Booth leaned back on the plastic hospital chair and looked again at the closed blinds in the window. The nurses must be removing a catheter or changing her clothes or something. He'd been sitting here for twenty minutes, having sped all the way over here when the hospital called to say Bones had woken up.

It was Sunday afternoon, and she'd been asleep for five days. Booth was just grateful that she didn't have to experience the full force of the drug, even though it would be a few days yet until it was completely out of her system. He'd got a lot of work done on the case this week, but only because he knew she was asleep. He wouldn't have left the hospital if she had been awake.

The door opened and two nurses came out, leaving the door open. 'Are you Booth? She's been asking for you,' one of them said.

'Yeah. Is she alright?'

'She needs some fresh air and sunshine, but she's doing well.'

'Thanks.' It had taken some self-control not to just burst into the room, but Booth waited until the nurses were walking away before knocking on the door jamb.

'Booth?'

Brennan's voice was a bit rough, and Booth walked straight in and hugged her.

'You okay?'

Brennan held him tight, sitting up in bed. 'I don't know, I… I saw things, and I don't think it was real, and I… I'm just scared.'

Booth knew this was a significant confession for her, and sat down on the bed beside her. 'There was a capsule full of PCP in your arm. It burst and you got the drug.'

Brennan looked like she wanted to cry, for the release it would give, but didn't have the tears. Booth hugged her tighter and rubbed her back. 'Your scars are a lot better,' he said into her hair, picking up her arm.

'Yeah,' she sniffed. She turned her face into his chest and took some deep breaths, and he let her stay there, measuring her breaths against his for a couple of minutes until she seemed to relax.

'You ready to go home? Watch that whale movie, get some pizza?'

Brennan didn't trust her voice not to crack so she nodded instead.

'Okay,' he said, still quietly into her hair. 'Let's get out of here. I've got some clothes for you.'

He gave Brennan a bag with a pair of loose yoga pants, a shirt and underwear. Brennan took it and climbed down onto the floor, catching his eye to say a non-verbal 'thank you', and went into the bathroom.

Booth went around to her bedside table. There was a bunch of yellow daisies and a small blue bunny that was 'from Michael'. He collected these and the clothes she'd worn here into a bag and waited as Bones got changed.

She was out quicker than he expected. That's a good sign, Booth thought. She still looked on the verge of breaking down so he held her hand tight as they went out to the SUV.

Brennan was looking better physically than a week ago. She squeezed his hand back with more strength than the last time, and she seemed somehow tougher, a little closer to her old self. It was only three weeks since he found her, but in spite of the latest dose of PCP the majority of the drugs had left her system.

Booth put the bags in the back and helped Brennan into the passenger seat. She was still shaky since she hadn't had the chance to build up her muscle mass again. Booth was happy that their work now included 'fitness regime' along with the damage control.

Brennan took his hand again when he got in. He smiled at her and squeezed her hand, but had to take it back to drive.

She had talked more in the last ten minutes than in practically all the time she'd been back. She seemed less shell-shocked, and Booth wondered whether this was a new direction or just a good day. Leaving hospital would probably lift anyone's spirits, and Brennan was softly smiling as she sat in the car. Her eyes sparkled a bit more. Booth found himself wondering how she would feel about moving things in their relationship forward, but forced the idea away. There were a lot of things to be taken care of first. Like finding and slowly killing the other two men who had tormented his partner.

Brennan angled her body towards Booth, which was probably most telling difference between Bones pre-abduction and Bones now. He could tell she was still very attached, and that her sense of security would rapidly deflate if he wasn't around. Maybe it was selfish, but he kind of liked that.

He pulled into the garage and parked, getting out with the bags and was only slightly beaten by Bones to get her door. He gave her an arm to support herself getting down and gave her a quick side-on hug and kiss to her temple. He locked the car and they went to the elevator.

'How long was I in hospital for?' Bones asked as the lift went up.

'Well you've been in twice. The first time you were in there for eight days, and this time for five days.'

'Really?'

'Yep.'

'It doesn't seem… I must have been asleep…'

'You were. You needed it,' Booth assured her. He debated telling her about the other drugs she'd been on and decided to answer her questions, but not volunteer upsetting details that she might have forgotten. Without good reason. There could be such a thing as too much information. His first priority was for her to feel happy and safe.

