The argument started before they left the Beltway for Interstate 95. If they were honest, the tension had been boiling since Rebecca's surprise announcement of her impending move overseas but until now, had been confined to Booth's under-handed snark, which she had simply chosen to ignore. With the emotional upheaval over Parker's rash decision behind them, it was only a matter of time before the proverbial straw landed on the camel's back.

After the brief conversation with Brennan, Booth ended the call with the press of his thumb and tossed the phone into a depression in the center console.

"Bones said to tell you that they're all glad Parker is safe."

"For now, you mean," Rebecca muttered. "When I get my hands on that kid . . ." She collapsed against the back of the seat with an exasperated sigh. "I can't believe he did this again. He can't keep running away every time I make plans that he doesn't like!"

The jab was out before Booth could stop it. Not that he tried. "Well, you know, maybe if you ever bothered to discuss your plans instead of just announcing them, we wouldn't have these problems."

Half-expecting the comment, Rebecca was immediately stiff with outrage. "Of course. Here we go. I knew you would blame me for this."

Booth hunched over the steering wheel and stared through the windshield with enough heat to melt the glass. "You're the one skipping out of the country. You're the one who decided that was how it was going to be, without a word to either Parker or me. You made the decision and that was that. So, yeah, who else is there to blame?"

Arms crossed, one foot tapping the floorboard in a fast, staccato rhythm, Rebecca glared out her own window. "I don't believe this. You always blame me."

The bump in the road might easily have been the camel, falling beneath the wheels of the SUV under the weight of straw made from all of Booth's anger and frustration. His resentment spewed out, unchecked.

"Because that's just how you operate, isn't it? You get to decide what's going to happen. You make all the decisions and no one else gets a say in it. Once you've made up your mind, that's all that matters. You did the same thing with us and you haven't changed since then."

Rebecca rolled her eyes, sneering at the attack from their shared past. "You went there. I can't believe you actually went there. I cannot believe you actually brought that up again, after all this time."

The mocking response only added fuel to Booth's fury. "Brought what up again? How I came home one day after being on assignment and found my stuff all packed, because you decided we were done? Is that what you mean?"

Rebecca threw her hands in the air and twisted in her seat as much as the seat belt would allow. Her voice rose to a shout. "Because it wasn't working!"

"Because you gave up! Because you didn't want to try anymore! Because you didn't want to work on us anymore!" Booth was just as loud. The small space in the SUV roiled with their anger, and with ten years of unspoken bitterness finally set free. His grip on the steering wheel added new welts over the bruises he'd inflicted on himself just a few short hours before.

Close to tears, Rebecca blinked them away and laughed with scorn. "Because that's all we did was try! Every day, trying again! Every day, another struggle! And every day, another conversation about trying harder and struggling some more. For God's sake, Seeley, I wasn't happy! You weren't happy. If we'd stayed together, Parker wouldn't be happy!"

The harsh truth lay flat between them. Over the smoking wound it caused, Booth clung to his grudge. "I still had a right to be part of that decision. It wasn't yours to make alone."

"There wouldn't have been a decision if you'd had anything to say about it," Rebecca shot back. "You were never going to walk away from me and Parker. Never, no matter how bad it got. Not with the shadow of your father hanging over you. I knew that if anything was going to change, I had to be the one to force it to change. So I did. And you've made me the bad guy ever since."

Before Booth could process the sour taste of reality in that statement, Rebecca jabbed a finger at his arm.

"And you know what else? That's bullshit. If anything, you should be thanking me for breaking us up. If we were still together, you wouldn't have Temperance. And I dare you to look me in the eye and tell me that what we had back then was a tenth of what you have with her now, because if you do, you're a goddamn liar, Seeley Booth. You know it and I know it. I was there, too."

The fight seemed to leave her in a rush. She slumped back against the seat, defeated.

"Seeley . . . we were fun. You and I, we were just fun. If I hadn't gotten pregnant, if Parker had never come along, we would have just . . . fizzled out. We weren't some great love story. We weren't."

That was a point Booth wasn't ready to concede. "I loved you, Rebecca."

"I loved you, too," she replied quietly, studying the handsome, craggy profile, comparing it with the younger version that still lived in her heart. "I loved you for what we were then. For who we were then. But not for a lifetime. Without Parker tying us together, you would be one of my favorite memories. But we would have moved on."

Silence fell, eating up the miles that carried them closer to the son they shared, trampling, too, perhaps, the last vestiges of old grievances built more from the memory of hope than from fact. The quiet was broken when Rebecca burst out,

"I have to say one more thing, while we're getting it all out in the open. You have no right to talk to me consulting each other about life changes, okay? When you decided to go back on active duty, did you talk to me about it? No, you did not."

"Whoa! Wait just a minute." Booth's head swiveled to the right as he finally looked at her. "You knew the Army was trying to rope me back in."

"But I didn't know that you'd decided to go," she pointed out. "You didn't discuss that decision with me before you made it. I didn't know that you were re-enlisting until you came to tell Parker. And I was the one who had to watch him glued to the news, hoping he wouldn't hear his dad's name, every time they talked about dead soldiers. I was the one who had to watch him freeze every time someone in a military uniform showed up on our street. I was here, with our son, while you were off playing GI Joe again. So spare me the lectures about communication, okay. You lost that high ground a long time ago."

The admission sounded as if it were being dragged out of him. "You're right. I should have talked to you before I signed up again. But that wasn't about you, that was about . . ."

