Chapter 11

The Doctor in the Hospital

Angela shifted in the hard plastic chair, wincing as her back protested not only the move, but also the position she'd been in for the last several hours. The baby seemed to protest the move as well as she started kicking up a storm and right on her bladder, using it as a soccer ball in the World Cup. She But what did she expect of a hospital chair? They definitely were not made for people who were six months pregnant.

"You okay, honey?" she heard from the doorway of the intensive care room where she was currently staying. She turned slightly to see Vivian, Brennan's night shift nurse, peeking her head through the small opening in the sliding glass doors that made up the fourth wall of Brennan's room. Angela was shocked at how noisy the unit was, especially since it was two thirty in the morning, but when the doors were closed, the room was blissfully quiet.

"I'm fine, Vivian, thanks. How is she doing?" Angela asked, nodding toward Brennan's still form on the bed.

"She is doing a lot better than when she came in this afternoon. We are still getting a lot of drainage from her chest tube but her lungs sound clearer and hopefully the chest X-ray his morning will show less fluid in her lungs."

Ange let out a breath, feeling slightly relieved at the nurse's assessment.

"How is Special Agent Defiant doing over there?" Vivian asked with a smirk, nodding to Booth.

Angela smiled slightly at her statement, looking at the man in question. If her back hurt, she couldn't imagine what Booth's back was telling him right now as she looked across the room at the man currently sleeping against the side rail of Brennan's hospital bed. After the third time the nurse caught him lowering the railing so he could be closer to her, he finally gave up and made due with the situation, leaning with his cheek on the rail and his hand loosely gripping Brennan's where it lay over the sheet on the bed. Angela smiled as she remembered the face-off between Booth and Brennan's nurse for the night shift. She had rarely ever seen Booth intimidated but Vivian was not backing down and Booth finally decided to toe the line. It was something she was sure Brennan would have loved to see.

"He hasn't moved from that spot in several hours so I assume he is doing okay. I'm sure though he will be his same old demanding self when he wakes up," Angela said sarcastically, remembering the scene that he caused when they were finally allowed to see her and she was so pale that she blended in with the sheets on the bed.

"Oh, I have no doubt of that, honey. But he looked so exhausted when I came on shift that hopefully he will stay like this for a while," Vivian said with a wink as she left the room, closing the door behind her.

Angela got up to walk around the small room, careful not to bump into any of the equipment strategically placed around the room. Hands on her back, she did some of the stretches that she learned in the last maternity class that her and Hodgins went to. Looking closer at the man next to Brennan's bed, she could even see the dark bags under his eyes in the low light of the unit. The worry lines on his face looked permanently etched into his skin and she knew they wouldn't get any better until Brennan opened her eyes and started talking to them.

But her best friend was still out of it. A sniper bullet caused the tire explosion, which caused her car to crash into the concrete barrier that divided the lanes in the parking structure. Angela didn't want to think about what would have happened if Booth wasn't right there to call 911 as the ensuing collision caused three of Brennan's broken ribs to penetrate her left lung, causing a traumatic pneumothorax. The concussion she sustained suddenly became secondary to the insertion of a chest tube to drain out the fluid building up in the pleura and let the lung re-inflate. The look on Booth's face when she rushed into the family lounge outside the unit told her how serious her injuries really were.

The bullet was the same custom-made sniper bullet that had taken out four people so far, including their very own Mr. Nigel-Murray. Her eyes misted over, making it hard to see as she sat down again, feeling her chest tighten up at the still unfathomable loss of their friend and co-worker. Jack was at the FBI right now with Sweets and Caroline, trying to get all the evidence assembled so that they could try and get an arrest warrant for the man that was making their lives hell right now.

She sat down and exhaustion finally was taking its toll as her eyelids fell and her head dropped forward before she jerked it back up when her cell phone buzzed in her pocket. Thinking about ignoring it, she looked down and saw the name 'sexiest man alive' on her screen. She rolled her eyes at the name he put himself under in her phone but got up and stepped outside the unit to talk to her husband.

"Hello?" she answered, taking advantage of the open hallway to really stretch her legs.

"Hey, babe. How are you and Peanut doing?"

Angela smiled and shook her head at the nickname that Jack had given their daughter. When Brennan heard it, she automatically adopted it as well, claiming that she now that she knew that nicknames were a sign of affection, she wanted to develop those feelings of goodwill between her and her future goddaughter.

"We're doing okay, although your daughter is convinced that my bladder is a toy. I swear, I have to pee every half an hour," she complained good-naturedly, absently rubbing her abdomen to subconsciously try and calm her baby girl.