The lift stopped at their floor and they walked into the hallway, Booth unlocking the front door. 'Here we go, how's it feel to be home?'

Brennan walked in, drinking in the place, the warmth and familiarity. 'Really good,' she said quietly. Booth smiled and grabbed the phone, bringing it over to the couch where he sat down and invited her over with a head tilt. Brennan sat down a little further away than Booth would have liked. He dialled the number and a few rings later they picked up. 'Ah yeah, can we get a half-and-half pizza, meatlovers and vegetarian? And a salad. Great, thanks.' Booth gave them his address and ended the call.

'You okay there Bones?' he asked. She looked nervous and fidgety, perched there on the sofa. 'C'mon, talk to me. What's up?'

She looked away. 'I… just, I saw stuff,' she said to the floor. 'I was drugged, I know but it seemed so real, I don't… This is real?' She looked at him and he saw the heartbreak in her eyes.

'Yeah, this is real,' he said, tugging her arm to get her to move closer. She shifted til she was sitting beside him, then he reached over putting her feet up on the couch and pulled her back to lay across his lap, her head cushioned on the arm rest, much the same way as he'd held her that first night in the SUV.

Brennan was still fighting tears as she looked up at him, hating herself for the weakness but also wanting to say it all out loud to Booth, so he could help her carry the weight. 'That night you took me to the crime scene, at the warehouse,' she said, lolling her head into the crook of his arm.

'Yeah,' Booth said, and waited for her to go on.

'I… it started in the car, I could feel it in my arm.'

'Yeah I know. You scratched at it and then it ruptured.'

Brennan closed her eyes, relishing this strange feeling of being able to trust, and not having to hide. She absently reached one hand up to Booth's arm and ran her fingers along it, mimicking the same soothing action he'd given her every day of the past weeks rubbing in bio-oil on her scars. 'I recognised it,' she said quietly.

'The warehouse?'

'Yes… no… I don't know. I recognised the briefcase.'

'I know you did. Did you see me?'

Brennan shuddered slightly, trying to repress the tears that seemed to be coming in spite of her. 'I saw… someone… it wasn't you. It was someone who… I'd seen…'

'From when you were held hostage.'

'Yeah. I guess you were there. Were you holding the briefcase?'

'I was. We were investigating the site and someone found the case.'

'It wasn't his main one,' Brennan said dazedly.

Booth smoothed the hair back from her face. 'You remembered something,' he said encouragingly.

Brennan squirmed a little at this. 'I only remembered because I hallucinated. I don't… I don't, I don't want to have to… hallucinate again. To remember. I just want it to be real.'

'Bones, no one is going to give you drugs to make you remember things. I won't let that happen. The doctors checked you very carefully for any other implants that we might have missed, okay, and you're going to be with me all the time, no one is going to get to you.'

Brennan nuzzled in a little closer. 'Thank you,' she said quietly. Booth could see the sparkle of a teardrop spill out the corner of her eye. He didn't have a tissue nearby so he just swiped the tears away with his thumb.

They sat there quietly for a while, just basking in the relief of being back home and intact, and together. By the time the pizza arrived Brennan had turned completely on her side with her nose buried in Booth's t-shirt. He sat her up, not too quickly and went to get the door, and paid the guy for the food.

'Okay, Bones, you hungry?' Booth asked two minutes later, bringing the pizza box over with two plates and two drinks balanced in his other hand.

Bones sat up and watched him unload it all onto the coffee table, then take a seat right beside her. She smiled that he insisted on sitting close, and leaned in against him while he took a few slices of pizza out for each of them.

'There you go, vege… annnd meatlovers.' Pizza. There's no problem that can't be solved with pizza, he thought. He handed her the plate, catching her eye and grinning widely. Brennan couldn't help but let out a sort of short, silent laugh in response, and stared at the ground rather than at Booth, trying to process the change of emotions she was feeling. She took a few small bites, but in the same amount of time Booth had managed to eat two whole slices.

'That's not how you eat pizza, Bones,' Booth told her, seeing how little she'd got through. 'Here, this is how you eat pizza.' He shoved half a slice into his mouth, and grinned as he chewed it.

'I'm just eating slowly—' she said, holding up the slice in her hand to prove her point.

