The end.
you should take just a second and get a tissue here. Head's up.
THx.
**
**
Booth held her hand as he watched her struggle to breathe. He knew the end was near. She had told him yesterday. She just knew.
Their family had all left him alone with her, he had asked for a few minutes. A few minutes to reflect on the wonderful life they had shared. The memories and the moments that had led them to this point.
The end.
His life would go on.
For how much longer, he didn't know, but not long. He was eighty-nine years old. He had already had one mild stroke, and his last physical had shown elevated blood pressure. Not a good sign.
Two months ago they had discovered her heart problems.
The symptoms that she had started to experience could not be labelled as one particular diagnosis, but as a general one. Her heart was failing. Her Doctors had spent so much time watching for kidney problems, but that was not what would end her life. It was the very heart that Booth had taught her how to use all those years ago. The beating pulse that had beat for him for so long was failing. Her love was not failing; just the physical contraction of the muscle was getting harder and harder.
He watched her now, as she took a deep rattling breath and her lungs tremored with the fluid that filled them. He squeezed her hand tightly and felt her squeeze back. Her eyes opened and she smiled weakly at him. The laugh wrinkles around her eyes deepened, but her eyes held the same blue and intense gaze that he loved so much. They had shared so many laughs over the years. He brushed her gorgeous white hair back from her wrinkled forehead. He had always loved her hair, and had been amazed to watch it turn white, along with his over the years. It was still so soft.
She reached up to touch his fingers when his hand lingered, resting on her jaw. Their eyes connected and held for awhile.
"Booth?" She asked, her voice was husky from the effort. "Will you do something for me?"
"Anything Temperance. You know that."
She took a few more troubled breaths.
"Will you find the priest?"
He assumed she meant she wanted the priest for him, to comfort him now with a prayer.
"What for? For me?" He needed to know for sure. As much as he needed to know, he didn't want to admit that this was really the end.
"No. For us. I want to marry you now." She closed her eyes when the pain of her organs failing became too much. He squeezed her hand now as he laughed.
"Seriously?...Now?"
She nodded. He reluctantly dropped her hand and turned towards the door. He knew better than to argue with her once she had made up her mind.
He returned a few minutes later with the priest, who had been nearby at his request, and all of his family behind him. He had asked them to come in for this. He held the Priest by the robe and pulled him beside the bed. He took Bones' hand and looked to the man of the cloth.
"We want to get married. Do it."
The man looked stunned for a second.
"I can't Mister Booth. She's not of the Catholic faith. Do you even have the proper paperwork?..."
Booth stared at the man with a look that was familiar to everyone else in the room. They had all been in trouble with this man at some point in their lives. He always meant business when he had that look.
"Honestly, are you going to let something like a technicality prevent me from obeying her last wish?" He smiled now, in the classic charming way of his. He had perfected the technique over the years.
Every single person in the room had also been the recipient of that smile as well. The priest was the newest member of the club. He always got what he wanted with that smile. He was about to right then too.
The Priest looked to the woman on the bed and back to the old man holding her hand. He sighed and nodded. It wouldn't be official, but he would say the words they wanted to hear.
He began,
"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today..."
The Priest tried to remember the ceremony as best he could, and he helped Booth declare his undying love and commitment to his long time partner in front of all the family members in the room. He promised to love her for all time.
He asked Payton, who was standing behind him with her hand on his shoulder, if he could borrow her ring for just a little while. She pulled off the family ring that her mother had given her all those years ago and handed it to her father. He accepted it without looking in his daughter's eyes. He was afraid he would breakdown to look in the eyes that she shared with her mother. He pushed the ring over the swollen finger of his long time love. He said the final two words to her after the Father had recited the vows.
"I do."
The priest then went though the list of vows for her. To honour and cherish... in sickness and in health... for better or worse...
She and Booth stared into each others eyes while the man spoke and she smiled weakly when he got to the end and asked her if she would agree to follow the vows. She took a deep and rattling breath, squeezed his hand one more time, and expelled the words, with a classic Bones-like twist on the two words,
"I did."
Her eyes closed as the priest declared them man and wife. She did not breathe in again.
She was gone.
Booth leaned over and kissed her gently on the forehead.
"Thank you Bones. For everything."
Payton stepped to one side and took his arm. He finally looked in her eyes. He saw the pain of his own heart mirrored in the blue eyes, and was grateful that a piece of his partner remained on this earth. Her legacy would live on. She would never be forgotten.
He looked to his other side and saw Rio had also approached the bed to give his mother one last kiss. He patted his son on the back. He looked around the room and saw his other two sons with the tears in their eyes. Parker and Brennan both approached the bed. Everyone had tears in their eyes. The spouses of his children, his grandchildren. The priest.
His legacy too. Their legacy. Their family.
He walked towards the door and asked that everyone leave him alone for a minute. He just wanted a minute. The tears in his own eyes were dangerously close to spilling, and he didn't want the family to see him break.
He fled into the hallway as fast as his old bones would take him. He leaned on the wall and covered his face with his hands. Tears spilled finally.
He eventually felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up into the eyes of his old friend, Doctor Sweets. The Doctor held his arms out and for the first time ever, Booth accepted a hug from the man.
"She's gone Sweets. She's gone."
Sweets rubbed the man's back.
"She'll never be forgotten Booth. You will ensure that. You and all those people in that room are there because of her. She will be missed though..." Sweets couldn't finish his thoughts out loud, because of the tears that choked him too.
Booth finally straightened himself, dried his eyes with his sleeve, and approached the room again. His grandson Max was standing there, Payton's youngest son, and the four year old boy tugged on his sleeve.
"Grandpa?"
He picked the little boy up in his arms and kissed him on the cheek. The small boy continued,
"Do you remember when you read that story to me? The one where the prince kisses the sleeping girl and she wakes up?"
"You mean Sleeping Beauty?"
The little boy nodded.
"Yeah, that's the one. Can't you kiss Grandma and she'll wake up?"
Booth smiled at the boy as he put him back down. He felt his back twinge just a little bit. He felt his heart twinge just a little bit.
"Not this time Bud. That was just a Fairy Tale. It doesn't always end that way."
His and Bones' story didn't end that way, but his life with her had been a fairy tale.
One by one, everyone said good bye and left the room until he was alone with her. The words of little Max made him smile. Such naivety. He reminded him of someone else. Booth leaned over her and touched his lips gently to hers.
The last kiss. The final touch they would share...
He tucked an old, yellowed piece of paper in her hand. The written proof of their undying love for each other. Hers forever.
He stood up and whispered,
"Sleeping Beauty indeed."
She had kept her promise that she made so long ago. She had married him. Eventually.
La Fin