No matter how much he tried to avoid it he couldn't. She was going. She was leaving him. He couldn't avoid that pain. Not any longer. He knew one day this would come, ever since she came from the surface to study him or was the rest of the population of people who lived underwater also counted too? The real question was: does it really mattered anymore? She was going to go, anyways. And he couldn't bare it.

He still remembered the first time she came. The first time they became friends. The first time he realized…

It didn't matter now. It didn't matter now. He didn't care. He didn't care.

He was a good liar.

That too was a lie.

He just hoped that when it came to it at the end of her last day today that he wouldn't break. He couldn't break. He would not break. Or maybe later he would, when she was gone but not when she was otherwise. He had to show her that he was fine, that everyone else was fine and they were but he wasn't. Would he ever be? Yes. He had to remember to be optimistic. He had to remember that being optimistic was for liars who couldn't handle the truth and he wasn't even a good one. Ironic.

"This would mark history." She'd said one day. The day she had interacted with his population. Maybe that was the day he realized that she had a deadline, that all this was timed and that she had to go after she'd gather all the information she needed. That was five years ago. Since then he has lived five years of pure torture. It was like a cancer (One of the many things she had said about the surface world, he remembered because she'd said that that killed.) it had a deadline and you just waited for it to take what you held close and rip it off. The awful thing was that it didn't strike when you were the most strongest to bare it and just when you thought it could be better and your guard was down it decided to swap the trap.

"You would mark my history." He'd said in return. She just laughed and at the moment it had been enough. But suddenly it felt like a small grain of sand on the ocean floor. Ironic.

At these moments he was standing in a floor covered in grass. If he looked in front of him he would see a tree and outside of this gigantic glass bubble was the ocean and it might seem odd that his head was submerged in a glass bubble filled with water too. And though he tried to avoid it all day he couldn't help but feel stabs of pain as she smiled at him from where she was standing.

He smiled back automatically and unexpectedly remembered what he had liked about her and what he would unwillingly miss. She was so achingly beautiful that just for a second he forgot why he was there for and for a second beamed oblivious of what was happening.

"I'm glad you came!" she said unmindful of the change of atmosphere.

"Wouldn't miss this for the world."

"Despite you actually living in a separate world of your own I would say that is an understatement or maybe too melodramatic." She offered with a toothy grin.

"You know how I am?" he said jokingly, changing his voice to an angst teen with pronunciation problems. "I am so understatement-ly melodrama-tic outta this world."

She bent down laughing, almost choking with laughter. "I know, right? That outfit ain't good for ya honey."

"Yeah." He said rubbing his arm shyly.

"Come, sit down," she gestured to the picnic table close to the tree.

He took unsteady steps towards it, fully alert and trying to evade the sickening feeling he had knowing that he would never ever be sitting there with her for a long time. Though deep within him he knew that there was a grater possibility in it being forever than temporarily as she kept repeating him. He knew that this was serious and that he might puke just thinking about it.

As they sat down on the table each facing each other he found that he didn't felt like speaking. At all. Because creating words with his tongue would mean that he would be inscribing a verbal goodbye right there and there and- wasn't that what he was trying to avoid? Instead he stared at her- he probably guess that it was insanely by the look of her face- but he didn't dare stop, he had to remember her no matter what. He couldn't forget her. He would never forget her.

She cleared her throat awkwardly. "So, um, are you prepared… like I am…?"

Despite the bitter sensation he felt when she told him she was prepared to go, prepared to forget the past five years, prepared to lock him in her memory, to leave- to leave him he might considered lying. "For the first time in my life I can say that I'm not. I'm not ready."

Her face contradicted with pity or annoyance and he hated it. "Though seeing you're so willing to go I should reconsider this. Um, mind recalling me why are you this eager?"

"I am not." She said firmly relaxing her face.

"Then why do you make it sound like it?" he retorted defensively, he was conscious of that. And he didn't mind because for the half month or so all she'd been doing is being happy as if this was the solution to all her problems. Like she had amnesia or something and forgot all they've been through.

"Why are you snapping like this all of the sudden?"

"Because-" Because what? Because what?

"Because what?" she echoed his thoughts, almost demanding.

"Because I don't want to lose you."

She sighed, frustrated. "We've been over this. You're not losing me. I'm not losing you and neither is this place also. This is extraordinary. I would be stupid if I wouldn't return." Some seconds passed as the words hung in the air. "I would be stupid if I wouldn't return to you."

"Why leave in the first place?"

