Author's Note: Who waited until 9:30am Friday morning to start this chapter and has a Band-Aid on each hand? This girl. Who isn't entirely happy with the quality of this chapter? This girl. Who is busy beyond belief and may postpone 'Z' so that it's somewhat decent, unlike 'Y'? If you guessed "this girl," you'd be correct. I apologize. Life right now is stupid crazy and I'm literally working non-stop, up to the last minute, to barely finish things. (If I finish them at all). So, unfortunately, writing the last two chapters has been the lowest on my list of priorities/to-do's. If all is well in the world, you'll get 'Z' next week. If not, hopefully the beginning of the week after. I do not like breaking set schedules, but I don't want to give you a half-hearted chapter like this one for 'Z'. I'm really sorry. :(
Setting: Sometime… I think in the future. I've lost track of how old Parker is. But, as always, the setting is irrelevant OTHER THAN THE FACT THAT there is no baby. Booth and Brennan do NOT have a child together.
Warning: Math is involved. This is a special warning for all you math haters (like me). AND a warning saying, "Hey, I suck at math and could've very well done my math wrong" or just come up with an analogy that doesn't make any sense. They're both very likely outcomes.
y=mx+b
A linear equation is an algebraic equation in which each term is either a constant or the product of a constant and (the first power of) a single variable.
The equation of a straight line in the form y = mx + b, where m is the slope and b is the y-coordinate of the point where the line intercepts the y-axis.
Slope-intercept form for drawing a straight line on a graph. 'x' and 'y' stand for any point on the graph. (x, y) is what the given point is written as. 'm' stands for slope (rise over run), and 'b' is the y-intercept (the place on the graph where the line passes through the y-axis which is the vertical line of a graph).
Find the equation (slope-intercept form) of a straight line that has a slope of 3 and passes through—
"Bones! Boooooneeesss!"
Brennan rushed into the kitchen where Parker sat at his father's table, nervous about the boy's urgent tone. It wasn't a far stride from the master bathroom to the makeshift dinning area, but Brennan found that a multitude of panicked questions had plenty time to float through her mind before she saw him safe and blood-free.
"Yes, Parker?" she asked, pulling a chair from the table and situating herself next to him. "What's goin' down?"
The scraggly seventh grader cocked his head and stared at her for a moment, his left eye partially obstructed by the flop of overgrown dirty-blond curls. Shaking his head he replied, "Maybe Dad was right. I shouldn't teach you cool language. It sounds too... weird."
Brennan shrugged, another habit Parker had been pushing onto her, and angled her body to better see his homework. "Need help?"
He nodded. "We're working on 8th grade math. Mrs. Rodgers says we're real smart, and that we can do the advanced stuff, but I don't get it."
"Where are you stuck?" she interrogated. Without even looking, he pointed to the top of the paper. "I think you know your name, Parker."
He rolled his eyes and slid his index finger down to the first problem. When he first tried it, he hadn't even bothered to read the whole question. "It's too hard," he complained.
She moved the paper out from under his hand and scanned the question. Her brow furrowed, like when she's staring at a complex puzzle of bones and murder weapons, but her expression quickly smoothed, the answer quickly computed in her head.
"What is slope-intercept form?" she quizzed.
"Uh," he stuttered. When he couldn't come up with an answer, he opened his binder and shuffled through a stack of floating papers. Brennan made a mental note to later suggest he organize his binder. "Is it y2-y1 divided by x2-x1?"
"No, that is the formula for slope. What other equations has Mrs. Rodgers given you?"
"Well, there's y=mx+b."
Brennan smiled. "Good," she hummed, trying to encourage the boy. "Now, look at the question again and we can try to fill in all the missing information."
Booth snuck into the room and heard his son say, "Is this kinda like what you do? Like, when there's a missing bone of one of your dead guys, you have to find it? Or when you and Dad have all the pieces of a murder, like who was killed, how they died, and how they were all chopped up, but you have to figure out who did it?"
Booth chuckled and walked past them to the fridge for a bottle of cream soda. Neither of the two mathematicians noticed his presence.
"Sure, Parker. Although, technically, there are no bodies, murder weapons, or murderers truly involved in slope-intercept form, I suppose that your analogy is valid."
"Cool!" Parker exclaimed, suddenly sitting up in his seat. "So, the equation is like one of your really gross, slimy bodies, and I have to figure out who did it, but first I need to know who the murdered dude is, and how they were killed!"
"Precisely. The question itself is a bit like the bones because that's where all the answers lay—you just have to discover them. What does the question tell us?"
The boy concentrated on the question, reading it to himself a few times, before providing Brennan with the numbers given. "There's a slope of three, and a point of (-2, -6)."
Brennan picked up his pencil and wrote the numbers on the top of a scratch sheet of paper. "How do we put the slope of three into the equation?"
Parker's shoulders once more slumped, the excitement to solve the problem slowly burning out. "I don't know."
"That's alright, Parker," she said, patting his shoulder in hopes of comforting him. "Look at your notes and see what Mrs. Rodgers told you represents slope."
He ducked his head to scan his notes, curls blocking both eyes this time. "M?" he guessed.
"Correct. Why don't you start writing the equation now that you know the slope?"
"Alright," he sighed.
Brennan draped her arm around the back of Parker's chair to have a better view of the paper, and to be closer to him. She was not a natural mom, someone who instinctively knew what to do with kids like Parker, but over the years she had improved. Booth had given her tips, and she constantly tries to interact his son in a caring, friendly way.
Sometimes, when she feels like she's done something right with Parker, she'll look up and smile at Booth. The delight shimmering in her eyes and the pure look of joy on her face always manages to make him surge with fatherly pride and his own joy. The fact that the two most important people in his life love each other gets to him. He wouldn't admit it, but sometimes the happiness is so overwhelming his eyes prickle with unshed tears. (Brennan would never let him live it down if he cried).
"Is this right?" Parker asked, looking tentatively at Brennan.
She picked up on his uncertainty and made sure to beam at him after scanning the page. "Great job! We have the body, the equation itself, and now you figured out how the victim was killed, the slope. I think that the question tells us two more things—who the victim is, and where the victim was killed."
Parker's enthusiasm returned. "Study the bones! Got it!" After mumbling the question a few more times, he said, "Y is -6, and x is -2! The person's name is -6, and he was killed at -2!" Before she could say anything, he scribbled the new information on the page and started talking the problem out to himself. "Now we need to find the murderer, like Dad does!" To Brennan, he added, "That's b," in a way that sounded like he was trying to teach her.
Wisely, she played along. "Precisely. Your dad has to do all the cop stuff, such as the investigating and interrogating. That's similar to working out the problem mathematically and putting everything together."
"I can do that," Parker piped, his eyes bright.
The two adults separately watched Parker scribble all over his sheet of paper, Brennan dutifully studying the math over the boy's bony shoulder, Booth leaning against the fridge with a lopsided grin on his lips. A few times Brennan noted something in his technique, or pointed out a flaw, but Parker was able to do the advanced math on his own.
"B equals zero!" he exclaimed, dropping his pencil on the table and raising his fists in the air. "I multiplied three and negative two, and then I had to subtract that from both sides, and negative six minus negative six is zero!" he laughed as he did some weird pumping of his fists (or so Brennan thought).
"Good job, you two," Booth congratulated, finally joining the group. He ruffled a handful of Parker's curls and kissed Brennan on the cheek. "You two make a great team."
"Just like you and Bones, Dad. You guys always get the bad dudes." Both Booth and Brennan opened their mouths to say something, but Parker beat them to it. "Come on, Bones! I want to do some more crime-solving math!"