"Stop…" I hear breathy before a cascade of increasing footsteps, "Bones… please just stop."
At the sound of the hitch in his voice my feet pick up speed until I come face to face with the front door of the Hoover building. It is times like these where I hoped their doors were automatic. Stupid doors flee preventing doors.
Those beautiful brown orbs of his I know will hold all the answers I seek but as I crumple I know that is not a burden this weary heart can take. Just once glance and I know it will shatter all preconceived notions of what a partner really is, what my partner is. His voice strains, begging me to just look up… to give us a chance.
I gotta find someone whose... whose gonna love me in thirty years or forty or fifty…
I yelp out in pain as the jaunting memory plays over and over, knowing I am unable to break the cycle of emotional and physical torment. Barley blinking back the tears, I brace for a shadow that never comes. A shadow that will never come. He was always the one chasing me and after years of being beaten down, the dog just doesn't have enough fight left in him. The second a single tear falls his foot drops so suddenly I can hear our breaths merge into a single rhythm. I can feel his eyes on me but his body doesn't even flinch as I reel in pain. They scan over my body before affixing on my chest, watching the slow rising and falling of a barely beating chest. I exhale sharply and I feel those eyes twinkle against my skin. I hear the floor squeak as he lifts his foot and I know I must stop this mess before he sees how truly broken I have become.
"No…" I cry out, clutching my swelling foot, "Just, no."
"But…" His voice is so soft but he knows this is a choice I have to make. A choice I have made daily for the past five years. As much as it breaks my heart I know I must save this man from ever loving someone so broken and destructive as me. He deserves better, better than I could ever provide even after a thousand years of failed attempts. He could never possibly need me as much as I need him.
My heart cries out for a comfort only he can provide. For his arms to wrap me so tightly I forget this ache I have come accustomed to. Night by night I slowly drift asleep comforted solely by the tears of a love once lost. I knew he was once mine but the night he walked away, the night he chose to love another is a night my rational mind cannot comprehend.
How can you love someone and with one spit decision sever all lasting emotional ties?
My eyes flick up and watch his tortured hand shakily dart out as if to calm my nerves. His eyes are pleading and for what I am not sure. Isn't this what he wanted? Didn't he expect me to give him the space to move on even though it is beating me up inside? I wretch my eyes away on a groan as I drag myself up from the ground. The second my body turns away I feel a void where his steady eyes once were. The whole building watches as our partnership slowly falls apart due to my inability to just give in to his comforting gaze.
My once chance at love is coming crashing down and all for what? Stupid, melodramatic rationality. I would give anything to just for a split second to be able to understand emotions but without my rock I am on very shaky ground. And I know the sand is quick to take me under.
"You and the doc get in a fight?" I hear Charlie's voice fade as I hobble around the now congested lobby, refusing to walk through the doors.
"She…" I feel Booth's eyes dart back to me before locking on Charlie, "She doesn't need me anymore." I turn just in time to watch him slowly walk away, the love once radiating now shooting daggers through this meager soul.
Need. He needs me to need him. For years of beating himself down over past choices, he relishes in the fact that he is needed by a woman who sees him as perfectly flawless. He needs to be needed… by me. After all I have done, all that I have destroyed… he still needs me. And that is all this heart desired, to be needed and wanted. The word plays over and over, breathing life into this disaster of a woman. My mind flickers through countless times I needed him and never once did he leave me wondering, he was always there proving his devotion and love. Yet at a time when he needed me, I ran as far as my feet would take me.
Just turn around my eyes plead as I watch him slump down the hall, please.
"Booth!" My raspy cry causes all eyes to fall on me once more, "Booth! Wait up!"
But he just continues his slow descent down the hall, flinching as my words beat his body. I attempt to run after him but soon fall in a loud heap as my feet give in before me.
"Booth… I… I love you…" The words flow against my damaged will, speaking thoughts I have denied for so long. I heave deeply as the tears flow without ceasing. My body flinches but I am soon overcome with a long denied sense of happiness at the truth.
I watch him slowly stop but refuse to turn around as the smile falls drip by slow drip.
"However long it takes…" I stand and take a few steps before falling again.
The light ping of a single silver band bouncing down the hall sends my heart aflutter. My eyes watch it bounce freely then begin to roll. My eyes snap close as the pinging burns itself deep into my memory and fills my sense. My eyes open just in time to see a light silver glimmer resting right before his feet.
Now or never, Temperance. He will know.
"I'll wait…" I swallow, trying to still the blur of images my world has become, "I'll wait as long as it takes."
He turns and takes a step, landing squarely on my deep held secret. He sniffs and my eyes are drawn to the lines of liquid drenching his face. Not tears of sorrow but tears radiating from the smile firmly affixed to his lips. His eyes glance down at the precious piece of metal crushed under his boot and I soon am at a loss of words.
This doctor is going to have a lot of explaining to do just as the pounding stops and my world turns to black.