Killing Two Birds
By: dharmamonkey
Rated: M
Disclaimer: Hart Hanson owns Bones. But people like me who play in his sandbox give you all those delicious little moments that Hart and friends leave out. In this case, AU do-overs for that gap between Seasons 5 and 6 that wrought so much havoc for our heroes. That's why you read fanfic.
A/N:
1) Acronyms/terminology: A reviewer noted that I'm using some terminology the meaning of which may not be immediately evident. Here are some you'll want to take note of because they show up in this chapter:
CT Scan: Computed tomography, a radiological (x-ray) technique whereby a three-dimensional image of the inside of an object can be compiled from a large series of two-dimensional X-ray images taken around a single axis of rotation.
NCS: Nerve conduction study, method whereby the electrical connectivity of a nerve or group of nerve is tested. Not unlike an electrical continuity check you might run on an electric circuit in your home or business.
2) Shout-out to readers w/awesomely helpful feedback: Thanks to readers like Costas TT, bluemuriel, NatesMama, bonesmd007, uscgal04, Jasper777, AvaniHeath, Lesera128 and others who have pointed out boo-boos, inconsistencies and offered constructive feedback that has helped make this fic better. And to all of you who have left reviews (730 when this chapter went "to press," which makes this piece by far the most widely-read and enthusiastically-received piece I've ever written). I can't tell you how much your reviews, tweets and PMs mean to me. They fuel my muse. They help keep me moving forward on this piece (we're roughly 3/4 the way through the story now). For all of that, I thank you. All of you.
3) Reader content alert: Ah yes, something wicked this way comes. You know—the deliciously wicked kind of thing that you minors and sensitive readers should back away from now. Save yourself. You've been warned.
So, anyways—alright, without further ado, let's go back to Bagram.
Chapter 25: A Glow in the Faint Light
"Hey, Parker," Booth said in bright voice as his son's face lit up the screen of Brennan's laptop. Thank God for this broadband card, he thought silently. The Army didn't allow use of Skype or other video calling services on its network because of bandwidth congestion. Before the accident, he'd only been able to talk to Parker once a week for fifteen minutes, but this—being able to see his face, his smile, his eyes, his expressions, and talk at length—was even better.
"Hey, Dad," the eleven year-old boy said. Booth could see his hair was damp from his shower. "How's your arm?"
"It's okay," Booth lied. "I have a checkup this morning at the hospital to see how it's healing up. I can't wait to get the cast off."
Parker grinned. "I remember when you broke your hand playing hockey," he said. "When I was younger." Booth smiled at how the young man seemed to track the events around him in terms of how old he was at the time they occurred. "You had a different kind of cast, though."
"That's right," Booth said. "That one was a plaster cast, and it went not quite to my elbow. This one's not as much fun."
Rebecca's voice could be heard in the background and Parker looked over his shoulder before turning back to his father. "Mom says because I did really good on my math test this week," he said, "we can talk longer tonight." Booth's ex winked at him over Parker's shoulder. Booth felt grateful that, despite some of the really bad things that had transpired between them in years past, she was being a tremendous support during his deployment.
"That's awesome, Parker. What did you get on your test?"
"I got a ninety-eight," he said with a proud, toothy grin. "Hey, Dad—where's Bones?"
Booth laughed. "She's right back here," he said, rotating the laptop on the desk to an angle where the camera could capture Brennan, who sat cross-legged on the bed reading a technical journal. She looked up from her reading and waved at the laptop.
"Hi, Parker," she said loudly, unable to suppress a wide smile at seeing Booth's brown eyes bright after the events of the previous days—and the intense discussion they'd had with Gordon Wyatt the night before. "Excellent work on that math exam," she called out, projecting her voice enough that the laptop's weak microphone would pick it up. "You did very well. I knew you could do it."
"Is Bones gonna go with you to the bone doctor this morning, Dad?" Parker asked, his eyebrows raised expectantly in one of many facial expressions that mirrored the ones his father used.
"She is," Booth replied with a happy nod. "Gonna take my own bone doctor to the bone doctor this morning. Just to make sure the Army's bone doctor gets it right, huh?"
"That's cool, Dad," Parker said.
