Hodgins and Wendell carried Booth to his bed and all the guests excused themselves. Brennan had decided to stay as they all had Christmas plans to attend to. She told her father to take Parker back to her place to swim at the pool.
He didn't want to leave his father at first but Brennan told him Booth would be resting for a while so he finally agreed to go. Thanks to her father's quick actions the boy hadn't witnessed his father's collapse. The child had enough to deal with without seeing the horror included. She would sit down and talk to him about it at a later time.
So she and Booth were alone. She cleaned up and then sat with nothing but her worries. She walked into Booth's room and made sure the board with his diagnosis was visible upon waking. She sat on the edge of the bed watching him sleep peacefully. The seizures scared her. She had done her research and knew that during any one of them severe damage could be done, death a strong possibility as well.
She considered the two seizures she had witnessed. Both seemed to be caused by an excess of stimuli. Until the medications had a chance to fully take affect she would have to keep it limited to a sense. She considered cancelling the Christmas party, but decided she would speak to Booth's doctors about her conclusions and see what they recommended.
She would also talk to the others about toning everything down a notch. She should have known it would be too much. She too found her homecoming overwhelming.
She stroked the side of his face and he turned into the caress. He rolled to his side and curled his body around her. His left arm came to rest on her lap, while his right curled around her side. The memory of their night in the hotel before all this occurred flooded her mind. He was so awkward sharing the room with her. She remembered how comfortable it was sleeping in his arms. Tears built in her eyes. She thought of how she had wanted to turn to him, of how she wanted to turn into him and act on her instincts. She remembered his words from the cave. His awkwardness was out of his love for her, the fear of wanting to act upon his feeling, but not knowing her reaction. If she knew then what she knows now she would have acted, but she didn't.
Why does it take an act of tragedy for people to realize? Why did it take impending death to bring about their confessions? She looked down upon him and fought the urge to kiss him lightly on the lips. She was a stranger to him now, everything between them gone. Her feelings were the only ones that existed. His awkwardness is gone, only to be replaced by her own. She had kept it all buried before, she would just have to do it again.
She wasn't sure how long they had stayed this way. Her body had already begun to stiffen. She didn't want to move for fear of disturbing him. She heard the door open and close, then Parker's voice speaking softly.
Max and Parker peeked into the room and both smiled. Brennan looked at them with pleading eyes. Her father walked quietly into the room and whispered: "Lie down and get some rest. He is obviously comfortable and you are both adults."
"But Dad?" She whispered.
He put his finger to her lips. "I am not saying anything should happen. I am saying you both need comfort and as friends, find it in each other."
With that he exited the room and closed the door. She could hear the TV click on and then the sounds of their laughter.
Brennan battled her emotions. It wasn't like she was going to rip off all their clothes and have her way with the man, what could it hurt just to lie down and relax? He has woken alone for two weeks now. Maybe a face might make the transition easier, but what if it just confuses him more? What if she was just taking advantage of him?
She finally decided to lay down, if he hadn't lost his memory they could well be pursuing a relationship together. Gently she lifted his arm and found a position where she wasn't putting pressure on any of his injuries. She nestled herself on the edge of the bed. Feeling his warmth so close, her mind eased and she drifted to sleep.
In Booth's dreams he was with his mother swinging at the playground like they did when he was a child.
"You have friends now Seeley. You need to trust them. They will help you more then I can."
"But I don't know them, I don't know me."
"In time, all in good time. Your heart is open and so is theirs. They are your future; you can't hide in the past. You are healing, you can't rush that."
The playground faded away and the dream was full of flashbacks from his life. The flashes were so fast he could barely register it. Mostly it was the faces he saw.
"These are the people you care for Seeley, they are all there for you. They have stuck with you through everything and will be there for so much more. If you push yourself to hard you won't get it back, you need to allow time to do its thing."
He found comfort in the faces. He saw himself with these people. In the visions, he saw the good, he saw the bad, he saw smiles as well as tears.
"I will always be there for you my Son, but the less you need me the less I will make my presence known."
With that his eyes fluttered open. He felt her before he saw her. He felt the warmth of her body so close to his. She smelled of flowers. He instantly tried to remember who she was. Had he drank too much the night before?
