Note to Reader: Ta-da! This is the end. I feel the last lines are a tad cheesy, but oh well. Thanks for the comments. They are my air.

Chapter 6

"Stay down Bones," Booth screamed as he pointed his gun at Rolph. Before he could almost finish the words, the crack of the bullet zooming out of the chamber set his ears on fire. Still keeping his eyes on Rolph, he let one hand travel off his own handgun and absently searched the air for where Brennan was standing beside him. He found nothing.

Panic coursed through every vein in his body. His began to sweat and his heart beat fast, the ache almost overbearing with every contraction. Rolph didn't matter anymore. The case flew to the back of his brain. His gun hit the black tar of the pavement and the street lights began to flicker on, lighting up the darkness.

The faint glow of the lights hit her body, showing her curled into a ball on the ground. Booth went to her side immediately, running his hands all over her body checking for the wound. His hand hit something wet just below her breast and he pulled it away. Bright red blood stuck onto his skin and he stared down in awe. It was difficult to see in the dark of the street, but he could see the blood pouring from her gunshot wound.

Quickly, he pulled off his suit jacket, letting it hit the ground. The buttons from his white shirt popped off and shot through the air. With one hand, he brought the fabric to her, pressing down firmly. With the other, he fumbled to find his phone. His fingers didn't seem to want to work as they idly punched in 911. Anger and panic seeped from his voice as he talked to the emergency operator.

"This is Special Agent Seely Booth with the FBI. I have a man down," was all he could manage to mumble.

He kept looking at her, lying there helpless and in pain. Her blue eyes had turned gray and her usually glowing skin had turned to a white. She was going into shock. He dropped the phone without punching the end key. The ambulance could track them through his cell, so there was little need to talk. His knees scraped along the road as he inched closer to her. She slowly reached out with a hand and Booth caught it in his, pressing it firmly to his cheek. He hated the way he still remembered how death felt. Her skin had lost heat along with color.He leaned in closer to her, keeping her hand on him, but running his own along her cheek.

"Temperance, please. Hold on," he pleaded.

"Please don't leave me," she choked out. Booth felt it growing harder to breathe and his throat began to close up.

"Never," he whispered in her ear.

He let his head rest near her shoulder for a few moments, then closed his eyes and his lips lightly touched her cheek. Siren sounds filled his ears and red lights filled his periperal vision. He didn't pay attention to anything really but her. He watched as a small, solitary tear slid down her cheek. All of a sudden he was being pulled away from her. He fought to get back to her, knocking away every hand that came to restrain him.

"Let me go, you bastards!" he yelled, lunging back towards Brennan.

It seemed as if a thousand medical personal, police enforecment, and FBI had tackled him at once. From amidst the chaos, he heard her scream his name. Something inside of Booth severed at that moment, and no amount of people could hold him back. He shoved through all sorts of workers, sprinting to be next to her as she was being strapped to the gurney. He grabbed her hand quickly and glued himself to the gurney's side.

"I told you I wouldn't leave you," he said to her. Her cold, pale fingers wrapped as tightly as the could around his own with what little stength she had left.

Booth walked beside her all the way to the ambulance and tried not to let go even when they were loading her. Despite all of his best efforts, her fingers slipped slowly from his own. He could feel her fingertips slide across his. A medical worker slammed the doors of the vehicle then pounded on the metal. The tires screeched as they burned into the pavement. Booth watched the red flashing lights grow smaller and smaller as it sped off into the ever encompassing night.

He stood in the street bare chested, blood smeared on his hands and chest. Temperance's blood. A policeman brought a blanket over to him and put it on his shoulders.

"Where are they taking her?" Booth asked.

"Georgetown University Hospital I think," the guy answered back. After a small pause. "That's why we don't take squints in the field."

Booth felt his legs shaking, partly from the cool, the rest from anger and helplessness.

Nothing in Booth's mind went through the rational thought process. He had made Temperance a promise. It was up to him to keep it. The green wool of the blanket slid from his shoulders and he ran as fast as he could to his car.

Georgetown University Hospital

2 days later

The flowers in Booth's hand drooped as he carried them down the white hallway of the hospital. After the surgery and her stay in ICU, Brennan had been moved to room 104. The soles of Booth's shoes scraped across the floor as he walked past the nurse's station. At the end of a dimly lit hallway, he found her room. Peering through a peice of glass maybe only a mere 4 inches across, he could see her in bed, various tubes running in her arms. She was still recieving blood, as well as an iv filled with meds to keep her comfortable. She was fairly drugged, but Booth felt like he needed to see her.

As he stepped into the room, her blue eyes fluttered open from their sleep and came to rest on him. He made a small wave with the flowers in his hand and felt a sheepish smile glide across his face. The flowers made a plopping noise and he chunked them on the chair beside her bed. So much for being smooth about things. Booth suddenly felt awkward as he sat beside her on the bed.

"How are the drugs feeling?" he asked pointing to her iv's. Strike number two for the day, he thought to himself after he said it.

"They don't help that much really," she said with a small smile. All he could do was nod.

