Brennan tries to wake herself, it's less difficult than usual. It smells different too. She tries to remember the day before, nothing. She decides that at least awake she's less vulnerable to whatever they had planned next for her. She has to immediately close her eyes at the brightness. She forces her hand up to her eyes despite how heavy it feels. "Sorry," she opens her eyes even slower not wanting to deal with the hallucinations, she honestly could deal with anything they had better than hearing the truth from her friend's mouths. She has to face it though. She slowly opens her eyes, blinking several times she slowly makes out Hodgins' figure, she also has to blink a few more times to make sense of this hallucination.
It's not as bright as it had been. Less light than a second ago. She feels the bandages on her back and her hands. She's laying on something nicer than the mattress in the room. This is fake. She's dead. This is a hallucination.
"Hey, Dr. B," He smiles, though it quickly turns to a frown as her vitels spike up, and she's obviously panicking, "Hey, you're okay," he move to touch her arm just above the bandage but stops when she flinches back, "Brennan, you're safe, I promise. You're at the hospital. You're safe."
Brennan's voice is hoarse when she declares, "You're not real."
Hodgins decides to go against his better judgement and put his hand softly on her shoulder, "I'm real, You aren't there anymore, you're safe," Hodgins feels useless as he tries to say the right thing to help her
The touch shocks Brennan for a second, the figures had never touched her, just yelled the truth at her til she'd prefer the beatings and torture, "Hodgins?"
"Yeah, it's me. Good to see you awake Dr. B."
"What happened?"
"The perpetrators dropped you on the side or the road, they found you hypothermic and injured pretty bad. They closed up you back, fixed the broken leg, they did surgery to fix the tendons in your hand but that'll be a slow recovery," Black and white facts, he can do that and that's what Dr. B works best with.
"What day is it?"
"November 5th."
She closes her eyes, "That's 26 days." she nods, accepting at some point she lost a day.
"We'll find who did this, Dr. B."
Brennan opens her eyes, studying him, "Does it really matter?"
Hodgins hesitates, because of course it does, but he sees she means this just as seriously as anything else, that these guys didn't do anything wrong, "Of course it does."
Brennan can only shake her head, the sedation pulling her back unconscious.
0-0-0-0-0
Hodgins has gotten better at dealing with his anger. He had never been happier in his life. But this anger is boiling just under the skin. It's at himself for failing Brennan and the unjustness of the whole situation. He hates feeling useless.
When Sweets gets there Hodgins leaves, telling him slightly about Brennan's reaction to waking to tell him what to expect.
He knows how to put his anger to use. He gets in his car and drives to Booth's apartment.
It's late evening when he gets there, Hodgins parks right in front of the building, quickly running up the stairs. Stopping in front of Booth's door. He takes a breath to try to properly contain his anger but he only barely pushes it below the surface.
Hannah answers very quickly after he knocks, pounds, on the door, "Dr. Hodgins?" She frowns, "What's wrong? Is it about Temperance? Seeley isn't here."
"Yeah, it's about Dr. B. Do you know where Booth is?" Honestly he's long since given up being mad at the reporter for anything related to Booth he was the one who pushed moving on and making sure everyone knew how 'fine' it is.
She tells him where Booth had said he was, "Said he was getting a drink then gonna come home."
"Yeah…" he nods before leaving.
0-0-0-0-0
Sweets tries to focus on the book he's brought with him. It's interesting but he can't seem to keep from looking up, watching Dr. Brennan breathe. It's maybe a little creepy but honestly they were all expecting her dead, needing proof of life is to be expected. At least that's what he tells himself is the case psychologically.
Eventually though Sweets notices Brennan's face tightens into a grimace. He puts the book down watching closely to see if it was physical pain or a nightmare. When her jaw tenses and she whimpers slightly. Sweets decides it doesn't matter which, touching her shoulder slightly.
She snaps awake, pulling away from his touch.
Sweets raises both his hands up in surrender, watching as she slows her breathing and seems to try and get control of herself entirely.
She looks at him, "Must've been a bad dream," trying to stop herself from being sick.
He nods once gently, "It's almost morning."
"I don't want to sleep," Brennan sounds somewhere between panicked and begging, "I've slept enough." she doesn't want to keep being drugged out. The hospital has been as bad at that as the room.
Sweets nods, "No one will make you."
She turns on the TV, when she turns on the history channel, they then spend time pointing out inaccuracies of the documentaries.
0-0-0-0-0
Hodgins finds Booth easily enough. He 's at one of the many tables of blackjack, clearly drunk but also apparently losing. Hodgins comes up beside him, "I can think of about a million places you should be this isn't one of them."
