Brennan didn't think she'd ever forget finding Booth. She was sure the memory would haunt her for the rest of her life. Baker had tried to keep her from following the task force he had assembled inside the slaughter house. Coldly she'd disregarded him. No one was keeping her away from Booth.
They'd walked inside to find Brenghause beating Booth with a blunt instrument. Booth's eyes were shut. His body was turned inward slightly in defense. In protection. Brennan had struggled to control her anger. Then and there if she'd had a gun she would have blown Brenghause away herself without giving any warning.
She'd gone to him after the FBI had killed Booth's captor. Into her arms she'd pulled him, hurt and covered in blood. At first she was sure he knew she was with him. It might have been her imagination but she swore he relaxed. However after he'd gone into shock she knew he was beyond feeling anything.
The ambulance ride had been Hell. Booth's stats had been all over. By the time they reached the hospital Brennan had been in tears. All her life she'd never liked to show emotion. In order to get herself together she hid away in the bathroom. Only she'd ended up vomiting before she'd been able to properly do so.
Booth spent a week in a coma. There was speculation by his doctors as to whether he'd wake up at all. His injuries were extensive. During the torture he'd suffered multiple skull factures, two broken ribs, and broken fingers. Not to mention the burns and gashes. Dehydration and starvation had also done their own bits of damage.
Brennan never had any doubt. She patiently sat by him every day while waiting for him to come back to her. Visitors came and went. But she didn't. The only times she left were to change and eat. Nothing mattered to her until he woke up.
"This isn't your fault," Angela, her best friend and co worker, told her one day when she'd managed to convince her to accompany her down to the hospital cafeteria for lunch.
Brennan's head snapped up. "I know."
"No. I don't think you do." She knew her well enough to know how she was punishing herself mentally. "There's nothing you could have done."
"He called me," Brennan spoke in a low voice after hesitating for a moment. "Just before he was abducted. He asked me to meet him for dinner." Unabashedly her eyes teared up again. "I declined. I was with Dennis. Being intimate."
"Okay. So what?"
"I should have agreed."
Angela wasn't understanding. "He was kidnapped before he ever would have made it to you."
"That's just it, Ange," she took a shuddering breath. "If I had then when he didn't come I would have known something was wrong. I could have saved him sooner. He was abused for five days because of me. Because I was selfish."
"Sweetie-"
"I held him." A tear slipped. The image of him trembling; chest heaving and slipping into shock while she held onto him slammed into her like a bullet. "He was dying in my arms." Shaking her head, she stood up abruptly. "I need to get back to him."
Angela let her go.
When he did at last wake, it wasn't all how Brennan expected. He wasn't as Brennan expected. Although to be fair, she didn't know what to anticipate. She'd been quietly watching television at his bedside when she felt his fingers twitch. Her head snapped around so fast she nearly gave herself a headache. "Booth?" She questioned.
His expression turned into a hard cringe. Brennan grew sad. Booth wasn't awake yet and already he was feeling the pain of what he'd endured. The sound of his breathing increased in frequency as he pushed his eyes open. Or good eye, anyway. The other one was a horrible blackened color and swollen shut.
"Booth," she said again, taking a gentle hold of his thumb. She didn't want to hold his hand, with his broken fingers. The cuts kept her from stroking his arm. Even his face was too marred for her to show affection. No matter what she did she didn't want to cause him any more pain.
He was too dazed to notice. Straight upwards at the ceiling he directed his gaze. It was as though he hadn't heard her.
Worried, Brennan tried again. "Booth, look at me."
It took a few moments for it to sink in. Slowly he turned his head and looked at her.
"Hi," she smiled with tears in her eyes. Patiently she waited for him to ask where he was. To ask what had happened to him. He didn't, drawing more concern out of her. It wasn't until she really returned his stare that she understood why. In his eyes she could see he knew everything. He remembered everything.
Gasping, Booth flinched again. He turned his attention back to the ceiling overhead.
Brennan thought she understood. She pressed on the button that distributed pain medication into his IV. Within moments he was sighing, his eye half closing.
"Sleep," she hushed to him. "You're safe now, Booth."
But he wasn't. Not really. Not from himself.
