Ruby listlessly drew her fork around her plate, barely listening as her grandmother tried to trick her and Neal into engaging in small talk. Mathilde Lucas was a true representative of her generation, and mindless chatter about one's day and other people's business was one of her favorite activities.

"…saw how Dr. Hopper's roses were coming in, and they're looking quite nice," she was saying, dutifully cutting her meatloaf into smaller pieces. "But the begonias are suffering a bit."

"Dear God, not the begonias," Neal said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. Mathilde raised her eyes, and gave a small hmph of disapproval.

"I wouldn't sit there so smugly, young man," she said with pursed lips. "Not after the call I got from your school."

Ruby raised her eyebrows with interest, and glanced over at Neal. He was determinedly avoiding her gaze, his eyes fixed on Mathilde's with a steeliness that dared her to pick a fight. His hand was clenched tightly around his fork, the prongs spearing his meatloaf with a savageness it did not deserve.

"Was it Booth?" he asked bitterly. "Did he tell you what happened?"

Mathilde raised an eyebrow at his tone. "Yes, Neal, he did."

"Did he tell you why?"

"No, and nor did I ask." Mathilde shook her head in disapproval, going back to her plate. "No reason is enough reason to use violence."

Neal scoffed something that sounded a lot like, "Bullshit", but it was too low for Mathilde to hear. Deciding to take advantage of her newly-emphasized position as "the good kid", Ruby straightened in her seat, and cleared her throat.

"Granny?" she said, keeping her voice as sweet and girlish as she could. "Speaking of school, um…" She tucked her hair behind her ear, looking up from under her lashes. "I've got this French test on Monday, and um—well, I have this friend, who was going to help me study Saturday night, so would it be okay if…?"

She trailed off, painfully aware of how lame her story sounded. Lying to her grandmother never worked because one, Ruby was a terrible liar; and two, Mathilde could sniff out dishonesty like a bloodhound.

"You want to go out and Saturday night…and study." The skepticism in her voice was practically tangible. She laid down her fork, peering at her granddaughter over her spectacles, leaning slightly forward. "With a friend?"

"Yes?" Ruby said in a small voice, ignoring Neal's derisive snort.

"Do I know this friend?"

"…Not exactly."

"Uh-huh." Mathilde gave a brisk nod, and sat back in her seat, taking up her silverware again. "And is this friend a boy or a girl?"

Ruby bit her lip. "Well—he's a boy, but he's really nice and—"

"At that age, boys are only nice for one reason," Mathilde scoffed. "No, Ruby. You may not go out on Saturday night."

"But we're just going to study!" Ruby pleaded. "I swear, Granny! Nothing will happen!"

"Is it that moron, Peter?" Neal asked, a devilish smile on his face. "It is, isn't it?" He glanced at Mathilde, answering her unspoken question with a little shrug: "He's got a thing for her."

"Shut up Neal, it's not Peter!" Ruby snapped, her face reddening as Neal snickered into his potatoes. Peter had been her "boyfriend" in second grade. They had held hands during the Valentine's Day parade, and Neal had never let her live it down—ever.

"Who is it, then?" Mathilde prodded. "Who, Ruby?"

"Like it matters!" Ruby shoved her chair back from the table, and folded her arms tightly across her chest, glowering. "You already said, I couldn't go!"

"Well, that was when I didn't know who he was. If you tell me, I might change my mind." Mathilde raised her eyebrows, taking a bite of meatloaf, regarding her granddaughter with exaggerated patience. "And you'd have an even better chance if you stopped lying to me."

"I wasn't lying!"

"Studying? On a Saturday night? With a strange boy?"

"Okay, fine, maybe I was lying a little," Ruby grumbled; then added, in a flush of temper, "But I wouldn't have to, if you weren't such a tyrant!"

Mathilde sputtered a bemused laugh. "A tyrant?"

"Yes!" Ruby sat up, her voice taking on a desperate edge. "No one else's parents have all these stupid rules! I'm the only one in the entire school who's not dating!"

"Oh, no, you're not." Mathilde pointed her fork at Neal. "Your brother doesn't date."

"That's because he's a psychopath! He doesn't even socialize, he just—" she waved her hands wildly over her head— "hovers around and scares people!"

"People are scared of what they can't control," Neal said, giving her a withering look. "Just because my life doesn't revolve around pep rallies and football games—"

"Shut up, Neal! God!" Ruby firmly turned her chair away from her brother, appealing to Mathilde with clasped hands and desperate eyes. "Please, Granny? He's really nice, and I'll let you meet him and everything. Please, can I go?"

Mathilde narrowed her eyes. "Do you know what happened the last time I let a teenager in this house date?"

"Here we go," Neal muttered, as Ruby let out a defeated sigh.

"Your mother, God rest her soul, insisted that he was a nice young man, a responsible young man. They went to a dance. They took his car. And what happened?" Mathilde slapped the table, and pointed at Neal. "Your brother happened!"

Ruby rolled her eyes. She barely remembered her mother at all, but the account of her teen pregnancy…? That was something Mathilde had drilled into her memory for sixteen years. Funny, how easy it was to remember the mistakes Anita had made; but when it came to the totalitarian parenting that prompted her daughter to rebel so furiously, Mathilde couldn't remember a damn thing.

