GORDON-GORDON

Ahhhh, yes, the intrepid Special Agent Seeley Booth. I must admit I've a soft spot for the lad. In a world where personal responsibility, honor and integrity are becoming increasingly rare, Agent Booth has all those attributes… in spades, using his gambling lingo. The downside of this is obvious with only a single glance at Agent Booth: The tension in the shoulders on which he carries the weight of the world.

The FBI had given him a directive some years back: Work with me if he wished to return to the field. The response to the shooting of a clown on an ice cream truck seemed a bit excessive to me, truth be told. He hadn't shot the driver or, God forbid, a real clown, for he truly despises them. When I met Agent Booth, however, I reassessed my original thought. The FBI made no secret of their desire to have him back in the field immediately, being far too valuable to sit on the sidelines. My job, however, is not to appease the FBI, but to make certain any agent referred to me is ready to return to work… psychologically, that is.

He was a man tortured, the cinema would say, crushed by the weight of what he believed to be the fiftieth death by his hand. For a man of faith, he was finding it impossible to find peace, leading to the rather unfortunate incident with the ice cream truck. During our time together, I came not only to like Agent Booth, but to respect and admire him. He'd no desire to be or be seen as a hero, his only aims to be a good man who did his best to make a small piece of the world a bit better and to be a father his son could be proud of and would want to emulate.

Thus, I've found myself quite unable to turn him away when he appeals to me for assistance – despite having hung up my shingle to don a chef's cap. Such as was the case when he'd come to me a year-and-a-half past, fully unable to come to terms with his sudden difficulty shooting a gun with accuracy had nothing at all to do with the brain tumor that had been removed and everything to do with his Dr. Temperance Brennan. I'd counseled patience and hope in that regard, advice he'd failed to heed. His confession of his feelings for her had disastrous consequences, the fallout stretching over nine months and leaving three casualties in its wake.

When he'd appeared once more in my kitchen not quite four months past, he'd been an angry and defeated young man filled with self-loathing. It had been a positively shocking change from the confused and somewhat desperate man who'd sat at my table the year before. He fairly vibrated before your eyes from the chaos within. I'd sat him down, feeding him samples of my creations throughout dinner service. When it was over, I left my staff to do the evening clean up and approached my table, where he sat, with a bite of tart for each of us and a bottle of wonderfully provocative wine.

"Let's start at the beginning, shall we?" I suggest after I'd sat.

That he'd done exactly that without dancing around his reason for being there spoke to the tumultuous state he was in.

He managed to bumble his way through the evening he'd professed his feelings for Dr. Brennan and fileted himself for how he'd behaved after. He grew animated when speaking of his first six months in Afghanistan, sharing how he'd veer constantly from anger to grief, not that he recognized it as such. He'd grown somber and introspective while speaking of how he'd had to battle mightily against the call of makeshift card tables, dice and sport's betting pools. Then he'd spoken with fondness of the young woman he'd met there… and with a great deal of gratitude. He credited her with providing him a reason to leave the base, preserving his gambling sobriety in the process, and having offered him exactly what he'd needed: An easy love affair with no expectations and an understanding it would only last until they journeyed on.

I find it fascinating a man as insightful and gifted at reading others with an ease most will never know has such a blind spot when it comes to his own proclivities. Young Sweets had offered a most interesting take on the matter, describing Agent Booth as a man inclined towards creating his own – unwitting — self-fulfilling prophecies. He's a man whose greatest desire is to find someone whom he can love and will love him unequivocally for the remainder of his life and beyond, with whom he can create a family and the family home, yet unerringly is drawn to women with no interest in the same. He'd devote himself to these women, declaring his love far too prematurely whilst hoping they'd somehow, remarkably, change their life perspectives. Time-and-time again he'd found himself let down and quite alone, seeing not the flaw in his choices but instead viewing each rejection as proof he was so inherently flawed, he was unworthy of the life he desperately craved.

It had taken only a matter of minutes to ascertain he'd once more followed this disastrous pattern in his affair with the reporter, Hannah. Despite a clear understanding of the casual nature of their relationship, he'd declared himself after only a couple of weeks – granted, as had she. Still, he made a most interesting comment when speaking of their inevitable parting…

"I couldn't ask her to leave, any more than she could get me to stay."

The words had rolled off his tongue as though he'd thought them often and spoken them before, yet he failed to understand the import of what he'd said. I, however, refused to blithely ignore it.

"Forgive me for interrupting, but I must say, that was quite a remarkable – and revealing – turn of phrase."

"Huh?"

"When speaking of yourself, you state you couldn't have 'asked' her to leave, ask being the operative word. Yet, you don't say she couldn't have 'asked' you to stay, but 'get' you to stay. The former implies there was at least a possibility of agreement, whereas the latter denotes the same possibility doesn't exist." He gives his head a small shake.

"Huh?" I'm not so naïve as to believe he doesn't understand the question posed. Rather, he's doing what he so often does when he finds himself uncomfortable: Playing a bit of possum.

"When you said she couldn't 'get' you to stay, it's quite the emphatic statement, an absolute if you will. You wouldn't have even considered the suggestion that you remain in Afghanistan, despite your year commitment to the Army would fall by the wayside. Why is that?" He shrugs a casual shoulder.

"My son needed me here."

"Hmm. I'd like you to consider something before next we meet—"

"Wait, we're done?" I nod my head.

"For the moment," I confirm. "As you know from past experience, matters such as these cannot be addressed as they should be in a single meeting. Time for introspection is needed, so one can truly see the whole picture, as it were. Until then, I'd like you to consider the possibility you seized upon the opportunity to return prematurely because there was someone in addition to your son that made it impossible for you to stay overseas…"