Spoilers Through The Bone That Blew—there were a lot of things that bothered me about this episode, despite all the great B/B moments, and *swoon* the ending catwalk scene. I wish there'd been some closeout scene to follow up what I thought were some ridiculous parts to the conversation between Max and Booth.
Ground Rules
"We need to talk."
"Jesus!" I said, startling. I didn't even hear him come up behind me until he spoke. I'm getting old, I guess.
He snorted at my exclamation then sat down on the stool next to me. He didn't look at me right away, just smiled at the waitress, who promptly brought him a cup of coffee, already made the way he likes it, probably, and said "apple, cherry, or lemon meringue?"
"Cherry," he said. "Ice cream, too, please?" he then added, giving the waitress a smile that would get him a whole hell of a lot more than ice cream if he asked nicely again. Damn, he's even more charming than I ever was. Good thing he's not my age, and I never had to compete with him for my Ruthie. I wondered what he wanted. Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut about the paternal approval thing. That kind of stuff's pretty old fashioned, and he's got to have some kind of reason for not having made a move on her yet.
I took a sip of my coffee while I waited, then picked at my salad. Goddamned cardiologist says I have to eat more vegetables if I want to enjoy my grandkids. When she placed the pie in front of him like it was a trophy, he smiled at her again and gave her a "thanks." She practically melted.
He took a sip, took a bite, and smiled to himself at the flavor. I never was a fan of cooked fruit, myself, though a slice of banana cream pie every once in a while isn't bad. The initial period of making me wait while he got himself situated (damn, he's good, it just took me until now to realize that's what he's doing, I'd gotten used to him knowing I was on his side and letting his guard down a little) was finally over when he took another sip of his coffee, then turned and looked at me with those deep brown eyes—pinning me in place. I might as well be a butterfly on a stickpin.
How the hell does he do that? They could be warm and chocolaty, those eyes, though I'm no poet, when he's talking to his little boy, or my little girl. But I'd seen them blackened with anger when he pounded me out in that parking lot. Yeah, I never should have punched him in the nuts, but I could tell he was ready to beat me to a bloody pulp with no remorse, and I'm too damned old to get over that quickly. I had no doubt, though, that he wasn't even that mad at me right then—and I knew that "black as night" wouldn't mean jack if someone got him really angry. Black like a black hole would probably be more like it—depthless and destroying, sucking in everything with the bad luck to pass by after something made him that angry. It was why I liked him—he had a lot of self-control, so it would take a whole hell of a lot to make him that angry. It would probably take danger to people he considered "his" to protect before he'd unlock it enough to make use of that energy—and I had no doubt that he'd do whatever he thought he had to. Another reason I liked him.
"Couple of ground rules, Max," he said finally, after looking at me long enough that I was inwardly squirming. Not outwardly, yet, but I'd no doubt that if the kid was mad enough, squirming would be the least I would be feeling.
"Ground rules for what?" I heard myself say.
He looked at me measuringly—he gave me that look before, in that interrogation room, when he knew he had me but still needed more proof than those phony papers he couldn't get prove. It was what I thought of as a "catch and release" look. He'd caught me, and was going to let me go, but like a stupid fish who can't resist the lure (of seeing my Tempe) over and over again, he was going to catch me again, waiting patiently, like all serious anglers do.
"You. Your being around. Your working at the lab. Your claims on Bones' time, when she's already made other plans that don't include you popping in and out as you please." He gritted his teeth, looking annoyed. He took another bite of pie, another sip of coffee before talking again.H
"You had no right to take that job at the lab without consulting Bones first," he said, his eyes boring into me.
"She would have said no," came out without my even thinking about it. Shit. He was good.
He quirked an eyebrow at me. "Isn't she entitled to say no? Max, she put her neck out for you in that courtroom-- if she never wanted to see you again, I can't see as you'd have any right to say anything about it."
Well, that was a kick in the nuts. He just looked at me, unamused by my surprise. He wouldn't be—he's not sadistic, he's just purposeful. He had a purpose here. But I felt the need to defend myself.
"She seems to be okay with it now…" I began.
Now, he looked amused. "Yeah," he drawled. "Because you asked me to say something to her, and only because I asked her to do me a favor after she already said no."
Oh. So now I owed him a favor. Shit. He was better than good.
"I'm gonna tell you a thing or three, Max," he said, then motioned his fork at my salad. "You eat your veggies, there, though. Bones wouldn't like it if you popped off from a coronary after all that work she put in on you."
He took a few more bites of his pie, then nodded at the waitress when she looked over. She popped right over with a second piece, complete with ice cream, and a warm up for his coffee. Where the hell does he put it? The kid's in good shape, but you can't be eating two pieces of pie at a go whenever you feel like it.
I stuffed some more damned raw cauliflower and lettuce into my mouth and chewed like a cow. I hate salad. And goddamned vinaigrette. The things I do for my kids. I was halfway through a mouthful of olives and cherry tomatoes when he started speaking again.
"Now, I know you've known her longer, years-wise, than I have, but I think I have a better sense right now of who your daughter is than you. Though I'll be damned if she still doesn't surprise me," he grumbled, then slurped his coffee. He set the mug down, and turned back to look at me.
