A/N: Hope you like it and that some of you are appeased by it... for now!
Beepers rang, nurses sped by, phones were ringing off their hooks but Temperance couldn't hear or see any of them. She was lost inside her mind, lost in her own little world. A world where Riley laid dying in her bed, a world where her husband was becoming more and more estranged and where she hadn't seen her workplace in days. The noises around her reached her ears in a muffled blur as if a thick bubble was holding her captive.
The conversation with Riley's doctor kept playing in her head. She was trying to make sense of the words she was hearing but she just couldn't. On the news, two new victims had died of Febril. Riley had Febril. Her thoughts came into small fragmented sentences. The doctor's words came into small, fragmented sentences. He had said something about a coma, something about Riley's condition being stable. But all the in-between words, she couldn't remember them. She didn't want to remember them.
"Mr and Mrs Booth?"
Booth and Temperance, who had been staring at Riley laying in her big hospital bed, turned around to the sound of the voice at the door.
"I'm Dr. Symmes, the pediatrician here at this hospital.. May I have a word with you outside, please?"
The couple nodded before following the doctor into the hallway. Closing the door, the doctor looked down at his report.
"How is she, Doctor?" Booth immediately asked, his voice cracking. "Is she going to be okay?"
"I'm not sure, Mr. Booth. To be quite honest, she's in a 50/50 situation. There's a possibility that she does wake up and another possibility that she doesn't. It will all depend on her immune system and how it fights the disease. Her file says she has Febril. We've spoken to her doctor and she's already given us some information. The nurse who stopped by your house this afternoon also gave us a few observations that she had made and they all come back to what we have observed as well."
"Meaning?" Booth asked, confusing by all of what the doctor was saying.
"It means that, even though Riley's condition is currently stable, she is still very ill and possibly in the last phase of the disease. Unfortunately, from this point on, no medication would work on her so there is nothing we can do. The only thing we can do is stay positive and hope for the best."
Hope for the best. How was she supposed to hope for the best when her daughter was in a coma, hooked up tubes and IV because she couldn't breathe or eat on her own? How was she supposed to hope for the best when all of the previous Febril victims had died from the fever? There wasn't anything to hope for. Riley had Febril. The other victims had died. Therefore, Riley would die. It was basic logic. Everything knew that!"
A hand on her shoulder startled her. She turned around to find Booth standing beside her. She motioned to him to sit down. He did.
"How are you holding up?" He asked her, tenderly.
"Fine." Temperance sighed. "You?"
"Been better."
She smiled sadly at him before looking down at her hands.
"Riley's going to get better." Booth assured her, giving her knee a squeeze.
"How do you know that? How do you know that for sure?" Temperance replied, her voice raising slightly.
She knew she was being way too emotional but this was her daughter they were talking about. She couldn't stay calm. The hysteric part of her would remained hidden for so many years just had to come out today. She couldn't control it, no matter how hard she tried. Was that what being a mother was all about? Having irrational fears?
Booth could see in her eyes that his wife was finally letting her guard down and letting herself feel the pain of having a really sick daughter. He also knew she was probably blaming herself. He couldn't blame her. He was blaming himself too even though he knew that it would solve nothing.
"I don't know for sure, Bones, but this is Riley we're talking about. The doctors didn't think she would survive after the birth but she did and she came out of all of that with minor scars. She's only slower than other kids, that's all. She could have gotten worst."
Temperance looked up at him.
"I admit it looks bad, Temperance. The other victims have all died and Riley is currently in a life-and-death situation."
"It's my fault." Temperance said as tears trailed freely down her face. "It's our fault. We didn't take care of her properly. We kept her in her room, we barely fed her, didn't give her enough water. We didn't even turn on the light in her room."
Booth looked at her, confused by her last sentence.
"The nurse asked us if we had ever turned on the lights in her room? We had never! We turned on her bedside lamp but that's it. The curtains were always drawn and the lights always off."
"You're not making any sense, Bones." Booth said, suddenly worried that his wife had gone crazy.
"I am. I am making sense."
She violently wiped away a few tears.
"We kept her in the dark, Booth. That's what my dream meant."
"What dream, Bones? What are you talking about?"
Temperance took a deep breath before answering. She was being completely ridiculous and she knew it. She could feel the secretary staring at her from her desk and feel the looks of pity the nurses shot her way as they walked by.
"Just before I went to check on Riley, I had a dream. I was in a dark hallway and I saw a light in front of me. I walked to it to find a door. I opened it and I stepped into this huge, white and bright room. Riley was there. She told me that I'd be okay, that she was with my mother now and that my mother would take care of her. She told me not to worry anymore, that she'd be fine. I woke up and something just told me that I had to go see Riley."
Temperance sniffed.
"The bright light in the room, it represented the fact we never really paid any real attention to her. In my dream, I saw her vividly. She was skinny, dirty, pale with dark circles under her eyes. We never saw that when we went into her room. The bedside lamp didn't give us that view of her. We only saw her a sick and tired child."
"I thought you didn't believe in psychology, Bones." Booth replied, suddenly nervous.
His hands were shaking and he could hear his heart beat fast in his eyes. Was Temperance right? Was it really all their fault? Could Riley's emergency hospitalization have been avoided by a simple flick of a switch?
"Do you see what I mean, Booth? Please tell me you understand."
Booth swallowed.
"I understand that you're feeling very stressed out at the moment and that you're feeling guilty about Riley. But none of this is entirely our fault, Bones. We did the best that we could for our daughter. I don't care what that nurse said about the light thing. I don't know if she was talking metaphorically or literally but we did not keep our daughter in the dark because we didn't want to face the fact that she was sick. Because if we had, then Riley wouldn't be here today. We would have never brought her to the doctor's, twice, and we would have never brought her to the hospital either.
The doctor said that we should go home and rest. Riley's condition is stable and there's no point in us staying here. We'll go home, sleep for a couple of hours and we'll come back this afternoon."
Temperance nodded. Booth got up.
"I just need to go to the bathroom. Wait for me, here. I'll be back in a couple of minutes."
Booth stepped in the bathroom of his daughter's room, closing the door behind him and locking it. He didn't want to risk Temperance walking in and finding him there.
Standing in front of the mirror, he looked up. A pale man stood staring back at him. Booth sighed. Taking the thermometer out of his pocket, he put it in his mouth and closed his eyes. He prayed.
He prayed that the reading he had made of it before going to bed a few hours earlier had been wrong. He prayed that the tiredness he had been feeling lately was only linked to Riley's own illness and the stress he had been feeling. Most importantly, he prayed the thermometer would show him what he wanted to see.
The beeping forced him to open his eyes. He took the plastic stick out of his mouth. Taking a deep breath, he gathered enough courage to look down.
101.3
Dropping the thermometer on the counter, he looked up at his reflection in the mirror. The few amount of color that had been present on his face had vanished.
He turned on the water and splashed some on his face and neck as the words from the school secretary echoed in his head:
"Febril spreads really quickly."