(The Girl in the Gator)

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I don't own Bones.

Oooooooooooooooooo

As he talked to Booth, he noticed how agitated the man was. Gordon Wyatt had been assigned Booth's case and he had found the agent to be stubborn and determined to brush aside what he had done.

"Why don't you give me one of those clown restraining orders and just sign my paper?" Booth was angry. He didn't know what Gordon wanted from him, but he was messing with his partnership and he couldn't let that stand. Brennan needed him.

"Have you had an insight then as to why you shot at the clown?" Gordon Wyatt was a patient man and he would not sign any paper releasing Booth back into the wild until he got a good explanation from Booth about why he shot the clown head on the ice cream truck. It worried him that the man had lost control and fired his gun in public.

Booth's phone started to ring and the agent answered it. Gordon had told the man that he couldn't use his phone while they were talking and here he was ignoring that rule. The agent had problems with authority and Gordon thought that odd since the agent was a decorated Army veteran. Quite the paradox.

"Yeah, I have some insight. It's right here." Booth pointed at the ringing phone while he answered. "That's my Bones calling, huh? My partner. Right?"

Since his patient was now on the phone, Gordon walked away. His Bones? His partner? Interesting and oh so telling. He let the agent talk for a bit and then returned to stop the conversation. He had a lot to talk about with Booth but the man was going to resist as much as possible. The fact that the agent had lost his temper and shot at a paper mache clown worried him. There was a lot of rage under that calm exterior and it was time someone did something about it.

Oooooooooooooo

Their conversations had been like a chess match. Booth was willing to joke and to deflect, but he did everything he could to protect his inner thoughts. Wyatt knew about Booth's childhood. The man had been raised by his grandfather because his father had been abusive and his mother had fled their home when the agent was a young boy. Add to that his job as a US Army Ranger, his time as a prisoner of war, Booth's job as a sniper. There was a lot of layers to be uncovered and Gordon knew that it must be done before the agent had a nervous breakdown. "How many people have you killed?'

"I lost count." His voice was wooden, his face expressionless. Booth didn't want to talk about taking lives. It was no one's business but his.

"How many lives have you've taken?" It was the key question to this whole charade that Booth was playing. Gordon felt that this was the path they needed to take.

His face still sans expression, Booth stared at the ground as he forced out the answer. "Epps made 50."

"Fifty what?" Gordon he knew he had to push back. Booth wasn't going to give complete answers unless he made him.

His voice low, Booth refused to look at the psychiatrist. "Fifty kills."

Now he knew Booth was being truthful. The jokes and the deflection were done. "But Agent Booth, you didn't kill Epps. You tried to save him, remember? Or perhaps I'd better put it as a question. Did Howard Epps slip from your grasp or did you release him? . . . Oh, come on man. It's a simple enough question. Was he indeed your 50th kill or did you just happen to be there when he died?"

"I don't know." Booth stared at Gordon with fear on his face. This was what had been worrying him since Epps had died. "I had him and then I lost him and . . . and something happened in between . . . I don't know."

Relieved that Booth had finally opened up and was being honest, Gordon gave the agent a moment to recover then spoke. "I believe you. Because for a man like you to admit that you don't know, to relinquish control . . . that could indeed argue a disruption in your self-view that was large enough to motivate you to shoot a clown." He watched Booth sit quietly for a few moments taking in what he had admitted. It had been a huge step for the man and it was a stepping stone towards the path he needed to take for good mental health.

Once the agent had left for the day, Gordon made several notes in his notebook, making sure he captured the moment, the words that Booth had used when he finally accepted that he had lost control and shot the clown because he didn't know what had happened on the balcony. The agent had been afraid that he had let Epps go, but Gordon doubted that had happened. There were several witnesses that had watched Booth hold onto Epps and try to pull him up, but Epps had not cooperated and wanted death. It had been an eventuality that Epps would drop to his death because that was what the serial killer had wanted and it was also a given that Epps had counted on it affecting the agent. It had most certainly had.

Ooooooooooooooo

Gordon's meeting with Deputy Director Cullen had been short but necessary. "Agent Booth is not a threat to the public. I would say he's not a threat to anyone unless you're counting the people he's ordered to go after, but I do think he needs to go into therapy for a few months. He has some issues that need to be worked on."

"Like what?" Curious, Cullen leaned forward on his desk and stared at the psychiatrist.

"Anger issues which can easily be traced back to his childhood and probably his service in the Army . . . Agent Booth is a complicated man like all of us and he is the man he is because of his past." Gordon didn't want to say too much. It was his job to get Booth back to work and he was doing that. "I think it would do him some good to talk about his issues, confront some things that he has let fester over the years . . . He needs someone that he can trust to allow him to talk about things that he never speaks about to anyone. I can be that man, but it will take time. In the meantime, Booth can do his job and he will not shoot at any more clown heads. That public display of anger can be traced back to Howard Epps. Epps committed suicide and he used Booth to do it. That kind of thing would affect anyone."

"Yes, it would." Cullen was a reasonable man and he knew that the way Epps' had died would have repercussions. "Epps was not only a serial killer he was a sadist. He enjoyed toying with his victims, causing them grief and fear. When he jumped over that balcony he meant to die, but Booth caught him and tried to save him. I think Epps decided to use the last seconds of his life to torment the agent that had ended his freedom. Unfortunately for Booth, he has to live with what Epps did."

Gordon found that very insightful. "Yes indeed. I think a few sessions a week with Booth will do. I don't know how long he will need therapy, but no need to rush things. He's a fine agent, a brilliant investigator, but he has issues that could hold him back. He needs time to be able to leave his past behind. It will be good for him personally and as a valued employee of the FBI."

"Alright. I'll take your word that he his fit to come back to work." Pleased that Gordon could help Booth, Cullen also felt relief. "He's a good man."

"I wish he believed that." During his conversations with Booth, Gordon had picked up on the fact that the agent didn't really think he was good and that was one of the things they were going to work on. "I fear Agent Booth doesn't see himself that way. Like I said, he's a complex individual and I will endeavor to help him."

He was due in another meeting soon and needed to wrap up this meeting. Cullen turned towards his PC and logged out. "Send me a summary each week of how your meetings are going with Booth."

The meeting over, Gordon stood up. "I will. Never fear."

Oooooooooooooooooo

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