The doctors kept him admitted for a month. Booth was slow to heal, both physically and mentally. Brennan knew Booth comprehended everything she said to him, but it still took two days before he'd said anything back to her. And even then, it had been only one word he'd spoken.
She'd taken it personal at first. Until she saw the way he acted with others. The Squints all came to visit at various times. Booth smiled politely but didn't engage much with anyone. Cam, who'd he known for years, didn't get any more out of him than anyone else.
"It's like he's broken," Cam told Brennan tearfully out in the hall afterwards. "Brenghause got into him somehow."
It wasn't just Brennan. He was keeping everyone at arms' length.
Doctors ran test after test on him to check for brain damage. Brennan had protested every step. "It's not that Booth is incapable of talking," she explained. "He doesn't want to."
Tests only proved her point. Booth's brain function was normal. What was happening to him was purely psychological. And so the doctors brought in a therapist.
Brennan found herself objecting again. "He won't speak to him. If you want to help him then call in Dr. Sweets."
Dr. Richards, a man Brennan was coming to know quite well, shook his head. "We looked into it. Dr. Sweets isn't trained for this level of trauma. This is the best we could do."
Booth disregarded the therapist just as he did everyone else. Only worse. Unlike the others, he just pretended the man wasn't there.
During Sweets' next visit Brennan ambushed him in the hall. "Can't you help him? Isn't there anything you could do?" For the most part she felt psychology was a soft science. But in this instance she had to let go of her personal feelings if she wanted to help Booth.
"He's depressed, Dr. Brennan. Which is understandable and normal given what he's just been through. He's not talking to me any more than he's talking to everyone else. And if he's not talking to you," he added. "Then I don't think he'll talk to anyone."
That didn't stop Brennan from trying. She apprehensively brought the topic up herself one afternoon. "Booth, what happened to you?"
She held his soft gaze for just a minute before he turned away. He said nothing else to her the rest of her time with him. after the visit she ended up crying in her car. Booth was mentally torturing himself. Before she at least had a chance at saving his physical body. But he was showing her there was nothing she could do to save his mind.
"What happened to Debbie?" He asked her randomly another afternoon.
"Debbie?" The woman he had been held in captivity with? "She was saved."
"Good."
It was the only time he ever brought up anything regarding the incident.
Then Dr. Richards pulled Brennan into his office one day. She'd been appointed as Booth's caretaker, of which he'd signed off agreeing. Brennan wondered if he simply didn't want to be responsible for decisions for himself. His apathy was growing worse daily.
"We've run into a bit of a problem, Dr. Brennan." Dr. Richards informed her. "As you know we're a busy hospital. We only maintain a certain number of rooms and beds."
Brennan read right through his words. "You're evicting him?"
"Agent Booth is well enough now that-"
"He's not well," she interrupted him. "He's in pain all the time. He's hardly eating." She'd been shocked to see when while spying through his medical chart that he'd dropped ten pounds. "He's having difficultly taking care of himself!"
"You didn't let me finish, he's well enough to live with a caretaker."
They had no choice. If Booth couldn't stay there, then he wasn't going home to live by himself. He'd have to stay with Brennan.
He was awake in bed watching television, the only thing he ever really did anymore, when she came to give him the news. Brennan didn't sugarcoat it. "You're going home today."
Booth raised an eyebrow at her.
"With me."
Both eyebrows raised. "Are they the ones on drugs?"
The small joke was a glimpse into who Booth used to be. For Brennan it was a sign of hope. She couldn't help grinning. "You're coming to stay at my apartment. The doctors feel you're well enough to leave but not to be on your own just yet."
He didn't show much interest. But then again, it was rare he showed interest in anything anymore.
It didn't take long for the hospital to discharge him. Before picking him up Brennan retrieved personal items from his apartment, including clothes. The clothes he had been brought in with had been thrown away. It was doubtful he would have wanted them anyway. They would just be another painful reminder of what he'd been through; something he didn't need.
Booth was extraordinary docile during his transport from the hospital to Brennan's car. A wheelchair arrived in his room to take him down to the lobby. Any other time during brief hospital stints Booth had fought tooth and nail to be able to walk out on his own upon dismissal. This time, nothing. He calmly set himself down into the chair.