"Leave me alone bug boy." Booth says paying for more chips to immediately put in the pile of the next hand.
"You should've been with us, helping your partner. Or home with Hannah. What do you think Brennan or Cam would say to see you gambling again?"
"Hodgins, leave. Bones doesn't need me. And Hannah knows where I am."
Hodgins laughs bitterly, twisting Booth to face him, "God to think I had respect for you, this is pathetic Booth."
Booth looks at the scientist once more before clenching his fist pulling it back before punching Hodgins. The punch sends Hodgins reeling back, "I said leave me alone."
Hodgins touches his nose, certain the agent broke it. He raises his hand to throw a punch bac, knowing her wouldn't win but it's get his anger out. Instead he can only see the agent as broken and pathetic and he clearly wouldn't want his help, "Pathetic," he grumbles again, pulling a few bills on the table for the dealer, "Sorry about any issues," leaving as the sting in his eyes starts forcing them to tear up."
0-0-0-0-0
When Angela takes over from Sweets well after the sun comes up, the psychologist leaves with a promise to come back later, and to text if she needs anything, "Hey, sweetie," Angela smiles hugging Brennan. The anthropologist tenses despite herself. Angela quickly lets go, "I'm sorry. Fuck i didn't hurt you, did I?"
Brennan shakes her head, "No, you're fine, I'm sorry." She'll have to work on her reaction to touching.
The awkwardness is broken by a doctor coming in, letting her know that she should be okay to go home that night, there was nothing that looked to have long term problems, she's have to do physical therapy for her hands, and most likely would need someone to stay with her as her hands wouldn't be able to be used for at least a week, he also tells her he's going to prescribe meal replacement shakes to help her regain the weight she lost.
When he leaves the hospital delivers breakfast, Brennan feels nausea overcome her as she sees that at least one of the foods is oatmeal, it sends her back to the room. She takes a deep breath trying to not worry Angela.
She takes the cup of juice first, that'd be okay. Angela is staring at her, tapping her foot far too fast, "How's the baby?" she looks at the rest of the food, it's all in cups, to help her with her minimal hand movement
"He's been a monster; he hasn't been happy about the late hours. But he's happy to be back with his aunt Bren."
"Late hours?" Brennan asks, slowly eating some of the cottage cheese and fruit, carefully avoiding the apples.
Angela shakes her head, "Doesn't matter," she looks down, "All that matters is you're back and safe."
Brennan bites her tongue to not say she wasn't important enough to have those type of hours, she turns to the oatmeal, she won't let everything make her avoid illogical items. Immediately she feels the rest of the food coming up, she grabs a vomit bag, spitting it up and most the rest of her food. Angela stands to help her friend, pulling back the little remaining hair that falls into Brennan's face, moving to rub her back, stopping just before she does as she remembers the injuries.
After she's done she takes a small drink of water, shaking just a bit as her body tries to decide if it's in danger again. She feels herself getting panicky, "Ange, I'm tired, could you come back later?"
Angela nods more quickly than she'd like to admit, seeing her friend in this shape is difficult, and she was always one to take the easiest path.
When Angela leaves Brennan turns on the TV, ignoring what's on just letting the noise keep her here and now as she slowly drifts off.
0-0-0-0-0
The others all offer but Brennan was careful to only accept Cam's, though something felt weird about Booth not forcing his way to be the one returning her home.
The ride home is quiet, "How's Michelle?" Brennan is tired of everyone's attention on her.
"Good," Cam smiles, "On a class trip up to New York." She looks at the anthropologist, studying her, "Max or Russ called you yet?"
"My father has… he's wanting to come stay with me."
Cam sees Brennan being suffocated by her family being around, honestly she'd feel the same.
"I get that he's worried but I just…" Brennan sighs.
They pull up to her apartment, Brennan realizes her car was probably still at the Jeffersonian.
She doesn't comment about Cam following her to her apartment, leaving the door open to let her follow her in.
She looks around, after almost a month it's surreal to be back. "I made sure your phone and wallet and all that were returned here," Cam motions to the items laid on the living room table.
Brennan just wants out of these clothes, the borrowed scrubs feel too much like the clothes they had forced her to wear. Without thinking she checks the drawer that has one of her guns. Cam notices this, "I can stay, Dr. Brennan."
Brennan snaps her head away from the gun back to her boss, closing the drawer quickly.
"If you want I can stay."
Brennan wants to say no, she's an adult and shouldn't need people to stay. But then she looks at her hands, knowing that's an excuse to say yes, purely logical and not a babysitter. And any of the others will be more overbearing than Cam.
"I…if you want, I'd appreciate that, Dr. Saroyan."
Cam nods once, "Of course Brennan."