Author's Note: This one's considerably denser than its fairy-tale predecessor, but considering how supportive everyone here was, I wanted to give it a shot despite being content with part 1 staying a standalone. So, thank all of you, really, for being supportive of my first Bones fic, and I hope this one doesn't let you down!
The weight of the world was not entirely stranger to Seeley Booth, but once it became a literal, physical crushing force he could have held it off forever. The alternative would have destroyed him far more completely than the bricks crashing down on his back, forcing him down. The deafening explosion, the acrid smell of fire and the searing pain of each brick making its mark on him was nothing compared to the icy chill of the form he was shielding, the wet rasp of breath he had to strain to hear.
Even had he been physically capable of throwing off the weight of the bricks in time to reach out and grab the two figures he heard and felt running over the pile of rubble that was once Gormogon's lair and now the early tomb of himself and his partner, he was incapable of taking that risk for Bones.
She'd once blown a hole up through the earth fueled by her intelligence and her will to survive—and he'd loved her for that strength. He didn't have the tools to make himself impromptu explosives, but he'd the same determination. As the weight steadied, the cascade ceasing, he braced his hands as best he could at either side of her limp form, hands slipping on the pool of satin and blood, under the shifting weight, until he had purchase enough to force his upper body upwards in a cramped, stunted push-up, shifting some of the weight off of them to tumble down the pile.
He felt rather than saw the corner of brick tumble down and strike a blow at Bones' temple below him. With renewed determination he began again, more carefully, doing his best to keep himself from crushing down on her again.
He couldn't hear her breathing any more, even when he held his ragged pants and listened. As security and the team finished helping dig them out, he gathered her and managed to half carry, half drag her onto the asphalt of the service drive just beyond the rubble, laying her out along melted slush and tire tracks. Hands cupping ashen cheeks, tilting her head back, he pressed his mouth to blue-tinged lips, forcing her chest to rise with breath, again and again, ignoring the wet hiss of air gurgling through the blood of the knife wound as he struggled to bring her back to life.
"Zach, your gloves. Now." He'd heard the faint gasp of her breathing on her own, but she was still deathly pale on the snow, like a gothic painting of black and silver fabric flared across white backdrop, hair and blood and her New Years dress the only definition between his partner and the numbing cold, painted in vivid colors as the sky mockingly lit with fireworks heralding the new year. As Zach fumbled into the pockets of the navy blue lab coat he'd instinctively thrown on over the ridiculous red suit, Booth fumbled with the tear the knife had placed in her dress, until Hodgins dropped to his knees beside him in the snow, catching the hint and providing the dexterity Booth's bruised and freezing hands couldn't manage, ripping the hole larger, showing them the blood-slicked wound frothing with Brennan's faint gasps at breath.
As Zach shoved the gloves down at him, Booth threw the spare aside impatiently, and fumbled the sterilized latex into place over the wound, meeting Cam's gaze in surprise as she offered him an open pocket knife, taking his place beside Brennan's head, monitoring her breathing, her pulse. "You know how to make a flutter valve?"
"Bones told me. Right after she was stabbed." Somehow, the declaration surprised none of the gathering as they surrounded the heart of their troupe, bleeding into the snow. As security waved the ambulance into place, it was their squints, all entirely accustomed to death, whose force of will kept her alive.
It wasn't until her gurney was rushed out of the ambulance that he began to feel the pain of his own injuries, fending off the EMTs until Angela's strained, reasoning tone and the doctor's adamant rebuffing of his attempts to step into the surgical room finally reached him.
He spent the first night in the hospital by her side, in a borrowed t-shirt and the tuxedo pants caked with her drying blood, listening to the steady pulse of the heart monitor and hiss of her oxygen, and the television at the nurses' station prattling on as the New Year stretched west, each city's celebration a mockery.
"Bren, you need to stop moving around and just let the doctors do their thing." Angela Montenegro's reputation as a party girl was day by day being further damaged by the levelheaded, reasoning tone of voice she had to adopt to herd around the bull headedly stubborn individualists she'd surrounded herself with. In the past four days, since their run-in with Gormogon, they had all proven completely impossible to be around, unless she was directing them with all airs of a kindergarten teacher.
Despite being conscious for just over three hours after her near-death, her best friend was likely the worst of them all, and had been from the moment she'd broken the embrace Angela had witnessed from the wide hospital door. She was starting to think she should have just let the Jeffersonian team rush the room during the kiss—at least then maybe embarrassment would have won out and made her more manageable.
Made both of them more manageable. Booth was prowling the hall just outside of the room, cellular phone held to his ear and his shoulder holster and gun deliberately left visible over the t-shirt Jack had given him. Between the blatant threat of the gun and the hard planes of muscle clearly defined beneath the too-small t-shirt, the death glare he was fixing on visitors and doctors alike trying to move into Brennan's room was even more intimidating that it would have usually been.
Apparently he'd decided that any of them could be Gormogon coming back for another crack at Brennan. Who looked as if she was going to try and bite the doctors herself, given time… after she questioned them about the contents of each IV bag, every medication.
