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:

DFAC: Dining facility

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.

EMG: Electromyography. An electromyograph detects the electrical potential generated by muscle cells when these cells are electrically or neurologically activated. Another way to test the way motor nerves communicate with muscle tissue.

Pop Warner: For my non-US readers, this is a type of youth league for American football. Booth uses the term metaphorically.

NSAID: Non-steriodal anti-inflammatory drug—e.g. aspirin, ibuprofen (Advil), naproxen sodium (Aleve), acetaminophen (Tylenol).

ANA: Afghan National Army

LZ: Landing zone for helicopter.

2) Shout-out to my HHB (hugely helpful beta): The supremely awesome, tough-as-nails, ass-kicking lady cop Jasper777 (aka "Your1Backup" on Twitter) who helped me by looking over some of the medical details as well as, ahem, other details. I owe her a couple of venti coffees or a round of beers at this point for the help she's given me throughout the writing of K2B. Someday we'll meet and I am quite certain she's gonna collect.

3) Reader content alert: There might be a little bit of adult content ahead. If you aren't an adult or don't like reading about adults engaged in adult activities, you might want to skip the end of the chapter.

So, anyways—alright, without further ado, let's go back to Bagram.


Chapter 29: Taking What Is Given


As the days passed, Booth's and Brennan's shared life fell into a regular rhythm.

Each morning, they would wake up, shower, talk to Parker on Skype, then Booth would drive Brennan and Wendell to the DFAC for a quick breakfast before dropping them off at the hangar. He would make his way back to Brennan's dormitory, quietly slip into her room and conference with Gordon Wyatt for an hour. In an effort to clear his head and energize his body, Booth would go for a five-mile run around the base, then return once more to the room, shower again before making his way back to the hangar to take Brennan and Wendell over to the DFAC for lunch. Then he would spend the next couple of hours crafting a letter to the surviving parents, spouse, fiancée or girlfriend of one of his fallen Green Beret comrades. After finishing the letter, emailing it over to Brennan so it could be printed out at the hangar and signed by Wendell on Booth's behalf, Booth would drive over to the McDonald's on base for a cup of coffee and one of those hot apple pies—less because he needed the coffee or the admittedly sub-standard pie and more because it got him out of the dorm room—and hang out there for a while before making his way back to the hangar to pick up Brennan and Wendell for dinner.

In the ten days that followed the day when it seemed that Booth had finally crested a hill of sorts—the day of his appointment with Dr. Cho and his telephone call with Hank Luttrell, the day his on-again/off-again long term memory finally coughed up the missing details of the seconds before the Chinooks crashed and his conversation with Brennan that night when he discovered that she had the physical evidence to substantiate what he knew in his heart to be true about the events that led to the lethal crash—Brennan's work in the hangar continued, her work likewise following a consistent rhythm.

Each day, another couple of men from Alpha 3623 or the 160th SOAR would be positively identified, and each afternoon, Booth went into the hangar to pay his last respects before the newly-identified remains, shrouded in a zipped-up vinyl body bag, were placed into an aluminum transfer case furnished by the 54th Quartermaster Company and readied for their return home via Dover Air Force Base. As the days ticked by, the work of identifying the remaining men became easier from the standpoint of assigning identity to the remains—if for no other reason than the list of possibilities narrowed with each man whose body had been positively ID'd and sent home—but the process of reassembling the broken bodies into something resembling a whole person became more difficult as Brennan and Wendell began to work with the most badly-damaged remains.

In those ten days, more and more of the men were sent home until only one man remained. In those same ten days, ten more letters went out to the families of Booth's comrades, until there was only one letter left to send.

On the tenth day, Brennan woke up to find Booth next to her in bed, his eyes open and alert as he sat there, his back propped up against two pillows as he drummed the forefingers of his left hand on the hard black fiberglass of his cast. His breathing was slow and even while he stared out the window at the pale orange glow of the Afghan dawn as it slowly warmed the twilight sky. She watched him as his eyes darted around, his eyelashes fluttering with each blink as he thought about whatever it was that was consuming his attentions that morning. Brennan resisted the impulse to ask him what he was thinking about, deciding instead just to let him think, but reached over with a quiet hum in her throat and placed her hand on his left wrist, her fingers spreading across his large, veiny hand in a fanlike shape before curling around and giving his hand a light squeeze.

