Chapter 2:

She looked into his half-open eyes and saw the pain in them. "Booth... I thought you were unconscious." Her voice was hardly more than a whisper.

"I have been... for a short moment... serious injury, hm? Care to fill me in?" His voice was rough with pain, but his words were somehow teasing.

Brennan gently placed a hand on his shoulder and started to explain: "There is a big splinter of wood in your back, Booth."

"It sure as hell feels so." He interrupted her.

She gave him a worried look and carefully asked: "Do you even want to know what it looks like?"

He briefly closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He suddenly cringed in pain and took a mental note to keep his breathing shallow. "Sure" he coughed out. "After all it's MY injury."

"It's about an inch thick and I can see approximately four inches protruding from your back... I don't know how deep it went in. I... I don't want to touch it. It doesn't bleed too much at the moment, I guess the splinter seals the wounds pretty good at the moment... as long as you lie still, that is."

"I don't feel like moving, Bones..." he rasped.

She swallowed hard and avoided his gaze, avoided the pain that clearly showed in his brown eyes.

"I guess the shock is the reason why you did not feel the wound at first..." she added.

He closed his eyes briefly than said: "Well, call me Dracula." His eyes met hers and he saw the confusion and disbelief in the blue depths of her eyes. Despite his pain he had to smile... He should have known she would not get the reference.

"I've got something in my back that sounds an awful lot like a stake, Bones. Dracula, vampire, does it ring a bell?"

Now she was getting furious. "Booth... you could... This could be serious, how can you make jokes in a situation like that?"

"Don't worry...I am not going to die." His voice was hoarse, but it seemed he could control the pain better now.

"Nobody said something about dying!" she snapped, but somehow his statement lightened her heart a bit.

"You nearly said that I could die, Bones. Then you changed it into 'this could be serious'." He said and a small smile appeared on his face. "And I am making jokes, because we have to wait for the ambulance anyway... we might as well have fun."

"Fun" she muttered and shook her head, simply not able to understand this man.

Fascinated he watched her auburn locks glitter. Glitter? He squinted a bit and after some time he said: "Be careful, Bones. You've got glass shards in your hair."

His words made her stop in her movement and suddenly her face wore a look, Booth could not decipher. Her gaze fixed on him and he was startled to see her blue eyes brimming with tears, when she suddenly let out a sob. "How can you do that? God, how can you do that? You are hurt and you still worry about me? About these damn glass shards in my hair? Oh, Booth..." Her voice was thick with unshed tears ... and her emotionality took him completely by surprise. Booth was at a loss for words. He just stared at her, at her face he knew so well, but still he could not read it right now.

"It should be me lying here." She finally whispered, when the first tear found it's way down her dirty cheek. "You just got hit, because you wanted to protect me... to shield me."

He could not believe it... but he should have known it, after all it was just like Brennan to accuse herself for things nobody could control. Somehow it made him angry that she blamed herself.
He snorted. "Stop that."

"What?" She sobbed, while wiping a tear away, smudging the stains that covered her skin.

"These goddamn self-accusations. It's not your fault, okay? Somebody placed a bomb, the house was blown up, I got hit. That's it. No fault on your side." He had to pause here, cause a sudden wave of pain hit him and he winced a bit. "Not your fault, got it?" he breathed when the moment had passed and the pain had subsided from hot, siring pain to the now familiar throbbing in his back.

She bit back her word of objection. After all he was in pain, lying in front of her, seriously hurt, who was she to argue with him right now? "Okay." She managed a tiny whisper.

"Good." He gave back and closed his eyes as another wave of pain hit him. "Damn." He pressed through gritted teeth.

"Would you... would you hold my hand, Bones?" he asked, his eyes still closed. He felt her trembling, but warm hand covering his cold and clammy one.

When he opened his eyes again, his view was a bit blurred, but he could still make out the worried look on his partner's face. "I have to admit, it hurts pretty bad." His words sounded a bit slurred and his voice was weaker than before.

Brennan swallowed hard.
"Stay awake, Booth... look at me." She said, her voice stern, but also full of concern for him. "They are coming, can you hear it?" True enough, he could make out the faint sound of sirens.

"Bones... tell Cullen, what happened. This is... a crime scene... They.." He could not finish his sentence as they pain caused him to clench his teeth again.

"Shhhh. Don't waste your energy, Booth. I know what to do, okay? I'll call Cullen, they will collect all the evidence. Just stay awake, for me, will you?" She forced herself to sound as assuring and calming as possible. The sound of sirens came nearer, giving her hope.

Booth's vision blurred even more, but he could still see his partner's face, her blue eyes and he tried to cling to them, tried to hold on to the startling blue, to not drift away into unconsciousness.

A weary, tiny smile crept on his face when he recalled the kiss they had shared. He opened his mouth to tell her, how much he had enjoyed kissing her... but no words left his mouth... Instead he started to cough. He did not need to hear Brennan's shocked, sharp intake of breath to know that he was coughing blood. The sour, metallic taste in his mouth was evidence enough.

The last thing he heard was his partner's clear voice, nearly drowned out be the sound of sirens, saying: "Don't be scared, Booth, I am here."

Brennan repeated the sentence over and over, although she knew he could not hear it anymore in his unconscious state. But she needed to hear the words herself. To believe in them.

When the ambulance arrived, they gently removed her hand from his. They led her a few feet away and asked her questions on what had happened, if she was hurt... she answered them in a robotic way, her gaze all the time fixed on the still figure of her partner.

During the ride in the ambulance he did not even stir once and she was sitting beside him, holding his lifeless, clammy hand, while the paramedics were doing what little they could do. She did not know it, but the paramedics later told her, she had started to mutter "Don't be scared, I am here." over and over again.