It wasn't fair, Ruby thought mutinously. Just because her mother had made a mistake, it didn't mean she would! If there was anyone to worry about, it was Neal. He was the one who always getting in trouble, making a scene at school, picking fights; Ruby had never even gotten detention! Didn't that win her any points, at all?

"I've never given you a reason not to trust me." Ruby folded her arms petulantly. "I'm not the one who got the phone call from school. I've never broken curfew or gotten drunk or anything. And Killian doesn't even have a car, so it's not like—"

Neal's fork clattered loud to his plate, making Ruby look over, startled. He was staring at her, eyes filled with incredulous fury. "Did you say 'Killian'?" he demanded."Killian, as in, Killian Jones?"

Ruby almost nodded; then remembered it wasn't any of his business, and scoffed at him. "I wasn't talking to you, spaz."

Neal didn't seem to hear her: he looked at Mathilde, wide-eyed and scoffing. "You're not going to let her go, are you? Not with that guy?"

"What do you care?" Ruby shot back. "You're not involved, you've got too many pep rallies and football games to avoid! Granny, don't listen to him, he doesn't know what he's talking about."

"Like hell, I don't!"

"Neal!" Mathilde snapped. "Language, young man!"

"Heck, whatever…". Neal rolled his eyes, trailing off with a few muttered obscenities. Fortunately for him, Mathilde was too busy training her stern gaze on Ruby, preparing another lecture.

"Now, listen," she said. "Jut because you've never given me trouble, that doesn't mean the rules don't apply to you. It just means that you're better at following them than this one—" her head jerked toward Neal. "For that, I thank you. But I'm not going to give you the opportunity to get into trouble, as a reward for avoiding it."

"You let Neal go out whenever he wants," Ruby glared. "Why, because he's more trustworthy than me? Really?"

"It's not you, I don't trust. It's the boy."

"Neal's a boy," she argued. "You trust him."

Mathilde closed her eyes and knit her hands under her chin, letting out an exasperated sigh. Ruby bit her lip, waiting. She had laid out all her arguments, which—in all fairness—were solid as a rock. That didn't guarantee a victory, but Mathilde would be hard-pressed to find a legitimate way against it.

Neal watched just as warily, twisting the fork between his fingers. He exchanged a look with Ruby: the look that siblings share when they are simultaneously holding their breath, briefly united in their uncertainty.

Mathilde lowered her hands after a few silent moments, lips pursed decisively. She looked over her spectacles at her grandchildren, switching her eyes between the two until they came to a rest on Ruby. "All right," she said finally. "You can date—"

Ruby choked back a a shriek of delight, covering her hands over her mouth as Neal sputtered out a, "Are you insane?"

"—when he does."

Her heart dropped. "What?"

Neal snorted, dropping his head to hide his laughter.

"But he's a mutant!" Ruby said, outraged. "What if he never dates?"

"Then you'll never date." Mathilde settled back in her seat, prim in her posture with renewed rigidity in her meatloaf-cutting. "And Neal? You can no longer stay out past nine on school nights, same as Ruby."

His laughter faded. "I'm sorry?"

"Ten on the weekends."

"But that's—" Neal gave his head a shake, still smiling in disbelief—"that's ridiculous. This isn't nineteen-fifty-seven, there isn't anything to do before ten."

"There's always pep rallies," Ruby smirked.

"No one asked you, Princess."

"What's good for the goose is good for the gander," Mathilde declared, cutting swiftly through their bickering. "If Ruby can't date, you can't stay out all hours of the night. And I don't want to hear another word about things not being fair or who's earned what. You are both equally restricted and equally privileged."

"But—" Neal began furiously, just as Ruby groaned, "Stupid—"

Mathilde looked up with flashing eyes, this time pointing her knife instead of her fork. "Not. Another. Word," she hissed, in such a way that even Neal shrank back. "Eat your dinners before they turn ice cold. I want those plates cleaned, do you understand?"

They nodded mutely, picking up their forks.

"And after dinner, you will clean the kitchen." Mathilde inhaled deeply, lifting her chin with parental authority. "And after that, you will return to your rooms, finish your homework, and go straight to bed. And don't even think about sneaking out through the window, because I am going to be stationed in that chair—" she pointed at her ratty armchair, only just visible in the corner of the family room—"all night. And when I am not stationed in that chair, I will be prowling the halls, making bed checks. I will throw back all blankets and ensure that your physical presence is in that bed. And if I find otherwise, you may as well sign your soul over to me right now, because it—and you—will be grounded for the rest of your natural life. Do you understand?"

"Yes," they both muttered grudgingly.

Mathilde gave a satisfied nod, clearly putting the matter out of mind. She did not expect that Neal would wait until her seventy-year-old self gave way to exhaustion before hopping out his bedroom window and scaling the wall. She did not expect that Ruby—still slumping in her seat—was already thinking of a thousand ways she could work around this new rule, a thousand loopholes. She did not her grandchildren to defy her or challenge her authority further, because in her day, children respected their elders and drank their milk and went to Sunday school, like they were supposed to.

Unfortunately for her, neither Ruby nor Neal thought much of parental authority; unfortunately for her, they had inherited their mother's wild streak, and with Neal's cleverness and Ruby's stubbornness, Mathilde's rules really didn't stand a chance.