A/N Sorry sorry sorry sorry! For the long long time that has gone by since my last update! I promise to make it up to you. One way is that this entire chapter is all Booth and Bones - no other scenes. Just all fluffy hurt/comfort warm fuzzies with a little side of angst! Please ignore any missed errors since I will correct them later as always. I just want to get this posted. Then I promise to update this story again before updating any of my others since you have all been so patient! Thank you for the ongoing awesome reviews as well!!!

Previously On Mistaken Identity . . .

Brennan noted his heavy eyelids and she too felt like all of the energy and adrenaline had drained right out of her, leaving her sleepy from their absences but also from the after affects of her previous drugging. She gave Booth permission to sleep, telling him she would be right here with him when he woke up and then they could find a way to escape. His eyes were closed and his breathing evened out before she had even finished her statement.

She then laid her head back down onto his chest/shoulder just like before and within seconds she too had succumbed to healing slumber.

Mistaken Identity

Chapter 28

When Booth first started to come around, he was still not fully awake as he laid there completely still, eyes closed, he could feel something warm blowing lightly against his neck and a light weight pressing against his shoulder. Finally his eyes began to flutter open as he fought to remember where he was and what was going on. He felt as though he'd been asleep for days and his brain didn't seem to be cooperating with him as he continued to struggle with his memory.

Once his eyes were completely open, he looked down to see where the warm air was coming from as the confused expression on his face blossomed into a full out smile when he realized with excitement that it was merely the light breathing of his partner – not only his partner in work but hopefully, his partner in life. But then just as suddenly as he started thinking about Bones and dreams of spending their future together, those thoughts were pushed aside by the sudden realization of where they were and the eminent danger they were in.

As he took in her peaceful and gorgeous face he felt as though his heart was going to burst from the complete love that filled his very being. 'God she is beautiful', he thought.

Then his body involuntarily shuddered either from the cold ground that he had been laying on for who knew how many hours, or from the fear of any harm coming to her, but that light shiver that ran through his entire body had caused just enough movement to awaken his dozing partner.

"B-Booth?" she called out for him, he voice and mind still slightly groggy. Then as her own thoughts became more clear and her own memory woke back up – she jerked upwards so she was now sitting in an upright position as her eyes quickly scanned Booth from head to toe as if hoping that all of his injuries were part of some horrible nightmare and that now that she was awake she would see that he was fine.

Booth watched her and saw the visible slump of her shoulders as reality hit her like a brick. "Bones, what? What is it?" he asked, reaching up to place his hand on the small of her back, pressing it against her in a show of his support. "What's wrong?"

She turned her head and just looked at him with her large blue eyes, eyes that were now moist with tears that were on the verge of spilling out. "Booth – I . . ." her lower lip began to tremble ever so slightly as she fought to control herself. She hated to show vulnerability, even to Booth. She hated when she couldn't stop herself from crying just like she couldn't now.

"Bones what is it, you're scaring me." Booth asked her again, his voice nearly faltering with concern.

"Sorry Booth. I'm . . . I'm – so – sorry." she said through the veil of tears that had begun to run all the way down to her chin. "I'm sorry I couldn't save you before they hurt you again. I'm sorry you have to suffer any more injuries and pain when you have already been through so much." it was almost too much for her to bare. She would have rather she herself had been severely injured rather than see Booth go through so much as a broken toe since the pain of seeing his suffering was worse than any physical pain she could ever endure!

"Heeyyy, come onnn Bo-ones – you know I've been through worse than this? Pffff – this is nothing!" he said as he purposely tried to sound strong and pain free even though his head felt as though his brain was trying to punch it's way through the ivory wall of his skull.

"It doesn't matter Booth, it doesn't matter what you may or may not have been through worse! I can't take seeing you like this it – it." she paused as the words became stuck in her throat. "It's too much." she finally finished her statement.

"Look at me Bones, please just take a deep breath and look in my eyes." he said as he gently placed his fingers under her chin and manually turned her face towards his own. "Okay now listen, I – am – going - to – be – fiiine. Okay? Really. Now let's just focus on getting out of here." he proposed.

"In fact, if it will make you feel better then . . . I will-ll . . .I'll let you check out my leg again. Then you will see for yourself that everything – is fine – that I am fine." he added. He didn't want to alarm her and tell her that the numbness was worse since he had awakened from their impromptu nap. He could no longer feel his leg from the knee down.