"Hey," he whispered, turning his head slowly to meet her eyes, turning his wrist and folding his thumb over her fingers as he brought his hand—and hers—to his lips and kissed her fingers.

"Hey," she sighed back, a faint smile crossing her mouth as he held her hand against his humming lips.


Booth sat on the exam table, his booted feet bumping against the metal side of the table as he waited impatiently, his eyebrow arched and his forehead crinkled with uncertainty as Dr. Cho readied the oscillating cast-cutter. He'd taken off his ACU jacket and sat wearing just his sand-colored T-shirt. He brought his hand up and thumbed his St. Christopher medal, bringing it to his lips and kissing it before crossing himself.

"It's going to be fine, Booth," Brennan said from her seat in the corner of the room. Cho's head swiveled around to stare at her for a moment before he shook his head and returned his attention to preparing the saw.

Booth shrugged and mumbled something inaudible. Cho looked up and shot his patient a curious look. "Your chart indicates you broke a couple of bones in your hand a few years ago," he said. "We will be using the same procedure to remove this cast as was used the last time you had a cast removed."

"Umm," Booth murmured with an awkward grin, his eyes meeting Cho's briefly before he turned away with a quiet snicker, remembering how he had sat on a bench outside the men's locker room at the Potomac Ice Rink with a small handsaw removing his cast before the Fed Cases' game against the state police team.

Cho rolled his eyes and shook his head at the seasoned soldier who sat on the exam table swinging his feet like a child. "Why am I not surprised, Sergeant Major?" he asked with a smile, handing Booth a pair of safety glasses.

Booth accepted the glasses with a deeply furrowed brow. "What are these for?" he asked, looking at Cho. Brennan smirked, quickly returning her eyes to the latest issue of the Journal of Forensic Science. She shrugged to herself as she wondered why her partner dumbed himself down this way in front of the orthopedic surgeon. She understood why sometimes, in the context of a witness or suspect interview, he would do that—in order to disarm the other party, metaphorically speaking—but it made no sense to her in the present context.

"It's to keep any errant fiberglass particulate out of your eyes," Cho explained. "On the off-chance that the cast-cutter's vacuum fails to contain it all. Safety first, Sergeant Major." He lifted his surgical mask over his nose and mouth, then slid his safety glasses over his eyes. "Sergeant Major," he said in a mildly chastising tone of voice, raising his eyebrows expectantly as Booth nodded, put the safety glasses on and took a deep breath. Cho turned on the oscillating cast-cutter, which began to hum as he began cutting from the top of the cast, about two inches below Booth's armpit.

Cho cut all the way through the cast along the top of Booth's arm, from bicep to knuckles, then flipped Booth's arm over and repeated the process along the underside. He took what looked to Booth like a pair of pliers and spread the two halves apart, revealing the soft cotton underneath, then used a pair of scissors to cut through the cotton before peeling away the cast.

"Oh, gross," Booth muttered as Cho pulled away the cast material. The skin on Booth's arm was dry and scaly, resembling a bad sunburn after a week's time, with multiple layers of peeling skin. Brennan stood up from her chair and walked over as Booth lifted his arm to pull the safety glasses off his face. "Ouch," he said with a wince when he tried to fully extend his arm to drop the glasses on the exam table.

"You haven't moved your arm in over a month," Cho explained, ignoring the scowl on his patient's face. "And it's not unusual for the skin to be a bit ripe under there, especially if you've been exercising and sweating under the cast." He remembered from previous appointments Booth had been physically active, jogging and exercising despite the cast. "But that's all temporary, of course."

"It does smell a bit, Booth," Brennan observed with a faint smile.

"Thanks, Bones," Booth growled as he bent and extended his arm a couple of times, wiggling his fingers tentatively as he turned his wrist. He didn't make a sound when he turned his wrist, but Brennan could tell from the expression on his face that the movement was far from comfortable for him.

Cho reached for Booth's arm and drew his finger along the four-inch scar that ran along the middle of his forearm. "The incision site seems to have healed up quite nicely."

Brennan noted the brief knitting of Booth's brow. "There are over-the-counter preparations, Booth, that will minimize the appearance of scars over time," she said. "Onion extract solutions have been clinically shown to reduce collagen formation, which minimizes the formation of scar tissue and makes the wound scar less noticeable over time."

