Angst alert and looky here! It's not a one shot! Just something bouncing around in my yet again sleep deprived head. All mistakes are mine, Booth and Brennan are not.

Unexpected Variables

He really didn't care how unprofessional it looked.

He really didn't care how unprofessional it was.

All he cared about was her and that she was alive in his arms. It had been way too close this time.

They stood at the crime scene, physically wrapped up in each other and he was fairly sure he wasn't ever going to let her go. The scene was supposed to be secure. Clearly, it was not.

His breath shuddered and his heartbeat began pounding harder both in his ears and his ribcage when he caught another look at her bag, the one with the bullet hole in it, and he realized just how close it had really been.

She realized it, too. "Don't, Booth. I'm okay. I'm right here." She soothed. She'd nearly been caught in a spray of bullets and she was trying to calm him. Their dynamic was one few people would understand.

"By the grace of God." he whispered into her hair.

"Because of my laptop." Ever practical, his Bones. "The bullet hit my bag, my computer stopped the bullet. I'm okay." But she made no move to disentangle herself from his embrace.

"It was too close, Baby." His voice was raw under the weight of his feelings.

"I know." This time it was she who strengthened her hold, her voice cracking a little.

"No more. No more field work. No more crime scenes. Please, Bones. Please."

She nodded into his shoulder. "Okay." Her willingness to give in spoke volumes about how much it frightened her, too. "Okay." She said again, her fingers stroking the hair at the nape of his neck.

He loosened one hand and began to run it over her body, starting at the top of the back her head, down her neck, to the top of her back, letting the ends of her hair trail out from under his fingertips. Reverently, slowly, almost like he was counting her vertebrae, he skimmed his palm down past her shoulder blades, to the space at the small of her back, his space and drew her in even closer. He just needed to be sure she was still there with him.

"Booth?" she lifted her head to whisper directly into his ear. "It's alright now. I'm fine. The baby is fine. We are fine. It's time to work." She needed him to regroup so she could, too.

"Yeah. Okay." He took a deep breath and let it out shakily. He kissed her hair, just above her ear and, against every instinct he had, he let her step out of his arms.

It was only when she stepped back and tried to shake it off that she realized that while she was okay, he was not.

A blood red stain was crawling it's way up his shirt and the last thing he heard before he blacked out was her screaming his name as he fell to the ground.

~Thanks for reading. I appreciate your reviews.