"Naw, she is just taking after her father and doing an experiment. She is calculating how many times she needs to kick your bladder before you have to urinate. I'm telling you, Ange, our little girl is going to be doing great things when she is born."

"Gee, thanks, honey. Hopefully, when she gets old enough, the next experiment she will do is to calculate how many times she has to kick her daddy's shins in order to form a bruise," she countered, hoping that his genius brain would make the comparison. The pause at the other end of the line told her that perhaps he finally figured it out.

"Sorry, babe. Message received, loud and clear."

"It's okay. Truly, I wouldn't trade a second of it for anything in the world," she replied, knowing it was the absolute truth. "How are things on your end?"

"That's why I called. Caroline, the ball buster she is, called Judge Andrews about an hour ago, all but demanding that the warrant be issued right this second. I swear, this poor judge issued the warrant just to get Caroline off the phone so he could go back to sleep. But the end result is the same; we got the warrant and the men in black are now organizing a plan to go after Broadsky." There was a pause and Angela couldn't help the rock that formed in her stomach. "They need Booth down here now so that they can get a better profile of this guy, where he might be, who he might turn to for help."

"Then Jack, you come here and try to pry Booth away from Brennan's bedside because I'm telling you right now that it's not happening. You should have seen him earlier when they made us step out of the room so the nurse could do her assessment," she stated, dreading the idea of doing what her husband was asking her to.

"Ange, we need to get this guy. I know that you know that, but Booth is our best hope of tracking him down as soon as possible."

She continued to pace back and forth, not knowing what to say or what to do. She did know though that trying to get Booth away from Brennan right now was going to take an act of G-d.

"Sweets says he's going after us now, Ange. Vince was just the start. I know that you don't like it when I try to boss you around but I need for you to stay at that hospital with Dr. B and find a way to send Booth over here. I don't know what I would do if I lost the two of you."

Surprisingly, she felt the wetness of her tears on her cheeks at the sincerity in her husband's voice. He usually was so irreverent and sarcastic but when he looked at her sometimes or talked to her, she could see the amazing, kind-hearted man that she married. And the fact that she knew those words and those looks were only for her made her throat close up with choked back tears and a warmth spread throughout her body. Her daughter must have felt the warmth of her daddy's love too because the furious kicking now became a more soothing gentle movement.

"Okay, Jack, I'll go wake up Booth. But just so you know, I am giving him permission to shoot you when he gets to the FBI," she told him, trying to add some levity to the moment before her hormones went even more crazy and she ended up crying, alone in the family lounge of the hospital.

"Thanks for the support, babe. I'll let Caroline know that he is on his way. Love you, say hi to Dr. B for us when she wakes up."

"Sounds good, hun. Love you, too," she finished, hanging up and steeling herself for waking the beast.

Getting buzzed back into the unit, she walked down the hallway to Brennan's room but before she opened the door and went inside, something caught her eye. Through the glass window and sliding door, she noticed Booth was now sitting up in the chair beside her bed and although she couldn't hear anything inside the room, she saw his lips moving, indicating that he was talking to the still out of it Brennan. One hand was still holding onto hers, possessively yet tenderly at the same time, while the other was carefully brushing her bangs back from her forehead. Two things were clear in his movements: love and desperation. She couldn't help but wondering if he had ever been this obvious with his affection for her when she was awake. But even if she had a video camera and could record this moment for Brennan to see later, she wouldn't. In fact, if she weren't so drawn to the scene, she would have felt the need to look away by now. The tragic beauty in the scene was something she wished she could capture and paint, knowing surely it would result in a cacophony of colors that was unmatched previously in the art world. She wasn't sure how long she had stood there but the nurses at the nurses station must have been wondering if she was okay and before Vivian could come ask, she went into the room, unfortunately breaking the moment of comfort for Booth.

"Ange, what time is it?" he asked when she walked into the room. Angela raised one eyebrow, looking at the clock that was on the wall of the room and wondering why he couldn't do the same. But then she looked at him and realized that he hadn't moved his eyes from Brennan's face since she had been watching him and for some reason, it felt like an affront for him to pull his eyes away from here to do something as silly as look at a clock.

"It's about three in the morning, Booth. And no, she didn't wake up while you were asleep. I would have woken you if she did," she said, pre-empting the question he was sure to ask. He just nodded, still not tearing his eyes away from Brennan.

"Booth," she started, almost heart-broken at having to tear this man away from her. "That was Hodgins on the phone. He said that Caroline managed wake up a judge and get an arrest warrant. The only catch is," she said once she saw a hopeful look in his eyes, "they need you to go over to the Hoover right away so you can help them figure out where Broadsky is."

