A/N: Well, it's been firmly established that we're all pretty busted up over the break-up. We all kinda knew it was coming, but it still stung like a mofo. And it looks like half of us are Bones fans, which means within 24 hours we all had to watch two tall, dark, handsome men get their hearts stomped (for lame reasons, that's my two cents). At least they gave us kisses and I love yous. Seriously, it was the least they could do before they torched our beloved ship.
……Or did they?
The Many Meanings of No
She'd hoped for the sake of her sanity that he didn't come looking for her. She sat in her apartment in the dark, sobbing and sniffling and sobbing louder still. She'd killed him. She knew it. The happy light that danced so beautifully in his eyes had died right in front of her. She'd watched it happen. Her mouth had opened and words came out and she killed him.
Wayne.
She'd turned and fled. A hit and run.
And as she cried the name of her beloved and cursed her own cautious, cowardly heart, the dead man himself knocked on her door.
He grabbed her the minute she opened it, his terror evident in the gasping tightness of his hold. Overwhelmed and every bit as terrified, she cried out and fought against him weakly.
"Let me go." She meant physically.
He shook his head, his expression wild, but resolute, as he backed up her into her apartment. He dropped his forehead to hers and whispered.
"No."
He made love to her. She wasn't strong enough to resist his touch. He undressed them both before diving headlong into her trembling arms. He locked her down. His eyes. His arms. His weight. He drove into her again and again, desperate for her to see that this—they—were too precious to throw away. His kisses tasted of fear. She arched into what would be their last time and cried. Pleasure sang through her blood, only to reach a broken heart and lose its joy.
"Let me go," he whispered desperately. He meant San Francisco.
She clutched him hard and buried her face into the hollow of his shoulder. Her arms and legs locked around him as she shivered with her release. Never had euphoria felt so miserable.
"No."
He held out for as long as he could. She could feel his stubbornness as he doggedly refused to let their lovemaking end. Because it would end. Right then and there. He was trying to stop time through the sheer force of his hips. He plunged into her over and over. Powerless against her desire, she let him. Despite her sadness, he still felt indecently good. He still smelled like everything she ever wanted. And his voice still held the rough sweetness of rock candy.
But time escaped them in ticks and tocks.
Like all attempts before his to alter the time-space continuum, it failed. He came for her, just like he always did. His usual roar of pleasured ecstasy was replaced with a heartrending sob. Shaking with anger and sadness, he kept himself above her, easing himself down without the comfort of her cradling body to hold him. He knew better. He knew she wouldn't wrap her arms around him. She wouldn't whisper any more dizzying secrets, like when she'd confessed that she'd never been in love before him. She wouldn't smile.
This was goodbye.
He rose from her bed and grabbed his clothes. She felt his weight leave the mattress as it bounced jarringly. Unevenly. Her own weight was upsetting the balance, the balance so easily maintained when he slept by her side. Panic overrode reason as her hand shot and clasped his forearm, demanding he stay. He looked down at it tenderly before raising his arm and kissing her fingers that held him so tightly.
"Let me go," he said quietly. He meant for the night.
She cried then. A startled sob wracked her body, and even as she released him, she stubbornly whispered. "No."
He dressed quickly. He gave her one more look of desperate pleading before he turned and left her room.
His demands were clear. His wishes plain as day. Don't end us. Don't kill me again. Don't kill us both every single day we can't be together.
Grace believed in God. She believed in ghosts and demons. She believed in her immortal soul. She watched it walk away with him.
It was attached with hooks. She'd never known that until now. Before, she and Wayne had always been too close for her to notice that her soul had abandoned her and anchored inside her lover with sharp barbs. How could she have known? The barbs didn't hurt as she lay wrapped and happy in his arms at night. She'd been totally ignorant of the fact that, for every second they spent together, the hooks had worked into her, deeper and deeper, sinking into her heart. Her lungs.
Her soul, a gift she hadn't meant to give away, yanked at those hooks as he got further away, ripping and shredding their way through her ribcage.
She couldn't breathe.
Naked and still shivering, she followed him to her living room.
She needed her soul. He simply wasn't allowed to keep it. She hadn't even allowed it to leave, it had simply deserted her and took up residence inside her lover. She had to have it back. The hooks inside her demanded it be restored or they'd tear her to pieces. She called for its return.
"Let me go," she said to his retreating back.
He was almost to the door, but he slowed his step. He turned to look at her. He knew what she meant.
His hands flexed at his side. They held her soul firmly in their grasp, refusing to release it. He shook his head with finality. Not until the hooks in his own heart worked their way out. Not until those barbs stopped cutting into his lungs and hurting like a bitch. Not until he was able to walk away from her and not leave his own soul behind. No way.
Until she relinquished his soul, she sure as hell wasn't getting hers back.
"No."