A/N: If you like the way EitB ended, raise your hand. Yeah. Me neither. This is based on what Hart Hanson said about Booth's "amnesia" when he was up to his ears with damage control. Special thanks to my daughter (who didn't want it to end) and to Bohemian Fling for her awesome beta skills. This is Post-ep, fluff and angst, and will undoubtedly be AU once season five gets underway.

Part One

Booth blinked, trying desperately to hold on to the high of hearing that he was going to be a father. The light in Bren's eyes when she'd told him . . . that was something he would take with him to his grave. He'd made a vow, right then and there, to never let that happiness fade, no matter the cost.

It *was* fading, though, and he struggled, reaching for it with outstretched hands, trying to maintain his hold. He noticed, too, that the harder it was to hold on to that feeling, the more his head hurt. The lights were too bright.

He let out a breath, a groan, as bits and pieces of two lives started to collide. Was it all a dream? "Such a weird dream," he said, his voice sounding foreign to his own ears. That was when he heard her, saw her face.

"Booth," she sighed, standing over him, her hands on his arm. She was still talking but he wasn't following what she was saying.

"So real," he said, as she continued on, saying something about surgery and a coma.

Who was she? Two lives collided and intersected.

"It felt so real."

Was she a friend or a lover? A partner or a wife?

"Who are you?" he whispered aloud, instantly regretting his words when she gasped and her face crumpled in confusion.

"Bren?" a woman's voice echoed in the room, allowing him a momentary reprieve, time to try and figure things out.

Bren sucked in a breath and stood up. He turned his eyes to the woman standing in the doorway. He knew her. Angela.

"He's awake?" she whispered, a smile lighting her face.

Bren nodded. "Yes, he just woke up. Could you get the doctor, please?"

Angela nodded and quickly hurried down the corridor, leaving them alone, again.

"Bren," he repeated, and she turned her attention back to him, but before he could speak, another voice interrupted.

"Dr. Brennan. Angela says Agent Booth is awake?"

Dr. Brennan. Agent Booth. Bones. Not Bren. Not his wife. His partner. Puzzle pieces were quickly snapping into place, leaving him dizzy and disoriented.

"Yes," she replied, "but he seems a little confused." His eyes never left her, and he clearly saw her features shift as she buried the sadness and masked it in cloak of professionalism. "I'm sure it's an after-effect of the anesthetic. The latest brain scans showed no signs of swelling, so I'm not concerned about pressure or damage."

His eyes drifted to the man standing in the doorway. "Sweets," he croaked. At the sound of his name, a wide grin broke out on the man's face. "You look like hell."

Still smiling broadly, the young man took a step into the room. "It's good to see you awake, Agent Booth."

Booth licked his lips and lifted his right hand, lifting his partner's hand in the process. "Please tell me you didn't let her stay here."

Sweets glanced up at Brennan and shrugged. "I think you know as well as I do that no one *let's* Dr. Brennan do anything."

Booth nodded and squeezed her fingers. She gently squeezed his in return.

Just then the doctor walked in, shooed everyone out, and the recovery began.

The only way she was able to get him released from the hospital was to push her weight around. It didn't hurt that she knew a couple of the hospital's board members and was able to call in a few favors. She felt that he would recover faster in more comfortable surroundings and presented it to him as such, one week after he had opened his eyes.

"But someone will need to stay with you to keep an eye on you for the first week or two," she was explaining. "You really should be under inpatient observation for another week, but I think you're progressing nicely, and getting into more familiar surroundings can only help."

They hadn't talked about his initial confusion when he woke up. She didn't want to know why, for a just moment, he seemed to not know who she was. She also didn't want to talk about the four days when she sat by his bedside, watching him sleep, willing him to wake up, thinking thoughts that she would rather not ever see the light of day.

"I appreciate it, Bones." He was sitting up, the hospital bed inclined, his eyes clear and alert.

"I know how much you don't like hospitals," she continued with a shrug. When he didn't say anything in response, she said, "I've made some calls and have found a couple of exceptionally qualified live-in nurses who can stay with you for the first week or longer if you need them." She reached into her bag and pulled out a file folder. "I brought their resumes in for you to look over so you can make the final decision."

"What about you?"

A simple question, really, and she paused, considering her answer. Of course she had thought about staying with him. She simply didn't trust anyone else to take care of him properly while he was recovering, but she wasn't about to make that suggestion. "Me?" she asked, trying sound as neutral as possible.

"There's no one I trust more," he said, matter-of-factly.

She smiled at that and put the folder back in her bag. "You think I'll let you get away with more than a professional nurse will," she teased.

"You? Never." He winked at her and smiled that smile of his that made him appear to be a playful little boy. "Besides," he continued, reaching for the pudding cup on his lunch tray, "you already know about most of my bad habits, so I won't have to be on my best behavior."

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Fine," she said, as if she was conceding a point and letting him get his way. She hoped that he couldn't tell that, really, inside, she was dizzy with relief.

Three days later, they were sitting on the couch. He was flipping channels on the television, and she was typing something on her laptop. He figured she was trying to work on her next novel, because she had that look on her face, sort of a cross between concentration and confusion, like she was in shock.

