Tonight's episode was great! At least I thought so. Pops is always a great addition to the show, and the emotional element of the whole episode was wonderfully done. This short one shot is the first of two or three I am going to do over the next few days dealing with a couple of aspects of the death of Booth's Dad and how it affected him and Pops. I hope you enjoy them. Gregg.
Disclaimer: I don't own or profit from, these characters or franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Booth felt extremely awkward walking up to the door to Sweets' apartment. It was Saturday, and the night before he had opened the box that Pops had given him from his Father. Everything that Booth had entrenched in his mind that gave him the burning hate and anger towards his Father had come crashing down when he saw the two ticket subs to the World Series. The best day of my life he had told Bones in that elevator when he was trying to get the stadium seats into the apartment.
He and Bones had talked for a long time after that, and he had ended up crying while she held him close in bed. Any other time and he would have been embarrassed at having shown such a weak side to himself, but Bones had opened the door to a real sharing of his emotions, and he was glad of it. She had shared what Pops had told her a couple of years before about it being Pops who had ran his Dad off, and he'd cried even more thinking of what that had cost Pops inside.
Raising his hand, he knocked on the door loudly. It wasn't too early, but he wanted to make sure that if the 12 year old was asleep, that he would be awake now. He only had to wait a moment and then the door opened to a Sweets dressed in sweat pants and a t-shirt drinking a cup of coffee.
"Booth!" Sweets managed to squeak out without choking on his coffee. This had to be some kind of sick joke. Booth never came by, and avoided him like the plague whenever possible, despite saying that he was good enough to watch the bad ass former Ranger/sniper's back.
"Hey, Sweets," Booth said, not trying to be sarcastic. This was too important to fall into all the old smart ass patterns. "Do you have some time to talk?" he asked.
"Sure," Sweets said, shocked right down to his toenails, but he didn't let it show. "Come on in. Want some coffee?"
"Yeah," Booth replied and then his nose curled. "It isn't that $1,000 a pound stuff where the beans were shit out of some rodent or something that Bones loves, is it?"
Sweets paled. "No way, Dude," he said firmly. "I'm a Folgers man through and through."
"Good man," Booth sighed in relief. Actually the stuff that Bones liked tasted awesome, but he'd puked his guts out for an entire morning when he'd found out how it was... harvested. As it was it was damn near impossible not to hurl whenever she was brewing any of the stuff now. Hence two coffee pots in both of their apartments.
Sweets came into the living room with two large cups of steaming coffee and set one down in front of Booth. "So what's the problem?" he asked.
"I need your help, Sweets," Booth told him. He raised a hand, though, before the kid got overly excited and started offering sessions for he and Bones all over the place. "As a friend, Sweets, not a therapist. I know you get all Shrinky, but I need this to be between friends. Can you handle that?"
Sweets didn't know whether to do a fist pump and shout yes to Booth's statement of him being a friend, or simply faint dead away from the shock. He chose the middle ground. "Of course," he said, and leaned back, sipping his coffee.
Booth spent a bit of time explaining about the night before and what had brought it all about. He didn't leave out any of the details, except for falling apart in Bones' arms. He had a reputation as a real hard ass to protect, after all.
"The person I am, what I believe, and the values I have all come from Pops, Sweets," Booth told him when he finished his explanation of what was going on. "I've done a lot in my life I'm not proud of, Sweets, and I'm still paying for all of it inside. I have Parker, and I'm doing the best I can to be a Father that he can be proud of. And now I have a daughter on the way with Bones."
Sweets was listening to all of this intently. Booth rarely opened up with anyone outside of Brennan or Pops, so this was not something he could wing it with.
"Given what you went through as a child, you've become a very well adjusted adult," Sweets told him. He raised his hand. "Hey. I can get a bit shrinky on this one. I have a feeling that outside of Dr. Brennan you've never really talked about any of this in any detail."
"I buried a lot of it, Sweets," Booth told him. "And I covered it up for 20 years with a lot of anger and hate. I feel bad that I never really until now thought of how hard on Pops it must have been to know his son turned out like that."
"I'm not meaning to sound dense, Booth, but what's the problem?" Sweets asked. "It sounds like you already have all the bases covered, and you dealt with a lot of your anger last night. That doesn't mean that some professional, or group therapy isn't called for, but you're a long ways from where you were even just yesterday morning."
"I want to understand, Sweets," Booth told him after a moment's pause.
"Understand what?"
"I want to understand how someone who got raised by Pops, who fought for his country and got the Purple Heart, could turn out like that," Booth replied, hie eyes losing their focus. "I fall into the same category, and I have demons, too, Sweets. I have a gambling problem, and thanks to a lot of work, Bones, Parker, and God I have it under control. But the addiction is still there. I want to understand why my Dad became what he did. I need to know that I won't become my Dad."
"There's no real answer to that, Booth," Sweets told him honestly. "I could give you a lot of theory, and probably piss you off, but it all boils down to everyone is different. Did Pops go wrong somehow? No. Did you do something wrong? No. Did the transition from the military to civilian life not work for your Dad? Possibly. Did he get in over his head when it came to drinking and not have the ability to get away from it? Probably. The important thing to remember in all this is that he did apologize, and realize just what he did and what he lost. He apologized to Pops, and through him he apologized to you. He also gave you back a happy set of memories, Booth. I don't think you have anything to worry about when it comes to the issue of what kind of Father you'll be. You have all the needed support mechanisms in place. Work, family, friends, and a stable environment. Your dad was a barber and likely didn't have the stability at home that he would have needed to keep his drinking under control."
Booth was silent for a few minutes taking in what Sweets had told him. It made sense, but he knew he was not totally sure of himself yet. He hated to do it, but he bowed to the inevitable.
"I hate to ask this, Sweets, and please don't make a big deal of it, but I know I'll have a lot of issues to deal with before the baby's born," Booth admitted. "Not in your office, or mine, but could we talk some more when I need to? I want my head on straight for Bones and the baby."
"Anytime, Booth," Sweets told him. He didn't gloat or smile. This was a friend asking another friend to lend an ear and some advice. He wasn't going to blow apart that positive development in their personal interactions.
"You had breakfast yet, Sweets?" Booth asked as he stood up.
"Not yet," Sweets replied.
"Go get dressed. I'm buying," Booth told him. He watched as Sweets practically bounced out of the room. Shaking his head he hoped that the kid didn't get too shrinky now. But Booth needed Sweets' help. He needed to understand some things, and he needed to make sure that Bones got the best he had to offer. She and the baby, along with Parker and Pops, deserved no less.
A/N: You're probably wondering why I stopped it there. I only wanted the beginnings of a better interaction between Booth and Sweets, while still making the point that just because some further understanding about his Father has occurred, that doesn't mean that Booth is free of his own doubts, and emotional wounds. I hope you enjoyed this one. There will be a couple of companion stories in the next couple of days. I will also be posting the concluding chapter to Collective Wisdom this weekend. Gregg.