Booth talked to his son for nearly an hour, grateful that Rebecca allowed him to keep the boy up so far past his usual bedtime. He loved his son, and a niggling voice in the back of his head asked him why he possibly thought it was a good idea to reenlist and go half a world away from his son. He shook his head at the thought, trying to remind himself that he could no more undo that decision than the ones that led up to it—in particular, the decision to lay things out so openly for Brennan that night on the steps of the Hoover, and the subsequent decision not to press her after she rejected his suggestion that they try 'giving this a chance.' He wanted nothing more than to be back home, in Washington, to pull Parker to his chest in a big bear hug, tousle his curly blond hair and breathe in his little boy smell. Booth wasn't sure when he'd get home, but he knew two things for certain: first, that he'd never leave his boy again the way he had, and second, that when he got back to Washington, his life would be shared with Brennan.
As the Skype video call disconnected, Booth stared at the screen for a couple of minutes before closing up Brennan's MacBook. I gotta do this, he told himself. I gotta do this for Parker, and for Bones—and like Bones said, for me. He glanced over his shoulder as he saw Brennan blow-drying her hair in the bathroom. I've got the best son and the best woman in the world. They love me, and they want me to be the best man I can be—to come home the guy I was before. I don't know how I'm gonna do that, but I gotta do it. I just gotta. A wave of fear washed over him as he thought about all the nightmares and flashbacks he'd had—more in the last two weeks than he'd ever had before, even after all he'd dealt with after getting back from Kosovo or, hell, even Iraq, where he'd be captured and tortured by the Republican Guard—and he felt a kernel of doubt inside of him. He looked away from the shiny white laptop as Brennan walked into the bedroom. She wore a soft, closed-mouth smile and her pale gray eyes touched him with a feeling of cool calm. Bones believes in me, he told himself. If she didn't, she wouldn't still be here, with me, right? Bones doesn't suffer fools, she doesn't lie and she doesn't play games. If she thinks I can do it, then I guess I can. He smiled back as he stood up from the desk. It's gonna suck, and it's gonna be hard. God knows how long all of this will take.
He stood in front of the mirror that hung over the dresser and looked at himself. He stared into his own eyes and saw his son's reflecting back at him, big and chocolate brown and full of love. Booth sighed, glancing down at his casted hand before reaching his healthy hand to the St. Christopher's medal that hung from his neck—a replacement for the one that had been lost somewhere between that collapsed building in Marjeh and his hospital room at Bagram.
Hail, holy Queen, he prayed silently.
Oh Mother of mercy, hail, our life, our sweetness and our hope.
To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve:
to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this vale of tears.
Turn then, most gracious Advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us,
and after this our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus,
O merciful, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary!
He took a deep breath as he blinked at the image in the mirror.
Amen.
He glanced once more to his partner, who stood in front of their little shared closet trying to decide on her wardrobe for the day, and he smiled. He touched his St. Christopher's medal once more, crossed himself, then made his way into the bathroom to shower, reaching out to touch Brennan's shoulder as he passed by.
"Are you worried?" Brennan asked him as Booth shifted the Land Cruiser into park and reached across to unlatch his seatbelt.
His eyebrows went up and his forehead crinkled at the question. "No," he said. "I mean, yes, a little—you know, it's my writing hand, my shooting hand, my—" He grinned sheepishly as he turned his shoulder to dodge the soft punch she landed against his right bicep. "Okay, I'm a little nervous," he admitted, "but a lot less than I would be if I didn't have my secret weapon here with me to be my patient advocate."
"I still think I should have brought a copy of that 2007 article from the Journal of Orthopedic Trauma," she muttered as she opened the door and stepped out of the truck.
"Bones," he said. "You're liable to intimidate the crap outta these docs anyway, since you and your photographic memory are going to be able to recite all the findings of that study in exacting detail." He arched an eyebrow and grinned at her as he walked towards the door of the base hospital. "Bringing the actual article would be overkill, you know."
"Perhaps," she shrugged.
"Just remember," Booth said, holding the door open with his right shoulder and foot as he gently ushered her through the entrance with his left hand on the small of her back, a gesture he had grown accustomed to over the preceding weeks, though it didn't feel quite as natural as putting his right hand there. "These docs are docs," he whispered. "Which means they have that same arrogant medical doctor thing going on, but aggravated by the fact that they're all captains and majors, okay?" He peeled his green wool beret off his head and tucked it under his arm as he followed her in.
"I know, Booth," she sighed. "We've already talked about this."
