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"Where am I?" Brennan asked again and then gasped, "Wait…am I, am I dead?"

Ruth placed her hand on Brennan's cheek, "No sweetheart, you're not dead."

"But if I'm not dead then where am I? Why and how are you here?"

"You're not dead but you're not alive, it's going to be hard for you to understand but you're straddling the line between life and death right now Temperance. Technically where you are, whether or not you believe it, is in limbo."

"Limbo? Wait, that's impossible. Limbo doesn't exist, much less heaven or hell."

Ruth shook her head, "I knew you'd say something like that. That's just the way you are, you don't believe and that's alright, but you're here and I don't think you have any other explanations right now, do you?"

Brennan was very confused but she tried anyways, "If I'm not dead then I am probably under the influence of pain killers and maybe even asleep on an operating table. Therefore I may just be hallucinating or dreaming this whole scenario."

"You may believe what you'd like but for now you are here and as much as I don't want to see you here, I am grateful to be able to talk to you Temperance."

Brennan took her mother's hand, "I'm glad to see you mom but I need to know what is going on. What do you mean you don't want to see me here? Am I not supposed to be here?"

Ruth's gaze fell to the ground, "You're not supposed to be here, not in limbo."

"Where am I supposed to be? Am I supposed to be alive?"

New tears fell down her mother's cheeks and she shook her head.

"Mom?"

"Temperance, you were supposed to die today."

________________________________________________________________________

"So tell me again how this works," Max asked Dr. Monroe.

Brennan's father, Booth and her brother were standing in front of her bed nearly twenty four hours after she had been placed on life support.

"Right now we're slowly bringing Dr. Brennan out of the drug induced coma. When that is done we'll take her off of the life support machine. Our hope is that she will breathe on her own. If she does we'll be able to take her back into surgery."

"Will she wake up?" asked Russ.

"Not right now."

"What if she doesn't breathe on her own?" gulped Max.

"We've been monitoring her brain activity closely and it is still strong. If she can't breathe on her own now we can wait another day and re-assess her condition then."

"Dr. Monroe, we're ready," a male nurse said.

Booth watched as another doctor wheeled in a crash cart and readied the paddles. He leaned down close to his partner and whispered in her ear.

"Be strong Bones, you can do this, I know you can."

He kissed her forehead and moved back to let the doctors do their work.

Dr. Monroe checked the machines and listened to Brennan's heart. She then nodded to the nurse standing next to the life support machine. The nurse pushed a button and it began to quiet down.

"Come on Bones, please," Booth chanted to himself.

The heart monitor beeped steadily for a few seconds and everyone held their breath.

Then suddenly the beeping grew from steady to frantic and the doctors pounced into action.

"She's not responding."

"Vitals are dropping."

"Turn it back on," Dr. Monroe ordered as she rhymed off a list of drugs to push into Brennan's body.

Booth backed up from the scene in front of him. His heart was racing and he wiped sweat from his brow. His mind chanted that this wasn't happening, it couldn't be happening. Bones was a fighter, she had to make it. He hit the wall behind him and continued to watch the tragic scene in front of him.

And as quickly as it had began the beeping slowed again as the machines came back on.

"She's stable," said the nurse.

Dr. Monroe turned to Booth, Max and Russ, "I'm sorry. We're going to have to wait, she's just not ready. We'll try again tomorrow."

The doctor gave them a look of remorse and left the room. Booth slid down the wall to the floor and dropped his head into his hands.

________________________________________________________________________

Brennan sat down on the table her hands shaking and still reeling from what she had just been told.

"Temperance?" her mother said her name quietly, coming over to her.

"I was supposed to die today," she whispered.

Ruth nodded, "I'm sorry honey."

Brennan lifted her head, "But I didn't. You said this is limbo, I'm not dead."

"Yes, you're neither dead nor alive."

"But I was supposed to die today," she said slowly, "So how did I end up here?"

Ruth took her daughter's hand, "Temperance, I'm going to tell you something and whether or not you believe it is your choice, but just listen. Our fate is pre-destined, written for us before we are born. The day we die, how we die is set and there is very little that can change our fate. Sometimes fate is changed by tragedy, such as murder, but the murderer's fate changes that day as well. Everyone is connected by fate whether they know it or not. But your death, it was pre-determined, it should have happened today."

Ruth turned and waved her hand towards the wall which began to look like fog clearing.

"This is what was supposed to happen today," she said.

What was once a white wall now showed the lab of the Jeffersonian before the explosion.
Brennan worked with Zack on a skeleton while Hodgins left the platform to examine particulates at his station.

A FedEx man appeared at the bottom of the stairs and told Brennan there was a package for her. She told him to leave it on the steps, she'd get it later. A few minutes past and then as the clock struck ten o'clock it happened.

Brennan watched herself be propelled backwards by the explosion. She watched in horror as the ceiling exploded and it rained glass and finally she saw the platform collapse.

She saw herself pinned underneath the exam table which in turn was crushed by the piece of platform siding.

The scene changed and she could see the emergency vehicles and rescue workers coming and then digging through the rubble for survivors. She saw Cam being rescued and then Angela being carried out by a firefighter. Hodgins was next and she wondered where Zack was.

