Chapter 23

Sunday

11:49 PM

"Bones?"

Booth stood up and leaned over her, looking into her blue eyes. He hadn't realized how much he had missed looking into her eyes. He put his palm against her cheek and leaned down to kiss her forehead in his spot.

"It's ok," Booth said. "It's ok. You're safe."

He could see the confusion behind her eyes. He could see the uncertainty. She looked from side to side before finally closing her eyes tightly. He knew she was trying to make sense of what was happening. He couldn't imagine how confused she must have been.

"Bones," he said again, barely above a whisper.

This time when he said her name, it wasn't a question. This time it was a statement. It was a statement that she was there with him. It felt good to say her name and know that she was actually hearing him. He couldn't stop staring at her and he couldn't stop the tear from rolling down his cheek. He wanted to touch her. He wanted to gather her in his arms and never let go, but he couldn't. Not only did her injuries prevent him from giving her the kind of hug he wanted, but he was afraid that she would be afraid of what the hug meant. He settled on resting his hand on her arm. It was a simply gesture, but it was enough.

"Booth," her voice was weak, but it was the best sound Booth had heard in a very long time.

"I'm here, Bones. I'm right here," he said quietly, squeezing her arm lightly.

She opened her eyes again. She tried to move, but felt restrained. Her body felt stiff. She looked at Booth, trying to focus on his eyes. She could see him. She could feel him touching her arm, but it was hard to focus on him.

"I…" she began before trailing off. She felt confused and she could feel pain from somewhere, but she didn't know where.

"Shh…" Booth soothed. "It's ok. You're ok."

It took Brennan nearly ten minutes before she spoke again. Booth could tell that she was fighting through pain and weariness and confusion. He simply stood there, giving her as much time as she needed. He silently prayed that she would be the same person he had known.

"What...what happened?" She finally asked.

"You're in the hospital," Booth said slowly. "Bones you've been unconscious for two days. We didn't know if you'd wake up...we didn't know if you'd make it. Do you know how good it is to hear your voice?"

"The sound of someone's voice can be rather comforting in times of emotional distress. There are studies that link..."

He couldn't help but laugh out loud. He saw her furrow her brow in confusion. She had no idea why he was laughing.

"I guess this means there wasn't any brain damage."

"What?"

"Never mind." He couldn't stop staring at her. Just hours earlier, he was worried that she would never wake up again and there she was, talking to him. "Bones, I…you don't know how long I've been waiting for you to open those beautiful eyes of yours."

He realized what he said as soon as he said it. Of course he had always thought she was beautiful, but he had never said it so easily before. He always said things like, 'you have good facial structure' or he relied on telling her she looked 'nice.' He had to remind himself that even though he was ready and willing to take their relationship to the next level, she had been unconscious and might not be so ready.

He was about to somehow cover up for what he had said when a nurse pushed aside the curtain around Brennan's bed. Totally ignoring Booth, she checked the monitors attached to Brennan.

"Well, I'll be damned," said the nurse.

"What? Is there something wrong?" Booth asked, suddenly distressed. He wasn't sure if he could handle the nurse telling him that there was something wrong. He squeezed Brennan's arm a little tighter.

"Not at all," the nurse replied. The nurse turned to Brennan. "How are you feeling, honey?"

"Why is she calling me honey?" Brennan wondered, the question directed at Booth.

"Just answer the question, Bones."

Brennan thought about how she was feeling. It was strange to actually have to stop and think about something that she should have been able to answer without thinking about. Everything seemed hazy, as if she couldn't see things clearly in her mind.

"I…my head hurts," she finally answered. "I feel…strange. There's…I feel pain. I just…I don't know where it's coming from." She looked at Booth. "Why don't I know?"

He didn't know how to answer. Instead, hearing her made him want to cry. She was still hurting and he felt like he could do nothing about it.

"Well, that's to be expected considering what you've been through," the nurse explained. "Things will become more clear with time. When the monitors at the nurse's station started going off showing normal brain activity in your room, I thought I was seeing things. It's a miracle."

"Miracles aren't real," Brennan stated.

"Oh honey, when you've worked here as long as I have, you start to believe in miracles."

"No. Miracles are not substantiated by science," Brennan argued. "They're simply…"

"I guess we don't have to worry about any brain damage," the nurse said.

"What?" Brennan asked, looking from the nurse to Booth. Things seemed to be getting hazier instead of clearer. She couldn't understand why they kept talking about brain damage. It didn't make any sense.

"I'll get Dr. London," the nurse said. She checked the monitors one more time, jotted down some things on Brennan's chart, and walked out of the room.

"Booth, what's going on?"

There was panic behind her eyes.

"You were injured, Bones. The doctors just want to check you out."

"How did I get here?"

"We don't have to talk about that now."

"Why not?"

