Umm… can I please just say that the promo for "Science in the Physicist" will soon become the most viewed vid in YouTube thanks to me?
Really? Okay, here goes:
The promo for "Science in the Physicist" will soon become the most viewed vid in YouTube thanks to me.
I mean, seriously… how HOT was that slam!!!
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CHAPTER 29
"Bones! I think she's got a concussion… Bones! Someone get rid of those! I need to carry her…"
I was lifted into the air, and the first thing I did was put my hand on his chest. Right over his heart, just to make sure it was still there, real. Like an old friend, its beat reminded me of life.
"Hospital! Now!" He was shouting at someone who was holding a phone.
"There's no one else in the house, Agent Booth." Another Agent said.
"I know." He turned again. "Have you called the ambulance, Spender?"
"Yeah, they're five minutes away."
"But why is the house empty?" the man insisted.
"Do you think I care about that right now?" Booth snapped.
"Booth." I rasped, eyes half shut, clinging to him like a child.
"Shh. It's okay, love. It's all right, I'm getting you out of here. Close your eyes now. She needs water!" he called, and a second later I felt the moisture trickle onto my lips, and I greedily parted them and drank, feeling a little more human. The merry lights refracting in the transparent bottle shone, dancing. They reminded me of the drugs. Wait, no! Water was bad!
I spit it out, coughing, feeling my throat burn.
"Drink, Bones." Booth put me down and grabbed the bottle himself. Then he wet his fingers and caressed my lips with the moist liquid, parting them. I felt the thirst again, regaining my bearings slowly. I wasn't in danger anymore. I needed water.
He nodded, smiling. "Good, now drink." And this time I drank, gulping in. But not too much, because he knew it could shock my system.
People moved all around us. Shadows passed us, several faces staring down at me with concern. Booth was running his hands all over me, but in a gentle, feather-light touch, and not how I needed him to touch me: strongly, so I remembered what feeling alive felt like. I needed him to add real bruises to my skin so that the pain made me remember that he was there…
"Broken phalanges…" he murmured, checking my hands carefully. "And multiple haematomas. First to second degree. Concussion too, I think. Hospital, Bones. Right now."
He started to get up, and in panic I realised he wasn't taking me with him. Alone. He was going to leave me alone, just like I'd left him before. Payback for what I'd done, for being irresponsible and stupid for letting my guard down, for becoming tired and worried and vulnerable.
"Don't go." I said, holding onto his jacket. The pain in his eyes lasted an instant, because his face was nothing but soft as he slowly sat back, right by my side, but not as close as I needed him. "Please, stay with me." I pulled him closer with my weak arms and he responded, completely mine. The throbbing in my head would be unbearable without him.
Everything would be unbearable without him.
And my Booth smiled, leant down to place a delicate, chaste kiss on my cheek and said:
"Didn't you understand? I'll always be with you, Bones."
*
It was a good thing that when I woke, he wasn't there.
Angela sat by my side, and she hugged me and smiled and explained (after I demanded to be told) exactly how I was found. It involves complicated computer programming and the average person might not understand it, therefore I'm not going to tell you.
We talked for a long while, and I told her everything I'd seen. That it was Bram, that Anne was alive and Margaret probably was too. Everything that had happened to me. And my friend listened, because Angela was like that: very good at listening.
So when I told her how I felt now as objectively as I could: empty, cold, afraid, and like someone was painfully sucking the life out of my weak limbs… She simply answered:
"Bren, he's outside. He's been outside the entire time, okay?"
I nodded. A part of me had sensed Booth was near all the time.
"I love you, sweetie. I'm so happy we found you."
And then, with a light creak, the door opened.
I saw Angela turn and the light shine off her hair as it swirled around her head in ringlets. It then settled around her shoulders, softly.
The curtains flitted slightly as the air around them was stirred by the motion from outside. A non-existent breeze played with the starch white fabric, and I saw that too.
But mostly, I saw him. And after him, nothing else.
"Goodbye." Angela said and quickly left. She didn't smile or raised her eyebrows or even look at me, I think. Probably because my face wasn't something anyone but Booth could look at right now and then live on.
He stayed near the door.
"Never leave me again, Temperance."
The emptiness was threatening to overflow, to consume me and drown me and leave me with nothing. I gasped for air, curling my fingers around the starch white sheets of the bed in anticipation. The anticipation of feeling alive again, and banishing this choking nothingness. Like a darkness in the pit of my stomach, letting feeling escape from my body in an asphyxia of rationality…
"Promise me. Swear it." He still stood there, away from me. Was this my punishment for being so bad? Why wasn't he touching me? Every fibre of my being burned with the need of him. My hands unclenched and I sat up, trying to see the problem. To figure it out by myself for once. Something was very wrong.
