"Come on…" He holds the fork up to my lips, "Just one more bite."
"No!" I bark waving my hand at the fork, causing the brownie crumbles to scatter across the couch, "I'm not hungry."
"You ate one slice of pizza and one bite of a breadstick. I know you love brownies so stop lying and just eat this stupid thing."
"You're a stupid thing." I glare, "A really stupid thing."
"One, I am not a thing… I am a man." He glares, waving the fork to emphases his point.
"Ha!" I lightly chuckle, pushing farther back against the arm of the couch.
"I am going to ignore that statement because you're clearly still drunk."
"I am not drunk… I am tired." I attempt to yawn but fail horribly and just end up flailing my arms around my apartment like an idiot. "If you were a man you would kiss me!" I slightly slur then quickly recover, grinning from ear to ear.
With a quick eye roll and slight grin he lifts the fork once more.
"Come on baby I am tired…" He finally relents, running his hand over his clearly warn features, "please?"
"Nope, still tired and I am NOT anyone's baby."
"When you are tired you… first deny it until I find you passed out at your desk and second you don't yawn." He yawns.
"That may be true… but I am still tired." I stick out my tongue and in that spit second he pushes the fork into my mouth. I chew slightly then open my mouth at him.
"You can't make me chew…" I giggle, "Now you eat it!"
"You're worse than Parker!" He snarls, throwing the fork back on the plate. "If you don't want to eat then don't. I am not longer your keeper. Starve, I don't care." He grabs his coat off the back of the couch before practically running out of my apartment; even if I had some life threatening disease and was contagious he would never run this quickly away from me.
"Fine… just leave me." I begin to lightly sob, "Just leave me like everyone else has."
"You know what Bones…" He barks and quickly turns back to me, glaring, "Oh now what did I do now?" His face quickly softens and he slowly steps toward the couch.
"Nothing… just nothing… go." I look up through blood-shot eyes and glare. "That is all you are good at doing anyway." I whisper as my eyes slowly slide back down to my lap.
"That is not true, Bones and you know that." He takes a few more steps and stops.
"No you are good at getting shot, making me think you are dying… dying on the operating table and falling into a coma then leaving me to take some big shot job. No Booth" I finally look back up, letting my pain radiate my being, "you are not like everyone else… you have perfected leaving me when you said you never would. At least everyone else made it known it was a possibility they were going to leave. You promised me you were never going to leave me and what are you doing? You are leaving. You can believe what you want but facts are facts. You are a liar." I hiss, letting the tears finally fall.
"I know it does not make sense now but in time you will come to understand that what I am doing is for your benefit, not what convoluted idea you have for me leaving but the truth, that my leaving is out of my concern for you." He frowns, slowly turning as he places his coat on and slowly walks toward the door.
"And to think I actually wanted to marry you." I mutter and it stops him dead in his tracks.
"What?" He whispers as his body shakes lightly, "What did you say?"
"Nothing, it doesn't matter anyway. Just go… and do whatever it was you had planned, whatever it was that is more important than me… than us."
"We are just partners, Bones. There is no us." His voice cracks and for the first time all day he lets his fragility show through.
"And whose fault is that Mr. I-need-to-be-an-alpha-male?"
"Maybe if you weren't so independent and so hard to crack then maybe… just maybe I would… you know what? It doesn't matter. Have it your way, think what you want."
"See this is why love and marriage is stupid… it all so stupid."
"No it isn't Bones. Love is a marvelous thing. In its perfect form it rights all the wrongs we have ever faced and keeps the world spinning."
I watch as he slowly walks toward the door, waiting for me to say something to stop him but I just let him keep walking. He opens the door then turns back to me, slumping against the wall in defeat.
"I know there is some rational you have to belittle my feelings about love so let me have it… for old time sake."
My eyes flicker up as they etch every detail of the man before me into my memory. He looks so broken, so meek and ten years older than he did an hour ago. Whatever it is that is keeping him from staying is killing him slowly.
"Then why does it feel as though when you are not near my world stops spinning and I cease to exist? Why is love nothing but heartbreak and pain?"I choked out while I slowly begin to shake; letting five years of world-shattering love come cascading down my fragile body, "Why won't you let me love you?"
As the tears begin to slowly run down his checks I know I have done the impossible and broke him. In my hate filled rage I assured myself that once the truth was out there then I would finally break free from the insanity he causes inside of me and go back to how it was before, before I ever knew what love was.
Then why do I feel like a part of me has died instead?