"I want you to take some time off. I know that everyone in the lab is a workaholic to where it's become a pissing contest, but you need time away from everything."

"I'm sorry, were you saying something?"Hodgins toed a mushroom cluster growing along the park trail. "I was cataloguing insects. So far, I've seen four beetles, three ants, and five different fly species crawling along the sidewalk. Oh, and that kid over there has eaten about three Lumbricidus terresti in the past five minutes." Hodgins pointed to a four year old boy digging in the dirt with a pail and shovel. He slurped down another earthworm like spaghetti while his mother flirted with a nanny on a bench. "Creepy little entomaphagist."

"I bet you did the same thing at that age. Only without the eating part."

"No, I wasn't allowed to get dirty. It didn't bother me much. I got into insects later on in college." Hodgins continued down the path, logging different flora and fauna as Sweets followed beside. "I had a normal childhood. Latin lessons at the age of three, piano lessons at six for three weeks. Traveled the world in a Winnebago at seven. My parents could never decide if we were rich or middle class."

"Miss them much?"

"As much as anyone else. Why are we doing this here? I thought I was allowed confidentiality and a leather couch." Hodgins stated, hitching his sweater sleeves up to his elbows.

"Deflection," Sweets responded automatically. "Won't work. We're here because you'd be more uncomfortable in my office or the break room or even your own house. I needed neutral place that would give you enough external stimulus to allow you to focus internally. Hence the park and the worm eating kids."

"Isn't telling me like explaining a magic trick."

Sweets shrugged. "You wanted to know. We don't have to go into your childhood now. You have more pressing matters to deal with than thirty year old memories that you barely remember."

"I always thought shrinks liked to start from the beginning: it's always the parents' fault and all that."

"Not everyone's father is Darth Vader."

"Dude, what is with you and Star Wars?"

"I'll tell you later some time. Now about what's been going on."

"You still have Yoda bedsheets, don't you?"

"Neither here nor there, Jack."

"Yeah, my name is Hodgins."

"So about Zach and Angela. Total bummer."

"Will you stop bringing them up at random times?"

"I heard she's not taking your calls anymore. Too many 2 AM drunk dialings?"

"No, that's Zach. I call him every night at 2:15 on the dot after getting bombed on tequila that's worth more than your college loans. We talk for hours on end about things. Like why you constantly reference Star Wars."

"Do you two ever talk about why he did what he did. And why you didn't see it. "

Hodgins stopped walking. I don't want to do this here."

"Gotta do it sometime. Hate to see you bunking with Zach."

Hodgins drew into himself, picking strings from his shirt. "I see him about once a week. Tell him the latest lab gossip. Ask him technical questions about different cases."

"That seriously constitutes a serious breach of confidentiality."

"Gonna rat me out?" Jack dared. " It's not like I actually need my paycheck. I mostly donate it to Star Wars Anonymous meetings."

"Okay, now I gotta ask. What's up with you ragging me about Star Wars?"

"So I talk to Zach about things. He's doing really good. I make sure that he's treated well and doesn't get too bored. I do have limits on how much I can do, but I've managed to push it a few times. The mentos water balloon fight was classic. Right up until his gloves got soaked and I had to get him a new pair immediately. He kinda flipped a little over it. Well, flipped out for Zach."

"You're going to get in serious trouble."

"I just don't care anymore."

"About what?"

"Angela, Zach. Bugs. Dirt. Slime. Mold. Conspiracy theories. Granted, I've been slowly losing interest in those for a while now."

"Yeah, I heard it was about when you started dating Angela. Girls will do that to a guy. Granted, it's also hard to retain an interest in something when it literally slaps you in the face."

"Zach only punched me the one time. But I pretty much pushed him into it. It was awesome."

"Not Zach. The whole Gormogan psycho going after orphans in secret societies. It must have been really hard being Suspect Number One. You were very close to becoming a person of interest. I was surprised that you weren't taken in for questioning. I actually recommended it."

"Yeah, well, I totally believed you were the apprentice up until the boiling thing. No way would I have let you near my house."

Sweets shrugged, "I never would have thought about something like the lead content in water. But I would have figured out something. Siphoned water from Zach's blue water bottle, for starters. The one that nobody else could touch and that he used to cook his macaroni and cheese in every lunch. He is a very interesting subject: he could drink tap water, but only with certain provisos."

"He's not a lab rat. Quit talking about him like he is. He's a human being."

"Yes, one that royally fucked up his life. And where were you during all of this?"

"I was."

"Go on."

"I don't remember."

"Sure you do. What have you been obsessed with for the past six months? While Zach was going nuts with boiling bones and stealing bones and killing a lobbyist and suffering from god knows what happened in Iraq? Where were you when he was slowly going nuts and needed you?"

"I was with Angela." Hodgins said into his scarf, watching carpenter ants scurry about the ground carrying flakes of potato chips off toward a dying tree. "Trying to get married."

"You were so preoccupied with Angela's marital status that you didn't see Zach self destructing. And now you blame yourself for that. But it's not your fault. Zach is a grown man and made his own decision no matter how brain washed he was. You have to let that anger and pain and self recrimination go before it eats you alive."

"That's all?"

"No, this is just the beginning. The kind of therapy you need takes a lot of time and effort. Booth needed what? Two sessions to deal with his weird clown thing? One and a half to deal with Dr. Brennan not going with Agent Sullivan? Granted, I've been working with them off and on for about seven months, but their needs are mostly superficial so far.

"Jack Hodgins is trying to get his life back after a really nasty betrayal by his best friend and a very bad break up with his fiancee. No easy task to overcome alone. You need to deal with your feelings toward Angela, and the trust is only part of it. You two got so wrapped up over who doesn't trust whom that you never realized that the fight was actually you being unable to get over Zach."

"That's so not true. We were awesome right up until she actually became available. Then she pulls this trust thing out and next thing I know, I'm crying into a piece of pie."

"Once the ink dried on the divorce papers, why didn't you sweep Angela onto the nearest Rent-A-Jet and head to Cabo for that wedding? Booth and Brennan were in London. And Cam was definitely in no position to stop the two of you."

"I wanted things to be perfect for her."

"Which is never attainable. Why didn't you stop her in that diner?"

"She would have hated me even more. It took everything in my body to let her go. It's what she always wanted."

"You can't use Police songs to figure out what someone wants or doesn't want. The fact is, you need to give yourself some time to overcome the past year. You're angry, and all of the anger first directed onto Greyson switched over to Cam then went straight onto Angela. And here's the thing. You weren't even that angry at Greyson to begin with. Or at Angela being married. The anger was always there, you just couldn't never realize why you were that way."

"So you're saying that I'm actually angry at Zach and I just transfer it to whoever is the closest person?"

"Hell, yeah!" Sweets grinned. "It's like a multiple choice answer from my psych 101 class, but in this case, it fits. You said so yourself. Your general personality is prone to crankiness, but this goes beyond that. You have massive anger issues, and rightly so at that. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't get help for it. What Zach did to you was terrible, but he did try to save you in the end."

"You know what, 'Lance?'" Hodgins asked.

"What?"

"You are so full of it." Hodgins replied, storming away back toward the Jeffersonian He got halfway down the block as a teenager on a bike cut him off. "I don't need a vacation, and I don't need help!" He yelled back at Sweets.

Sweets stood there, watching the green-orange leaves blow in the early autumn wind as his friend stomped around a corner and disappeared from sight. "Definitely a cry for help," he replied.