"Promise you'll never. Leave. Me."
"Never." I was hollow, and the word rang as empty as me. What did 'never' mean, after all?
"Promise properly, Bones. Never is not a promise."
"I do, Booth. I promise." But what did 'promise' mean?
He clenched his fists, but although he seemed angry or maybe afraid, I could never tell, he didn't shout. He only nodded once to himself, apparently confirming something I'd missed once again, and turned to leave.
"No." I said, feeling the meaning now. 'No' meant I wanted him to stay. "Booth, please no."
'Please' meant he had to stay, or I would escape through that hole in me and then all that would be left would be my body.
"Sleep, Bones. Eat, drink and sleep. Don't work. Take care of yourself for once and I'll see you-"
"I won't. I won't drink."
I slipped off the bed and stood, slightly unsteady but defiant. He knew and I knew that I would drink, and eat and sleep the minimum, because obviously a human body can't survive without constant water supply or nutrition to maintain one's tissue, not to mention the neurological problems caused by lack of sleep. But since I'd woken up logic had escaped me. The darkness inside had let that slip away too.
"I won't sleep, either."
"Bones, what are you-"
"I'll work so hard I'll-"
"Enough." He said, louder than I'd expected.
For a moment there was just silence and my panic that I didn't understand what was happening right before my eyes.
"I'm sorry." To my horror, tears stung my eyes and my voice was high pitched, like a child's once more, like frightened little girl. "I'm so sorry, Booth."
He didn't hug me. He didn't smile and give me a chaste kiss and say he'd always be with me. That vision of safety was gone, the comfort had faded now that I was physically all right.
He just stood there, looking at me with a hardness in his eyes I'd seen before but never feared.
I feared it now.
"Booth, please…" I was crying, shaking with the terror that it had finally happened.
Not a dark night during a stakeout… that's not how it ended.
This. This was the end.
It wasn't a passionate minute inside a car that would break us. It was just fear, fear of loss, fear of pain, fear of love, Booth I love you.
"Speak…" I choked, closing my eyes and feeling more tears run down. "Tell me what you're thinking."
"Don't cry, Bones." He didn't move. He looked sad (not that I was able to use my complete visual capabilities), certainly, but he didn't comfort me like he always did.
"That's not what you're thinking." I said. I still stood there, next to my bed, half naked, afraid, and he just... "Booth, come on!" I burst finally.
He took a step toward me. My breath caught.
"Right now, I'm thinking… well, wondering, really, about you. The thing is, Bones, that as much as it's costing me not to, I'm not hugging you or kissing you like I would be. Like… like I should be, I think. Because I should be kissing you. That was something I was meant to do."
Then why? I didn't say the words, but he kept talking.
"Would you want me to? You need comfort, right now. A friend. You're asking me not to leave. But Bones…" and finally he took two more steps and we were so close… "Why won't you ask me to stay?"
"W-What?" I managed to squeak.
"I can't explain it to you."
Not to leave implied to stay. For the first time in my entire life I had the infantile wish to be smarter. Which was just ridiculous. But I wished he didn't have to explain. That I would simply know.
"But I will comfort you, if it's a friend you need. Because I am your friend. And I'm…" he closed his eyes, then opened them again and I knew I'd never feel afraid again, because Booth looked at me now, not his shadow. "I'm so glad you're okay, Temperance."
His eyes shone with tears, and to my surprise I realised that I was no longer crying. I had understood something, finally. Booth was the one who needed comfort now, not me. He felt deeply for me, I was almost certain of that, even if I felt so much more for him. And he'd been so afraid when I was gone. Booth was like that. So protective and good. Confused because he was attracted to me, but not wanting to take it further because he loved me like a friend…
Physiology was easy once I got the hang of it.
Or so I thought at the time.
"I'm glad you're here." I whispered, and hugged him tightly. He released a long breath and put his arms around me, hurting me with his strength, but not really hurting me.
"God, Bones…" He gasped, clinging tighter. I felt his tears in my hair, and buried my face in that place made specifically for me to rest on; that hollow between his shoulder and his neck. "I'm sorry. It's just… shit, I can't lose you. You're too much. I can't…"
"It's okay, Booth. I'm here. I'm okay."
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Please don't kill me? A little angsty, I know.
Okay, VERY angsty. But it felt right, I guess.
;)
Feel free to review before you go watch the promo over and over again!