Disclaimer - Bones and all its lovely characters belong to someone else

A/N - Sorry for the delay (again) and that this chapter is not exactly designed to advance the plot but sometimes the mind is in the gutter ;-)

Their progress back to Booth's room was slow. And silent.

Neither spoke.

Booth was acutely conscious of how heavily he was leaning on Bones, but it didn't matter how much his head was yelling at his body to suck it up and make his way back under his own steam; his body simply wasn't able to co-operate.

He was also very aware of the worried, sideways looks that Bones kept shooting him, her grip tightening almost imperceptibly each time she looked at him.

He suspected her silence was only temporary. He wasn't looking forward to the angry lecture. Or witnessing the jagged worry that would so obviously lie beneath her anger. She might look beautiful when she was all riled up but he hated it when he could see that fear in her eyes, the fear that someone was about to leave her.

The tiled surface of the corridor was slick with water and more than once Bones found herself starting to slide while trying to balance Booth's unfamiliar weight.

She concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other and guiding him carefully back to his room.

She tried not to think about what might have happened.

She tried not to see the grievously wounded agents with blood washing around them on the tiles.

And she refused to acknowledge the image of Booth lying alongside them.

She reached for her anger, dimly recognising it as a shield against a fear that had paled her face to the same greyish pallor as Booth and still prickled her skin with gooseflesh, but she couldn't feel anything beyond that yawning horror that she might have lost him again.

Booth blinked when he found himself outside the familiar door to his room. The memory of the latter part of the journey entirely eluded him.

He tugged the handle and made his way into the room, his hospital bed suddenly looking infinitely attractive.

He halted, surprised when Bones' didn't release him to let him clamber onto the bed.

A concerned glance showed tears brimming in her eyes once again.

Booth cupped her cheek with his good hand and then leant forward until their foreheads were touching.

Neither spoke and they stood together, each breath slowly easing the tension in Bones' slight frame.

"You need to get out of those wet clothes." She observed suddenly, her eyes narrowing when a particularly violent shivering fit wracked Booth.

Booth looked at her dumbly as her gaze swept the room.

"Where have you put your clothes?" She asked, worried impatience tingeing her voice.

He nodded his head in the direction of a small closet and then was left, propped up carefully against the bed and dripping water on the floor as she walked away.

After a brief rummage, Bones pulled out a dry pair of sweat pants and a soft, fleecy shirt. Turning back to Booth, she picked up the towel that was hooked over a rail next to the washbasin.

There was a pause as they stood facing one and other, Bones holding out the dry clothes for him to take and Booth swaying slightly as he stared at her.

"You need to... er.... strip?" She said tentatively.

Booth nodded slowly, then grimaced as he moved to untie his pants, his shoulder refusing to allow him to untie the drawstring.

Their eyes caught again, awkwardly.

"Umm.. maybe... a little help here?" Booth asked quietly.

Bones' eyes widened but she stepped closer.

Halting directly in front of Booth, only inches apart, she looked up into his dark, pain-filled eyes and down at the drawstring.

Biting her lip and raising her eyebrow quizzically she struggled for the right way to ask permission, her hands knotted in front of her.

Booth's expression didn't change, but she inhaled sharply as she felt his right hand touch both of hers and guide them towards his waistband.

She worried her lip as her fingers, normally so nimble and precise, pulled ineffectually at the ties.

Eventually they came loose and, taking another breath, she hooked her thumbs inside the waistband and slowly pulled the pants over Booth's hips, trying desperately not register the electric feel of his skin.

She stared fixedly at the floor as as she worked the sodden fabric over his thighs, grateful that his shirt protected his modesty but making sure that she stared fixedly at the floor just in case.

Booth's breathing had stopped entirely as he looked down on the top of Bones' head as she eased his pants, and herself, down his body.

It was an image to bring a thousand fantasies parading through his head and led to a response in his body which he could scarcely credit given that he could barely stand.

He tried to distract himself by closing his eyes and thinking of all manner of unpleasant thoughts, praying that she wouldn't notice it and trying to will it away.

Once the pants were around his ankles, Booth was able to step out of them while leaning on Bones for balance. Then he stuck his feet into the legs of the dry pair that Bones held out to him, standing rigid as she pulled them up.

Feeling uncomfortably warm and unable to find her usual clinical detachment, Bones patted his hips lightly, and distractedly, as the pants settled into place.

Their gazes met and they both recognised the blush on their cheeks and the glittering but embarrassed excitement in their eyes.

Booth swallowed, unable to break eye contact, as Bones stepped even closer, her breath warm on his neck as she slowly eased the soaking shirt off his shoulders.

She paused for a moment, her eyes darting all over his face before raking down his heavily bandaged chest.

Then she pulled the shirt off the other shoulder and there was no way he could mistake the intimate way her fingers caressed the skin down his arm.

As the shirt fell to the floor discarded, the hand that had been resting on her for support tangled in her hair, his wrist lying flat against the back of his neck, and he pulled her against him, their lips meeting in ecstatic passion and in stark contrast to the exaggerated care with which every other part of their bodies touched.