Anesthesia
Another fic dealing with the finale.
Thanks to Hannah and parlai for the help!
The dizziness he felt and the extreme brilliance of the room behind his eyelids were the very first things he perceived. He made an effort not to move so as to avoid vomiting what he knew he didn't have in his stomach, contracting muscles he realized felt terribly sore.
His thoughts, distorted into a foggy mass of disconnection, gave him the impression that maybe if he focused on something else the sensation of being about to puke bile, saliva and acids would diminish and, hopefully, go away. Perhaps if he gave his full attention to his breathing the sensation would disappear.
A thread of coherence made its way through his divided perceptions, and he wondered how people that had woken up to what he just had could ever imagine they were dead only from the strong white light surrounding them. His body felt so... abused he had no doubt he had to be alive.
Alive. That concept triggered something inside him. All of a sudden and without a warning, memories that looked as if seen on a screen flowed through him. Images of him and a woman-his wife-Bren-everything-leading a life that for some vague reason was unique; things shared he felt that were special to his life but... how? He knew he loved that woman, how important she was to him, but there was something amiss. Something that didn't fit between that life and what he was.
He heard a grumble but didn't recognize it as his.
His body still felt unbalanced, and reality was still confusing.
“That was a weird dream,” he said. It had been a dream, then, right? Had to be. But...
There she was, the woman of his dreams. Literally?
She was saying something, but he couldn't make sense of her words. He saw her face full of emotion-she had to be his wife-or was that only a part of the dream? He just couldn't say what was going on. It was hard to even focus on her, but he felt attracted to her face. It was the same face of his dream... but was it a dream?
“It felt so real,” he heard himself say as if trying out the boundaries of what was his imagination and what wasn't.
“It wasn't real,” she replied, and this time he understood.
Bones. She was Bones, but-
His wife? Bren?
“Who are you?”
He saw her eyes change, her expression now filled with hurt where it had been full of thankfulness and hope only seconds before. He felt her breath on his skin as it left her, and wondered if it had been his question the one to make her feel this way.
But he had had to ask. If all he knew for sure was that that woman was one of the most important parts of his life, whatever his life was, then he could only hope she'd knew where the missing pieces were. How they both fit together... for even if he felt confused and lost, he had a certainty.
No matter what the rest of the puzzle was, they were the center. Together.