WHEN FLU BUGS BITE by: Arianna Malone

Disclaimer: I have only borrowed the characters Temperance Brennan and Seeley Booth. I do not own either of them. All I did was ask if the three of us could hang out for a while. I'll see to it that they make it home safely to their real owners – Josephson Entertainment and Far Field Productions in association with Twentieth Century Fox Television.

A/N This chapter is completely unnecessary to the story. However, I wanted to add more Hurt/Comfort. It didn't work out as well as I'd hoped. However…please enjoy the final chapter of "When Flu Bugs Bite".

Please see the end of this chapter for an additional Author's Note.

Chapter 5: Be It Ever So Humble, There's No Place Like Home

It was only slightly before six o'clock when Booth pulled his SUV up in front of Brennan's apartment. She was already stirring from her nap that started, more or less, when they had reached the vehicle in the airport parking garage. Without saying anything, Booth left the car and began to pull her bags from the back.

"I think I can manage by myself, now." Brennan offered. The uncertainty in her voice came from the doubt that Booth would let her manage alone. The remainder of the trip home had changed Tempe from appreciating Seeley's care to being irritated by it. The man was the nursemaid from hell…and he was bossy to boot.

Booth snorted in response to her comment and then added, for good measure, "You're not going to get rid of me that easily. Besides, I've seen your apartment before…unless you changed the décor to resemble a brothel, I don't think you have anything to embarrassed of."

Bones shook her head in exasperation, but didn't bother to explain to him that it wasn't that she didn't want him in her apartment…exactly. She was tired of being bossed around, being told what medicine to take when. She wanted to be able to make her own decisions about her health, a right that he had obviously decided to take away from her. Giving up this particular battle…again…she silently led the way into her building.

Once inside, Tempe directed Booth to the living room with a request that he drop the bags there. She then wandered in the direction of the front door, hoping that he would follow after her, that he'd be just as ready to leave as she was to have him gone.

No such luck.

As she was walking down the hallway, she heard the sound of her refrigerator door being opened. Tempe stopped and bowed her head. If she believed in the power of prayer, she'd be praying for patience right now. She then turned and strode back to the kitchen.

"What are you doing?" She demanded.

Booth smiled a little at the tone of her voice. He knew he was getting on her last nerve. He could honestly say that he truly wanted to help. That he was annoying her, just a little bit, was a total bonus.

"I wanted to be sure that you had something to eat and drink."

"Booth," Bones protested.

"And I'm glad I looked, because it appears that you are looking forward to a meal of…oh…sour milk, old Chinese takeout, and," he paused, "you have a choice of old baking soda or a jar of yeast." He looked up at Tempe and asked, "Don't you ever go grocery shopping?"

Temperance Brennan rarely bothered with diplomacy, and at the moment it was truly a struggle to keep the irritation out of her voice.

"Look, Booth, I seriously appreciate everything that you've done for me today. You were," she stopped, looking for the right words, "incredibly kind, and you really," oh, how she hated admitting things like this, "made the trip home easier for me."

Booth straightened up to look Brennan in the eye as she spoke, and she found that her desire to look away was almost uncontrollable…almost. Holding his gaze, she continued.

"Now that I'm home, all I want to do is to crawl into bed. I don't want to play hostess, I don't want to have you hovering over me and trying to anticipate what symptom is going to need attention next. Would you, please, just go home?" When there was no reaction, she added with a hint of desperation, "I'm begging you."

Seeley thought for a moment and then closed the refrigerator door. He took a deep breath and, as seriously as he could, said "Bones, is there any way that we can compromise?"

Her face showed her confusion, but before she could summon up a response, Booth was already walking towards the kitchen table. "Sit down, I want to talk about this."

Bones moved to the chair opposite him as she asked, "What is there to talk about?"

"I noticed today that you're not so good at being sick."

"'Not so good'?" Brennan repeated in disbelief.