He sat down in his chair, but didn't let go of her arm.

"Bones, do you have any idea how unbelievably unreal it is that you're talking to me right now? I mean, just minutes ago, I thought you'd never wake up and now you're talking to me and…and you're…you're you."

"Who else would I be?"

"I don't know. We were afraid that because of your concussion and lack of oxygen… we thought you were brain dead. I thought I'd never really have the chance to talk to you again."

"Obviously I'm not brain dead."

He chuckled at the simplicity of her statement. "No, obviously you're not."

"So tell me how I got here, Booth."

"This conversation can wait, Bones."

"I'd like to know."

Booth sighed. "You don't remember anything?"

She closed her eyes, trying to remember. She had scattered memories floating around in her brain that she couldn't make sense of. It was as if they were pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that needed to be connected together to make a picture.

"You...you found me," she stated as she opened her eyes again.

"I found you," he replied. "I'll always find you. No matter what happens, Bones, I'll always find you."

"How? How did you find me?"

"Look, we don't have to talk about this right now. Let's wait for Dr. London. He'll want to talk to you."

"But I want to talk about it, Booth. I want to make sense of it all. And who's Dr. London?"

"He's your doctor. Bones, you've been through too much already. I mean, I can't even believe that you're talking to me right now. I really don't think..."

"Please," she begged, looking him straight in the eye.

He could hear the neediness in her voice. It reminded him of himself. He had begged and pleaded for Bones to wake up. Now she was pleading with him to tell her what happened to her. He didn't want to tell her. He didn't want to remind her of what terrible things had been done. He would rather never tell her, or he would at least rather have told her when she had more time to heal and process everything that happened. But that wasn't the way she wanted it. And when she looked up at him with those pleading blue eyes, he knew he was going to tell her. He was going to tell her even though every word out of his mouth was going to cause him pain.

"We found you in the basement of the mall," Booth began to explain.

"We?"

"I was working with another agent...Casey Temple. She..."

"She?"

Booth wondered if he heard a hint of jealousy in her voice. The thought that she could possibly be jealous over Booth working with another woman made him want to smile.

"Yeah, she was assigned to your disappearance. We tried everything, Bones." He put his head down, unwilling to look at her. He still felt guilty over not finding her faster. He felt guilty that she was taken at all. "We did everything we could to find you. Cam, Hodgins, Angela...we all tried."

"I know." Bones went to raise her hand to put it on top of his. She gasped as pain shot from her wrist up her arm.

"You're in pain. I should get your doctor."

"No. Tell me what happened, Booth."

He could tell she was fighting through the pain. Her eyes were squeezed shut and her body had become rigid.

"Bones, please..." This time it was him pleading with her. He couldn't stand to see her in pain after all that she had been through. He couldn't stand to see her in pain ever.

She opened her eyes, looking right at him. "Booth," she said sternly. He knew he couldn't resist her. He would always give her whatever she wanted. She may not have had the feminine prowess that Angela had, but just with the sound of her voice, she had him wrapped around her finger and she didn't even know it.

"What's the last thing you remember?" He asked.

"The van. I remember getting into the van. And then...something happened. I remember being thrown from my seat and then...nothing."

"The van was hit by another car," Booth explained. He purposely didn't mention Collin Brown's name. He just wasn't ready to bring it up and he wasn't ready if he was ready to hear it. "When I got to the scene...nobody knew for sure what had happened, but I knew. I knew he...had you."

"You used your gut."

Booth smiled. "Yeah, I used my gut. Angela, Cam, and Hodgins...they did everything they could. They looked at every piece of evidence over and over, but we just didn't have the evidence we needed. Then...I was sent photographs...of a woman. We didn't know for sure that it was you, but..."

"You knew in your gut. I remember...hearing the camera, but I…I couldn't see."

"He had a bag over your head."

"I know."

He saw her close her eyes once again. He wasn't sure if it was because she was remembering or if she was still in pain. Either way, he hated to see it. He ran his thumb down her cheek.

"Bones, we don't have to do this."

"I need to know, Booth. Please."

"We analyzed the pictures, but didn't really find much. Then we found the car that hit the van and we were able to confirm that...he had taken you." Booth stopped. He didn't want to talk about what happened next.

"Booth?"

"That's when I was sent the video."

Bones closed her eyes. She knew about the video. She remembered him setting it up and laughing about how everyone who knew her was going to see it. She remembered thinking that the video was her only chance. She remembered thinking that Booth would be watching it.

"You saw it?" Of course she knew the answer to that question, but she had to ask. She had to know if Booth had seen what he did to her.

"Bones, I..." He was at a loss for words.

"Dr. Brennan." Dr. London walked into the room and stood next to her bedside. "Welcome back."

"Where did I go?" Brennan asked.

"Excuse me?"