The knock at the door startled them both, but she quickly recovered, saving and closing her file and setting her laptop on the coffee table before getting up to answer the door. He grinned at her transparent attempt to keep him from reading her work and he wondered, for a moment, what she was writing about.

He heard a man's voice from the foyer and recognized it as Sweets' a moment before he walked into the room, a step behind Bones.

"Sweets," he said by way of greeting.

"Agent Booth," the man replied. "How are you feeling?"

"Better every day," Booth replied.

Brennan spoke up then. "Dr. Sweets stopped by to visit for a little bit so, if you don't mind, I think I'm going to run to the store. You're low on a few things, and I know Dr. Sweets will be able to handle . . ." she trailed off, hesitant to finish her thought.

"He won't let me hurt myself," Booth offered and smiled. "It's okay, Bones. Go ahead. I promise I won't do anything crazy while you're gone."

"I wasn't implying that . . .," she began but stopped when Booth raised a hand.

"I wasn't implying that you were," he said. "I was teasing. Go. You need a break."

She smiled and nodded. "I won't be long," she said to Sweets, then, "Is there anything special you want?" to Booth.

A million thoughts went through his head, none of them appropriate to the situation, so he settled on, "Orange juice? The pulpy kind."

She nodded, picked up her purse and keys, and was gone.

"Well," Sweets said, as he settled himself in the armchair opposite from Booth.

Booth raised his eyebrows, waiting for the young man to continue. When he didn't, Booth settled back into the cushions and turned off the television. "Can I talk to you, off the record?"

Sweets seemed taken aback by the question, and it took him a second to respond. "Um . . . sure."

"I mean it," Booth continued. "This is completely off the record. None of this ends up in some report, and you sure as hell don't tell Bones." He glared at the young man and hoped that he was still able to pull off menacing with a shaved and bandaged head.

Sweets swallowed but nodded. "Absolutely. This is between you and me. It won't leave this room."

Booth nodded but hesitated. He wasn't quite sure where to begin. He hadn't been planning on saying anything to the psychologist, ever, but the opportunity had presented itself and who was he to question fate?

"I had this incredibly vivid dream while I was out," he began. "And before you start in with Jungian or Freudian theories and symbolism, I do know that dreams are sometimes just dreams." Off of Sweets' look, Booth rolled his eyes and said, "Don't look so surprised. I read."

Sweets nodded and said, "Go ahead."

"This dream, it was so . . . real. So much so that I wasn't sure when I woke up if I was still dreaming." Booth paused, but Sweets was quiet, waiting for him to continue. "Everyone was in this dream. You, Bones, all the Squints. Except everyone was different."

"How were you different?" Sweets asked, seemingly pleased that he'd been included in 'everyone.'

Booth chuckled. "I was the owner of a night club called The Lab. Co-owner, really."

"Dr. Brennan was your partner," Sweets said, drawing conclusions, Booth knew, from reality.

"She was my wife," Booth corrected. He looked up at Sweets to find him smiling.

"Does this bother you?" Sweets asked. He was leaning forward in his seat, his elbows resting on his knees, fingertips touching.

Booth thought about it for a moment. "No," he answered, after he realized that now was the time for complete honesty, if ever there was one. "It was . . . it was great." On this admission, he felt relief, as if keeping these feelings inside were weighing down his soul. "The thing is . . . I keep having the dream, almost every night since I woke up. And I've slipped a few times and almost called Bones 'Bren'."

"Bren?" Sweets smiled. "I don't think that's too unusual. Angela calls her Bren all the time."

"I *never* call her Bren." Booth sighed. "Except once, when I woke up and I thought she was my wife. There were a few minutes there, when I was just coming out from under and everything was foggy, you know?" Sweets nodded. "I was confused. I asked her who she was."

"Oh."

Booth looked up to see the concern on the psychologist's face. "What?"

"Have you explained that to her?"

"How?" Booth asked. "How do I tell her that it wasn't that I didn't know who she was - I didn't know what . . . version . . . of her she was? That opens up a whole new level of 'I do not want to go there,' you know what I mean?"

Sweets nodded. "I can see your point, but . . . look, this is me talking here. Guy to guy." Booth rolled his eyes, which Sweets, as usual, ignored. "She cares about you."

"Of course she does," Booth interrupted. "We're partners."

"You're a hell of a lot more than partners," Sweets gently contradicted. "If you were partnered with, say, Agent Brockton, would you have stayed by his bedside for four days straight, waiting for him to wake up?"

Booth considered this and had to concede. "No, but I would do it for Bones."

"Right," Sweets said. "And she did that for you. And she's here now. What you two have goes so much deeper than a partnership or a friendship. You have a connection. A deep connection. Your subconscious knows this and, I think, so do you."

Booth mulled over Sweets' words. He was right. If it had been Bones in his place, it would have taken an army to get him to leave her side. He couldn't say the same about anyone else he'd ever been partnered with.

"What do I do?" he asked.

The front door opened before Sweets could answer. Booth looked at his watch, surprised at how quickly the time seemed to have passed. Off of his warning glare, the subject was quickly dropped and the young man jumped up to help Bones with the groceries, leaving Booth alone to think.