Booth held both of his arms out in front of him and frowned at seeing how the injured one was slightly, though noticeably, smaller than the other. He turned up his nose at the sight of the scaly, peeling, grayish skin.

Cho cleared his throat. "The muscles of your hand and arm have been weakened by disuse," he explained, "and your wrist and elbow joints will be tight and sore for the first few weeks. I'm going to recommend some exercises you can do to re-establish strength in your hand, arm and joints. I'm also going to refer you to a physical therapist to—"

Booth glanced over to his partner and back to the doctor. "So when do I get the NCS and EMG tests?" he asked, nodding and flashing his eyebrows impatiently. "Sir."

Cho laughed and shook his head. "Relax, Sergeant Major," he said with another roll of his eyes. "The neurologist, Dr. Ferran, will be along in a few minutes to perform the two tests. In the meantime…" Cho retrieved his prescription pad from his lab coat. "I'm writing you a script for ten daily physical therapy sessions, Sergeant Major, so we can build that arm, wrist and elbow function back up again." He turned to his file and pulled out a piece of paper. "Here are some instructions on how to care for your skin after cast removal," he said, raising his glance to make eye contact with Brennan, who he presumed was the best chance at securing the patient's compliance. "So Dr. Ferran is going to come in and perform the NCS and EMG tests, which should take forty-five to ninety minutes. I will need to see you back here in a couple of days to go over the test results."

Booth swallowed nervously. "Yes, sir."

A few minutes later, Dr. (Major) Ferran came in, introduced himself to Booth and Brennan, then quickly began to set up the equipment for the nerve conduction and electromyography tests.

"Do you have an allergy to iodine?" he asked as he tore open a sterile pouch and pulled out a cotton pad moistened with yellow liquid, hesitating as he waited for Booth's answer.

"No, sir," Booth replied.

"Good," Ferran said. "Because if you did, the scaly skin you've got here would be the least of your problems." Booth watched in curiosity as the doctor swabbed his forearm down with the iodine-soaked wipe and placed a group of electrodes in various locations on his right forearm.

"The NCS test that I'll be performing today is actually a group of tests, Sergeant Major," Ferran explained. "We'll begin with a Motor NCS, during which I will be electrically stimulating your ulnar nerve and recording the time it takes for the electrical impulse to travel from the stimulation to the recording site."

Booth arched an eyebrow and briefly met Brennan's eyes. She nodded with a smile but remained silent.

"This value," Ferran continued, "is called the latency and is measured in milliseconds. The magnitude of the response—called the amplitude and measured in millivolts—will also be measured. By stimulating your nerve in different locations along the nerve, we can measure the Nerve Conduction Velocity—the NCV, which basically is the speed of response—across different segments of the nerve path. I'll take the distance between the different stimulating electrodes and the difference in latencies and use the results to quantify the level of nerve function."

"Okay," Booth said, his voice wavering a little as the doctor applied the first dose of current. "Oh, wow," he said.

"Does it hurt?" Brennan asked, knowing that it did not, but wanting to hear him say it, as if having him say so aloud would perhaps reduce his anxiety level.

"No," Booth admitted. "It doesn't really hurt…it just feels…um…kind of weird and tingly, like static electricity or getting a tiny shock." Brennan smiled.

Ferran narrowed his eyes as he watched the senior NCO interact with the scientist-consultant. "Although I will need to go through the data in some detail," he said, "I'm seeing some slowing of the NCV in your ulnar nerve along a span between the mid-arm and your wrist."

"What does that mean?" Booth asked, biting the inside of his lip as another pulse of current was applied to his arm. A few moments passed before the doctor answered.

"It means there's something wrong with your ulnar nerve," Ferran said simply. "Either a loss of the myelin or a compression."

"My-what?"

"Myelin," Brennan interjected. "It's the—"

Ferran interrupted her. "Myelin is a dielectric material that functions like electrical insulation for your nerves. If a nerve's myelin sheath is damaged, it can cause impaired function—essentially, a short circuit—in much the same way you'd see in a piece of electronics if the insulation on a wire is damaged."

"I didn't feel the tingly stuff or the numbness right after I got injured," Booth pointed out. "It was after a few days that I first started feeling it. Does that mean that maybe the mye-whatever isn't the problem, sir?"

