They say that warm, sunny days bring with them their own special kind of healing energy, and as a bright, early-autumn morning dawned over Washington General Hospital, the lovely weather seemed to oblige, raising the spirits of most of the people inside it as if by decree. It also lit up a pair of vivacious brown eyes peeking into a semi-dark patient's room in the hospital's ICU wing.
Hodgins, sensing his wife's presence by force of habit, shook himself awake, sitting bolt-upright after doing a not particularly graceful shimmy on the seat he'd been unsuccessfully trying to get comfortable in for over half the night. Hospital chairs were death personified, a fact that he could personally attest to after doing battle with one for hours; a form of torture perpetrated on the unwary by the American Medical Association, as revenge for the thousands of malpractice lawsuits brought over the years against some of its more incompetent members.
"How's our sleeping beauty doing?" Angela asked, nodding towards the bed to which a slumbering Booth was tethered securely by an IV line and what looked like a million miles of wire. Little blips of colored lights, blinking on and off across several monitor screens like fireflies, kept the staff at the nurses' station appraised on his condition.
"He's been in and out all morning, but so far, so good. I gotta warn you, though..."
Hodgins was prevented from finishing the play-by-play by the wounded man himself.
"Hey," Booth said groggily, his eyes adjusting slowly to the slanted rays of sunlight stealing in through the closed window blinds. Angela almost burst out into peals of laughter when she heard what came out of his mouth next because the words were dyed-in-the-wool, vintage Booth. The man could be withering away on his deathbed at age one hundred, and his primary focus in life would still be one and the same.
"How's Bones?" he asked anxiously.
His voice was raspy, and he grimaced painfully as he swallowed.
"I heard she spent the night at the hospital-did the contractions stop for good?" he badgered. "I called her this morning as soon as I woke up, but she didn't pick up."
Angela's eyes travelled over to her husband's, and he shrugged.
"Hodgins! You told him?" she asked, visibly annoyed.
"Yup-guilty as charged."
"You were supposed to say that Brennan went home to take a nap if he asked about her!"
"Com'on, Ange," Hodgins countered defensively. "The minute he snapped out of it and realized that Dr. Brennan was nowhere to be found, he had a fit. Look, I've seen him get up from a hospital bed and rip off all his medical contraptions after getting blown up to go looking for her before, so I figured that honesty was the best policy here. You know him; he would've jumped to the conclusion that something even worse was going on, even all doped up as he is. He's an FBI guy, for cryin' out loud-they're naturally suspicious people. At least he stayed put when I told him the truth."
So maybe Angela wasn't entirely satisfied with her husband's explanation for refusing to follow clear, explicit orders, but instead of nailing him to the wall for his treachery as he deserved, she just sighed and decided to roll with the punches.
"She's doing great, Booth; I took her phone away, so she could rest. But it so happens that on my way here, I found a certain lovely, forlorn and still very pregnant señorita wandering the hallways of the hospital after getting discharged from the maternity ward, looking for her prince charming."
The artist swung the door wide, and Brennan stepped into the room with unexpected shyness; her eyes met Booth's, and the Hodgins-Montenegro team suddenly felt both invisible and superfluous, if anyone was interested.
"It's alright, Angela. I'm fine, Booth," Brennan reassured her mate while giving him a clandestine once-over. "Only you would worry about me when you were on the verge of dying yourself" she said with a half-hearted smile, inwardly cringing at how roughed-up Booth looked, particularly now that the bruise on his left cheekbone had swelled and spread upwards, giving him a fairly distinctive black eye.
Brennan rounded the corner of her partner's bed and stood beside him silently, surprised to find that in spite of all she had planned to say to him, her heart was simply too overrun by conflicting emotions for her to be able to say much, as she let her mind accept the now incontrovertible fact that Booth was still very much alive. She finally had her proof, the one she'd been seeking all along, and it was almost too much to bear. To have had returned to you what you were certain was gone forever-how on earth was anything in the human language supposed to express the joy and gratitude of getting the man she loved back?
Booth reached out for her hand, and she finally gathered just the right amount of mettle to touch him, to return the reassuring pressure of his fingers, in an act that had seemed beyond the realm of possibility less than twenty-four hours ago. He was still very pale and the pain medication kept making his eyes flutter sleepily, but loss of blood and Vicodin or not, Booth was still Booth and Brennan had never been so content to be in the direct line of fire of one of his diatribes, exactly like he'd been in hers yesterday morning.
The irony of their role-reversal wasn't lost on her.
"Bones-why are you up?" he asked full of self-righteousness, putting a hand on her pregnant belly. The question didn't catch anyone by surprise.
"Shouldn't you be on bed rest at the maternity ward? You were having all those contractions…"
Their audience was beginning to grow increasingly restless; the scene felt just too painfully intimate for Angela and Hodgins to continue watching it unfold in any amount of comfort. But how to gracefully get out of the couple's way and give them some alone time?
