Chapter Twenty-Eight
Water filled the cabin now – Booth could hear it. The boat was cold. He was cold. The only perk he could find in any of this was that at least the pain wasn't as bad as it had been. That usually meant he was about five steps from death's door, but it was such a relief to not be in agony that he didn't even care anymore.
Bones still talked to him in his head. He wondered what it would have been like – the two of them together for the next fifty years. Getting old together. Watching Parker grow up. Watching their own kids grow up. If heaven were really heaven, he'd have a version of Bones waiting for him up there – he wouldn't have to wait for her. Wouldn't have to worry that all her atheist rambling was gonna land her on the wrong side of things when judgment got handed down. She'd just be there, in a house with a pool and a barbecue and a big yard, waiting for him. Parker and Dosha would be there. His bad back and his bad knees would be good again… Hell, maybe he'd play hockey up there with the saints.
All that sounded all right. But then, he started thinking about Bones. Not his Heaven Bones, but the one he was leaving behind. The baby they wouldn't have; the house they'd never build; all those things he'd miss with Parker. When he closed his eyes, he could see her – eight months' pregnant, big as a house, the two of them putting together a crib or lying in bed fighting over baby names.
He blinked back tears. He put his hands flat on the deck and used every ounce of strength he had left in his body to push himself up.
Any other woman, and Booth would know they'd be all right – he was a great guy, sure, but he wasn't so egotistical as to think there was no getting over him.
Except where Bones was concerned. Bones wouldn't get over this.
He got to his hands and knees, but the pain was back in a flash - worse than before, so sharp that all he wanted to do was give up. He started to cough, leaving behind a spattering of blood on the deck. The boat creaked and moaned as the water kept rising.
Bones would be looking for him. She would find him – he knew she would. I knew you wouldn't give up.
He just had to stay alive until she got here.
TBC
