When I fall

Chapter 5

By Iana

Author's notes:

Guys, you are amazing! Thanks so much for all the nice reviews!

I don't remember being mentioned in "The Doctor in the Photo" what month of the year it happened exactly. So, for plot purposes, I'm putting that particular episode in November 2010. Have in mind that December 2010 Bones enters her first month of pregnancy. ;-)

Stay with me, people!

#BONES#

"And that was the day that I promised I'd never sing of love, if it doesn't exist.

But darling you are, the only exception.

You are the only exception and I'm on my way to believing it. "

#BONES#

Remembering….

The door closed softly behind him and vaguely he thought that at least he would have some sort of privacy, even if he knew they would be watching from behind the one-way glass. His feet were blocks of cement, his hands blocks of ice on the end of his arms. He had never felt so cold in his whole life. His mind was bombarded by thoughts of Thai dinners and laughs and closing cases and misplaced colloquialisms. He remembered her eyes and her moans and her sighs. He remembered the curves of her body and the way she tasted. And then he wondered: How had she looked, round and soft with his child nested inside of her? Was it a boy, or a girl? Had she named it? Had she buried it?

And the thought of a tiny casket brought him to his knees in the middle of the room.

#BONES#

3 months before- February 2011

Bones walked through the streets at her lunch hour, huddled close in her winter coat. The winter in Washington had been particularly cold this year but she didn't really mind it. Her hands were deep in her pockets as she wondered the streets absent-mindedly, her head a million miles away.

The concept of the fetus growing inside of her body was still foreign to her. She was taking all the proper vitamins and getting regular check-ups; she'd seen the tiny 10cm alien shaped human in a 3D ultrasound and marveled a little at the features that had already formed on something so small. As a scientist, Brennan knew everything that was happening to the person residing inside her womb at its three short months of life. She knew all its organs were developed and functioning. She knew it had fingerprints and it was mostly fully formed. She knew it had hiccups.

But she also knew her brain was having a hard time catching up with everything happening inside her body. Every time she entered the doctor's office for a pelvic exam and ultrasound; her second so far, she felt detached from her body, like she was living someone else's life. Deep down, she ached to talk to Angela about everything. Tell her all that bothered her and compare symptoms. Tell how peculiar it was that Angela had such a hard time with morning sickness whereas Brennan was getting by like a breeze.

She pondered on the thought of telling her friend everything; of just laying her head down on Angie's lap and crying until that awful feeling in her chest, that tightness that was present ever since Booth left went away. But Brennan also knew that once she started crying she wouldn't stop and also that Angela would be so mad she'd want to go kill Booth. And in the process tell him about the pregnancy which Brennan didn't want him to know about.

Maybe when the baby was born, she could approach him to check their options. Maybe he'd never know. She was too busy being concerned about her own thoughts and feelings to worry about his at that particular moment. Her thoughts were broken when she suddenly found herself in front of a baby store. Trinkets and stuffed animals shared space with baby appliances and furniture behind the glass window. And then, with the instinct and softness that only the impending motherhood could bring, she entered the small store.

The bell above the door gave a welcome and Brennan's eyes searched the store. For the most part of her lunch hour she browsed, fingers occasionally touching the soft fur of a stuffed monkey with a pink bow around his neck or the cotton soft material of a cross stitched blanket. The smells fascinated her. Almost at the end of the store she found an onesie. It was white with a yellow baby duck in glasses holding a pipette on the middle and it said: My mommy, the LAB TECH, thinks I am the cutest organism ever!"

She left the store with two. The other one said: "My DADDY the lab tech…" and she intended to give it to Hodgins as a gift.

That onesie represented the day Brennan fell in love with her baby for real.

#BONES#

Present day

Both managed to gather some semblance of control and raised his head from his hands. Bones hadn't moved. Legs shaking, he got up from the floor and walked the rest of the way towards the bed. Brennan was still asleep and the punch of surprise her appearance brought him went straight to his already constricting chest.

Her hair was longer. Almost brushing her shoulders again, bangs over her eyebrows; they needed a trim. Her pale complexion was waxy now, purple circles underneath her eyes. Not matter how much the doctor said she was sleeping they wouldn't go away, it seemed. Legs unable to support him any longer, Booth sat down on the chair next to the bed and kept silently reacquainting himself with her features.

Her right hand was resting underneath her chin, curled on a loose fist. By the sharp look of the bone jutting out of the skin on her wrist, he could see the alarming amount of weight she had lost. And since she was as lean as a willow tree, Booth knew she didn't have any to spare. With a painful sigh, he raised a shaky hand and brushed a lock of hair behind her ear, softly rubbing his thumb over her cheek. He remembered waking up next to her on their first and only night together and marveling at the cute blush their lovemaking and the warmth from the covers had brought to her cheeks and thinking she was so beautiful she stole his breath away. And then he had come to his senses so abruptly he had jumped from the bed and locked himself in her bathroom.

Booth pondered if everything that had happened hadn't been a way for him to punish himself for breaking his vow of never cheating on a woman he engaged in a relationship with. Hannah had been the first. But then, he also pondered if deep down, on the most dark and hidden corners of his heart he hadn't actually been cheating on Bones this whole time.

He had tried to deny, tried to make himself feel something but the painful truth was that he could never love Hannah the way he wanted to. He could never love her like he loved Bones. Despite everything that had happened or that could happen he wouldn't hesitate to run to her whenever she needed him to.

Booth wished the veil had been lifted from his eyes before this. He wished that in punishing himself, he hadn't made such a mess of things and managed to punish Bones in the process. And that he had been able to run to her when things got rough like he always promised her he would. Instead, he had left her alone to deal with yet another loss, another abandonment.

He ran his fingers over her face, her hair, the back of her hand, all the while trying to come to terms with his guilt and his own loss. Until he heard about the miscarriage he never realize how happy he'd be having a baby with Bones. Guess that was one of those things you never realized you wanted until you lost it.

"I'm so sorry, Bones… Please, please, get better… I'm sorry…"

He pressed her hand against his face and whispered on her palm, closing his eyes.

When he opened them again, she was staring right into his soul.

#BONES#