It was then that she saw Booth running towards the doors of the Jeffersonian. He stopped at Hodgins and asked where she was. Then he took off into the destroyed building, calling her name. As he reached the remains of the double doors leading to her lab two paramedics carried Zack on a stretcher out. Booth paused to make sure her assistant was alright before continuing inside. A scream for help from another rescue worker caught her partner's attention. He ran towards the call for help.

She could almost sense that he knew it was her. The look in his eyes as he ran was of complete fear.

His fears were confirmed when he got to the rescue worker. Before him lay his partner, pinned underneath the exam table and platform siding, unconscious.

Several firefighters were attempting to move the piece of siding while a paramedic was checking her vitals. She watched Booth drop down beside her unconscious body and try to wake her up. The firefighters strained under the weight of the metal on top of her and it took four of them to finally lift it off of her mangled body.

By the time she was free the paramedics were moving away from her. It was too late.

Her heart broke as she watched Booth break down sobbing beside her, gathering her body in his arms.

The scene faded and the wall slowly changed back to white.

"Booth wasn't supposed to find you, you were never meant to make it," her mother said as she gently laid a hand on her daughter's shoulder.

Tears were streaming down Brennan's face. The image of Booth sobbing, that heart wrenching look on his face was seared in her mind. She sat staring at the wall for a long time before she finally asked;

"How was my fate changed?"

________________________________________________________________________

In the last forty eight hours he had only left her side when absolutely necessary. In the last forty eight hours he had barely slept. In the last forty eight hours he had prayed, hoped and wished more than any other time in his life. Despite being told to go home and rest numerous times he had stayed by her side, holding her hand and willing her to find the strength to make it through this storm. In the last forty eight hours Booth had never been more afraid in his entire life.

The time had come to see if Brennan could breathe on her own. Again Booth watched the crash cart be rolled into the room and he braced himself for what might come. He said a silent prayer as the doctors took her off of the machines. He closed his eyes hoping to hear the heart monitor stay steady but instead the same screeching echoed through the room as the previous day.

Dr. Monroe called the trio of men to her.

"I am worried about Dr. Brennan. She needs surgery and without it soon there could be more complications. I am also concerned about her brain activity. We've been monitoring it closely but in the last few hours it has been decreasing."

"She's still got brain activity, that's good right?" Russ asked.

"Yes, but if it continues to decrease then it means her body is giving up. I think we need to discuss her options should that happen."

"But it hasn't happened yet, we don't need to discuss anything," Booth said firmly.

"But it could happen Agent Booth. I am willing to give Dr. Brennan another chance to breathe on her own, but if she doesn't then we need to seriously consider what happens next."

"She is going to make it. She will breathe on her own again," the agent replied, he looked to Max for support.

Max was silent, he stared as his daughter.

"Dad, I think you and I should talk to the doctor," Russ tried gently.

Booth glared at Russ, "You and Max? What about me?"

"We're her family."

"Agent Booth is her appointed person. Legally he has control over what happens to her medically," Dr. Monroe interjected.

Russ' eyebrows shot up, "What?"

Booth nodded, "She asked me awhile ago if I would do that for her. She signed my papers as well."

Max placed a hand on Booth's shoulder, "She couldn't have picked a better person Booth," he turned to the doctor, "What are her options?"

"Like I said before we'll give her one more chance tomorrow. If she breathes on her own we'll operate. If not then we have two options. One, we can bring her out of the induced coma and leave her on life support. She can stay that way as long as you wish, that would give her more time but I can't guarantee that she would ever wake up on her own. Our other option is to wait for her brain activity to completely decrease and then take her off of life support. It would be a final decision and you would have as much time as necessary to make it."

Booth looked horrified, "We're not taking her off of life support. Bones will come around, she's strong, she just needs more time."

Russ gave him a skeptical look, "How much time Booth? I know my sister and therefore I know she wouldn't want to live in a permanent vegetative state. She's a scientist, if science can't do anything more for her then she'd want to go, she wouldn't wait around for a miracle."

"So you'd just give up on her? I think she'd want time to heal and I believe that a miracle could still happen, despite what you may think," Booth shot back.

"Boys!" Max interjected, "Let's not fight in front of her, you know she'd hate that. Why don't we wait till tomorrow, see how she's doing then. We still have time before we make this call, right doctor?"

Dr. Monroe nodded, "Of course."

Booth glared at Russ and went back to his seat beside his partner. He took her hand and silently promised that he'd never give up on her.

________________________________________________________________________

"Temperance, fate is a difficult thing to change. There is only one true way of changing fate that will not have negative consequences and that is through divine intervention. That is how your fate was changed."

"I don't believe in God," she told her mother.

"Whether or not you believe in God or any higher power does not change what happened to you and your fate."

"So you're saying that some higher power decided to change my fate? Why?"

"It wasn't a decision on their part, the one who saved you did it out of love for you and I don't believe was even aware they had this power."

"Who saved me mom?"

"Your guardian angel did Temperance."

To be continued…

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