'Nah, you've gotta have the whole pizza experience, and that means getting a bite with more than one kind of topping into your mouth. Here—' He reached his arm around behind her, took the slice from her hand and guided it carefully into her mouth.

'Bo—ooth!' Brennan laughed as he pushed it into her mouth. She wasn't sure how she was going to swallow this, because she was laughing at the same time. She turned towards him and buried her face into his neck to escape his hand, which was now doing aeroplane moves in front of her as if he was feeding a toddler.

'What, don't you like the aeroplane? Parker used to love this, I even got him to eat spinach—'

Brennan swallowed her mouthful and kept laughing at the aeroplane sounds, now imagining a tiny Parker in a high chair stubbornly keeping his mouth closed. She let out a squeal when he nudged the pizza against her cheek. 'Booth!'

'Ha ha, okay,' Booth grinned, putting the slice down on the plate and just returning Brennan's cuddle as she sat with her head leaned against his shoulder. He put the two plates back on the table and pulled Bones back down to lean across his lap again. She rolled over the way she had before the food arrived, her face hidden in his t-shirt, breathing him in and he smiled, just running his hands all over her arm and back.

Bones sighed happily at the feeling of being held and touched all over so Booth decided to step it up a notch. It had been too long since they'd had any fun. He slipped one hand underneath her arm and tickled.

'Boooth!' she squealed, squirming to try and get away. He laughed and found what he suspected to be a ticklish spot on her side. Bones was trying to laugh but was too breathless from squirming to make much of a sound. Booth smiled at the cute expression on her face, and then, not stopping to think about it, raised her upper body up with his knee so her face was right in front of him.

At first they just stared at each other, Brennan trying to catch her breath and feeling her head spin, Booth just taking in the sight of her, the way her lips parted and her eyes sparkled as she waited, as if she was suspended in time.

He knew he shouldn't. Not right now. But he couldn't help it. They had moments, the two of them sometimes when for just a little while, as long and as short as the space of a breath, the rest of the world didn't exist. For just that moment, nothing else mattered, and everything was perfect.

Booth first caught her eyes, big and bright, and then he couldn't look away from her lips. He was so fixated there that he missed the split-second flash of warning.

'Uh!' she gasped, shrinking back. Booth was completely unprepared for her to move and she tumbled with a crash onto the floor. She gasped again for more air and scrambled, with surprising quickness and strength as far from the couch as she could get, backing up against the wall. Rather than flee or fight, she just crouched down in a corner and tried to make herself as small and as quiet as possible. She was trying to hide.

Booth was still stunned. From the kiss they almost had and the… whatever in the world just happened.

'Bones!' he gaped. He shook himself out of his stupor and looked at her, cowering and trembling in the corner. 'Bones.'

She was still trying to disappear, her fear strong enough to practically smell. Booth went over and knelt down in front of her. She was experiencing something, or seeing something—she had to be. For a moment she had wanted that kiss. Then something had gone wrong.

Booth didn't know whether to touch her or not. He reached out a hand to lay on her shoulder but hesitated and withdrew it. She just ran away from me, she doesn't want to be touched, he thought frenetically. What was he supposed to do? She wasn't with him right now. She wasn't safe in a warm house with someone who loved her, behind locked doors to keep evil out. She wasn't with him. I've got to bring her back.

'Bones.' Nothing. 'Temperance. Hey it's just me, it's just Booth. No one's going to touch you, no one's hurting you, Bones. You're safe. Do… you know where you are?' he asked, as if that was the right thing to say in this situation. He didn't know what the hell he was doing.

Brennan shuddered violently and started trembling more, taking big breaths than meant she was starting to hyperventilate. It was getting worse. He had to bring her back, now.

'Bones.' He placed his palm firmly but gently on her shoulder and shook her a tiny bit, just enough to catch her attention. 'You're home, it's just me. Talk to me, Bones.'

Brennan finally raised her head. 'Booth?' she asked in a small voice, as if she had just woken up from a dream.

'Are you okay?' he asked. Stupid question. Of course she wasn't okay.

'Oh…' Brennan looked dazed.

'Can you tell me what happened, Bones? You saw something.'

She looked everywhere but his face, starting to calm down. Finally, she said, 'It wasn't you.'