"In order for you to say welcome back means that I went somewhere. Since I have in fact not gone anywhere and have been in this hospital bed for two days, the phrase welcome back is inappropriate," Brennan said.

Dr. London looked from Booth, who had an amused look on his face, back to Brennan.

"I'm Dr. London," he said, choosing to ignore Brennan's comments. "How is your pain?"

"Things are making more sense now, but…my...my left wrist hurts."

"We had to put in a metal rod. There was severe damage to both wrists. Let's take a look." Dr. London picked up Brennan's right hand. Booth concentrated on her face. "Can you squeeze my hand?" Wincing, Brennan curled her fingers around his hand. "Does that hurt?"

"A little," Brennan answered although Booth could tell it was more than a little.

"Alright, let's try the other one." Dr. London moved to the other side of the bed. Booth had to stand to get out of his way. He stayed next to her, though. Dr. London took her left hand in his. Immediately her eyes squeezed shut. "Can you squeeze my hand?" Brennan tried to curl her fingers. She took in a deep breath and Booth saw a tear leak from the corner of her eye. He wanted to lean down and kiss it away, but he refrained. She was trying to be strong and he was going to have to let her do what she needed to do. He looked down at her fingers and noticed they had barely moved.

"I...I can't," she said, struggling to speak without crying out.

"Put it down!" Booth exclaimed. "For God's sake, put her hand down! Can't you see she's in pain?"

Dr. London laid her hand down by her side. "Recovery is often a painful process, Mr. Booth," he said. He took the bag that was attached to her IV and looked at it. He pressed a button and medicine shot through the IV line. "This should help with your pain. You may have lost some function in your left wrist. When it's had more time to heal, we'll have you work with a physical therapist to see if we can get that function back."

"I need my hands," Brennan said. "And without my wrists, I can't use my hands. I need my hands."

"I know," Dr. London replied, giving her an encouraging smile. "We're going to do everything we can."

"What other injuries do I have?"

He picked up her chart that was hanging on the edge of her bed. He looked it over quickly.

"You've broken three ribs and..."

"Which ones?"

"Excuse me?"

"Which ribs?"

He turned to look at Booth. "Is she serious?"

"Very," Booth answered.

Dr. London looked back down at his chart. "Three, four, and seven," he answered. "One of your ribs punctured your lung, but we were able to repair it in surgery. You also had a severe concussion and your heart stopped twice, which gave us cause for concern. We weren't sure how long your brain may have been deprived of oxygen, but it looks like there won't be any long term side effects. Your brain seems to be working just fine."

"You can say that again," Booth responded.

"There was some trauma as a result of the rape." Booth looked up at Dr. London sharply. He took an unconscious step away from her bed. He hadn't thought about the r word. He had stricken it from his memory. But there it was, staring him in the face. "But we were able to repair those as well. Our biggest concern now overall is restoring function in your wrist, infection, and of course we'll continue to monitor your brain function."

"When I can I go home?"

"Dr. Brennan, you just woke up from being in a coma for two days as a result of very traumatic injury. You'll be here for a while."

"I'd very much like to go home," she said simply as if she said it nice enough, he would change his mind and let her go home.

"We'll get you home as soon as we can," Dr. London said. "I'm going to have someone bring you for a head CT, but for right now you should rest."

The doctor left the room. Brennan looked over at Booth. He was standing several feet from her bed, his eyes concentrating on the floor. She knew that look very well. It meant something was said made him uncomfortable. She was overcome by an overwhelming need for him to be near her. She wanted to feel his arm on hers. She wanted to feel his lips brushing against her forehead as they had done earlier.

"Booth?" He looked up at her and quickly looked down again. Brennan realized that he wouldn't meet her eyes, but she couldn't figure out why. She lifted her arm up, reaching out for him. "Booth, please."

This time when he looked up, he saw her hand reaching out for him. He immediately was at her side, pulling the plastic chair he had grown to know so well as close to her bed as possible.

"Don't," he said, putting his hand on her arm and guiding it back down to the bed. "You shouldn't move your wrists. I know you're in pain, Bones."

"It's not too bad now. He must have given me morphine."

"Does that mean you're going to get all loopy on me?" He asked, jokingly.

"I suppose that depends on how much he gave me. Morphine does often cause users to act inappropriately," she answered honestly. He shook his head and couldn't help but chuckle. "What?"

"You have no idea how much I've missed you," he said.

Author's Note: Thank you for the amazing, incredible, fantastic reviews from the last chapter. I don't think I've ever been as overwhelmed with kind words as I have been with this last chapter. Now, onto this chapter - I know Brennan talking and asking about what happened might seem a little early since she just woke up, but I felt Brennan's character would want to know immediately what had happened and I needed a way to keep this story interesting and flowing. I apologize if my inconsistencies with medical things makes the story less believable, but I'm no doctor! As always, thanks for reading!