Ferran pressed his lips together firmly as he considered the question. "That does suggest that compression is the more likely scenario, since the probable cause of any demyelination in your case would be either from the injury itself or..." Ferran's voice trailed off as he didn't want to suggest to a patient that another doctor might have nicked a nerve during a surgical procedure. "A gradual demyelination is not consistent with the circumstances here. In any case, if what you're saying is there was delayed onset of symptoms, that's more suggestive of an inflammatory response and a resulting compression. I'll have to look at the data more closely, of course." He reached over and began removing the electrodes from Booth's forearm. "Let's go ahead and do the EMG test now. This one may be a bit more uncomfortable, Sergeant Major."

Ferran handed Booth a small foam, digital-camo ball emblazoned with the slogan Army of One. "God, what a stupid recruiting campaign that was," Booth muttered as he squeezed the ball a couple of times, his jaw tightening at how uncomfortable it was to make a simple fist. He didn't remember his hand being that painful or stiff after removing the cast during the Pete Carlson case.

Booth took a breath and looked over at Brennan again. "It's going to be okay, Booth," she said, smiling warmly as she walked over and put her hand on his shoulder. You've endured far worse, she added silently. "The needles will probably be the worst part."

Booth watched, his forehead creased with trepidation as Ferran applied a couple of electrodes in different locations than he'd used for the prior test, then pulled out a needle with a wire coming out of the back. He grunted quietly as the needle was inserted into his forearm.

"I'm sorry," Ferran apologized. "Your skin is particularly sensitive now, so this might be more uncomfortable than it would be otherwise. Try to relax, Sergeant Major." Booth heard a crackly sound come out of the recording unit and nervously looked at Ferran. "Muscles at rest emit a certain amount and type of electrical signal, which is what you're hearing and what I'm recording here…" The neurologist pointed to the wavelike patterns on the computer display.

He instructed Booth to contract his muscles in a smooth motion and make a fist, which Booth did, his forehead creasing again as he heard another round of crackling. "Good," Ferran said. He moved the needle electrode to another location and asked Booth to make another first, to slowly close his hand around the foam ball before opening it again, and then to tense his entire arm, each time measuring and recording the electrical emissions Booth's muscles made.

Each time Ferran applied the needle electrode, piercing the skin and inserting the thin needle into the muscles of the forearm, Booth sucked in a breath through his teeth and let it out through his nose.

"You okay there, Sergeant Major?" Ferran asked, pulling his hand away from the needle electrode as he awaited the response.

Booth rolled his jaw to the side and pursed his lips. "It's a bit uncomfortable," he admitted. "But this is nothing. I've been tortured, Major." He paused. "More than once, actually. This—this kind of thing, sir—is Pop Warner compared to that."

Ferran noted the hard expression on Booth's face, blinked, then nodded before resuming the test. He knew from the patient's chart that he had been tortured as a POW during the Gulf War in 1990, but hadn't noted any other instances of such treatment in the chart. With a slight, silent shrug, he dismissed the thought. It never ceased to amaze him the quantum of suffering that so many of his patients had endured. "Ready to continue, Sergeant Major?" Booth nodded.

After about a half hour, the EMG testing was complete, and Ferran removed the electrodes from Booth's arm.

"So what's the diagnosis, doc?" Booth asked. "I mean, sir."

Ferran smiled. "Preliminarily, I'd say that you have a compressed ulnar nerve. I want to look through the test results in greater detail and talk to your orthopedist, Dr. Cho, before coming to a final conclusion, but the data seems to point towards compression and away from demyelination, a partially severed nerve or any sort of generalized neuropathy."

Booth's head swiveled as he sought out Brennan's eyes. "What does that mean?" he asked her.

"Sounds like our suspicion was correct, Booth, and you have a compressed nerve," Brennan said as she stood up from her chair in the corner. "Dr. Ferran, if you determine that Booth does, in fact, have compression of the ulnar nerve, what treatment will you suggest, considering that he has been treated with NSAIDs, oral prednisone and cortisone injections over the last month?"

"Surgery is going to be the most likely course of treatment from this point forward," Ferran said, "assuming that what we have here is a nerve compression, which I think is probable but, as I told the Sergeant Major, I want to study the data more carefully before making a definitive statement."