"It's my job." She simply said. "Don't make me question it, Sponge Bob."

He looked at his hands as they rested on the table unsure. She was right. He should have let go when he had the change or when she had done it. She was right. He shouldn't be grabbing on to nothing. She was right. He should be happy and delirious like she was. Moving on. He wanted to be right.

"You know? I always thought that our names were stupid. Despite that my name has sponge on it you could say that Bob is a name from the surface world and that Sandy is a name from here." He sounded small as he said the last two sentences. "I always thought it meant that you belonged here. With us."

With me.

"I never thought about it like that." Her face was intrigued and he liked it. He liked when she looked smart because it made her look pretty or prettier. He had to remember to remember this. He has to remember. "Did you ever think that you belonged in the surface world?"

It was as if he was slapped in the face. How could she not take a hint? How could she be this stupid when she is this smart? Why did he even bother?

"Somehow I always knew I never belonged with you."

She started laughing. "Come on. Don't be like that; you're so civilize you can belong everywhere."

"Maybe." He replied, squinting his eyes. "But there's no place for me." Without you.

"Except here." She pointed out. "This place is amazing. It's like a dream."

He couldn't take it anymore. Being with her was unbearable. He just wanted to scream. To do anything for her to know-

"So, when are you going?" he asked his voice barely audible.

"Um," he saw her swallow as she looked to the floor, "in five minutes."

His body went numb. "Are you serious?"

"Yeah," she said ashamed. "I was planning on telling you-"

"When? A minute before you loaded." When she stayed quite he groaned. "Are you really this… this dumb? I know that you don't want to do anything with me anymore but can you please be a little bit easy on me at least-"

"I don't want to leave!" she shouted. "Don't you get that? But it's my job and someone's got to do it. I'm not good with the whole 'farewell my friend' so ssssooooorrryyy if I couldn't bear the weight of all this when I'm too busy struggling with mine to help with yours. So stop with your indirect double meanings because it doesn't make it any more easy on me."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I didn't really want to see an end."

"What are you going to do now?" he asked agitated as he stood from his table. "Leave?"

"Do I have any other choice?"

"You can stay." He offered hopefully. "They can't make you leave."

"But then who would give all this information to them."

"I don't know." He blurted. "Does it matter?"

"Yes." She answered serious standing up too. "Without this…. I don't know what will happen."

He looked at his feet avoiding the red that tainted his cheeks. "Without you I don't know what will happen to me."

"Don't make this hard on me." She begged and when he stayed quiet she started to go to the tree which also worked as her home.

He was quickly paces away from her. "This was hard since you told me you were leaving." He thought about that for a minute too. "Barnacles, since you came here. Since- since I realize I wanted you here with me."

She stopped and twisted her neck just so she could give him her profile. Her eyes were drowning with water. "Please. Don't. Make. This. Hard. On. Me. Because you're making it harder on yourself."

She ran the few inches that were left to her house, came in and out. But this time she was carrying a suitcase and was wearing a submarine that looked a lot like an astronaut outfit. It was as if she hadn't heard him. Not one bit and instead of staying here she was going away. From what had gone on today he could say forever.

She was headed his direction but he knew that he was in the way of the door. Where a rocket was waiting her departure. As she passed him he grabbed her wrist. "Why aren't you fighting this?

Her head was, low her hair covering her face. She breathed and in a second her neck snapped and she was almost crying. "Because if I fight this now I wouldn't have the strength to do it later. By then I won't want to go."

"So you're really leaving." He concluded hollowly, finding the finality in her words.

"Not really."

"Yeah, yeah, I know it's only 'temporarily'."

"No." she corrected, almost half hearted. "Home is where the heart is. No matter what happens, no matter where I go, I know where I belong. I know where my home is or where my new home is. Don't suggest that I will forget you that easy. I won't."

Her suitcase fell as both of her hands grabbed at the glass bubble that surrounded his face. "You're my home."

He did the same as he took on her bubble glass in his hands. "You're my home." He repeated.

He might have thought that they have been an eternity there until she broke the trance stepping away. "I guess this is farewell my friend."

He unexpectedly wrapped her in his arms as he murmured in her ear. "You're not as bad with goodbyes as you let on to be."

"There a lot you don't know about me."

Then she awkwardly walked to the door and he tried as much not to feel nostalgic because it's not a novelty to see a friend (And so much more) go but he had to remain calm. He had to remember.

But then she hesitated at the door and his heart stopped then she proceeded on opening it. She turned to him. "You mark my story, too."

The end