As if in synch with him, Brennan felt his body stiffen and woke from her own sleep. She turned her body towards him and saw the concern in his eyes.
"Is everything ok Booth?" She asked mimicking his concern.
"I… I…" He paused.
"It's ok, I know you don't remember." They both moved to their backs and she began explaining the situation. When she was done, she got up to get his evening dosages of medication.
"Are we… together?" He asked apprehensively.
She thought about the question at hand. In truth they were not, but if circumstances had been different they probably would be.
"No, we weren't, but we were very close." She settled with that so he could make of it what he would.
He had seen her in his dreams, he had seen nothing intimate, but waking with her in his bed, in his arms, left him wondering. Whatever was between them, it had felt right.
"Parker is in the other room, I am sure he would love to spend some time with his Dad before it is bed time." She added to ease the awkwardness.
Parker must have been the child in his dream. He had a son. He wondered if this woman was the boy's mother, but was afraid to ask.
"Yeah that would be great." He answered instead.
"Do you want to stay in bed? I can get my dad to help you into your chair if you would like to go into the living room." She inquired.
"Yeah, I'd like to be up and about if it isn't any trouble." He answered.
Brennan left the room and returned with the chair and Max. They helped ease the man into the chair. They brought him out to parker and the boys face lit up.
"Max took me to Bone's pool while you were sleeping Dad. Max does cannonballs even better than Bones. Then we had ice cream, you want some icecream dad?" Parker went on excitedly.
"No your father needs his strength and has to have real food and you need substance yourself." Brennan interrupted.
"Aww Bones." He whined.
"We can have some ice cream after." Booth added.
Brennan began dinner as the 3 men watched TV and talked. Her dad had been wonderful through everything. He volunteered to stay with Booth while they all worked and he had become Booth's spokesperson. He had the most level mind of them all.
They all had dinner and at 9 Brennan had Parker tucked into bed. Max decided to excuse himself back to Brennan's apartment. Booth and Brenna sat on Booth's couch watching movies from Booth's dvd collection.
He kept watching her from the corner of his eye. He couldn't help but feel there was more to them then what she was telling him, but he couldn't bring himself to ask out of embarrassment.
Brennan was getting sleepy; the past weeks events had exhausted her. She hadn't realized until today just how much she hadn't been sleeping.
Booth however was awake and alert. She couldn't bring herself to go to sleep and leave him up alone. He had been alone too much lately.
She stifled a yawn and he looked towards her. "If you want to go to sleep you should go." He said with his voice filled with sincerity.
"Oh no, I napped earlier I am fine." She answered.
Booth liked the sound of her voice; he wasn't really interested in the movie so he decided he would try to learn more then what was typed up on paper about her.
"How did we meet?" He asked surprising her.
"Well you had a case that had gone cold. Someone referred you to me to try the case from a different angle. Together we solved the case." She answered.
"So we worked together ever since?"
"No actually we parted on bad terms. A year later you came looking for me for another case, it was then we perused a partnership."
"It was a case that put me here?" He said waving his hands around his body.
Images of everything that happened in the cave overwhelmed her. Tears threatened to break free from her eyes and she just nodded.
He could see the pain in her features. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you." He said, his eyes falling to his lap.
"No, no don't ever apologize like that." She almost yelled. Her reaction startled him and he looked back to her. He could see her inner turmoil swirling deeply in her bright blue eyes.
"You saved me in there. If it weren't for you I would be in your condition or worse. I wasn't paying attention. I was lost in my work. You were in a safer place, but you ran to me and threw me to safety." Her tears were falling freely.
He pulled her into his arms and her face fell to his chest.
"Shhh." He whispered to her and rubbed her back with his splinted hand. "Look I don't remember what happened, but I can't help but think that if we are both sitting here together then whatever it was couldn't have been wrong. "
She lifted her head and she could see the determination she had seen so many times before there in his eyes.
"Ok so I am messed up. From what all these doctors' notes say, I should recover. In my dreams my mother keeps telling me that it will just take time."
"Your mother?" She asked. Booth never spoke of his mother. He barely mentioned his father.