Booth nodded. "I know, Bones, but—" He rubbed his knuckles against her back. "I don't mind you giving them a squinty smackdown if they're going off in the wrong direction, but try to keep the gain down on your mama bear protectiveness."
Brennan shot him a confused look. "My what?"
He laughed. "Just, you know," he whispered. "Keep in mind these guys—even down to the lowest-ranking, twenty-two year-old greenhorn second lieutenant—all outrank me. I've got to observe decorum here, and—you know, Bones—it'll be a huge help if you, well, just keep that in mind." He indicated with a jerk of his chin the direction to take to the orthopedics department. "I've got enough problems with the brass, you know."
She cocked her head at the remark but, recognizing this was neither the time nor the place, let the remark go. "Don't worry, Booth," she assured him. "I'll be firm but respectful."
"Okay," he said with a smile, scratching her middle back with his fingernails as they rounded the corner and encountered a reception desk labeled "Orthopedics."
"Here we go," he murmured.
A half-hour later, they were led into the exam room.
Booth stood in the corner of the exam room surveying the poster on the wall—"The Bones of the Human Body"—with a grin. Brennan sat in the chair nearby and watched him, cataloguing his body language as he stood in front of the poster, tapping his booted foot on the tile floor, drumming the fingers of his left hand on his hip and quietly whistling through his teeth.
"You know, I feel pretty smart, Bones," he said, turning around. "I know the names of a lot of these bones, you know, where they are and what they do—after hanging with you and the other anthropology squints for all these years."
"We've rubbed off on you, apparently," she said. "Figuratively speaking, of course."
Booth chuckled. "Well, in the case of the squints, only in the figurative sense." He waggled his brows suggestively and added in a low voice, "In your case, heh—well, perhaps more literally."
The door opened, and a silver-haired major walked in, his eyes meeting Booth's briefly before looking at Brennan.
"Dr. Cho," Booth said, turning around and wiggling the fingers of his left hand nervously. "Sir, this is my friend, Dr. Temperance Brennan." She stood up and shook Dr. Cho's hand as Booth looked on. "She was called in by the Army to assist with the…well…the identification of the casualties of the two Chinooks that went down in Helmand last month." He fell silent as he thought how to gently describe the purpose of her attendance that morning. "Since she's more familiar with medical terms and stuff like CT scans 'cause of what she does for a living, I asked her to come along with me today so I'd better understand what you were telling me. Sir."
Brennan watched as Booth did one thing she had seldom seen him do, even with his FBI superiors—defer so completely to another man in a way she hadn't seen him do since the first dozen or so cases they worked together under the leadership of Deputy Director Cullen—and something she had seen him do hundreds if not thousands of times: dumb himself down, concealing the degree to which he actually understood things. She pursed her lips, wondering why he was doing this, but she said nothing as she sat down again.
Dr. Cho's brow furrowed as Brennan reclaimed her seat. "This is highly irregular, Sergeant Major," he noted. "But—" He looked into Booth's soft brown eyes, which were wide with expectation, his eyebrows raised in a silent plea. "Under the circumstances, though, I'll allow it."
He opened Booth's folder and pulled out a printed image that looked like a strange, black and white cross section of something. Booth squinted at the print-out as Dr. Cho began to speak. "This is one of the images from your CT scan, Sergeant Major," he said. "What you're looking at is a cross-section or slice of your arm." Booth nodded, quickly glancing over to Brennan, who nodded back. "This—" He pointed to a small dark area along the edge of the cross-section. "This is your ulnar nerve, which based upon the symptoms you've described—the tingling and numbness in your pinky, the outer or distal side of your right ring finger and the distal surface of your right palm—is the structure most likely affected." He pointed to a couple of other areas with his pen. "These…here, here and here…are other nerves that run through your arm, that 'feed' the other components of your hand. The good news is that the CT scan shows no sign of abnormality—like a tumor—or injury to any of these nerves, including the ulnar nerve."
Booth took a long breath. "Why am I having the numbness, pain and tingling, then?" he asked. "I mean, if the CT scan came up clean."
Dr. Cho shrugged. "Nerves are very sensitive," he explained. "I would like to run a few more tests before we make a determination, Sergeant Major."
Booth glanced over to Brennan with raised eyebrows.
"What kind of tests?" she asked quietly but firmly. She knew the answer but she wanted to hear the orthopedist identify them and explain them to Booth so her partner would understand and, perhaps, feel just a little bit more in control of what was happening to him.
