One On One with skinny love.

[twofrogsinacoat]

Lizzie shook her head. "It's nothing you want to hear."

[bibliophile;]

"You're my wife," he said. "Of course I want to know."

[twofrogsinacoat]

Lizzie looked up at him. "It doesn't really make any sense, anyway. I was just going to say that I wish I could've been there with you- the whole time. I wish I could've known that you survived and helped you pull through faster, but because I didn't, we both had to suffer. And I know that you're going to insist that it wasn't my fault, that there's no way I could've known, but I can't help but feel slightly responsible. I mean, can you blame me?"

[bibliophile;]

Rory sighed. "And you don't think I feel responsible for this?!" He gestured to her. "You don't think I feel responsible for you not eating or sleeping?" he asked. "You tell me how you missed me, and I don't feel like I can say I missed you. 'Oh you were dead, it's worse,'." Rory's voice was slightly raised. "Every day I asked myself what I could have possibly done to drive my dads away, to drive you away. I laid in that bed blaming myself every second of everyday. And I come home..." he sighed. "And you're a damn twig and my brother clings to my beanie like he'll die if he lets go," he said. He wiped his eyes, turning.

[twofrogsinacoat]

As she listened, Lizzie bit down hard on her lower lip. Tears swam in her eyes and she was forced to look down at her feet before he could see her cry. The last thing he needed right then was to have to comfort her in any way, and she knew that. But seeing him in this much pain was nearly killing her all over again. She swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat and wiped her tears quickly before lifting her watery gaze to him again. "I had no idea," she whispered, a mixed feeling of realization and guilt hitting her in the stomach like a ton of bricks. She'd partly been the cause of this, whether either of them wanted to admit it or not, and the guilt was almost unbearable.

[bibliophile;]

Rory shook his head. "I know you didn't know. I wasn't going to tell you because you'd feel guilty," he said. There was also another question n the back of his mind. It pained him to ask these six words. "Is this going to ruin us?"

[twofrogsinacoat]

Lizzie looked up at him, this time unable to conceal the hot tears as they slipped down her cheeks. When he asked those six words, she felt nothing but incredibly helpless. After regaining her composure a bit more, she inhaled deeply. "I hope with every fiber in my being that it won't," she said honestly, though her voice shook, "but it will be hard. There's so much guilt and doubt and just..." She shook her head and looked down. "I don't want it to."

[bibliophile;]

Rory ran his hands through his hair. He'd thrown his coffee long ago. He sat down, and dug his face in his knees, crying. "I don't want it to either."

[twofrogsinacoat]

Lizzie had dropped her coffee somewhere in the road a while back; she couldn't quite remember when. Either way, her hands were free now to wrap her arms securely around Rory as she sat beside him. She buried her face in his shoulder. "Please don't leave me," she whispered pleadingly, her voice thick with tears.

[bibliophile;]

Rory shook his head, putting an arm around her. "I won't," he sobbed into her hair.