Chapter Fifteen:

Brennan and Booth sat outside the office of Doctor Callaway waiting for his appointment. The waiting room was full when they got there, but they only sat for a moment before they were called into the inner office of the Doctor. He held her hand tightly the whole time and she held his hand to calm his nerves. She couldn't ever remember him being so nervous. She assured him constantly that everything was going to be just fine.

They sat across the desk from the Doctor when he joined them in his office, and Booth explained that he was ready to go ahead with the surgery. Doctor Callaway told him that the OR had already been booked for the following day, and the only thing delaying the procedure was the passing of a basic physical by the FBI Agent.

Booth went for the quick examination and the only thing anomalous was a slight increase in blood pressure from his last visit. It was not enough of a change to delay anything so the surgery was officially booked for the following day.

The partners went back to her place after the appointment and found themselves sitting on the couch, feet up on the coffee table, shoulders touching slightly. They just sat. At one point, he reached over and grabbed her hand, just to hold something of hers. To convince himself that she was there for him.

"Everything is going to be just fine Booth. The surgery will fix everything and you'll be your old self before long. It will be fine." Her eyes showed him just how convinced she was of this.

"There's something I want you to know...in case something does go wrong." She was about to argue with him, but he raised her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles gently, distracting her from the argument. It worked. "I wrote you a letter once, just a note with some thoughts of mine about, I don't know, my feelings about you and things about life. Just how I feel about certain stuff."

She seemed confused.

"What more do you want me to know? I know everything about you Booth."

"Not everything Tempe. I do want you to know that I love with you with all my heart, and no matter what, I'll always be there for you in some form or another." He had tears in his eyes when he told her that. So did she.

"I know you do Booth, I've always known. Let's not talk about what might be, let's focus on what is. What we can see and feel in front of us right now." She leaned towards him, wanting to take his mind off of any morbid delusions that he would not be just fine.

"My Grandfather has the letter. I gave it to him to hold onto for me, to give to you if anything ever happened. Just ask him for it..." His sentence was cut off by her lips crashing into his.

All of their years of unspoken passion for each other seemed to force its way out in the next hours. They struggled on the couch for awhile, and eventually he realized he needed more room to show her just how deeply he loved her, and picked her up and carried her to the bedroom. The first half of the night involved some of the most tender, passionate love making the two of them had ever experienced.

When it was over, Booth just held her in his arms while she slept. He watched her breathe in and breathe out, and smiled at her flickering eyelids, wondering what she could be dreaming about. He wondered if the dreams of a genius mind were more intense than the dreams of more common people. He figured he would never know.

He was still awake when dawn broke through the window of her bedroom. He didn't want to waste a single moment of what could possibly be his last night a fully functioning human being. If the surgery went badly and he was damaged in some way, he wanted her to remember this night.

As the sun crept closer to the bed, he started to gently kiss her shoulder, which lay naked before him. His kisses trailed down her arm and as he shifted a little to get better access to the rest of her, she suddenly woke up and sat up. She looked at him, but her eyes still seemed to be asleep. As they focused, she became aware of something else. An overwhelming feeling of bile rising in her throat.

"Booth, I'm sorry..." She ran for the bathroom, the morning sickness had struck again.

He just smiled and eventually followed her into the bathroom to be of whatever comfort he could. He rubbed her back as she threw up. At one point, during a pause in her efforts, she looked over to him, pale and shaky, and said to him,

"You know I also love you with all my heart, right? I know I don't say it very often, but it is how I feel."

"I know, Temperance. I've always known." He smiled a cocky little smile at her, and she fought with another round of the nausea.

As quickly as it had arrived, the morning sickness was gone and she brushed her teeth while he waited for her. She made him laugh when she turned to him and asked him what was for breakfast, she was starving. She always amazed him. He hoped she always would.

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They arrived at the hospital with plenty of time for him to start to get nervous. She did her best to keep him calm with gentle touches and light kisses while the nurses prepared him for the surgery.

The time came eventually for him to be wheeled away, and she walked beside him, holding his hand as they made their way down the halls and towards the operating room. Right before he was wheeled beyond the point that she could accompany him, he asked the nurses to wait just a second.