"You know what I need?" Hodgins blurted out before the explanations and the displays of affection he was certain were about to bloom could begin for real. "Coffee. Coffee and pudding-they've been very stingy with the pudding cups around here," he exclaimed with manic zest. "I guess they aren't considered healthy enough anymore-can you believe that? Damned food Nazis. You want to join me, babe?" The tilt-of-the-head gesture he made towards the door couldn't have been more obvious.
Angela did a mental tango with her extremely limited options; she'd been asked to keep close tabs on her friend and to take her home as soon as possible, but both Brennan and Booth had fought too hard to have their one special moment together stripped away from them so soon.
"Coffee sounds good" she finally agreed. "One hour-I'm giving you one hour of visitation rights with your honey. Sitting down, and not moving an inch" she instructed Brennan. "And then I'm taking you home with me, where you will lie down and not lift a finger until I bring you back to meet and greet with him tomorrow."
"Thank you, Angela. And not just for this," Brennan said sincerely. "For everything."
"Yeah, you two," Booth joined in. "I know neither one of you got much sleep last night."
Hodgins smiled and shook his head in disbelief.
"Don't even think about it" he replied, downplaying his contributions; "it was nothing-and I mean that. My God, it was the very least we could do. Cam and I probably wouldn't even be alive if it wasn't for you, Booth. Besides, we took turns, so we all got some shut-eye at some point. Wendell and me with you, Cam and Ange with Brennan, Daisy and her sister with Sweets. Just wish there were more pudding cups around, that's all."
The group shared a brief laugh together that felt perhaps felt a little too forced, and Angela and her hubby promptly made their exit, relieved to have escaped their role as unwilling and presumably unwanted voyeurs.
As soon as the door closed, Brennan pulled up the chair Hodgins had been using and sat down next to her partner, lowering the guard rail that kept them apart. He still looked incredibly wan to her, but so much better than the last time she'd seen him.
"The contractions," he repeated anxiously.
"Are over. As soon as I was admitted to the maternity ward, I was given intravenous fluids and dosed with magnesium sulfate to counteract them and they stopped completely within a few hours. The staff at obstetrics kept me overnight only to verify that they weren't returning."
"And the baby?"
"She's fine-can you feel her kicking?" she asked affectionately, covering his strong, weathered fingers with hers and unconsciously tightening her grip around them. She felt lacerations on his hand that hadn't been there before. "I'm convinced that our daughter already recognizes your touch; I believe she missed you."
His face beamed with the unpracticed happiness of a child, as it did whenever he felt their baby moving inside her mother's tummy.
"And you're sure you're both okay?"
"Yes, I'm sure, Booth; the doctors injected me with corticosteroids to help her lungs mature in case she arrived early despite all the other precautions, but as you can see, she didn't need them; it doesn't appear that she's going anywhere, at least for a while. I can vouch for the fact that Angela and Cam would not have allowed me to leave obstetrics even after I was officially released from the hospital if they felt there was even a remote chance that it would trigger an early labor. They were quite intractable when it came to our baby's wellbeing."
"Good for them. And you ate and drank lots this morning?"
Life was slowly returning to its usual cadence, a fact which Brennan accepted without resentment. Had it really only been a day ago that they were having an argument over her ability to take care of herself?
"Yes, I ate very well."
He turned his head, suddenly unable to look her in the eye. He was retreating somewhere, and he seemed sad.
"You shouldn't have had to go through all that-I should have never taken you in there with me. I'm sorry. It's my fault that our kid almost showed up when it wasn't time for her to get here. So much for looking out for the two of you and knowing what's best for everyone."
"Technically" she said, herself looking away contritely, "my failure to drink enough water during the day was what led to the pre-term contractions. They actually had very little to do with you."
Booth pictured the water bottle sitting on the windowsill, how his thoughts had gone to it so many times during his ordeal as a reminder of all he had to live for, and he wondered if it was still there. No matter; he was planning on getting her another one anyway, one with a more cheerful design on it, like maybe hearts and flowers. Or puppies-puppies made everything better. Everybody loved puppies.
"And you only took me to the warehouse to make me feel better," she went on remorsefully, catching his attention once again. "If I hadn't been in such a pugnacious mood earlier, we would have both been at home when the stand-off began and you wouldn't have come so close to losing your life. In the future, I will endeavor not to be so..."
"Nah-let's not do this" he said, cutting her off in a friendly way. "We're together, the three of us, and that's the only thing I care about right now. There were times in there when I thought..."
He stopped, closing his eyes to ward off the soul-eating memories. He would deal with those later, when he didn't have the most beautiful, amazing woman in the world by his side, fussing over him.
"Hey-I heard from some of the guys this morning about all the stuff you did for me-you even took on Hacker and his chronic fear of messing up" he chuffed, changing the tone of their conversation to keep that foggy brain of his on track. Their eternal Ping-Pong game of blame could be postponed indefinitely and they'd both be better for it; a ceasefire, he felt, that should start this very moment.
"That took guts, especially with the shape you were in. I can't believe you and the squints were able to figure out my message" he said, still in awe of their skills. "Actually, I can, 'cause you're the smartest person on the planet" he finished, eyeing her proudly.