Brennan rubbed Booth's left shoulder. "Would that surgery be done here at Bagram?" she asked.

Ferran continued putting away the testing equipment as he tried to suppress a smile. "No," he said. "Not because we couldn't carry out the surgery here," he explained, "but rather because the full complement of rehabilitative services is not available here." He turned to Booth. "If that's what the next step is, Sergeant Major, then we'll be sending you back stateside for treatment."

A smile broke across Booth's face.

"Don't look so sad about that prospect, Sergeant Major," Ferran quipped.

Booth cleared his throat. "Sorry, sir," he coughed. "It's just—well, after all of this, I'd really like to see my son, and if getting sent home for surgery gets me closer to my boy, then that's good news in my book, sir."

Ferran stood up and clapped Booth on the right bicep. "I understand completely," he said. "Completely. I'm a reservist myself." Booth's eyebrows flew up in surprise. "This is my second deployment in the last three years. I've got twin sixteen year-old sons at home, and I can't wait until this deployment is over so I can go back to them." Ferran smiled at the man sitting on the table in front of him. "Like you, Sergeant Major, I have a whole 'nother life back home, and like you, I want to get back to it as soon as I can."

Booth's brow furrowed as a thought occurred to him. "Are you, ummm..." He brought his right hand up and rubbed the back of his head, a faint smile crossing his face as he realized he could finally use both hands again. "Are you in a position to influence which Army hospital I get sent to? For the surgery, I mean."

Ferran's eyes narrowed and he remembered the patient summary in the chart. "I'm going to hazard a guess, Sergeant Major, that you want to go to Walter Reed?"

Booth's eyes lit up. "Yes, sir," he said. "My son lives with his mother in D.C. That's where we…" His voice trailed off as he thought about returning home and finally being able to start a life with Brennan there. He felt Brennan drag her thumb over his shoulder blade and he bit the inside of his lip to suppress a grin. "My son's mom and I both live in D.C., so Walter Reed would be perfect."

"Well," Ferran said. "If, after I go over the test data in detail, I conclude that you do have a compressed nerve, and if surgery is indicated, then I will probably recommend that you be sent to Walter Reed Army Medical Center for surgery and rehabilitation." Ferran winked. "That is, if the test results prove in the details to support my preliminary findings, but I can't promise my recommendation will be followed. That said, there's a good chance we can make that happen for you, Sergeant Major."

Booth turned around and looked at Brennan, then back at Ferran. "That'd be great, doc," he said. "I mean, sir. That would be great, sir."

Ferran laughed as he tucked Booth's chart under his arm and turned the door handle. "Whatever," he said. "I'll see you in a couple of days to go over the test results and we'll go from there."

"Yes, sir," Booth said, no longer making any attempt to suppress his toothy grin. As soon as Ferran closed the door behind him, Booth turned and kissed Brennan on the cheek. "I'm gonna get to go home, Bones," he whispered.


That night, Booth sat on the bed, wearing only a pair of boxers and watching a rebroadcast of the Red Wings/Capitals game played the night before, U.S. time. He could hear Brennan in the bathroom, brushing her teeth, and couldn't help but smile at the domesticity of it. He wiggled his fingers around the Army of One foam ball and clenched his fingers into a light fist. She emerged from the bathroom just as a Red Wings power play began. He picked up the remote, clicked off the TV, and set the remote on the nightstand.

"You've been picking," she said to him, raising her chin to look at the skin on his newly-uncasted arm. "I can tell." She sat down on the bed next to him and placed her hand on his knee.

"Aw, come on," Booth said, rolling his eyes. "It's like peeling a sunburn."

"Which you also shouldn't do," she retorted. "The dead skin will come off in its own time, Booth, but you should give the new skin time to grow and strengthen with the protection of the dead skin layer—"

"Why are we talking about this, Bones?" he said, leaning over to kiss her cheek. "It's not very good pillow-talk—you know, dead skin and stuff."

Brennan sighed. "Fine," she said. "Just—please don't mess with it. You'll undermine the healing process. I know it looks a bit unsightly at the moment but it'll be fine in a week if you just let things take their course and follow the doctor's instructions."

Booth sighed in mild annoyance and flexed his right fist a couple of times around the Army of One ball.

"Aren't you excited?" he asked her, setting the ball on the nightstand next to the remote.