Rebecca sighed when he hesitated. "Temperance. It was about Temperance. Of course it was about her! From the day you met, everything has been about her. When you ran off to New Orleans because you heard she got hurt? And how many times have you gotten yourself hurt - or shot! - protecting her? Come on, even my book club knew that the two had run off to opposite sides of the world!"

The reference took Booth completely off guard. "Your book club?"

She gave him a droll look. "Oh, that surprises you, Agent Andy?" She clicked her tongue against her teeth. "For a really smart guy, you can be pretty dense. And I have to say that, as someone watching this whole thing play out from the outside, I'm glad you and Temperance finally figured it out. Watching the two of you dance around each other all the time sucked."

Rebecca dropped her head against the back of the seat again and closed her eyes, then opened them to peek at him through her lashes.

"I'm sorry about springing the London move on you. I should have told you about it sooner. The truth is, I've been sitting on that offer for a year. I kept going back and forth about it, and then this thing happened with you putting a guard on us 24/7 and . . . It just felt like the right time."

"He's my son."

"I know that," Rebecca said, still looking at him. "And you're a great father."

Booth laughed, one short, sharp bark that held no humour. "It would have been nice if you had mentioned that a few times over the years."

There was no denying the regret in Rebecca's voice, or in her expression. "I know. I wasn't very fair to you. I don't have an excuse, I was just petty and jealous."

"Jealous?"

She met his incredulous gaze with a shrug and a smile. "Of course. I was trying to get my career going, working 12-hour days, with a little boy at home that I felt guilty leaving, and there you were, la de da, with all the free time to do whatever you wanted, with whomever you wanted. You could go out with a different woman every night!"

Booth's laughter at that comment was genuine. "There weren't that many women."

Rebecca grinned, too, teasing him now. "Well, in my imagination there were."

The smile took him back to the halcyon days of their beginnings, when she'd been young and pretty, and he'd been instantly smitten. The memories softened what remained of his anger and frustration.

"All you had to do was say something," he pointed out. "You knew I wanted more time with Parker, that I wanted to be a bigger part of his life. All you had to do was ask, instead of throwing up roadblocks."

"I couldn't ask for help. I kicked you out, remember? I am woman, hear me roar. I had to prove that I could do it all on my own." She twisted in the seat again, but this time, as a gesture of openness, a way of reaching out. "Look, I know the London thing is asking a lot, from you and from Parker and I'm sorry about that. I really am. But it's a great opportunity, and not just for me. Living overseas, being exposed to culture and travel . . . It will be good for him, Seeley. And yes, I think he'll be safer," she admitted. "At least he won't be here, with a target on his back every time someone wants to get to you."

"I want him to come home, to come back here, every chance he gets." The words, an admission that Parker would be moving away and he was helpless to prevent it, almost stuck in his throat, lodged behind the painful lump there.

Aware of the effort it cost him, Rebecca found it difficult to swallow, too. "We can work that out."

"And every summer. And Christmas."

The brusque demand caused her to bristle, just a little. "Every Christmas?"

"Every other Christmas." It was as flexible as he was prepared to be. Rebecca accepted it.

"Every other Christmas."

"And any school breaks in between," Booth added suddenly. "If he's got a week or two off, I want him."

"Fine. As soon as I get him enrolled in school, I'll call you and we can go over the calendar and see what works. Maybe we could trade every other break, too."

Booth gave her a wry smile. "Maybe we should get a real credit card in his name, one that earns frequent flyer miles. He's going to be racking them up."

"That's for sure." After watching a motorcycle speed by, Rebecca groaned. "Dammit. I'm not mad anymore, and I want to be good and furious when we get to your grandfather's."

"I don't think that will be a problem," Booth answered. "We haven't talked about his punishment yet."

.

.

.

She wasn't 'good and furious' when they finally pulled to a stop outside the retirement village that Hank called home, but after shedding a few tears and hugging Parker so tight, he struggled in protest, she was able to manage a dark frown that convinced him her anger was real. Booth, too, put aside his relief at seeing his son safe and sound, and instead, scowled with displeasure.

"What the hell were you thinking?"

"I don't want to go to - -"

"If this is about London, I don't want to hear it," Booth interrupted. "You're not four years old anymore. You got a problem, you come talk to your mom or me, you understand? No more of this running away crap. The only thing you've managed to do now is get you and your friends in a whole lot of trouble."

Parker looked downcast. "What's going to happen to them?"

"You should have thought about that before you roped them into lying for you," Booth said ruthlessly.

"And you should be more worried about what's going to happen to you," Rebecca scolded. "You're going to work in my office after school every day until you pay James and Ashley back. And James' brother, too, along with the interest he was going to charge James. And you're grounded for a month. And I don't just mean no video games, either. I mean, no TV. No after school activities. No movies with your friends. Nothing."

"And no guitar," Booth added. Horrified, Parker immediately protested.

"NO! Dad, please! Don't take my guitar! Please!"

Booth hardened his heart to his son's pleading, and the tears filling the boy's dark eyes. "No guitar, and no lessons either. Not for a month."

"But . . ."

"You want to make it two months?"

Parker shot a desperate look at his great-grandfather, who merely shrugged.

"That's why they call it punishment, kid. It's supposed to hurt."

.

.

My 'Bones' characters all live and play in the same sandbox, which means that this version of Parker is also the Parker that lives in 'Roots and Wings,' and that Parker is a rock star. Taking the guitar away from him is like asking his heart not to beat. Poor baby.