Zach looked up when he heard the back door open and then quickly down at his feet when his father stepped outside. In a deliberately casual gesture, he stretched out his legs and crossed one ankle over the other.
Booth stood for a moment in the wedge of light coming from the kitchen and stared at the top of his son's dark head. Finally, he took a deep, silent breath and walked over to the table. He pulled out a chair and as he sat down, slid a sports drink over.
The boy lifted one eyebrow as he reached for it. "Thanks."
"Sure." Booth twisted off the cap of his beer and drank deeply. Several minutes passed in silence as they each sipped from their respective bottles before he spoke again. "Your mother told me what happened at school today."
Zach's head swiveled toward his father. "I didn't hit him."
Booth tossed the beer cap he'd been sliding between his fingers to the table. "No? He knocked himself out?"
One still narrow shoulder lifted in a shrug. "He came at me. I calculated the angle of his trajectory and at the last minute, moved aside. The force of his momentum carried him into the lockers."
"Ahhhh," Booth nodded. There was a hint of pride in the smile he sent toward his son. "Nice move," he murmured.
There was more than a hint of smugness in the 13-year old's answering grin. "I thought so." The moment of shared amusement was fleeting. Almost at the same time, they both grew somber again.
Booth pushed his chair back on two legs. "Why did he come after you in the first place?"
Zach began to peel the wrapper off the bottle he held. "I don't know," he muttered. "Because I'm smarter than he is. Younger than he is. Smaller. Because he's captain of the lacrosse team and I'm . . ." He laughed without humour. "I'm not." He hunched over the drink. "Because it's my fault his stupid, giggly girlfriend isn't going to be valedictorian after all. Who knows."
Booth watched his son carefully, concern etched on his face. The words, and the pain behind them, bruised his own heart. The chair thumped back down on all four legs. "Zach," he began, his speech halting as he struggled for the right words to comfort this child whose brilliance had pushed him into a world that left his peers behind. "I know it's hard right now-"
"Dad," Zach interrupted immediately, "if this is the every snowflake is special speech, you can stop. Mom already took care of it."
Booth frowned. "She did?"
"Well, sort of," the younger Booth answered. "I mean, she used mitochondrial DNA and genetics but . . . yea." He smiled unwillingly when Booth blew out a huff of laughter.
"Yea, that sounds more like your mother."
Zach fiddled with the scraps of paper he'd removed from his drink. "You wouldn't understand anyway."
"Maybe I would," Booth offered. He leaned forward and set his drink aside.
Zach shook his head in denial. "Come on, Dad," he scoffed. "Have you ever not been cool?" he asked pointedly. "I mean, really, in your whole life, were you ever not cool? Ever?"
Booth acknowledged his son's remark with a sigh. "I'm pretty sure I had this same conversation with your mother once," he grumbled. "Cool is relative, Zach." When the boy grimaced in response, he continued. "Look at your mom - do you think she's cool?"
Zach snorted rudely and then quickly peered over his shoulder to make sure Brennan wasn't standing in the doorway listening.
"Exactly," Booth agreed. "But she has her own standards and as far as she's concerned, she's the poster child for cool. Just ask her," he added with a grin.
Silence fell between them again before Zach shifted in his seat uncomfortably. "It's not even that, really," he muttered. He risked a hurried glance at his father. "I just . . ." His shoulders slumped. "I just . . . sometimes, I just want to be normal."
"Normal?" Booth looked at him in surprise and then, with an amused laugh, stretched one arm along the back of his child's chair. "Son, you've got a sister whose idea of a fun Friday night is spending it at target practice. Your brother," he added, "is on a stage somewhere in Europe right now. Your mother," he continued, getting warmed up, "has had three books made into movies but she's practically beside herself because some 800 year old bones were delivered to the Jeffersonian today." He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and held Zach's eyes. "Stop me when I get to normal."
Zach shrugged diffidently. "Well, there's you."
"Yea, I forgot to mention me," Booth nodded. "Let's see . . . I had a brain tumor, a serial killer locked me on a ship, your mother had to rescue me before it blew up and," his tone was almost triumphant, "one of my ancestors assassinated the president of the United States. Hell," he laughed, "I haven't even mentioned your grandparents robbing banks and living under assumed names for years." He patted his son's knee sympathetically. "Zach, son, I'm sorry but normal is not in your gene pool."
Zach picked up Booth's beer bottle and began tearing that label off, too. "I guess not," he mumbled.
Booth's expression grew serious. "Okay, yes," he admitted, "I was cool." Zach looked at him. "I was big, I played football, the other kids liked me, girls liked me - I was cool." His jaw clenched before he continued. "And Mom was gone and Dad slapped us around and Pops ended up raising me and Uncle Jared." Zach's gaze flickered away at the succinct recitation of the history his father rarely mentioned. "Cool was a mask," Booth continued softly. "A mask that kept people from finding out the truth." His silence drew his son's gaze back. "What's your mask, Zach?"
Zach blinked in surprise. "I . . . I don't have one."
"No, you don't," Booth agreed. "You don't need one. You have parents who love you, a brother and sister who love you. You have friends, you have a nice home and you know exactly what you want to do with the rest of your life and how to make it happen." He waited until he knew he had Zach's attention. "Would you really trade all of that, just to be cool?"
Looking at his feet, Zach shook his head.
"I know it's hard right now, son." Booth squeezed the back of the boy's neck. "I know. You're up here," he waved one hand above their heads, "and everyone else is down here." The other settled significantly lower. "And you know what?" he asked rhetorically, "that's never going to change. Oh, you'll meet people closer to your level as you get older, maybe even someone who's smarter than you but realistically," Booth told him, "you will always be up there," his hand waved again, "and the rest of us will always be down here." One side of his mouth quirked in a half smile. "That's who you are, Zach," Booth said simply. "That's your version of cool."
The minutes stretched out between them before Zach reached out with one foot and nudged his father. "Okay, your snowflake speech was better."
Booth nodded easily. "Of course." He leaned forward and picked up his almost empty beer. "But let's not tell your mother that."
.
.
Thanks for reading. :-)
