A/N: God I just want this story to be over! Jesus Christmas, Booth, get your shit together already!

Why can't we not be sober?
I just want to start this over.
Why can't we drink forever.
I just want to start this over.

Tool – Sober

A Time To Deal and a Time To Drink

Hannah was on a mission and a small part of me wanted to stop in my tracks, turn around and let her go without saying a word, without explaining anything at all because that would be so so much easier than chasing her down this goddamn street. Why why was I always chasing women?

When she finally reaches her car she rounds the vehicle so quickly and yanks the handle so hard when she opens the door I almost believe that she'll yank it right off. I try to get to her but the door is slamming in my face without mercy as soon as I arrive at the window. The car locks go down as soon as I stick my hand out and try to grab the handle. She doesn't even look at me as she puts the key in the ignition and turns it. I slam my palm against the window. "Hannah we need to discuss this."

She stares straight ahead for a minute contemplating her next move. Finally she decides to cut me a break- deservingly so? Probably not. She takes her hand off the gear shift and I can tell she's really trying not to flip out because she takes a deep breath and battles controlling her demeanor making short, precise movements. I take that as a sign to say what I need to say. Quickly. I keep my hands on the window though, because somewhere in the back of my head I believe that if she tries to pull off I can somehow tap into my super human strength and keep the car from moving.

"Hannah I can't talk to you like this." She moves to put the window down and when it starts to move I lift my hands from the glass and put them on the roof instead.

"What do you have to say?" She leers at me impatiently. "Talk, Seeley." She commands.

"Do I really have to do this standing in the street while you're sitting in there?"

A dramatic roll of her eyes. She reaches for the lock button and presses it. She nods her head towards the passenger side of her car. I hesitantly move my hands from the roof but before I completely relinquish the control I think I have over the vehicle I tell her; "don't drive off."

I move around the front of the car with my arm acting as some kind of force field as I make sure that it's no more than a few inches away from the surface at all times. Once around I open the door and get in.

I feel out of breath and that bewilders me for a moment.

"Let's go back to my place. Please."

She pulls off.

I hate being in the passenger seat of a car no matter who the driver happens to be. I hate not being in control and I hate that given the situation that I'm in right now it magnifies my anxiety of being the passenger so much more.

A short time later she's throwing her purse into my recliner and moving into my bedroom. I keep up with her quick steps and when she turns around I'm right behind her, so much so that we both take an awkward step back.

"Guess I should start packing?" She asks softly.

"I never meant for any of this to happen." I say shaking my head slowly. Her facial expression softens and she moves to sit on my bed. I stand firm in my spot but my eyes follow her and wait eagerly for a response.

"You know, I'm angry, I am. But…I don't hate you, Seeley." She looks at me with soft eyes. The one's that I'm used to.

Feeling a little more comfortable I move in a little closer to where she is sitting and squat down so that I'm looking up at her as she sits on the edge of the bed. I place my hand on her knee.

"I know… I know I asked so much of you… probably more than you even know. It's not your fault. It's not. I promise."

Hannah had no idea what she was getting into when she met me. Any woman in their right mind looking for any kind of normal relationship would have run far far away if they could have seen my past and understand why I was even there to begin with. She didn't know what I was dragging her in the middle of.

She starts to cry. And I feel like the biggest bastard to ever live. My heart aches. Because I care for her, I really do.

"I would have married you. I would have broken my own rule for you. You could have been the one, Seeley. I told myself that you were."

To be on the other end of it – to be the one being told that someone believed that you were the one and for me to be the one denying that it wasn't true doesn't feel any fucking better than being the one confessing and being rejected.

"But I'm not, Hannah, I never was. And I think I always knew that. And I think you knew it for awhile too."

"You know – you're right. As sad as I am right now and as hurt and betrayed as I feel I know that in the future I'll look back on this fondly. Like I said… I don't hate you. I should have seen this coming but I didn't want to give you up until I had to." She puts her hand on my face and looks at me with sadness in her eyes and surrender in her touch.

I stand from my crouched position because it's unbearable to look at heartbreak that closely in the eye. I slide my hands into the back pockets of my jeans.

"We're both good people. We just… it's not what is supposed to happen, you and I, it's not what's meant to be." I explain.

She stands from the bed and walks over to the closet and starts taking her clothes off hangers.