Dr. Cho pressed his lips in a firm line as he watched the nonverbal interaction between the senior enlisted soldier and the woman who was with him. Dr. Temperance Brennan, he thought to himself. Where have I heard that name before? He looked down at his feet, trying to jog his memory, then shook away the thought and brought his gaze back to meet Booth's.
"I believe we should run two tests in order to confirm that the ulnar nerve is structurally healthy and intact," he said. Booth's brows went up and his nose scrunched up at the thought of any part of him being anything other than healthy and intact. "One is a nerve conduction study, whereby we will assess the extent to which your ulnar nerve can conduct electricity."
"What?" Booth blurted, turning his head to Brennan. "I don't know what that means. Is that like an electrical continuity test like you'd run on a car's electrical system or something?"
Dr. Cho smiled faintly. "Yes, exactly, Sergeant Major," he said. "You see, your nervous system is basically electrical in nature. When you feel numbness, tingling, burning or shooting pain like the kind you've described, that signals an issue of an electrical nature, which is generally the sign of a nerve dysfunction. Nerves conduct electricity, basically. If the nerves are damaged or somehow aren't able properly conduct those electrical signals, the result is loss of movement, loss of sensation, or excessive sensation like the burning, tingling and sharp pain you're feeling. The test should be able to show us if somewhere along the path from your shoulder down through your arm to your hand there is compression or other dysfunction of the nerve. Sometimes these things don't show up well enough on images like CT scans to diagnose, and because of the hardware in your arm, an MRI is not an option for you."
"Can that test be carried out here?" Brennan asked. "At Bagram?" As she waited for the answer, she was not entirely sure what answer she wanted to hear. A part of her wanted to get Booth as far away from Bagram, the war and the Army as she could, but another part of her—an admittedly selfish part of her—wanted to keep him close until her work there was done and she, too, could return to D.C., hopefully with Booth in tow.
"Yes, of course," Dr. Cho replied.
"Is it going to hurt?" Booth asked.
"No," the doctor answered. "But there is another test I'd also like to perform, an electromyography test—which will involve us placing needles into the muscles of your forearm—in order to record the electrical features of the contraction and relaxation of your muscles. This test can be painful for some patients."
Booth frowned. This is why I effin hate hospitals and doctors, he grumbled silently before a voice in the back of his head snapped back, but this is your best chance at getting that hand of yours back to working condition. Your shooting hand, your throwing hand, your writing hand, your lovemaking hand. He glanced over at Brennan and smiled. "Okay," he said. "I'll do it."
"How soon can these tests be run?" Brennan asked.
Dr. Cho smiled, again a bit suspicious about the relationship between the soldier and his scientist friend. They seemed an exceedingly odd pair yet close—in a way he couldn't quite put his finger on, really—but with a roll of his eyes, he shrugged off the thought.
"Well, we would have to remove the cast, and because of the nature and severity of Sergeant Major Booth's fractures, even with the surgically-implanted hardware—" He looked down at Booth's file again. "The cast has been on three weeks so far. I'd normally want to see it on a minimum of four to five weeks. So, to give the bone the best chance to heal most stably, I advise waiting at least another week before removing the cast, perform these tests, and then perhaps we can consider fitting you with a shorter cast, depending on how the X-rays look."
Booth rubbed the back of his head as he stood next to the examination table, his eyes skating across the various CT scan images spread out there like a deck of large, mottled cards. "So, uh," he began, "if the electrical conductivity check thing or the electromyography thing show that there's a problem with the nerve, what are my options from there?"
He fell silent for a moment, wondering whether he would have to learn to play sports all over again—throwing baseballs and footballs to Parker with his left hand, leaning to hold his hockey stick with his left hand, to pass and shoot the puck with his left hand—all of which made him a bit depressed. What happens to my career with the FBI if I have a half-numb right hand? After exchanging a worried look with Brennan, turned to the doctor. "After those tests, what can you guys do for me?"
"If the nerve is merely compressed, then you may have essentially a kind of acute carpal tunnel syndrome, which can be addressed surgically by releasing the tissues that are compressing the nerve. This procedure is referred to either as an Ulnar Nerve Release or a Cubital Tunnel Release."
"If not—?" Booth gulped.
Dr. Cho shook his head. "Let's deal with the scenario immediately ahead of us: wait another week before bringing you back in, when we'll remove your cast, perform the NCS and electromyography tests and see whether they indicate a compression."