Brennan helped him as well as she could into her car. She knew he hadn't completely healed. During the drive it became obvious. Though he didn't face her she still noticed he winced over every bump and jerk the car made. Trying to be careful only seemed to make things worse.
At one point during their journey Brennan stopped at a red light. Next to her away from the street sat The Royal Diner. It was a regular haunt for the pair. More often than not they had breakfast together. They discussed cases. Much of their life together had taken place in that restaurant. I should met him, she thought again guiltily. This is my fault. He nearly lost his life because of me.
Booth was unaware. By the time she pulled up in front of her apartment he was winded from pain. His eyes were half closed. In the month that had passed the swelling had gone down, and the color had faded quite a bit from his other eye. However, the eye itself was still horribly bloodshot.
"We're here," she stated, just barely drawing a reaction out of him. "I know I didn't ask but I figured staying at my apartment with me was more logical than me coming to stay with you."
"It's fine," he said lightly. Meaning he didn't care.
Luckily, unlike Booth, Brennan lived on the first floor. The two went inside and got settled. Booth headed straight for her couch. Though length wise it wasn't very long he managed to stretch out over it just fine.
"I'll get the guest room ready."
"This is fine, Bones."
His nickname for her was one of the few comforts she got out of him. If Booth still called her Bones, then he was still somewhere inside. "No. You need your own space, Booth."
"I'm not your guest, all right?"
"You're hurt."
"I'm fine here."
There was something in his voice that made her decide not to pursue it. Maybe the closed in space of a room was just too much for him just yet.
Brennan didn't give herself time to fully ponder it. The sound of Booth's breathing hitching made her look at him. Really look at him. His color was ashen. She didn't overlook how heavy lidded his eyes had become. He's in pain. A pin prick of panic pushed her forward. "Booth?"
Just as in numerous times in the hospital he was slow to direct his attention back to her.
"Do you need a pain killer?"
He nodded in agreement.
She was beginning to catch patterns with his behavior. Patterns she hadn't understood in the hospital. His response time depended on how much pain he was in. At greater levels it was harder for him to concentrate on anything external.
They had been sent home with a bag full of medications and instructions. Brennan fished out his pain killers. Silently she extended one to him in an open palm. After he took it she handed him a glass of water.
It didn't take long before he was out like a light. The rest of the evening Brennan tip toed lightly. Not much seemed like it would wake Booth. But she didn't dare take the chance.
She'd just crawled into bed herself when she heard a strange noise in the living room. She stood, unsure of what to think. Could it have just been Booth? Or was it something else? Perhaps someone was trying to break in?
Brennan couldn't take any chances. She dug out the baseball bat she kept underneath her bed and slowly crept towards the living room. Along the way she heard various other noises. When she drew close she turned on the hall light over head. No violator was in sight. The noises had all come from Booth.
He was still on the couch sleeping, from what Brennan could tell. She went to his side and turned on another light to get a better look at him.
Booth was turned on his side in a pose almost identical to the one he'd been found in. His breaths were quick and labored. The muscles in his body were rock tight tense. His expression was twisted into that of great pain. Real or imaginary, Brennan didn't know.
He's reliving it. Brennan immediately tried to wake him. Did this happen to him every night? Was that why he'd always looked so exhausted when she'd visited him in the hospital?
Several minutes passed before Booth came to. Brennan tried to console him. She tugged him close into an embrace. Through his skin she could feel his racing heart beating against her own. Then, abruptly, he pulled away from her.
She didn't know what to say. Above all she'd always been able to give Booth her silent comfort. A smile. A touch. An hug. This time he seemed to want nothing from her, or anyone else.
Wordlessly she stayed with him until she couldn't keep her eyes open anymore. In the morning she walked back to him to find him sleeping. Every single light she owned was on in her living room. A radio played quietly from the kitchen. One of Brennan's college textbooks was laying open face down against his chest. His bottle of pain killers sat on the end table next to him.
Brennan didn't know where to start. She counted his pills, noting that he'd taken more. Gently she removed the book from his chest. It'd obviously been a distraction. Booth was intelligent, but the type of book he'd picked out wasn't easy reading.
Words he'd said to her once before popped randomly into her head. You don't get over it, Bones. You just survive.
She wondered if he'd be able to "just survive."