"It was a team effort," Brennan answered truthfully.
She took the opportunity to inspect him more closely, now that she was feeling slightly less irrational and his defenses appeared to be down.
"Your injuries are quite severe; is the amount of pain medication they're giving you adequate? I could request additional narcotics for you, if you feel you need them."
Squinting up at her with a goofy grin, he held up his arm to show where the IV drip was connected to his wrist.
"You know, I probably haven't felt this good since the shot in the butt I got after that Christmas epidemic thing. My throat hurts like hell, though."
"Because of the injury to your lung, you were intubated throughout most of the night to insure that your oxygen levels remained consistent; the procedure unfortunately tends to leave the trachea inflamed. At my request, the doctors examined you early this morning and they determined that the uninjured lung was performing well enough on its own that the breathing tube could be removed. They did it before you regained consciousness; I knew you would find it very uncomfortable once you woke up."
Brennan's eyes misted up involuntarily as she continued her detailed examination of her mate.
"Your face is bruised" she said, her hand delicately grazing his injured cheek. "But you certainly look better than the last time I saw you." The image from the warehouse-Booth lying on the floor in a puddle of his own blood, white as a sheet and unresponsive-inadvertently flashed across her eyes and she winced, sorry to have brought up the forbidden topic of her act of blatant disobedience.
"You shouldn't have gone in there, Bones-I told you not to look" he said, ignoring his promise to cut them both some slack.
But then he broke into another smile, bent on not spoiling their special, hard-earned time. "You're one feisty, stubborn woman, Bones."
"And that's why you love me."
"Yeah, that, and for tons of other reasons. You want me to say them all out loud?"
"No; that's not necessary-it would only make your throat hurt more." Still watching his every move, she snuck an "I love you too, Booth" at the end of the sentence, relieved to have finally gotten yesterday's undelivered message out in the open.
"Had something happened to you while you were being held hostage, I would have found it very difficult to live with the regret of knowing that I could have said those words to you at some point during the day, but I didn't."
"But now you can tell me all the time; I won't mind."
"Yes, I can. And I will."
She leaned over and kissed him softly, savoring the exact moment in which their lips met, making sure to tuck that memory away in a safe place for later. They remained in a peaceful, dreamy silence for several minutes, their foreheads barely touching, until Booth's voice broke the spell.
"I'm glad that Sweets and the girl got out okay; at the end there, I wasn't sure what was going on, or who was still around" he said quietly. Brennan detected unspoken words of loss and guilt sprinkled throughout that seemingly casual statement.
"But not Gustavson" Brennan replied, knowing the death of the agent would haunt Booth for a very long time.
"No, not Erik."
Acutely aware by now of how little good that would do, she tried reasoning with her partner because she loved him and she didn't want to see him punishing himself like he so often did when things around him went wrong.
"You can't blame yourself, Booth. It was an extremely volatile situation and he volunteered for the mission, even knowing how dangerous it was. Your joint efforts saved dozens, perhaps even hundreds of people. It could just as easily have been you whose life Grant took."
"Yeah, but it wasn't. It was my plan; he was just doing what I asked him to do, and he didn't make it out. He was going to retire to Florida with his wife in two weeks."
She could tell that he was beginning to slip into a cold, distant place where soon she wouldn't be able to reach him no matter how hard she tried.
"What color do you prefer?" she asked, by way of a complete non-sequitor.
"Color? Color of what?"
"For the baby's room; since neither you nor I will be in a position to paint our daughter's bedroom prior to her arrival, Hodgins and Angela have offered to do it for us."
The absurd question brought him right back to her, just as she'd hoped.
"Magenta-or pepto bismol pink," he said with a huge yawn, and obviously no real thought given to the answer. Those tonal choices were appalling, she decided critically, scrunching up her face in distaste.
"I was thinking of something more soothing and understated; perhaps lilac, or cerulean."
"Lavender, lemony" he retorted incoherently, as he fought bravely-but ultimately in vain-to keep his eyelids from closing all the way. "Sherbet, or grape, like sugar plums...'
Brennan smiled approvingly. The pain medication was obviously working very well, she noted, as she watched him fall fast asleep in the middle of reciting nonsense. She scooted her chair as close as she could to his bed, carefully turning herself so that she could rest her head next to his on his pillow without putting any stress on her abdomen. Her forehead went against his temple, and she lazed against him, taking in the stubble that was beginning to shade in his cheeks, the intermittent, labored way he was breathing.
Never again would an emerging beard or a soft snoring sound be experienced in quite the same way-nor would they ever be taken for granted like they'd been so many times in the past.
Together, they were together; what had always been two would soon be turning into three, into a family, and absolutely nothing in the universe could compare to the boundless good fortune to be found in that head-turner of a notion. The woman who had so long ago resigned herself to what she thought was her fate-to always be alone-no longer was. It was a miracle, pure and simple; and rational, even-keeled Temperance Brennan was willing to yield to the notion, at least for today, that such things not only existed, but that she had actually experienced one of them for herself.