Author's Introduction: So, The Spark in the Park repeated the other night. As I recall from when the episode first aired, it seems there was some controversy over how the characters behaved, and some splitting in the fandom over this episode. Many loved it, many hated it. I wrote this back when the topic was hot but set it aside while I got sidetracked with an epic Secret Santa story. (And then a Fan Mail story that is still ongoing but most of the heavy research is finally done). There's a scary season 9 cliffhanger looming and I feel like stirring the pot a little before it all boils over.

Author takes up a spoon: Since I said I'd be stirring the pot, I'll start by making a bold statement: Emily Silver is my new favorite Bones writer. I can't praise her enough, or her first Bones episode. Why? Because there are sooo many amazing comparisons hiding in the scenes. Because the contrasts between characters and motives are so moving. Because Brennan's my mirror and I could feel what she was going through so well, and the way that Booth's reactions were hurting her.

And because of Booth.

In trying to understand Booth better, I watched the episode again through his context. The tension builds throughout the morning for Booth. Then tension in that first interview scene with Dr. Watters just builds and builds. And right in the midst of Booth's most inappropriate act — the one that most made him look like a jerk — I started to cry. This is why...

(Minor profanity warning: when used carefully, a well-placed f-bomb has an explosive impact.)

~Q~

Context

In Anthropology, context includes the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed. In personal terms, our context shapes both what we see, and what we think it means.

Glossy wooden floors, slickly shined panels, tall leaded windows, stacks of musty, leather-bound books. Old world university meets modern cop, which sounds about right for a situation comedy. Except this situation wasn't funny. Nothing about domestic violence or the abuse and murder of someone's child was funny.

Special Agent Seeley Booth was standing in the office of a physicist — physicist? what did that even mean? — not ten minutes after informing the man that his daughter was found dead — murdered — and the guy is scribbling gibberish on a blackboard. Like it didn't matter that his child was missing and now dead, as long as he got those numbers all written down in time.

Like he was too smart to be bothered with mundane little things such as concern, or grief. Or politely talking to someone not quite as intelligent who was nonetheless asking for a few minutes of his time so the dead girl could, you know, get some justice. Apparently this maddening professor thought math mattered more than a measly little murder.

"You're very narrow-minded man, aren't you."

It was not a good day to be facing off against a genius suspect.

~Q~

Smart people should know better, damn it. His old friend Dr. Camille Saroyan was a forensic pathologist, which meant she was smart enough to get through medical school and that meant she ought to be smart enough to stay the hell away from an investigation involving the crime where she was the victim. He'd only called Cam out of courtesy and consideration of their near twenty years of friendship, just to let her know Angela's legwork had led to the arrest of Cam's college roommate, Haley Kent, for identity theft. "I'm just letting you know." He'd actually said those very words: this was the sort of phone call where she was supposed to thank him, then hang up and go about her business while leaving him to his.

Instead, she immediately began to insist on full participation (Bones must finally be rubbing off on her boss) and despite his objection she turned up in the elevator as he was going to meet the accused. Booth was not amused and in no mood to tolerate squinty interference. "What are you doing here, Camile?"

She scowled at the use of her given name. "I want to see her."

"You know what? You shouldn't be here. Not now." Cam was not exactly an unbiased observer by any stretch and if Haley Kent's lawyers got wind of this lapse of protocol, it would get ugly.

"This woman stole my identity, Seeley. She was my friend. She ruined my good name, she betrayed me..."

He groaned, thinking that was all the more reason why she shouldn't be anywhere near this interrogation.

"I don't know when I'll be able to get credit again..."

"Okay." He tried to halt the rapid bubbling by holding up a hand, and had about as much of an effect as holding back a river with one hand. Which is to say, he had no effect at all.

"...And you wouldn't even have arrested her if it wasn't for what Angela did."

Against his better judgment, Booth gave in and finally managed to dam up the flow of rationalizations. "Okay. I got it, okay? But listen to me." He halted her at last. "I take her into interrogation alone."