Brennan stood up. "But what Sergeant Major Booth has been trying to ask is, what happens next if those tests turn up signs of that the nerve compression is the cause of his palsy? What if he requires an Ulnar Nerve Release or a Cubital Tunnel Release to decompress the nerve? Will that surgery be performed here at Bagram? Or will he be sent to another, better-equipped military healthcare facility elsewhere? Surely, there are better facilities than this one—"
Dr. Cho scowled and interrupted her. "Dr. Brennan, the purpose of the facility here at Bagram is provide acute care for personnel transiting to more comprehensive medical facilities, to provide care for minor/less complex injuries, and to provide ongoing preventative care to personnel and contractors based here at Bagram."
Brennan furrowed her eyebrows low over her eyes as she glanced over to Booth, who held his left hand out horizontal to the floor and waggled it up and down just a couple of inches, trying to signal to her to lower the volume of her voice and address the situation in a bit more relaxed way.
"So," Booth interjected, "if I need that surgery, what are talking here: Landstuhl, Fort Sam Houston, or Walter Reed?" He turned to Brennan. "Everything else being equal, I'd like to go to Walter Reed, since it's in D.C., so I can see Parker." He turned back to the doctor. "My son."
Dr. Cho raised his hand to silence any objections or speculations coming from either of them. "Listen, that decision will be made based on schedules, availability, etc. But we've got several tests we need to run yet to determine where along the nerve corridor you are experiencing the problem—compressive or otherwise—and only then will we examine which option is better for you. And before we can do that, we need to give you another week or ten days in that cast. Alright?"
"I just want my hand back," Booth muttered.
"I know you do," Brennan said to him, placing her left hand over his and squeezing it. "I know it." She took a breath. "So, the next step is a follow-up appointment for a week to ten days from now so the electrical conductivity study and electromyography can be completed, correct?"
Dr. Cho nodded. "Yes, and only then, when those results have been read by myself in consultation with a neurologist can we determine the next phase of the Sergeant Major's treatment and where that treatment will occur."
"Okay," Booth said.
"Any further questions?" the doctor asked, praying that there were none before realizing, in that instant, who the woman was. Oh fuck, he muttered quietly as he remembered the book he'd bought for his wife for her birthday. He recalled reading the author's profile on the inside flap of the back cover of the book, and all about how she was the Director of Forensic Anthropology at the Medico-Legal Lab at the Jeffersonian Institute in Washington, D.C. and held Ph.D.s in physical anthropology, cultural anthropology and kinesiology. Hearing no further queries, he gathered up the CT images, messily threw them into Booth's patient folder for the private out front to sort through, and began to make his way towards the door with a terse, "We'll see you again in a week for a followup—Private Cassidy will set up the appointment for you." He hesitated, then turned around to meet Brennan's stare. "Pleasure meeting you, Dr. Brennan."
She narrowed her eyes slightly and said, "Likewise, Dr. Cho."
"Where are we going, Booth?" Brennan asked. "I thought you were taking me to the hangar."
Booth turned to her with a twinkle in his eye and an irrepressible smirk on his lips. "I left my workout bag in the room," he said.
She looked at him suspiciously but shrugged. "Alright," she whispered. Her mind was preoccupied thinking about the course of treatment for what she was certain was ulnar nerve palsy caused by a compression of the nerve somewhere near the site of Booth's ulnar fracture. She knew the orthopedist was right, and that Booth needed a little more time to allow the healing fractures to stabilize before removing the cast and commencing the process of treating the more worrisome nerve condition.
A few minutes later, Booth pulled into a space behind Brennan's building and slammed the gearshift into park. He looked at her, his cheeks flushing warmly as his eyes traced over the features of her face—her cheekbones, her square jaw, her delicate brow—before he unlatched his seatbelt and climbed out of the truck.
He followed her into the building, politely nodding to one of the other residents who shot him a knowing grin—he wasn't entirely sure what exactly Brennan had said or done to secure the continued silence of her neighbors, but he definitely wasn't complaining, in any case—as they walked down the hall to her room. He stood close behind her as she put the key in the lock, his head hovering over her shoulder as her hair tickled his nose. She struggled a little with the key before finally turning the lock and opening the door. With a gentle push, he urged her through the doorway before closing the door behind him with his boot.
