This is the most depressing story I've ever written, I felt I needed to throw this out there and wanted to try my hand at angst and see if I could make you guys cry, since I'm practically crying here as I write it…
The open casket lay there. The thick makeup seemed an insult to her previously ethereal beauty, her eyes finally closed to the world that had never lived up to her expectations.
The dress was nothing she would have ever worn, when she was…. He couldn't even finish his damn sentences any more. It reminded him of a clichéd phrase that she had never mastered, "I wouldn't be seen dead in this." He choked back a sob.
Why? He demanded of god. This was all he ever wanted, laying cold, soon to be forgotten under the ground, to become a skeleton, like something she used to study on that cold, hard examination table.
A warm hand on his shoulder, jolted him reluctantly back to the present.
"Hey, how're you holding up?"
Asked a soft voice, raw with emotion. Clearly, he wasn't the only one affected by this 'turn of events'. As that… as Cullen had put it.
Harden up, Booth. That's what she would have wanted.
No. I don't want to harden up. God? This was all I ever really wanted. I need her. She's gone forever.
Booth turned around, with a scowl on his face.
"Angela, how do you think I'm holding up. Honestly. How could you even ask that?"
She touched a hand to his face, noting the new wrinkles and dark rings around his eyes that seemed to have appeared in the last few days.
"You should get some sleep…" She gently reminded him.
"I don't want to sleep. I don't want to eat. Why would she leave me? After spouting all that crap about never wanting me to leave, she goes. She left first. How could she do this?"
He broke down, picking up the sickly- blue hired chair which was left empty, a symbol of somebody who had already forgotten her.
He immediately hated the owner of the chair. How could her death mean so little to them? How could they just walk away after getting a good look at her lifeless body? Were they, at this moment, going home to their families, making dinner, acting like nothing had happened? How could they?
He hurled the chair as far as it would go into the secluded cemetery.
"Ange, life just isn't worth living anymore. You know what? You take this. I'm leaving. I never want to think about this again."
He threw her a small, dark blue, velvet box, which she caught. The words he should have asked, the words that would have stopped all of…this, swirled painfully through his mind.
"I love you Bones, always have, always will. I know marriage is an 'antiquated ceremony, unnecessary in today's world but please, say you will."
He would have grinned as he said this, opened the small box, revealing it and slipped it onto one of her small, delicate fingers, refusing to blink so he wouldn't miss any of the delighted surprise gracing her features.
Well, that was f****ed now. No more love left for him, nothing to be sad about leaving behind.
He stepped away from the casket, tearing his eyes from the still-perfect auburn waves, and began to walk away.
"Seeley…"
Whispered Angela, her eyes filled with tears. No words were needed as she stared from the perfect, flawless ring to the imperfect, broken man.
"Goodbye, Ange."
Without looking up from the shining symbol of Booth's love of Brennan, Angela heard his footfalls fade, then silence overwhelmed her.