Cam waved a hand, just as rational as any scientist he'd ever worked with (turns out to be not very), but hopefully just as keenly aware of the stakes as any cop he'd ever served with. "I know." She understood the game, having been a cop herself once. "I just want to look her in the eye, make sure it's real."

"Right. From afar."

"Okay." She was giving in, agreeing to stay the hell out of his way. They understood each other. Then they both turned to face the accused and Cam drew in a sharp breath. That was a harbinger, but as is often the case with harbingers, Booth didn't recognize it until afterwards.

The accused woman faced her former friend with barely a flicker of shame, and a breathy but weak excuse. "I'm sorry, Cam. I didn't think. I'm really—"

She didn't get any farther beyond that sorry effort at an unthinking defense, because the smartest person there evidently didn't think either. Harbingers unheeded often result in being caught off guard. After pulling in that scathing breath, the scientist snapped an instant later with a surprising left hook.

"Whoa!" Booth grabbed Dr. Saroyan and yanked her back.

"I'm good," Cam defended, as if that were true.

Furious (she'd just subjected a suspect under his supervision to violence, and that was surely going to come back and bite him in the ass), Booth spun her around. "Thank you for that," he spat. The censure, the paperwork, and the review, thanks so very damn much. She ought to be smart enough to know what she'd just subjected him to, but Cam was breathing hard and trying to tell him she was good.

Yeah, right.

"Didn't I tell you from afar?" The ringing phone, informing him of a burned up body in a public park, just took the cake and stomped on it. Now he had to escort the brilliant forensic pathologist who'd screwed his pooch to a crime scene. Well now, his morning just couldn't get any worse.

Except that it could.

Exploded body parts baking in the heat. His wife's "giddiness" over the first recorded instance of a corpse being struck by lightening and exploding. (Like that was even remotely appropriate, to be happy that a dead person's destruction would give her a byline in one of her anthropology journals.) The entomologist Hodgins shoving cilantro-scented stink bugs under his nose. "Smell that!" The victim being a teen girl with multiple fractures not accounted for from lightening. Cam and Brennan commiserating over the joy of a suspect smackdown — squints and their gleeful propensity for violence.

Brennan swiping his girly pen and contaminating it on the corpse just so she could show off more 'science,' then being surprised that he didn't want the pen back. (Like 'wiping it off' was all it would take to restore it's unchaste purity. Like he wanted to look at the naked parts knowing they'd briefly been obscured by some other girl's dead parts.)

God save him from spending another minute in the presence of 'smart people.' He couldn't wait to get back to the FBI and normal cops.

The next thing he knew, Booth was in a conference room standing next to the psychological Wunderkind, another 'smart person' who was telling him that the dead girl's history of systematic abuse (implied by multiple broken bones scattered over the years) combined with the way the young victim's face was covered with a cloth, suggested the person who had disposed of her body had also loved her. Beaten to death by one parent, disposed of by the other.

It trundled his stomach, reminding him of his own father's violent rages and his own mother's cowardly withdrawal. 'I love you but not enough to save you.' Booth set his jaw and glared at the photos of the crime scene.

And to top it all off, the squints identified the girl's father as an uber-squint genius professor, Dr. Leon Watters of Buchanan University, by all accounts even more of a genius than Booth's genius wife.

So here they were, the cop and the squint, standing united but not quite together in an office that was polished and reeked of academia, piled high with papers and journals, binders and books. Brennan was standing a little bit apart from Booth, in between the desk and the blackboards, with her arms crossed, watching the mad scientist scribe while Booth was systematically ignored.

All of which was why Booth found himself grinding his teeth as he repeated the professor's name three times just to get the damn man's attention. "Doctor Watters."

"Just ... I need one moment please." The older man spoke softly in a mildly disinterested tone, sounding like a detached parent taking a phone call while his kid kept pestering for a drink of water. He couldn't be bothered to set the chalk down and attend to his thirsty child. Just a minute, that's all it would take.