"I mean, you made absolutely no move to take care of yourself. Even worse, you didn't tell me what was going on with you. It took me until Chicago – and using my considerable detective skills, I might add – to figure out that you felt like crap, that you had come down with the flu."

Booth's voice rose with the remembered helplessness that he had felt with the uncertainty of how to make things, make Bones, better.

Brennan was shocked into silence. What was there to say? She was stunned with the idea that it would have been okay to tell Booth that she was sick.

Just how did one go about doing that? Would one do it in an off-hand sort of way? "Oh, hey, Booth, I'm glad to see that you made it on time for the flight. By the way, I feel like someone has rammed a red-hot poker down my throat." Surely not.

Booth took another deep breath to calm himself and then continued. "Look, Bones, I know that it's a little thing, and that if you had been traveling alone, you would have managed just fine. You would have been miserable, but you would have made it home more or less in one piece."

Seeley was frustrated with how the words were not coming out right at all.

"What I'm trying to say is that, when I realized how bad you were feeling, I got worried. I'm still worried. I know that you'll be fine, but you're obviously not functioning at a hundred percent." He stopped to make sure that she was paying attention. "I would feel better if I knew that you had things in your home that would fill your basic needs. You know, like food and medication."

Tempe sighed deeply. Booth was over-reacting, and it looked like he wasn't going to stop any time soon.

"What do you want to do?" She asked, tiredly.

Booth thought for a moment. "You really want to go to sleep."

"Yes, I really want to go to sleep." There was a great deal of irritation in her voice as she confirmed his understanding of her one, overwhelming desire.

Ignoring her tone, he continued, "and I would feel better about doing a little bit of shopping for you."

"So…"

"So, if you let me borrow your keys, I can slip out for groceries, slip back in, and leave you to sleep the sleep of the just. I'll feel better knowing that you have supplies, and you will be able to fall into bed." Booth watched as Bones thought about the offer. "Do we have a deal?"

Considering that Temperance knew he wasn't going to back down, there was only one way for her to reply.

"We have a deal." She reached into her pocket, pulled out her ring of keys and offered them to Booth. "I can trust you not to do anything inappropriate with these, right?"

Booth took the offered keys in one hand, while bringing the other hand up to cover his heart. "You wound me. I would never to anything inappropriate…ever." Before she could reply, he changed the subject. "Is there anything I should avoid getting, supply-wise?"

Brennan shook her head, mid-yawn, and then answered "No, not that I can think of."

Booth smiled. "Good. Go to sleep. I'll leave your keys on the kitchen table after I get back."

Tempe heard Seeley return with the groceries. She drifted in and out of sleep to the sound of him emptying bags and putting items away. It could have been minutes or hours later, when she realized there was a presence in her room.

"Practicing your stalking skills?" Tempe asked Booth's hulking shadow.

"I just wanted to check in on you one last time," was the quiet reply.

"I'm fine." She told him, quietly…gently.

The room was still as Tempe began to slide back into sleep. Drowsily, she felt the gentle tug and pull as her blankets were straightened around her.

I think Booth is tucking me in, was her last coherent thought of the night.

What she didn't hear, before Booth finally crept out of her room, was how he bid her good night. There was a whisper of a kiss on her temple and a murmur of "Pleasant dreams, Tempe."

The End, for now.

A/N Oy! That last chapter was a bugger to write!

And now, dear readers, I want to say thank you to everyone who left feedback for me. Not only does it mean a lot to hear that people enjoyed this little escape from reality, but I also received some comments that will really help me make choices when I write my next stories.

I am going to continue this story under the title "Bad Decisions and the Blues". I've been asked to expand the h/c aspect of Brennan's bout of the flu…and since I'm pretty easy (ask my cat, there's a reason that he's 17 pounds of pure feline lovin'), I'm going to do what I can. This is my warning for all of you…I expect that the continuing saga will be…um…a little further from the realm of reality. I'll do my best to keep it real, but you will probably have to suspend your disbelief even more than you did for this one.

Thank you!