"You just missed the rest of the gang," she nodding toward the door.

"Darn," Booth said jokingly. "What did they bring you? A model of a skull to reconstruct?" It was probably a good thing she was on morphine, because Booth knew he needed to be slapped. She was blowing off all of his sarcasm though by actually awarding him with tiny smiles, amidst her pain.

"No. No gifts. It was time to change the bandage on my wound, so they all skipped out," she said with a heavy sigh.

Booth looked around, checking for her nurse. "Aren't the nurses supposed to do that," he asked as she tried to sit up in the bed.

"Yeah, but my nurse is a crab and has really cold hands. I told her I could take care of myself," she grunted, leaning forward slowly as she tried to get up. Booth lightly put his hands on her shoulders and helped pull her forward.

Brennan pointed over to a table beside the chair he had chunked her flowers on. Booth grabbed the fresh gauze and medical tape, sitting it lightly down in her hands. She slowly brought her legs around to the side of the bed, letting them fall and dangle over the edge. Laying the medical supplies beside her, she began to fumble with the buttons of her medical gown.

"So I get to see your battle wound?" Booth asked nervously.

"You were there. I'm sure it wasn't much of a battle was it," she said looking up at him from one of her buttons.

"I need to go," he said as he figited and pointed to the door.

"Come on Booth, it's not like you have never seen anything like me before," Brennan said with a smirk on her face. "I need your help anyway."

Swallowing heavily, Booth walked over to stand in front of her. This whole thing was nerveracking.

"No one's coming in are they," he asked, glancing to the door again.

"It's okay Booth," Brennan assured him as she let the hospital gown fall from her shoulders. Booth stood frozen, unable to move. Even if he had some sense about him, he wasn't sure what he should have done. Color lit up Brennan's cheeks as she looked down.

"Sorry I had to put you through this. It's just hard to move my left arm," she apologized. Brennan looked up again, seeing that Booth was looking her in the eyes, and only there.

"You are really nervous, huh," she said sitting up straighter.

"A little bit," he said seriously, never moving his gaze from her eyes.

Brennan reached out and grasped his hand, bringing it closer to her body. He seemed to float closer to her as well. His eyes moved from hers, and slowly traveled down her body to the gunshot wound below her breast. Only it was much larger than the size of the bullet, due to the surgery they had to perform in order to re-inflate her collapsed lung and retrieve the metal. It had been stitched up and was covered with a thin layer of dried blood. Around the stitches, the skin was bruised, splotches of purple extending all the way to under her left arm.

Booth's hand reached out and lightly touched her skin. His fingers slid across the underside of her breast as he moved along the expanse of the wound. A thousand thoughts ran through his mind after he realized what he was doing, mostly ones containing fear. He brought his eyes to look at her, catching her reaction to his touch. Her eyes closed slowly and he felt her body shift between his fingertips. Instead of stopping at the edge of her arm, he let his finger slowly glide down the curve of her side to where the sheet on the bed met her hip.

Her skin was cool and soft under his hands. Every part of her was beautiful, ultimately flawless. His finger rested on her for a few more seconds then, he looked up to see her staring at him intently.

"I'm sorry," he whispered in a barely audible voice. "You wouldn't have let me do that if you had been fully coherent." Slowly, he began to bring has hand away from her body.

"Maybe I am Booth," she said catching his index finger. Her dark makeup set her blue eyes on fire, making her seem wild and exotic. She brought his finger to her lips and kissed it.

"Let's get me patched up here," she said letting go of his hand finally. Brennan reached over and grabbed the tape and gauze, as well as some alcohol and ointment from another table. She handed the items to him to hold. Taking it in his hand, he got a cotten swab and ran the doused object across her wound, cleaning off the flakes of dried blood. Next, he sqeezed the ointment out of the tub and rubbed it along the gash. Booth tried to gather his composure, but felt it slip away each time he accidently touched her.

"I'm sorry," he would apologize, as he went along, bringing the bandage to her.

"It's okay. Don't worry so much," she smiled to him. At last, he managed to tear of small strips of tape and secure the bandage.

She moved her arm in an odd manner, trying to hook it in the armhole of her hospital gown. Booth reached behind her and grabbed the fabric, bringing it over her shoulders to her chest. His knuckles slid across the gown and he could feel her breasts beneath him, warm and full. Each button fused with its appropriate hole in the gown, all the way to her midsection. Brennan threw her legs back on the bed when he had finished and inched back to where she rested on her pillow.

Booth took a seat beside her and reached for her hand. She squeezed faintly and he returned the gesture. Emotion seemed to flood into him and he looked at the ground to avoid eye contact with her.

"I'm really glad you are okay," he said.

"Me too," she smiled to him.

"This job is tough to go to some days. It's dangerous too, sometimes getting the people you care about right in the middle. I didn't want anything to happen to you," he paused. "You make this job worthwhile."

Motioning a hand at him, she called him over to her side. He got up and went to be beside her. Her head came to rest on his chest, and her arms went around him.

"Thank you for saving me," she whispered.

No Temperence. It is you I need to thank, he thought as he held her. You have saved me.