Brennan's eyes scanned the room—the neatly-made bed (the reasons for which still amused her, though she had ceased teasing her partner about his modesty), the half-turned blinds through which bright stripes of morning light shone through, and his Army-issue laptop with the broadband card she'd gotten for him—and turned around to face him.
"So where's your gym bag?" she asked, glancing at her watch. Booth smiled and took a couple of steps towards her, closing the distance between them as he raised his hand to cup her cheek. He smiled at her but said nothing. "Booth, we can't," she protested. "Mr. Bray—"
He shook his head and grinned. "Wendell can wait," he said quietly, tilting his head to the side as he looked deeply into her eyes. "There's something I need to tell you, Bones."
Brennan's eyes narrowed and her face paled as her heart began to race. What is it now, Booth? she wondered. I feel like I've been from heaven to hell and back again—metaphorically speaking—just in the last five days. She felt his large hand warm against her cheek and she watched his eyes.
"What?" she whispered, tentatively reaching out and placing her hands on his narrow hips.
He let his hand fall from her cheek and grasped her right hand in his. "I had a revelation, Bones," he said. "Last night—and this morning."
"A revelation?" She arched her eyebrow.
"Yeah, Bones," Booth replied. "Last night, after we finished talking to Gordon Gordon, and we went to bed…" He squeezed her hand. "I had trouble sleeping, so I just lay there, watching you sleep."
He remembered laying on his side next to her, his casted arm resting on his hip as he observed her. Even though in the darkness of the Afghan night, everything seemed colored in shades of gray, her face seemed to glow in the faint light like porcelain, her features soft and relaxed as her mouth hung open ever so slightly, a barely-audible snore passing from her lips. He thought about the strange journey they had each traveled to get where they were at that moment, and how finally, after all of the tension, the frustration, confusion and pain that they had caused themselves and each other in the nearly six years since they had first met, they were together, under circumstances neither one could have imagined they would find themselves individually, never mind together.
In the two-odd weeks since she had arrived in Afghanistan, everything had changed between them, and now the hope and expectation that had coursed through his veins that night on the steps of the Hoover seemed finally fulfilled as he watched her sleeping peacefully next to him. He loved her, so deeply that he imagined that he wore his love for her like a second skin that enveloped him completely. Even more incredible was the fact that she loved him—she had told him so, and moreover had showed her love for him again and again with the care, concern and compassion she had showed to him as he struggled through the memories that had plagued him since the days following the crash of the two Chinooks.
"I realized, watching you last night, the way you looked so beautiful and peaceful next to me, and talking to Parker this morning—it occurred to me that I have everything I've ever really wanted in life, right now." He rolled his lips between his teeth and closed his hand around her smaller, slender-fingered fist, bringing her hand up to his lips, kissing it softly. "I have the love of a wonderful woman, and an incredible son, and—" His brown eyes glistened as he leaned forward, resting his forehead against hers. "I don't want to lose you, Bones. I don't want to squander this incredible gift we've been given. I want to get back to being the man I was—the man you deserve, and the father Parker deserves." He swallowed as he felt the tears welling up in his eyes.
"I'm gonna do this, Bones," he whispered. "I'm gonna get my head together, get my arm healthy, get the hell out of the Army, and go home—and get back to the life I had before." A smile broke across his lips. "Except, this time, it'll be better, Bones, because you and me, we'll be together, really together."
Brennan opened her mouth to speak, but the hardness in her throat caused her to hesitate. "I want all those things, too, Booth," she said, placing her hand over his and stroking her thumb over the web of bumpy veins on the top of his hand. "I…I don't know exactly how long all this is going to take to finish my work here—two weeks, maybe three weeks—and I don't know how long it's going to take to convince the Army that they need to send you back to the States to get your arm properly treated, but—"
"You'll convince 'em, Bones," he said. "I know it."
He saw the way her eyebrows flashed skeptically and thought back to what she had said to him when he was in the hospital being prepped for brain surgery. "I'm not a neurologist, Booth," she had told him. "But you're a genius," he'd replied. "That's good enough for me."
"I'm not sure about that," she said. "I am fairly certain that the tests they're going to run next week are going to show that you have impaired ulnar nerve function as the result of a significant compression of the nerve. I'm also fairly certain that you'll need to have surgery to correct the problem, and that they'll need to send you home to get it done."