"I think God sent her to me to help keep my head on straight. She shows me things in my dreams. She tries to give me advice." He explained
"You never told me about your mother. You only told me a little about your father and about the Army." She informed him.
"My mother died when I was 6. She had lung cancer. That's when my father changed. She is part of the reason I joined the army. She said I was a protector. So you see if I got hurt protecting you, them I did my job. If you're as good at your job as you seem to be, then you need to be here. Obviously I am still alive so all is good in the world."
Brennan crinkled her brow and just stared at him.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" he asked.
"Your whole life has been altered; your future is in question and you are just saying that everything is good?" She didn't understand.
"God has a plan for us all. This must be part of his plan. He's sent my mother to guide me and I have friends all here to help me. I must have done something right to deserve all that. Right?"
"I don't believe in deities." She told him.
"Well I do, besides there has to be a God for me to have such a beautiful woman curled up with me." He beamed his famous Booth smile. Brennan didn't know how to react. In this moment above all others she felt like her Booth was back. She laid her head on his chest and let her silent tears fall.
"Hey… That was supposed to make you smile or even laugh, not cry." He lifted her head with his fingers and forced her to look at him. "What is all this about?"
"We can't live in the past. We only have the future now. I can't change anything that has happened. You have lost so much…" She began.
"Stop blaming yourself. Accidents happen. People in this world do bad things. We can try and stop them but we can't prevent everything. I am here, living and breathing. No I can't remember everything, But I do still have a future. I have people in my life to help remind me of the past, and whatever is missing, well I just don't see how if I didn't tell anyone that it could be worth remembering. I do have a question though. I have wanted to ask since I woke up." He paused, waiting for her response.
"What do you want to know?" She asked hesitantly.
"Is there more between us then just work?" This was the first since he had woken up that she seen anything resembling pain in his eyes.
"We used to spend a lot of time together outside of work. We were very close friends. I knew I could go to you with anything and that you would always be there." She answered.
He could see in her eyes that she was holding something back. He decided he had nothing to lose and pressed further. "Is that it? We were just friends and partners?"
Suddenly feeling uncomfortable so close to him she attempted to sit up, but he held her firmly to him. She was afraid to pull harder or she may aggravate his injuries.
"Please don't run away from me. I am in no condition to chase after you, but I can guarantee I would try." He said lightly. Then he switched to a more intense tone. "I feel like there is more than that between us. It isn't something I know in my head, but rather something I feel in my heart."
The confession of his love to her swirled through her mind. This was not that Booth. This was a different Booth. Everything they had shared before was erased.
"We were never intimate. We never engaged in intercourse." She answered bluntly, trying to hide her emotions once more.
The coldness in her tone conflicted with everything he had seen from her this evening.
"I have done something to hurt you?" The question bordered a statement as sadness filled his voice.
Brennan's demeanor softened. "I am sorry. I didn't mean to come off so harsh. We had grown close, but I feel that circumstances are to different now, to try and be who we were. I can not be 100% sure of your intentions or emotions in the past, and to explain circumstances would not be wise to base ones future on."
"So there was a little of something but nothing concrete?" He asked.
"Yes."
"Are you for or against anything for us in the future?" He inquired.
She looked at him with questions in her eyes. "I don't understand."
"What I mean is I can see that you don't want to progress on anything from the past because you feel it is to one sided because I don't remember, but what I want to know is if we couldn't start today on building possibilities for something in the future." She just stared at him. "I want to get to know you again. I want to see if we could get back what we had before the accident." He tried again.
She gave him a soft smile. In her mind the chances of him remembering any of this were slim, but his metaphorical heart was as true as ever. "No I am not opposed to that idea." She decided.
"Ok so would you mind, as long as I promise to be a gentleman, To lay here with me and continue to watch movies."
"No I would not mind."
She got up and Booth stretched the length of the couch. He lifted his arm to welcome her in front of him. She lied down and he rested his arm around her.
To think that just two weeks ago he had fallen out of bed because of her body being this close to his. Thing had changed. He was so sincere, but she couldn't help but wonder if she was opening herself up to more hurt. Where had the awkwardness gone?