"About the prospect of you getting sent home to Washington for further treatment?" she asked. "Yes, of course." She rolled onto her side and snaked her arm over his belly, pausing to rim his navel with her thumb. "It's better than the alternatives from the standpoint of you seeing Parker, getting to live at home during treatment and rehabilitation for your arm, being close to our friends again and, well, hopefully being able to find you a local therapist for your PTSD symptoms."

Booth laughed. "Well, there's all that," he said. "But I was referring to this." He raised his right hand and wiggled his thumb and forefingers as he waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Brennan cocked her head. "Yes, you have your hand back," she said, nonplussed at the obviousness of it. Then her cheeks flushed slightly as the realization dawned on her. "Oh, then there's that—"

"Yes," he grinned. "That." He rolled onto his side and brought his right hand to her face, stroking her cheek with his index finger before cupping her jaw. "Two hands, baby," he said with a soft laugh. "I can finally touch you with two hands."

Brennan smiled and opened her mouth to say something but was cut off by Booth's fervent kiss as he quickly moved to kneel between her legs. His right hand slid from her jaw and he pressed his hand against the mattress as he supported his weight on his hands. He winced as he leaned onto his right arm, unable to fully extend his elbow and lean onto his hand. He sucked a breath in through his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut as he tried to chase away the pain with a roll of his shoulder, leaning forward to kiss her, his lips brushing across hers before a raw, dense pulse of pain shot through his arm and he wobbled, his right wrist and elbow unable to support its half of his weight.

"Booth," she whispered, frowning at his pain.

"Damn it," he cursed, falling back onto his haunches and shaking his arm out with a hiss.

"It's too soon," she said. "For that, I mean—"

Booth's eyes glistened as his lips quivered. "This fucking sucks," he growled. "I want to—"

He lay on his bunk with his head resting on his interlaced fingers, his sweat-soaked T-shirt clinging to his chest like a second skin. The oppressive heat of the southern Afghan summer invaded every pore of his life, whether he was on foot patrol, on the firing range training would-be ANA sharpshooters, sitting in a Chinook awaiting insertion into a hot LZ, or sitting in the barracks. He hated the heat. It reminded him how far away from home he really was, and—by extension—how brilliant a job he'd done at fucking everything up. He leaned his head back and swallowed, thinking back to the cool, damp evening on the steps of the Hoover when it all seemed to fall apart. He remembered the look in her pale gray eyes, and the way his heart seemed to tremble as he summoned up the courage to confess his desire to take a chance at making something amazing with her, and the bitter ache he felt when she had pushed him away. He closed his eyes and sighed. He wondered in that moment if he would ever be able to be to her what he wanted to be, and if he would ever be where he wanted to be, nestled between her legs, making sweet, beautiful love to her the way he had dreamed of night after night since the night he first tasted her on his lips.

He looked down at her as he sat on his haunches between her calves, his shoulders slumped in disappointment. He brought his right hand up and wiped the dampness from his eyes with his thumb.

"It's okay, Booth," she said. "I know you want to…" Her voice trailed off. It had been four weeks since they had first made love, and they had made love so many times since that very first night in her bed she was quite sure she wouldn't be able to count them all. Brennan knew that he wanted desperately to make love in the male superior position—and she wanted that, too, not only because he wanted it, but because a part of her that she didn't exactly understand wanted to feel him cover her completely with his body, to see his passion-darkened eyes looking down on her as he moved inside of her—but she knew it was too soon.

"I'm sorry," he said sullenly. "I just—it's…"

"It's okay," she said again. "Come here," she whispered, patting the mattress next to her. "Please."

Booth sighed in frustration and moved over to take his place next to her, loosely crossing his legs Indian-style. A smile flashed across his lips as he realized it no longer mattered as much what side of her he sat on, because he could at least touch her, caress her face and skin, with either hand. But as quickly as it appeared, his smile faded again. "I'm sorry, Bones," he whispered, rolling his head to the side and nuzzling into the soft skin of her shoulder. "I just…" He shook his head. "It sounds stupid, but I was—I really wanted to be all back to normal after getting the cast off but…" He brushed his lips across the top of her shoulder. "I just want to be normal again, Bones." He turned his eyes and looked away. "I want to be the man I was before—you know, before all this."