Brennan immediately detected a pause in Booth's statement when he mentioned his leg, she had obviously spent too much time with him because she was picking up some of his qualities to detect when someone is lying.

"Booth there is something you are leaving out, about your leg. What is it? What's wrong?" she didn't even attempt to hide the alarm and worry in her voice.

:No, nothing Bones. You are just getting paranoid. I just thought you would probably demand to check me out from head to toe again so I thought I would throw you a bone. Pun intended." he said as he grinned, hoping his humor would distract her. He knew that she felt best when she had established some kind of control over a situation. He knew this would be the key in getting her to move past her worry. A smile so light one could have easily missed it, appeared on her face. "Well, okay I guess so." she answered him and kept it to herself that she was onto what he was doing. He wanted to keep her distracted. She knew he hated to be fussed over, to Booth she knew it made him feel weak some how – vulnerable, and he detested feeling that way.

She decided to humor him right back since after all, she was actually eager to check his leg out since it was clearly his most worrisome injury. If he figured he could use his injuries to distract her, then two could play that game! She would use his own trickery against him because now he just unknowingly gave her free reign to do whatever she needed to do to take care of him – even if it meant re-splinting his leg if she felt the bones were not aligned properly, she thought they had but she also knew the drastic swelling made it impossible to know for sure. But she had an idea as to how she could check his circulation and how much feeling he still had in his foot – all of that would tell her for certain if it had been set properly - after all, no one knew bones like she did!

"Okay then Booth, I will do just that. But just remember, if you start to get the urge to give me any trouble or stop me at any point – I will not hesitate to remind you that you gave me free reign to do whatever I need to do to fix your leg up to my satisfaction." she had to fight to contain the smirk that was threatening to appear on her face, it gave her a surprising amount of satisfaction to have this new control over him – albeit temporarily.

"Well . . . hold on now I – I don't know that I said all tha-at . . . um-er . . . I believe I said CHECK my leg out, I do not believe the words 'free reign' ever escaped my lips." he was getting nervous now. This time it was Booth who realized what Bones was doing - and he didn't like it one bit. 'Damn, why did I have to go and get hooked up with flippin genius?!' he thought wryly.

But it was too late! By the time he finished that thought, she had already pulled aside his ripped pant leg and was studying it like she was assessing a skull from one of their murder victims corpses!

"Eeewww, Booth I do not like how this is looking, I don't like it at all." she barely whispered, so deep in focus. She decided not to tell him what she was about to do, she planned to just check him for any of the possible complications she knew a fracture of the tibia could produce, especially an open fracture. She proceeded to pinch him with her long fingernails on a part of his skin that was not red and inflamed, Her heart sank when the move elicited no reaction whatsoever from Booth whatsoever, She then ran her fingernail lightly down the bottom of his shoeless foot, a gesture that normally would have caused him to flinch just as most people would have since that area was know to be sensitive, plus in Booth's case she knew firsthand that he was ticklish – especially when it came to his feet. A trait he hated since he felt it just wasn't manly.

But again . . . nothing. Booth hadn't reacted at all. She knew this was not a good sign. She also knew how tricky resetting the tibia could be since it was a relatively long and slender bone. She hadn't noticed how intensely Booth had been observing her face, in his reclined position it was hard for him to see what she was doing to his leg, but Booth was the best as reading people, especially by monitoring their facial expressions.

"What is it Bones? What's wrong?" he asked, stoic and monotone.

"Uhm, well . . . okay I need to know how much pain or feeling in general you have in your leg Booth – and don't try to pacify me by saying it's fine."

Booth weighed his options. On one hand he should risk her being angry later and lie to her now so she would not worry. On the other hand if he lied to her and found out later that he could either lose his leg or have unrepairable damage and that there had been something she could have done to fix him – then he would never forgive himself, nor would she.

"Okay okay, well it . . . it doesn't. . . it doesn't feel right I guess. It had been slowly going numb before they brought you in here - and ever since I woke up few minutes ago, I - well I can't really feel it at all." he saw her frowning more with every word.

"Hey, I thought that was a good thing! I mean it sure makes the pain less overwhelming, now I just have a really bad ache deep down inside – other than that it's probably just from the angle my leg was in while we slept . . . right?"

Brennan continued frowning, wishing she could agree with his explanation, but also knowing his tendency to withhold vital facts about his health just to keep her from worrying. "No Booth, I'm afraid not. Your leg should not be numb – at all. There are a lot of complications that can occur with a bad break to this part of the leg. It's also very hard to realign without the luxury of an X-ray and due to the - it can lead to attenuation of the astragalus – severe infiltration of bacillus into the osseous matter . . ."