"Listen, you don't have to leave tonight. You can stay for as long as you need."

She shakes her head. "No. I can't do that. I can't stay here knowing what I know."

"Well then at least let me pay for you to stay somewhere-"

"Seeley," she raises a hand to stop me from continuing, "I can't see how that would possibly be any better."

I move my hands from my pockets and cross my arms over my chest.

"I'm just trying to do the right thing here, Hannah. I don't… I mean I never been in this situation before."

"It's ok." She says collecting the rest of her clothes from my closet and tossing them onto the bed. "It's ok."

Once she's finished collecting her things in her bags she starts to pile them in front of the door. I want to ask her if she needs any help. I feel like I should just grab a few bags and take them over but something inside tells me that that probably wouldn't sit well with her and as I think about it more, it makes sense that it wouldn't. So instead, I just sit on the bed as she comes in and out of my room until finally she doesn't come back in for a long while. I walk out into the living room and see her standing by the door. She's already taken most of her bags to her car. She holds her car keys up in the air to signify that she's ready to go. "Well, I'm off."

I think about walking closer to her, maybe even hugging her but I stay cemented to my spot several feet away. My heart begins to clamor when the reality of what's happening hits me. No matter the reason break ups are never easy and always always painful on some level.

"Hannah," My voice cracks and I don't even think she understands that it's her name that I'm saying. My throat suddenly feels tight and I feel exactly like I did all those times I decided to give up gambling. It was toxic for me. I didn't want to do it and I couldn't wait for it to stop controlling my life but regardless of all that it still hurt to let it go. Parts of me still clung to it like it was what gave me life. "Hannah…" I don't even know what I'm trying to say but I do know that every tough, put together, balanced part of me collapses when tears start to well and she notices.

"You're a good guy Seeley and I hope that you find happiness." She grips the handle of her suitcase and looks away from my face. Usually eye contact is a must for me. It's something I believe in. But relief is the only thing that I feel when she takes those soft blue eyes away from the mess stands before her. "Take care of that little guy; he's a good one too."

"I will." I manage to mutter before she turns and leaves.

...

Not a chair. Not a couch. Not a stool. Not a bed. But the floor is where I sit. In the same exact spot I stood, I sit. And for the first time in months I'm on my own to face the reality of negative feelings on my own. For the first time in months I don't have that crutch to lean on, someone to go to who will distract my thoughts with loving words and sex and I don't have to think of the hurt while I'm burying myself in her. I never had to explain anything to her. She was just there and she gave whatever I wanted to take.

But that's gone now. It's over. And if vulnerability had a fucking human form it would be sitting in the opposite corner of the room smirking at me because of its victory over me. I feel exactly the way I did before I left for Afghanistan. Maybe even worse because of all the extra shit I pulled in the time between.

I know people drink alcohol for many reasons. I know that a lot of people drink because they just don't want to care anymore. They can't care anymore and they need to just feel something else, something better, something different, something that will make them forget everything. Kill their sorrows they say. Yeah. Kill them, cut them up and bury them deep down in their subconscious so that shit never see's the light of day again. Yes, that was exactly what I was going to do.

The doors to the Founding Fathers greet me with open arms and when I sidle up to the bar I feel at home. A really fucking dysfunctional home, but a home nonetheless. I order Whiskey. Straight.

The first sip stirs up whatever is still sitting in the bottom of my stomach. The potency nearly takes my breath away. But it's familiar. The taste takes me back right back to that moment when I last drank to forget or not feel. And the thought of me being so damn dependent nearly sends the alcohol right back up my throat and out, but to combat that I take another sip and swallow it down quickly.

By the end of the first glass I'm warmed up the old routine and I'm ready to face whatever wants to come at me. The more I drink the more I think I need because after each glass I really can't see myself going back to being sober and actually dealing with all of this shit.

No.

I know that this is indeed a problem. The same damn problem that has run rampant in my family for generations. I could be the one to stop it. In fact, I know that I will end this one day – just like I did with gambling. But tonight sure as hell is not that night.

I would really love to hear your feedback on this chapter. For some reason, I think that Booth's breakup with Hannah would have really been hard on him, even though he loves Bones. I think that a lot of fanfic shows the breakup as easy breezy lemon squeezy (don't even ask)… which is great too, it could happen that way. But this is how *I* would have imagined him to be. Things he would have thought. Let me know what you think.