Patience could only last so long. "Look, sweetie, if you don't sit still and shut up I am going to crack you over the head myself and accept the consequences that would come from Booth for taking a shot at "his" girl. We deal with dead people. They deal with living people. Right now, thankfully, you're in their territory and not ours. "
Folding her hands atop the cream-colored paper of her drawing pad, she watched the desired effects unfold transparently across Brennan's face, cycling through immediate kneejerk defense, surprise at being firmly put in her place, general disbelief, and finally the faintly flush-cheeked acknowledgement of the very specific wording, and awareness that they had an audience.
"You wouldn't hit me. You know I have a head injury, and you wouldn't risk it. And meanwhile, I've seen you hit." Trust Brennan to be painfully literal, though she still clearly got the general gist, grudgingly nodding for the harried doctor beside her to carry on.
"He saved your life, you know." When the doctor looked up, pleased, Angela flicked her fingers at him slightly without looking away from Brennan, who'd shot him a questioning look, before turning back to her friend's single-minded off topicness. "Not him, though sure, he helped. Booth. He saved your life. You looked dead, Bren. You were dead. And he wasn't much better. He's lucky it was just ribs and his shoulder, the bricks could have broken his back, and done more than batter the hell out of him. He just wouldn't give up. How many times is this?"
"We're partners, Ange. That's what partners do."
"Yeah, and what else do partners do?" There was no questioning, even for Brennan, what the implication was behind Angela's pointed look between her, and the man pacing in the hall, obviously snapping into the phone. "Y'know, if you don't want to talk about it, that's okay. I'll let it go on account of just being so relieved you're alive. But you are going to have to talk about it sometime."
The snap of the phone being closed and sound of footsteps into the room. "Talk about what? What're we talking about?" Booth's timely arrival spared Brennan a response, as she shot a pleading look to Angela, who picked up the response naturally, holding up the empty sketch pad. "Pumping her for information." She reveled in the pointed double entendre, watching Booth, before dropping the paper back into her lap. "About her attacker. Anything she remembers. . ."
"And I don't. Nothing useful anyway. It was dark." Her response was far too quick, words almost running over each other despite the staccato nature of her statements.
"It was dark." Booth agreed readily, watching Angela warily, considering her expression for a moment before moving back to his place beside the bed with a warning look once again at the doctor as he slunk out. "I kept them from taking us off the case."
"They were going to take us off the case? Why were they going to take us off the case?" Brennan sounded as if someone had given her a low score on an exam, or questioned her abilities. The sheer naivety of it made Angela want to hug her. Or sigh.
"Because he blew you up? Because he's obviously watching both of you? Because you died and he could have? Just guesses." Faced with the hostile looks pointed her direction, Angela raised both hands in surrender and shook her head, giving up. "Just suggestions. I personally think you should both get out of here and take a nice hot shower, but obviously you don't agree and neither do Zach, Cam and Jack, who are all back at the lab working through anything we can find from the scene. So we're still on the case." Rising to her feet and tucking the paper under her arm and her pencil behind her ear, she reached down to take Brennan's hand, squeezing it reassuringly to smooth over her response.
"We figured you'd want in, though, so Zach should be bringing your laptop over when the doctors say it's okay for you to start fidgeting. I'll have him bring you over some clothes if you promise to clean up, too, Booth. You smell like hell, brimstone and all."
"Do you need my keys to get some clothes?"
"Mm. No, I think I've got you pretty well sized up, Booth. You, rest. And you, take care of Sleeping Beauty here." Content with the damage done, she winked and wandered out of the door, leaving the other two with nothing but to stare at her back
"What's gotten into her?" Clearing his throat in the silence following, Booth instinctively reached up to straighten his tie before dropping his hands back to his sides upon finding only a t-shirt collar, instead sprawling gingerly in the chair that had for days been his home and folding his hands across his gold "dress up" belt buckle. A few days gone and if anything the bruises looked and felt worse—he was glad that he'd been able to set things up over the phone rather than deal with the Bureau questioning whether he was fit for duty.
"She's determined that because of your admittedly unorthodox resuscitation methods that we're either engaged in a sexual relationship or should be." Her frank, and highly characteristic straightforward answer had him spluttering, pushing himself back up in his chair and staring back at the now-empty doorway, then to his partner. It made it rather difficult to frame a response when denial clearly wasn't an option, and she was being analytical and likely going to launch into the anthropological response.
"Don't look at me, this is clearly your fault. She didn't need the encouragement. Next time make sure we're alone in the room before kissing me."
Suddenly, he relaxed, sprawling back into the chair again, one eyebrow arched as his lips twisted into a smug one-sided smirk. "Next time, Bones?" Now she'd stumbled into his territory. Doctor Freud, curse him though he might himself, was most certainly her archenemy far more than his. What Sweets or Gordon, Gordon Wyatt would say about this was another matter—but for now, he had the upper hand and knew it.
"That's not what I. . . I simply mean that if you're going to do anything that could be misconstrued as. . ." Leaning forward, he watched her eyes widen as she cut off with his nearness, before he pressed an unnecessary fingertip to her parted lips to stop her, Cheshire grin entirely too amused.
"Completely sexless. Really. Just as much as last time." And with that dubious reassurance he settled in to wait for the case to be brought to them.