"If I can get out of Afghanistan, maybe I can find someone who can help with..." Booth's voice trailed off as he pulled away from her slightly and took a breath. "You know—with all this stuff that's messing up my head."
Brennan looked at him for several long moments, her pale eyes gazing into his darker ones as she struggled to contain the disparate emotions she felt swirling inside of her. "We are going to get you home, Booth," she said to him earnestly, her voice even yet full of gravity. "And," she added with a heavy-lidded blink, "when you go home, I'm going with you."
Booth felt his heart stop as her words sank into his consciousness. "Bones," he whispered, leaning into her again as he let go of her hand, snaked his arm around her waist and kissed her.
Brennan felt his tongue skate across the line between her lips and she opened her mouth to him. She moaned as his tongue glanced off of hers and they kissed deeply, their mouths grasping at one another as their breaths began to rise and fall harder with every passing second. He cupped his healthy hand around her jaw and pulled her even more deeply into his kiss.
As their mouths fell away from one another, each of them gasping for breath, she whispered, "Booth—the hangar…I need to get back…"
"No, no, no," he mumbled, pulling her face to his for another, briefer kiss. "Wendell can wait…and my guys can wait." Kissing her again, he grinned and said, "My guys'll understand if we're a few minutes late getting back to them. They'd totally understand." He kissed her again, then moved his face away as her mouth chased his. "In fact, I'm fairly certain they'd approve."
"Hmmm…"
Booth reached for Brennan's blouse and began to unbutton the top button with his left hand, struggling to roll the button through the slit with this thumb and forefinger as she brushed his hand away. She stepped back and quickly unbuttoned her blouse as she watched him unzip his camouflage jacket, shrugging out of it one arm at a time and letting the garment fall to the floor. She stripped herself of her blouse, toed off her flats and removed her trousers, then sat down on the bed as she watched him bend over and furiously unlace his boots. Stepping out of his boots with a grunt and sliding out of his socks, he swiftly unbelted his trousers and began to unbutton his fly as she watched him with hungry interest.
"Come here," she whispered. He looked up, his brow briefly crinkled in confusion before the realization dawned on him. "I want to do that," she said with a lusty half-grin. Booth reached down and quickly peeled off his T-shirt before walking barefoot to stand in front of her at the side of the bed.
Brennan smiled as the muscles of his abdomen tightened reflexively in response to her touch as she carefully unbuttoned each of the four buttons of his fly. He sucked in a breath as she pulled the fly open and, sliding her hands along the edge of his pelvis underneath the waistband of his briefs, shoved both his trousers and his underwear off his hips in a single motion. Wincing as the waistband of his briefs brushed over his arousal, he reached down with both hands—even his casted hand—to help her slide his trousers down his thighs and over his knees as he stepped out of them.
"Oh God, Bones," Booth groaned as he leaned over, transfixed by the way her pale eyes glittered as she took his swollen tip between her lips. "Oh, fuck…"
She pressed the point of her tongue into the slit, tasting the sweet drops of his fluid there, then, wrapping her fingers around his bony hips, took as much of him into her mouth as she could. Her head bobbed to and fro as she sucked him, dragging the flat of her tongue along the underside of him as she felt the gluteal muscles of his hips tense beneath her fingers, and she knew he was trying desperately to resist the impulse to thrust into her mouth.
"Oh…fuck…"
Brennan took him as deeply into her mouth as she could, wiggling the point of her tongue against the base before pulling back and letting him fall, wet and hard, away from her lips.
Narrowing his coal-dark eyes, Booth bent over and reached for the waistband of her panties. Sliding his hand underneath the elastic, he brushed his fingertips over her damp curls before tugging the unremarkable cotton article over her rounded hips and down her thighs.
"Aren't you going to take off my bra?" she asked in a husky voice as she wiggled the panties off her legs and kicked them to the floor with a laugh.
Licking his lips as her legs fell apart loosely, Booth grinned and shook his head. "No," he grunted as he rubbed the knuckles of his left hand over the neat curls that covered her cleft. "We're gonna skip that part this time, baby." Her laughing response was cut short when she gasped at feeling his forefingers parting her folds, sliding his middle finger over her slippery opening, gathering a bit of her sweet cream and smoothing it over her clit before he began to rub tight, insistent circles with his thumb.