His words hit her like a bludgeon as she realized how deeply and thoroughly wounded he truly was by what had happened to him, both physically and otherwise. Brennan realized then that even the one area of his life—their life together, really—that seemed so healthy, satisfying and whole was, in fact, a realm in which Booth did not feel like himself. Brimming with sexual confidence and enthusiasm as he was, she saw then how all-encompassing the impacts of the crash had been on him, even if he had managed until that moment to conceal it from her.

"You are the man you were before," she whispered to him. She reached for his hands and clasped her smaller hands around his larger ones. "You're the same man, Booth. No less, no more. You just got your cast off today, and your arm is still a bit weak, but it will get stronger, and then—" Her mouth broke into a sexy half-grin. "Then you can take me however you want to, Booth."

"I didn't think you really wanted to be taken, Bones," he said with a soft laugh, a laugh she knew was a front that he was throwing up to mask a deeper insecurity. "You know, all that alpha male stuff."

For a moment, she looked into his deep, soft brown eyes but said nothing. "It's true," she said, "that you can only take from me what I give you." He narrowed his eyes. "But I've given you all of me, Booth. You know that."

"I know," he said, his voice low and breathy. "I know."

She placed her hand on his chest, her fingers splayed over his left pectoral. "I've never given all of myself to anyone before, Booth," she said. "And if I didn't think you were the same man you were before, I wouldn't keep giving myself to you. You know that, right?"

Booth looked into her pale eyes and searched for a flicker of doubt there, but found none. He blinked a couple of times, then nodded. "I know," he said. "It's just—"

Brennan took a deep breath. "Your manhood isn't proven by whether you prop yourself up over me when we make love," she said.

His mouth fell open as if he were going to speak but, after a few seconds, he rolled his lips together, then his brown eyes suddenly brightened again. "Come here," he said. She narrowed her eyes briefly as she hesitated. "I want to feel you with both hands, Bones."

Brennan nodded, reaching her hands down to peel off her panties as she watched him slide his boxers down his hips and toss them carelessly to the floor. He reached his arms out and beckoned her as she took her place in his lap, wrapping her legs around his hips. She felt his arousal press against her as his hands slid over the soft roundness of her hips, and she looked into his eyes, which glistened as their brown depths darkened beneath his heavy brow.

For several long moments they just looked into one another's eyes, neither moving or uttering so much as a murmur, and the only sound between them was the rise and fall of their breaths. Booth's palms roamed up and down the smooth skin of her thighs and over the swell of her hips before coming to rest against the small of her back.

Brennan closed her eyes and she exhaled deeply as she felt the rough, callused surfaces of his right palm, thumb and index finger skate across her skin. She knew his touch, and those calluses, having felt his right hand touch her countless times over the years, though never before with such intimacy. The roughness of his hand testified to years he had spent behind an FBI-issued pistol, and in that moment, as she thought about that hand, she felt that hand gently squeeze the flesh of her hip.

She leaned forward, her chest pressed against his as she dragged her lower lip along the pebbled skin of his jaw. "You're going home, Booth," she whispered in his ear. "You're going to go home soon—"

He turned his head towards her breathy whisper, his left hand coming up to caress the delicate line of her square jaw as he captured her lips between his in a kiss. Their tongues glanced off one another before he pulled his mouth away suddenly, leaving her gasping with puzzled want.

"I'm already home, Bones," he whispered as he entered her with a slow, gentle upward stroke. "Wherever I am…" He sucked in a breath as his right hand rubbed wide circles over the small of her back. "Wherever you are…" His gaze met hers as his lips brushed against her open mouth. "That's home."

"Yes," she whispered back.


A/N: So, you see that things have moved along. All signs are that Booth will be sent home to get that arm operated on. There's just one soldier among the twenty-one casualties left to be identified (do you wonder who it is?), and one more letter to write home to a fallen comrade's family. Then there's that other thing Booth needs to do for his men. We haven't forgotten about that, or—in case you were wondering—about that unexpected casualty from the teahouse collapse. (Yep, her.) The next few chapters will be intense. You've been warned. But I think you'll be happy with how this ends. (For my longtime readers, you know I never let you down in the happy ending department. And, no, not that kind of happy ending. The usual kind. Come on—get your minds out of the gutters.)

So—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. Leave me a review.

I'm dying here, folks.