At a loss, Booth turned to his wife. "What's he doing?"

"It appears to be vector calculus," she explained.

Vector what? Some kind of math, yeah, he already knew that. What Booth meant was, what could the man possibly be doing that was more important than his daughter's death?

"...and something about motion, but I don't recognize the context."

Yeah all right, so it must not be so damned important if Bones didn't know what it was. "I just told him that his daughter is dead and he's scribbling on the chalkboard. Doctor Watters!"

The flagrant impatience is what finally broke through the man's intellectual fog. "Do you understand what I just told you? Your daughter is dead."

Watters turned slowly again, seemingly only half present. His rheumy eyes drifted from Booth to Brennan, taking in her calmer, crisper presence and when he finally engaged the conversation, he engaged with her. Like he sensed already that Booth wasn't smart enough for him. "Are you sure it's Amanda?"

"We're certain, yes." Her arms were still crossed, defensive still. But then she offered the incomprehensible. "Would you like to finish this first?"

"Bones!"

"Yes. Thank you," Watters mumbled. "Just this one part."

"No, no, no," Booth scoffed. "Excuse me, Doctor Watters," (so sorry to be such an inconvenience while I investigate your child's murder, I know this math crap is so much more important) "we need to talk to you about your daughter now. Please."

Brennan's body stiffened, reacting to the plagiarized politeness.

Watters scrawled two more characters and a slashing perpendicular line before turning once again to Booth's wife. "There. Thank you."

"We'll need to speak with your wife, as well," she said with a far more polished variant of politeness.

"That's impossible," he replied softly.

"Why?" Booth fairly barked. Tired of being ignored, tired of his human concern being trampled by scientific indifference, his patience was at an end.

"My wife is dead."

A flat delivery, spoken once again to Brennan. Booth felt like he wasn't even there. "Well, that's an awful coincidence," he muttered. Did he beat and murder his wife, too?

"The concept of coincidence is erroneous. It's possible to define a formulation of patterned interaction between all things within the universe."

Damn straight, there are no coincidences in murder. Brennan was listening attentively; Booth was just pissed off. Damn sciency mumbo-jumbo. "I'm sorry. Is that some kind a confession?"

"No," Brennan shrugged. "Just a fact."

There are no coincidences in murder: he'd taught her that years ago. Booth scowled, deciding he hated science with a passion. Why didn't they just speak English?

"My wife died of breast cancer a year ago."

Okay great, that still didn't leave him off the hook for Amanda's death. "Can you explain why your daughter showed signs of abuse?"

"Amanda was a gymnast, nationally ranked."

And just like that, Brennan's entire demeanor changed. She fell for it like a rock, her arms dropping, her defenses plunging. "Gymnastics could definitely explain the damage to her bones."

"Did Amanda have any troubles in school," Booth continued, grudgingly conceding alternative explanations.

"Amanda didn't go to school." Watters stared down at his passive hands and while he explained his daughter's superiority, Booth felt his class envy roiling up to join his contempt of smart, heartless, better-than-you'll-ever-be people. "She was getting her GED from an on-line school aimed toward prodigies and child professionals. You are a very narrow-minded man, aren't you?"

That last came out all in one breath, praise of his daughter's superiority (professional prodigy) and insulting the cop here to investigate her death. "I'm sorry?" Booth uttered in disbelief.

Narrow-minded? What, because he thought a murder was more important than some math? Because he thought a string of broken bones spanning years might mean a kid's parents routinely beat the crap out of her? Because he thought a dead teen might have run into trouble at school? Booth lived on the streets, not in ivory towers.