"Oh, fuck, Booth," she moaned, her back arching off the bed as each circle propelled her deeper into a spiral of sensation. "Fuck…"
Booth watched her facial expressions shift as he continued to pleasure her with his thumb. Her eyes clenched shut, smoothing her forehead as her mouth gaped open, the most delicious low moan passing from her thin lips as he slid his middle finger into her creamy, warm depths. "You're so beautiful," he said in a low voice as he started to pump his long, thick finger into her, all the while continuing to work her swollen clit with his thumb. "Come on, baby," he whispered as he felt her back arch once more off the bed and a loud, long grunt issue from her as she tightened around his finger.
"Ohhhh….fuck….ohhhh…"
He would normally give her a chance to ride out the ebbing waves of her release, but that morning, as the midmorning sun filtered through the blinds and left their stencil-like stripes across the sun-splashed half of the room, he tucked his chin against his chest, pulled her hips to the edge of the bed and, with a deep breath, pressed himself into her.
"Oh God," he moaned as he pulled nearly all the way out again, looking down admiringly on the incredible body spread before him.
He drove into her with a primitive force that surprised him in the fleeting moments before his higher mental functions were completely inundated with a flood of sensations: the smooth, slippery feel of her folds as they opened up for him; the way she smelled of sweat, floral body spray and her own musky arousal; low moans and long, soft sighs that she uttered as he moved in and out of her, slowly at first but more quickly as the threads of his self-control all but unraveled; and the rosy pinkness that flushed her sweat-glistened face, neck and chest as his movements worked her towards her second peak. He held onto her with his healthy hand, the pads of his fingertips pressing into the round swell of her hip as he stroked into her, each entry harder and more insistent than the one before as he rolled his hips back and tried to bury himself as deeply inside of her as he could. As he moved inside of her, burying himself inside of her wet warmth, grinning as she moaned and arched her back under him, he vaguely wondered if he would ever find his way out of her again, and that thought, ephemeral as it was, sent him over the edge. Drawing his hips back one last time, he drove up and deeply into her, holding himself there as he let go, pulsing into her as their darkened eyes met in a long, open stare.
Booth pulled his lips away from hers reluctantly as she unclasped her seatbelt and opened the truck door.
"Pick you up at five?" he said to her, his hair still a little damp from the shower they shared after their love. "Oh—don't forget your sandwiches!" He reached into the back seat and retrieved the white paper bag, then leaned over the console as she snatched the bag from his hands with a wry grin.
"Thanks," Brennan said. Her smile faded somewhat and she cocked her head. "You're gonna call him, right? You promised."
Booth took a deep breath. "Yeah," he said. "I will. As soon as I get back to—" They weren't sure what to call it: her room? their room? "He's a U.S. Magistrate Judge. It's not like he's not used to getting calls in the middle of the night. You'll text me if…"
She nodded. "Yes, I'll text you before the end of the day to let you know if we made any IDs."
"Okay," he sighed.
She was about to close the door then hesitated. "You'll call me if you need me?" she asked. "Anything, Booth—if you feel like it's all too much, you'll call me?"
"Yeah," he said, chewing the inside of his lip. "I'll be okay, Bones," he added bravely.
"I know you will," she replied with a smile, then closed the door to the Land Cruiser with a loud clunk.
Booth paced back and forth across the floor, his boots scrunching against the short pile commercial-grade carpet as he listened to the phone ring on the other end of the line.
"Hello?" a low, sleepy voice answered.
"Hank? It's Booth."
For a couple of beats, the line was silent but for the crackle of white noise. "Where are you?" Hank Luttrell asked, his sleep-thickened voice suddenly a half-octave higher. "Are you okay?"
Booth swallowed. "I know it's late, man," he said. "But—can we talk?"
Another moment of silence passed. "Sure," Luttrell replied, his voice a whisper as he tried to avoid waking his sleeping wife, Jenny. "Just—let me…are you okay, Booth?"
A long sigh was his only reply.
"Okay," Luttrell said as Booth heard the sound of an unlatching door in the background. "What's up?"
"God," Booth said. "Where do I even start?"
A/N: Enter Hank Luttrell stage right. Alright, so things are starting to fall into place a little, if you noticed.
What do you think? Tell me. Please. Please, please, PLEASE—don't read and run.
Tell me what you think about what happened in this chapter. I pour my heart and soul into each of these chapters—especially one like this—and I'm desperate to know what you think.
So please, tell me what you think...
I'm dying here, folks O.o