They just looked at each other. There was nothing left unsaid between them now. Their feelings had been spoken and expressed physically. He smiled at her, his brown eyes as expressive as she had ever seen them.

"I want you to promise me something Tempe..."

She waited for him to continue.

"If something does go wrong... I don't want you to name the baby after me. I really hate my name."

In spite of herself, she laughed out loud.

"I promise Booth. You are going to be just fine. I'll see you in recovery in just a few hours. I love you Booth." A tear streamed down her cheek and he reached to her to wipe it away.

The nurse continued to wheel him through the door and another tear fell as she watched him go. She wandered back to the waiting room to wait out the longest hours of her life. So it seemed anyway.

Hours passed and she started to grow just a little concerned that there was no news of him yet. The Doctor had told them that the surgery would only take a few hours, but more time than that had passed when she finally saw the Doctor come through the doors to search for her.

He took her by the hand and guided her to a deserted spot in the hallway. She was definitely nervous now.

"Doctor Brennan... I just want you to know that the surgery was successful... We managed to remove both of the pieces of scar tissue with no problem, but..." He paused.

"What's wrong? What happened?" She was officially worried at his pause.

"I'm afraid Agent Booth had an adverse reaction to the anaesthetic and he doesn't seem to be waking up in the recovery room. We thought that maybe you would like to sit with him, your voice and presence might bring him back a little quicker." Doctor Callaway's heart broke a little bit at the expression on her face.

He remembered back to the last time Booth had been in a coma and her dedication and belief that he would come out of it just fine. The unconscious man needed her again.

He led her towards the ICU and pointed her in the direction of the man she was with heart and soul. Doctor Callaway was not ignorant to the feelings of the partners, he hoped more than anything that Agent Booth would wake up soon.

He did not.

A week passed, and Temperance barely left his side. The nurses became aware after the first morning that she was there that she was pregnant by her morning sickness, and they made sure she was eating and drinking, at some points getting enough rest. They took very good care of her while she waited out her vigil.

All of the people who knew and loved Booth stopped by over the ensuing days to hope for the best with her. Angela was there regularily and when Brennan didn't seem to respond to anyone anymore, she made the bold move to call in the big gun.

Booth's grandfather surprised her one morning with a tap on the shoulder, and when she turned her head to see who it was she jumped up and gave the older Booth a huge hug. Angela, who had accompanied the older man into the room, left quietly when she saw the emotional outburst of her friend. Angela thought it was good to see her release some of the repressed emotion.

Booth's grandfather had waited with her before in this situation. It wasn't all that long ago, and those emotions were still very fresh for both of them. At least this time, Booth wasn't fighting for his life, he simply wasn't waking up.

Temperance took up her usual spot beside her partner's bed and took his hand. The grandfather sat on the opposite side of the bed and watched the woman who was watching his grandson.

"You should have called me, Temperance. I would have come. You don't need to go through this by yourself." His brown eyes that were so much like his grandson's, made her heart tweak just a little bit.

"I'm sorry. I should have called you, but you should know I'm not used to having family as a support mechanism. This is very new to me." Her eyes never left her partner's face when she spoke.

"Well, you are part of this family now. I hope you know that."

She felt like she should share something with him then.

"Your family is about to get just a little bigger in about seven and a half months." She couldn't help but smile at the shocked expression on the older Booth's face.

He stood up to walk around the foot of the bed to give her a hug.

"That is wonderful news! You both must be so happy! I know Seeley is a wonderful father, and he must be thrilled about this new baby."

"He was. Very thrilled."

The grandfather noticed her use of past tense when she spoke of him. He put his hand on her shoulder, and made her look him in the eye.

"He still is thrilled. He'll be back for you. There's no way he would abandon his child and the love of his life. Nothing will keep him away for very long."

They both looked towards the unconscious man in the bed and they both saw him stir at the same time.

Bones moved quickly to be near his face, and watched as he struggled to open his eyes. His vision cleared slowly and focus came to the brown gates of his soul. She smiled at him and he blinked twice.

"Booth, you've been in a coma. You had a reaction. You're going to be just fine now."

Booth just looked at her, his bandaged head turned towards the other man in the room, but there was no sparkle in his eyes like there so often was. He turned back to Brennan,

"Who are you?"

Her heart broke into a thousand little pieces with his words.

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