A:N/ Thank you to Ptitange99 for re-inspiring me.
Dis.: Don't own Bones!
Various monitors beat in the corner, steady but faint. A woman's body lies hauntingly still on the starch white sheets of the hospital bed. A man, no more than thirty-five, sits beside her. One of his hands is entwined with hers and with his other he prays the rosary. His white collared shirt, stained and dirty, now hangs limply on his muscular frame. His thin black tie is unknotted, hanging like a noose around his neck.
Slowly her eyes flutter open just as he finishes his third Hail Mary. She blinks sleepily casting her glance around the large hospital room. Yawning, she goes to stretch her arms, but feels a weight on her. Turning slightly, in confusion, she takes in the sight of her partner, head bowed over her , mumbling what sounds like one of his prayers.
He is exhausted, and she can easily tell. Under his eyes are purple bags, a tell tale sign of exhaustion. His normally styled hair looks unkempt and tangled, hanging loose over his creased forehead. His shirt is stained with dirt and dark smudges. It is her blood that stains his shirt. She may be an anthropologist, but she has worked in a laboratory long enough to recognize dried blood. She feels her cheeks burn in embarrassment as she looks to the hands beside her. His strong fist encases her thin, dirty, hand.
He hasn't noticed that she is awake yet, so she gently squeezes his fingers and his eyes fly to her face.
"Bones!" he gasps loudly then brings his voice down to a whisper, remembering the present time and location. She chuckles for the first time in days and Booths heart swells with the sound. It is hollow, but at this point, he's take a laugh like Swiss cheese if it meant his Bones was alive.
"How long have I been asleep?" She whispers, her throat still burning. He smiles widely, but it never reaches his eyes. They both know she wasn't "asleep". She was unconscious and Booth unintentionally remembers every word of the Doctor's warnings. They said she might never wake up, depending on internal bleeding.
But she proved them all wrong, just like I said she would. He brags to himself.
"About a day, last time I checked." He tells her, running his thumb over their still joined hands. She allows a smile to slip through her lips as she relishes in the sensitive touch. It is the first caress her tired skin has felt in what seems like years. She closes her eyes in relief, reminding to herself that she is safe and nothing will hurt her here. She knows that it will take her weeks and possibly months to recover from the hell she was recently rescued from.
If she believed in any type of faith, she would say that Seeley Booth was her personal guardian. And she knew that if he didn't believe in his faith, he wouldn't be the man she knew now saw sitting beside her sickbed, praying and comforting her.
She allows them to sit in silence with each other for a few moments. She can feel Booth's patient eyes watching her, so she turns and looks at him. His eyes glisten and sparkle in the bright hospital light with un-cried tears. Suddenly, a choke escapes his lips and he slowly brings their joined hands to his lips and kisses each one of her grimy fingers.
"You're alive Temperance," he says, more to himself than the young woman who stares at him, with an understanding voice.
"Booth," she says as her throat fills with mucus and her eyes water. She blinks back the tears, but when she opens her mouth to speak, they defy her, and flow steadily down her cheeks.
" Booth…I….thought I was gonna die…"She chokes out before she gasps for breath. He reflexively reaches to her bedside tray and brings a water cup to her lips.
She gratefully gulps the icy water down, allowing herself to semi-digest everything that just transpired in the past sixty seconds.
It wasn't like this before. In the past it had always been Booth and Bones, one of the few most impressive crime solving duo the American government had to offer. But now, now she didn't know what they were. She see the change in his eyes. Feel it in his affirming touches.
She knew they were partners. She knew they were friends. She knew that Angela always wanted them to be lovers.
Lovers…
Is this what love feels like? She mused.
Having soothed her burning throat , she gently pushed the cup away and whispered a thank you. He looks at her with such intensity that it scares her. Lowering the cup and replacing it to the side table, his eyes never leave hers. She has never seen a man look at her like this.
Crystalline blue eyes are full with tears now, foggy and unclear. She sniffles as he slides his fingertips over her cheek, swiping away the traitor tears which slide slowly down her grimy cheeks.
"Bones, shhh… please it's okay. Shhh… just let it out, Bones its best if you do, I promise." he comforts, his face so close to hers that she can smell his cologne and his shampoo. She can smell his tooth paste, and she licks her lips as she draws in a shaking sob.
They are chapped and dry, and she tastes dried blood on them. She feels him lean back, suddenly aware of how close they had been only milliseconds before.
Clearing his throat, he regains his composure. She doesn't know how close he was, just then, to kissing her senseless. Kissing her until their combined pain of the past few days is a distant nightmare neither would ever have to face alone. But he doesn't. Instead he leans back into the uncomfortable hospital chair, and watches her face cloud with emotion, then clear and harden into her old familiar mask.
As soon as he is sitting back, her entire body misses him. She shivers and he subconsciously brings his hand to rub her arm soothingly, in an attempt to warm her. But at his touch she winces. He retracts his arm, a serious look of concern plastered to his haggard features. Looking into her eyes for permission, he tugs her hospital gown sleeve up slightly, so that her shoulder is exposed. There, on her pale skin, lies a red and raw band of skin.
His stomach clenches and his teeth grind. Swallowing back the bile he feels rising in his throat, he lets the sleeve fall back into place. By now she has turned her face so that it rests against the shoulder facing away from him.
"Bones…I…" he stammers, his whisper is dry and coarse in the silence of the room. Reaching across and placing a bent finger under her chin, she ruefully allows him to turn her head back to him. Her cheeks are wet once more with traitor tears. She wipes her eyes aggressively with the back of her hand as he draws a deep breath.
Suddenly she is lunging forward just as he does, desperate for the physical contact that only a kiss could bring. She needs to be reminded that she isn't dead and he needs to be reminded of all that is beautiful in the world.
Each meeting in the middle, the two craving lips make contact and dance together. He fights the urge to climb atop her then and there, and ravish her deflated body until she would walk with the renewed vigor of a reborn woman.
But he didn't, for as soon as their kiss began, a dry cough from the doorway separated them.
A:N/ Please leave a review and I hope you enjoyed this…more to come :)