at her.

"We're not family, Angie. They won't tell us anything."

"I'm closer than any of her biological family and you know it," she whispers with a venomous twinge to her voice, as though it was his fault.

"I do know it. But that's not how all that legal crap works and you know it. Damn government controlling everything all the time..."

"Not the time for one of your tangents on the government and how congress works or any of your conspiracy theories. Just...Not the time." Her heart beats faster as another doctor enters the waiting area. She prayed both that he would be there to talk to them and also that he wouldn't. She wasn't sure what she wanted. She needed answers and yet dreaded the thought of what they could be. He isn't there to talk to them though, and suddenly she wishes more than anything that he would. She just wanted someone to give her an answer.

"Ms. Brennan's family." Angela hears and quickly stands up and walks over to the doctor, stopping right in front of him. She reached out and found Hodgins' hand right where she needed it.

"Is she okay?" Angela blurts out first. That was the answer she needed most. Recovery time and the placings of injuries would come after. Right now she just wanted to be reassured that Brennan would wake up tomorrow morning.

"She has several injuries, cracked ribs, fractured tibia, severe head wound, extreme dehydration, and uh there is signs of sexual abuse as well. We had to perform surgery in order to repair the break to her leg and we had a few complications with her breathing throughout. She's hooked up to a ventilator for right now and will be getting her nutrition from a feeding tube. The injuries are extensive and after the troubling surgery we will be keeping her in ICU for the night. Hopefully tomorrow we can send her down to recovery."

Angela was at a cross of breathing from relief and ready to begin asking a million questions a minute. "Can I see her?" is all that comes out though. She had some of her answers and now she just needed some visionary reassurance.

"Of course, but only one visitor at a time is allowed in the ICU."

Angela nods, dropping Hodgins' hand and giving him a glance before following the doctor down the hall. "Where is the agent she arrived at the hospital with?" Angela questions, her mind catching up a little. No way Booth would just disappear from the hospital, and surely he could not have gone into surgery with Brennan, which left open the question of why he would not of come and wait with Hodgins and herself.

"He was sent downstairs for a series of tests himself. Non-negotiable, although he fought it rather hard. He kept flashing his badge at everyone, tried everything in his power to stay with Ms. Brennan."

"Doctor," Angela corrects for the sake of her friend. "She's Dr. Brennan."

"Right, well he didn't leave her side until she went into surgery a couple of hours ago. I'm sure he'll be done soon." They stop at her room and Angela gets a horrifying look at her friend for the first time. Every visible centimetre of her body was seemingly covered with cuts or bruises or bandages. Her leg was wrapped in a cast all the way to her knee and her face was swollen and red. There were black stitches along her forehead and her arm as well. Machines were beeping all around her body, IV lines stuck in her veins and a tube down her throat. "The anaesthetics and morphine will most likely keep her asleep for quite some time. Don't be alarmed if she does awake though. A nurse or doctor will be in as soon as she does."

Angela nods her head silently, approaching the bed with caution. Sure, Brennan had landed herself in the hospital many times before for several different reasons. Angela could think of four instances off the top of her head. But this was a whole other lever for Angela. She wasn't accustomed to all the tubes or the heart monitors; not used to hearing that her best friend had stopped breathing at some point, that she could have brain damage. This was all just a bit new to her, and although she was always up for new experiences Angela was certain this was something she did not like in the slightest.

"We ask that you please switch your cell phone off," the doctor says and watches as she fumbles around in her purse until she finds the device and shuts it off. He disappears after, for some reason or another that she had not really heard. She pulls up one of the hard plastic chairs beside the bed and sits down, trying to position in herself into a more comfortable position.

People had a thing for talking to their friends and family when they weren't conscious, right? They all did in the movies and books, with the dramatic music playing in the back round and the perfectly timed tears. And then the patients would wake up and they would've heard them in their sleep or it'd be proven that the words were what had saved them. It was a very romantic idealisation. The thought of it was something everyone loved to hear about. Probably why it was in all of those movies and books to begin with. But Angela wondered if it did anything in real life. Surely she didn't expect her friend to die, the doctor didn't even really mention it as it being a chance. Did you still talk to them when they were supposed to wake up? Brennan would be sure to reprimand her if she did such a thing. Talking about ridiculous allegations and it being some urban myth or unproven fact. Not to mention what the hell was she supposed to say?

And what was with all of the stupid hospital rules? No cell phones? Shouldn't you be able to keep in contact with other immediate family? Or what about only one person at a time being allowed to visit in ICU? ICU is where the people are all banged up. That's where they're expected to die. People need to have someone else there next to them to keep them strong. How'd the hospital expect each person to go it alone? Angela didn't think she could go it alone. And could Booth? No doubt he was beating himself up over this. Although she was pretty pissed at him for not calling her at some point. He must have known more than she did a few hours ago.

After fifteen minutes of sitting there she could feel a twinge in her back and a restlessness in her feet. There was something about sitting at someone's hospital bedside while they were zonked out on drugs that really sucked. She tried her best to position herself another way, propping her feet up at the very edge of the bed and leaning her head back to stare at the plain, white ceiling.

Brennan awoke into an immediate alarmed and confused state. Something was in her throat, it burned and it felt so foreign. Why did it hurt so much? She tried to lift her hands to pull at it but she couldn't get them to raise up. Her eyes popped open and they were overcome with light flooding from every direction and she slammed them back shut. Her head pounded and her leg was on fire and she had no clue where she was.

In a sudden panic she began thrashing as much as she could. She heard lots of beeping and then she could swear she heard a distant "Bones!" but it was all covered up by voices instructing specific medical jargon. Stuff that made sense to her, and yet the words all blurred together in a meshed up heap of confusion.

Brennan couldn't seem to calm her anxiety in that moment as she continued to fight against all of the hands that were on her and pulling away from the people that were just hurting her more. She couldn't handle being hurt any more. She wanted them all off of her. She tried to scream at them but that object in her throat resisted the action. She couldn't let out a word or a scream, she couldn't even breathe in on her own. What was wrong with her?

Her body slowly began to relax back into it's previous state and suddenly she began forgetting all of those awful things she was feeling. Her eyes slipped open to the horrendous light and they locked for but a second with a familiar pair of brown one's. She wanted to stay connected with them but it felt like someone was forcing her eyelids down over her eyes and she had no choice but let them fall closed and go back to sleep.