'You saw someone else instead of me.'

She nodded, staring at the wall. 'I… it wasn't you. I don't… I can't…' she trailed off.

Booth could tell he wasn't going to get much more out of her. I caused this, he berated himself. I started something, and she saw someone else… I made her afraid.

'I'm okay now,' she said defensively, like she was trying to prove a point.

He felt all the worse because he knew that if she hadn't pulled away, he would have kissed her. Bones didn't know what she wanted. She thought she wanted him, but she clearly wasn't ready. Not if she was seeing someone else's face that filled her with fear when she got close to him.

Brennan was looking more with-it now, avoiding his eyes and blushing. It occurred to Booth that if he, or whoever it was that she had seen, had kissed her anyway her panic attack probably would have been a lot worse. They were lucky.

By now Booth had finally learned his lesson about pushing Bones into things. Sometimes she would act without thinking—running at a suspect, punching someone in the nose, unplugging a speaker to get his attention. But the bigger things, the things that really mattered, she was terrified of making a misstep, no matter how hard she tried to hide it. And added to that, she was traumatised. By something.

'I just didn't think, Bones, I just, you smelled so good…'

Bones still wasn't meeting his eyes. She recovered a little at this, to hear Booth reminding her what really happened. He could see her nod and whisper 'Okay.'

Booth decided it was time to get up. Move past this. He crouched and offered her a hand up. He stood and waited, letting her hold onto his arm until she was firm on her feet and not likely to fall over. That had actually happened several times in the last few weeks, her blood pressure too low to pump to her head if she stood up too fast.

'Do you want to go have a shower?' he asked her, now a step away, just holding her arm loosely in case she needed balance.

'Oh, no, I um, had one at the hospital,' Bones said, not quite meeting his eyes and tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

'Bones… are we okay?' he found himself asking. He knew he was supposed to be the one helping her, and that it was his fault, but he had to hear it from her.

'Yeah,' she said, looking up shyly in his eyes, then glancing away. 'We'll always be okay Booth.'

He smiled at her but didn't try to catch her eye. She needed to have a small barrier up right now. He'd stepped over the line. He had to respect that, let her gather herself again.

'Okay, I'm gonna have one then, do you want to put a movie on?'

Brennan shrugged. 'It's okay. I'll go put the dishes away.'

Booth wanted to tell her she didn't need to but her just said, 'Yeah, sure. Thanks.' They turned around and went in opposite directions. Booth couldn't stop mentally kicking himself, going straight to the bathroom and turning the water on cold.

When he came out ten minutes later Bones was curled up in bed wearing pyjamas, reading a book of world records she'd found on the bookshelf with just the lamp on.

'I'll um… I'll sleep out on the couch tonight,' he said awkwardly. He just felt it would be appropriate.

Bones looked up at him, eyes conflicted. 'No, Booth, please…' she said, her voice cracking. He frowned and stepped closer to hear her.

'Please don't… please stay in here,' she begged. Booth looked at her concernedly. Bones never begged for anything. She picked up the book and put it on the table beside the lamp, and Booth could see how much her arm was still trembling.

Maybe he had judged wrong. He thought that because she was more lucid, she would be more independent. But… being more aware was not the same as being less afraid. In fact, Booth thought, the clearer her head became, the more frightening things she was likely to remember.

'Bones,' he sighed, giving in and walking back over to his air mattress. She swiped at her eyes and laid back down facing away from him, her shoulder heaving slightly.

He was going to have to navigate this change, somehow. She clearly needed him as much as before, but still as her friend, as an anchor. He was going to have to somehow back off at the same time as keep her close. This would be so much easier if she wasn't a girl he thought.

'Bones, come lay over this side,' he said after a short silence. 'Give me your hand.'

She crawled closer and did as he asked, her swollen eyes just peeking out from beneath the sheet. Booth berated himself again for his stupidity, then forced the thought out of his mind. She needed his focus to be on her. 'Everything's going to be okay, Bones. Alright?'

'Yeah,' she said softly after a moment. 'I know.'

He squeezed her hand and ran his thumb over her knuckles, making eye contact again, holding it there until she her face softened, lulled into sleepiness with those brown eyes watching over her. 'Goodnight,' he said.

'Night,' she said quietly, and within a minute she had fallen asleep.