For a moment, Booth looked paler than Brennan, finally looking at her for the first time since she entered the room. At first, she saw complete devastation in his eyes at the thought of leaving her bedside but then came a steely resolve that she hadn't seen since the gang had gotten back together. And in that moment, she knew that Jacob Ripkin Broadsky should be very, very afraid.

"I understand, Angela. Will you tell her when she wakes up where I am, please? I don't want thinking that I left her, not again," he said, standing up and wistfully cupping her cheek before marching out the door, not turning back once. Angela sighed and sat back down in the chair, resuming her watch on her friend, not noticing an hour later when Vivian came in and draped a blanket over her sleeping body.

Booth zipped up his green jacket tight when he walked outside the hospital, the early morning hours even in May cooling down quite a bit from the daytime high. For this early in the morning, the hospital was still buzzing with activity, Nurses and EMTs were hustling around, tending to whatever patients came their way. Cursing the fact that he still didn't have a car, he headed down the sidewalk, grateful that the Hoover was only a couple of blocks away. It was noisy around the hospital, lots of sirens and cars about, making them seem more crowded than it was during this morning hours.

But it was something else entirely that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. An ambulance whizzed by, it's swirling lights illuminating the light sky and making the face of the man across the street perfectly clear.

"Broadsky," he said, making eye contact with the man who was standing right across the street from him. The two men made eye contact for a minute, both frozen in the realization of the small distance between them. It wasn't until Booth started running towards him that Broadsky took off running in the opposite direction.

The concrete sidewalk beneath his feet took a brutal beating as Booth gave chase, only thinking about catching the man who was running away from him. He didn't let his exhaustion bother him, somehow managing to push it to the back of his mind and only concentrating on the back of the man running in front of him. The adrenaline was racing through his veins, pumping in faster when he realized he was gaining ground on the man. For once he was thankful for the early morning hour, the time ensuing that there were very little obstacles between him and the man he was chasing.

His lungs burned with the effort and even the large breaths he was taking didn't seem to satisfy his body's oxygen requirement, starting to feel a little dizzy even though he kept pressing on. The blare if sirens finally reached his ears and he looked over to see a Washington D.C. police car following them, apparently curious what would make two me chase each other through the deserted streets. Booth sent up a quick prayer though that they catch the right man this time, having been hauled around by law enforcement enough in the past three days to last a lifetime.

Luckily, this time his prayer seemed to be answered as the car sped up, cutting both him and Broadsky off. Broadsky seemed to slow down as the policeman got out of the car but Booth could clearly see the outline of a nine millimeter at the small of his back and he was not about to take any chances. As he saw Broadsky reach around for the gun, Booth used the very last of his energy and hurled toward him, knocking both of them to the ground.

"Police, freeze! Don't move, either of you, or we'll shoot!" he heard one of the men yell as Broadsky managed to and a solid punch to his right eye. As Booth looked up at the man who had for the moment managed to get the upper hand, he froze for a moment as he saw the true evil and bloodlust in his opponent's eye. Booth wasn't scared of much but he realized in an instant that this was someone to truly be terrified of. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Broadsky raise his fist, getting ready to land another punch, but he wasn't the only one with Special Forces training as Booth grabbed his arm and rolled them over, managing to pin Broadsky to the ground.

"I'm Seeley Booth with the FBI!" he yelled at the advancing police officers, neither looking old enough to have a driver's license, much less serve and protect. Broadsky squirmed underneath him and Booth increased the pressure of his knee on the other man's back. "This man is Jacob Ripkin Broadsky and there is a warrant for his arrest out! He is the D.C. sniper and he is armed and dangerous!"

"You got ID, sir?" the cop on the right asked, clearly suspicious. Booth cursed under his breath again, remembering that he technically wasn't with the FBI and making a decision.

"I don't and I know you can't trust me right now so take us both in. Once at the station house, have your supervisor call the FBI. They will verify my story," he pleaded, hoping that this would work.

"This man is crazy," Broadsky countered from underneath him. "I was leaving my sick mother at the hospital when he started chasing me-"

"Shut up, both of you!" the other officer said. "Hank, let's take them both in, get it sorted at the house."

Guns drawn, the police officers did as Booth said and even though Booth hated being patted down, handcuffed and put in the back of the police car, he couldn't help but smiling when they did the same to Broadsky. An when they were sitting side of side on the backseat, Booth felt victorious, the same ten feet tall invincible feeling he once only got from gotten from a roll in the hay with his girlfriend had returned at the thought of a job well done.

"I don't know what your smirking about, Seeley," Broadsky said from beside him, a personification of pure evil. "This isn't over."

Booth didn't lose his grin as he returned Broadsky's eye contact. "Really, Jake? Because it sure seems that way to me."