"Bones! Please would you just STOP?!" he stopped her mid-sentence, unable to follow her any longer and not understanding a word of what she was saying – as usual!

Oh, I am sorry Booth. I can get caught up sometime and forget that I am not in the lab. What all of that meant was that infection can set into the ossein the. . . sorry, the bone, the cartilage and even the knee joint if we are not careful. It is nearly impossible to be sure the bone is realigned properly due to all of the inflama- the swelling that had occurred. We really need to get you out of here and treated properly!" she concluded.

Booth absorbed the news and was now admittedly more worried himself. "Thanks Bones, I appreciate your being candid about this and for uh, dummy-ing down your diagnosis for me." he teased, hoping to distract her from the worry that had crept over her entire porcelain like face like an eclipse. "Okay now then let's make some kind of plan of attack then – I don't know about you but broken leg or not, I am getting really tired of being held prisoner by this psycho! Were you able to see or hear anything since you have been here Bones?"

Brennan didn't answer immediately because she was still mesmerized by his leg, She was deep in thought over what she could use to better wrap and splint his leg so if they were able to make a run for it, he would at least be able to go a short distance.

"Hello? Earth to Bones." he announced.

"Wha- oh, sorry. What? What do you mean – Earth to Bones? What does our planet have to do with me?!"

That was it, Booth couldn't even begin to contain his laughter over her inept ability to understand the most commonly used cliche's! His ribcage throbbed and his head screamed at him to cease and desist with the laughter, it had definitely caused his pain levels to spike to new heights – but, he didn't care right now. He just loved her more with every naive little incident they experienced together. He was sometimes at a loss to explain how a genius like herself, could be so clueless when it came to matters involving any kind of common sense, or popular idioms.

"Booth you really shouldn't be exerting yourself like that. Laughing is going to really strain your ribcage and not to mention your concussion." she was not sure what he was even laughing about in the first place, after all HE was the one who was not making any sense.

"Aahh Bones, have I told you lately how much I love you?" he asked her while he finally gained some control of his earlier laughing fit.

Brennan just rolled her eyes and smiled back at him, he was simply going crazy from being stuck here, injured and sleep deprived she finally deduced. Then grabbing Booth's discarded belt that was laying nearby, she ignored his silliness and went right back to focusing on her task of stabilizing his leg a little better. Booth dozed fitfully while she completed her work, finally satisfied that it was wrapped as well as it could be under the circumstances. She had also cleaned it as well as she could using a water bottle she found rolling underneath the cot, most likely dropped by the woman Lexi at some point.

Then they were both shocked to full attention and in Booth's case, jolted awake, as the door slammed open once again hitting the wall behind it with a loud bang!

"Okay little Miss Temperance Brennan, it's time to get fitted for some new jewelry!" Sam announced as he leaned down to grab her by the arm. "It's time to see how good of an actress you are! Now come with me."

Booth shot up to a sitting position, pissed that his leg was keeping him from getting up and kicking the man's ass! "LEAVE – HER – ALONE!" he demanded, "Take me instead! She is NOT a good actress – trust me, I know!" he shouted, thinking back to the Gormagon disaster when they had purposely set a trap for the murdering cannibal and almost got killed by a bomb due to Brennan's overacting.

Nik, who had come in just behind Sam, reached down and punched Booth across the face with a fierce right hook, the action caused the concussed brain inside Booth's cracked skull to ricochet inside – he felt like it had literally bounced against the inside of his skull.

The result was a complete knockout as Booth's body dropped lifelessly back down to the floor completely unconscious. When he finally came back around some twenty minutes later, Bones was gone.

To Be Continued . . .

Thanks for reading and I hope you will review as well. I thank you! See facts below.

Dangerous conditions associated with tibial fractures include:

A missed torn artery, increased pressure in the tightly-restrictive compartments of the lower leg (compartment syndrome).

Injury to the peroneal nerve, which leads to a foot drop, or inability to lift the toes of the foot, while walking.

The pressure syndrome can lead to the severe restriction of oxygen to muscles and nerves below the fracture, and eventually gangrene, or even amputation or death.

Infections that get into the tibia, especially from open wounds over the fracture, can be extremely resistant to treatment.

Fractures of the tibia are a virtual minefield of things that can go wrong. Casts that are applied may compromise circulation in the lower leg, and may compound the effects of the occasional compartment syndrome.