"Bones doesn't like surprises. And you can't push her to make a decision. If you push her and try to get her to come around to what you want her to think, it'll backfire. She's got to get there on her own, Max. If you don't let her figure it out for herself, on her own time, then she'll just shut down and refuse to give you any answer at all."
I couldn't help but be mad at him telling me he knew his daughter better than I did. "She loved surprises when she was little," I protested.
He interrupted me, nostrils flaring. "Loved. Past tense. When she was little. Also past tense. What kind of a surprise was it when she found out you two were gone, huh, Max? She doesn't even like it when I show up with coffee without calling first, Max, and I've been working with her for almost four years. I mean, the woman's killed two people for me and yet she still gets cranky if I don't order the same Thai Food every time I get takeout. How do you think it made her feel that you just popped up again and acted like it was okay that you invaded the one place where everyone else knows not to surprise her, knows not to push her, and trusts her to come to the right decision every single goddamned time if you just let her do her own thing?"
I shook my head, realizing. He was right. I hadn't seen it, initially, but it was true. The team working with her gave her space, even that boss of hers (who now to think of it, did look uneasy when I came in to meet with her about the job)—and every single damned one of them offered her information like it was some piece of a holy puzzle that she, the Grand Priestess Scientist, was going to snap into place. Which she did—my pumpkin's brilliant, way smarter than I'll ever be.
"I just want her to be happy," I said. Well. That sounded pretty Feeble Old Man.
He looked at me, some expression somewhere between pity and sympathy on his face. "Max… she's not a happy person, not the way you mean it. She's never going be some happy-go-lucky person who cracks jokes and smiles at the drop of a hat. She's been through too much. She's always going to be kind of reserved, and her default mood is always going to be serious. What you want, Max, for her to look up when you come in the lab, and drop all her toys and run over to say 'Daddy!' with a smile on her face?—it's never going to happen. The best it's going to get is when she's content, and she has time and space to think about things and make up her mind, and then she can enjoy what she's chosen to do."
Christ. Two kicks in the nuts in five minutes. Tenacious asshole that I am, though, I couldn't really give up. "She's been through too much… what the hell does that mean? Her brother and I can take care of her…"
He clenched his jaw again, flared his nostrils again, and leant in, voice low. Oh, holy shit. Black as a black hole was right.
"You can't take care of her, you didn't take care of her, and you have no idea what she's been through. You failed, Max. You can't expect her to just throw her arms open every time you pop back up again—and by the way, mind telling me where you've been since your trial until a week ago, hunh?" He paused long enough to inhale a furious breath. He was literally seething, and he only got madder as he continued.
"Her foster kids file? It's a horror show, Max. And all those little foreign digs she goes on, Max? Her State Department file's practically six inches thick—suspicious natives in war torn regions tend to think academics are spies in disguise, Max, especially when they're working on genocide cases for the U.N. Talk about nightmares. Suspicious guerrillas, too."
"And she told you that?" I asked, amazed and horrified all at once.
He shook his head. "No. And she'd shoot me if I told her, too—so if you tell her, I'll do worse than shoot you. She needs her privacy. No, I pulled the files when we found your wife, Max, thinking I might find something that could be helpful. Instead I didn't sleep for three days and wondered how in hell she got out of bed every day and went to work instead of curling into a ball in the closet like I probably would." He looked off, remembering something, then took a swig of coffee and some more pie, suppressing the memory.
He spoke again, then, looking a little less furious, and "Which is all just to say, Max—Bones can handle pretty much anything, but you've got to let her handle it her way. You try to push her, and she'll freak out."
"That boy shrink says she has abandonment issues," I ground out. Boy, I thought he was full of shit when he said it. I was glad I stuck him with that check, later.
"You think?" he asked, his tone almost nasty. "She pounded me once when… well, suffice it to say, when I didn't make sure she knew when I'd be back from an assignment. Nobody's knocked me on my ass like that in years." He shook his head, then looked at me again, pinning me in place like a specimen.
"Don't rush her, Max. Give her some evidence she can work with. Be around. Be available to help, if she wants it. Be encouraging, but don't come right out and say what conclusion you want her to draw. If you leave, let her know when you'll be back, and don't be one minute late. She'll figure it out, even if it seems painfully slow to you. But see, you've got to understand—you've got no say, none whatsoever, in how long it takes her to make up her mind. Got it?"
I nodded. There wasn't much else I could do. Suddenly, I realized I'd made a piss poor mistake back at the lab when I told him I approved of whatever relationship he might pursue with my daughter. He didn't need my approval—didn't want it, either. The only approval he needed, if he even wanted it, was hers. And he damned well wasn't going to show me what he wasn't going to show her—at least until she was much closer to making up her mind about whatever conclusion he hoped she might draw.
But I could let him know I was starting to understand, just a little. "She still lets you show up unannounced, even though it annoys her."
He'd finished his pie and was swilling the last of his coffee when I said it. He shot me a sidelong look, then a grin.
"That she does, Max," he said, standing and slapping me on the back before sauntering off. Sticking me with the check, and not like it wasn't time I started to pay. Boy, he was good.
