Hey guys, I've never uploaded anything before so please be gentle.

Lily is also my OC but everything else I borrowed from the TV show Bones.

"Hey," Angie said in her usual chipper mood as she slid up next to me. "You seen the squint today?"

"Nigel-Murray? What do you mean? Of course I've seen him today I can't not see him. We work together. We all do."

"He can't take his eyes off you today. There is no way you can tell me you haven't seen that!"

"I'm not blind."

"So spill it! What's up with him! Why will he not talk to you yet he's looking at you every second?"

"You think I know?" I sighed putting what I was doing down on her table. "He's had this look in his eyes all day…like he's wanted to talk to me, you know?" She nodded excitedly in agreement. "There's something on his mind, that I can see in his eyes, and I feel he's not trying to avoid me but like he's just trying to find the way to ask something or trying to build up the courage or…I don't know! You should understand what I'm saying, what I'm going through. Don't take offense but doesn't this happen to you a lot?"

"Yes, it has but never this long. They would have caved by this point. I'm sorry. I'll go see if I can weasel anything out of the little Britt."

"What?! No! You can't!" I hissed when she skipped toward the door.

My eyes shot up from her to Vincent standing at the table who was looking right back at me as he had been all day. I smiled at him giving him a slight wave but there was no response from him. He just looked back down at the table and patted his coat pocket like there was a mouse in it that was trying to crawl out.

He hardly met Angie's eyes when they spoke, yet every time he did look up from his work he always cast me a sideways glance before and after making eye contact with Angie occasionally tapping his pocket.

Angie came back and told me that she had nothing to report on the current situation, only that she hoped it would undo itself in time. She did say that he didn't give her a completely random fact when they spoke so that had been a little weird.

Work continued and the vibe Vincent was giving off was beginning to spread like wild fire and everyone was beginning to feel the change that had gone through him that day and after the vibe had passed through lunch.

I took a deep breath and Angie gave me an encouraging pat on the back as I walked out the door over to the lab in the middle of the room.

"Oh, Lily. Hello," Vincent said nervously as I walked up to the table.

"Vincent, I-"

"Did you know that the CIA once…" he inhaled sharply, "…spent $20 million on a cat equipped with gear to spy on the Soviets, but on the way to the Soviet's hideout it was hit by a taxi."

I found the fact amusing and desired to laugh but I feared that if I did I would never ask him what was going on. "Look, I want-"

He dropped the tools in his hand causing a loud clatter on the table. "I have to ask you something. It's been on my mind all day." His hand dropped to pat his pocket once more.

"Bones, what have you got for me?"

"Nigel-Murray found something interesting over here, Booth."

Was it going to be impossible for me to speak to him? Then as if in answer to my question a teeth crushing scream ripped through the air with the shattering window. Vincent grabbed my shoulders and threw me to the floor that same time Booth grabbed him and dove down.

Once hell seemed to freeze over for a moment everyone on the floor began to realize that the shooter was no longer shooting and we were safe to get back to our feet once more.

"Is everyone ok?" Bones asked.

"Yeah," Booth told her patting Vincent on the shoulder. "We're all good."

"Good."

I smiled at Vincent who was still on the floor but that smile fell when I saw what was on the floor beneath him.

"Vincent!" I shrieked crawling across the floor to him where he was paralyzed in a puddle of his own blood gasping for breath. "Stay with me. Stay with me, please." I begged as I ripped my jacket off and pressed it down on the open wound on his chest as the blood spilled the very life from his body.

"Please," he begged looking at Bones. "Don't make me leave. Don't make me leave. I don't want to leave."

"Don't say anything."

Booth threw his hands down forcefully over mine in an attempt to stop the bleeding that would not stop.

"I love it here." Vincent reached up to take my face in his hand. "I love being with you, Lily."

Tears spilled down my cheeks. "Vincent, I love being with you too. Please. Keep your eyes on me. Keep them on my and everything will be alright. Everything will be fine."

"I d-don't…want to leave you."

"You never have to because you will always be right here, right next to me."

"Lily-"

"Don't speak!" Booth commanded him.

"Lily...will you..."

His other hand reached for his pocket but there was no strength left to remove what was in it before I understood the look in his eyes. He longed for me to give him something he was unable to ask for. Something only I could give him that he knew he wanted. Like a last request, but I pushed that last thought from my head when I leaned in to kiss him.

That was the single longest kiss we ever shared and when I pulled away from him I knew it was the last.

"Vincent?" I took my hands from his chest and took his face. "Look at me, please. Don't leave me. Don't leave me here! Come back! Come back! Don't leave me like this!"

Releasing his face I grabbed his shoulders and shook him in a gentle awaken fashion. Could he just be asleep? "Please. Wake up. You can't leave me here alone like this. Vincent!"

He was never again I going to hear him tell me a useless fact. Never again was he going to smile at me when I checked into the lab. I was never going to hear that British accent from across the lab again. Never again was I going to hear that laugh that came from his stomach when he was really laughing. He was gone. Forever. Never coming back.

Booth detached me from the lifeless figure laying on the cold ground for fear I would do something rash. "Let me go! Let me go! Vincent!"

My screams were the only sound in the entire Jeffersonian.

Hours after the body had been removed from view someone opened the door but everyone else filed in the room.

"Lily," Bones whispered placing her hand on my shoulder. "We have something for you."

"At least we assume it's for you."

"Thanks, Hodge," Booth retorted. "What he means to say is that it's from Nigel-Murray for you."

"You're the only person who would benefit having it," Cam added.

"We all agreed," Angie said around the knot in her throat. "That it was better for you to get this now from us than to find out on your own later." In the palm of her outstretched hand was a tiny box smeared with blood.

Even before I opened it I knew what it was and Angie had too. Inside sat a small golden band with the brightest diamond I had ever seen. It was simple but it's meaning was not.

This explained everything. This was why Vincent had been looking at me all day and why he had been stroking his pocket every other minute. He was making sure the ring was still there. He was going to ask me to marry him today.

He never got to hear my answer even though he already knew it. That's what he was asking. I thought interpreted as wanting a kiss was in fact an effort to become engaged before he died.

I removed the ring from the tiny blood covered box and slid it onto my finger. Sobs are what filled my ears from the other people in the room. They were stunned at how much I clung to the limp form of someone that used to be regardless of the attachment they felt towards it too.

"I do."