Murder isn't pretty; it's ugly and even a bit banal (to use one of Bones's words). It's petty and crass and nine times out of ten the source boils down to anger, greed, revenge, or expedience. It's people, selfish brutal people, who kill and leave him the grisly remains to avenge. So excuse him if Seeley J. Booth doesn't give a rat's ass about some math on a blackboard. Or prodigies who are too 'special' to go to regular schools. Or professors who act affronted and inconvenienced when questioned about the death of their own child.

Like Doctor Icicle here had something better to do than to spare five minutes helping them find his daughter's killer.

"You have an extremely limited view of the universe."

No, what Booth had was an extremely limited view of the type of person who would murder another human being. Rolling his eyes in disgust, he turned away before he did something he would regret, and heard his wife finally step in to defend him. Come to think of it, he remembered having arguments like this with her, nearly ten years ago. He should be impressed that she'd finally come around to his gutsy shortcuts, but all her defense served to do was to piss him off even further.

"Agent Booth is merely applying years of statistical probabilities to the death of your daughter. It is a very rational approach."

Damn squint speak. He turned back to glare at her, at the fact that he was standing in a damn university professor's office and needed her to translate for him, to make his street smarts sound smart enough to pass muster with Professor Braniac over there. Damn smart people!

"How's this for rational, okay? When did you last see your daughter?" He grabbed up a stray bit of chalk and scribbled the word furiously on the blackboard, right above all the meaningless little jots and tittles of math that evidently meant more to the man than his own flesh and blood. Take a note, professor. We're talking about your dead fucking kid here!

"Booth!" Brennan's horrified rebuke didn't stop him. He drew a line under the word and turned to glare at the overly mild man who just sat there, blinking like an owl in daylight.

And a lump in his throat was there to be swallowed down as he flashed on his own father blinking up at him from an alcoholic haze, morning sunlight pouring over his unshaven, grey face. Rheumy eyes squinting and blinking befuddled incomprehension when young Seeley Booth had to ask him three times for lunch money so Jared at least wouldn't go hungry. Tears stung his eyes and he blinked the memory away.

"Three days ago, at breakfast. Which is why I reported her missing." The absent-hearted professor pushed to standing. "Are we done?"

"Why," Booth asked bitterly. "You don't have any more math you'd like to do?"

"No, I don't."

Placing the chalk in front of the professor, Booth bit back any further contempt and made for the door. He knew Brennan had lagged behind for a moment and that stung. Owls of a feather flock together.

"Booth." He heard her catching up to him a minute later, her hand circling his wrist to slow him as she asked, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"You're angry."

"You're damn right I'm angry!" Stepping into her, he glared into her wide, mossy eyes and hissed his ancient fury. "That guy couldn't care less about his kid. What kind of a father is that, huh? What kind of heartless, crappy parent is the Professor in there...?" Just like my father.

He watched something stagger in her eyes, as if he'd just delivered a punishing blow. "He's just like me."

~Q~

Author's Note: Ouch.

The inspiration and title of this series (Mirrors) is taken from two of Rumi's beautiful poems. Here's an excerpt of the first, which explains the concept of context in beautifully flowing Persian. Even in English translation, the beauty shines through, yet it is nothing compared to the original. Rumi is the Persian Shakespeare.

Green Ears

When you think your father is guilty of an injustice,
his face looks cruel. ... When you make peace with your father,
he will look peaceful and friendly.
The whole world is a form for truth.

When someone does not feel grateful
to that, the forms appear to be as he feels.
They mirror his anger, his greed, and his fear.
Make peace with the universe. Take joy in it.

It will turn to gold. Resurrection
will be now. Every moment,
a new beauty.

By Rumi

What I hope to do is a series of vignettes over the summer that explore the many contrasts (mirrors) I noted in the episode, presenting them as matched pairs. This was Booth, next up will be Brennan.

I feel I must give you fair warning, however. I've got a lot on my plate, in terms of real life, school, and a list of FF ideas/requests/unfinished projects that is growing by the day. Updates on this will be much slower than my usual once-per week, but I'm hoping to finish all four paired stories before September.