"Bones," Jim whispered against his ear.

"What are you doing?" he asked as she slid her hand under his shirt, pressing kisses along the back of his neck while her hands roamed his skin.

"I'm not doing anything," she chuckled.

"You're in my bed," Leonard sighed.

"Only in your dreams, Bonesy."

"What?"

"You're still asleep, Bones," Jim told him. "Wake up."

Leonard rolled over and found himself alone, his phone ringing on the nightstand. "Holy shit. I gotta stop doing that." Like he had any control over his dreams. The ringing stopped for a second before it started again. He grabbed the device that forced him to wake up earlier than necessary on a Saturday morning. "Hello." For a long moment, there was silence. "Hello."

"Len," came the voice of his ex-wife. If someone had told him a year ago that the mere sound of her voice would piss him off, he wouldn't have believed it but now… well, they would've been right.

"What do you want?" he asked, all the pleasant feelings that he had coursing through his veins was instantly gone. He didn't want to talk to her but since she was the mother of his child, he could try to be civil, if only Joanna's sake.

"I need to see you," she told him.

"Not gonna happen," Leonard said.

"I know you're mad, Len…"

"No, I'm not," he half-lied. "I was but I have more important things to worry about than who you're sleeping with. So, you can either tell me what you want over the phone or you can hang up and leave me alone."

"Look, I just need to talk to you, face-to-face," Jocelyn said. "There are some things I need to say."

"And I'm supposed to what, hop on a plane to see you so that you can have some kind of absolution? I have things to do," he told her. He also didn't want to see her but telling her that would just piss her off and he didn't feel like dealing with that.

"You're not in Georgia?"

"No. Your little stunt at the hospital cost me more than my job. I got blacklisted. I had to take a position in the Midwest. We moved in September. You would know that if you called your daughter. You remember her, right? Long brown hair, hazel eyes, looks like us?" Leonard asked. So maybe he was a little more pissed off than he'd like to admit.

"Of course I remember her. If you want, I can pay child support," she offered.

"Don't. She's fine and we don't need anything from you."

"I still need to see you. The way we left things…"

"Is the way you wanted to leave them. I'm not gonna bend over backwards because you suddenly feel guilty that you threw away a dozen years for Clay fucking Treadway. If you really want to talk to me in person, you can wait until next month. I might, might, go home for Christmas."

"And if you don't?"

"Then I don't. It's none of your business either way," he told her. "Look, I gotta go."

"Okay," Jocelyn said. "I really didn't mean for any of this go the way it did."

"Nothing we can do about it now. Bye, Lyn."

"Bye," she said before the call disconnected.

"Are you gonna stand out there all morning?" Leonard asked with a smile.

"What did she want?" Joanna asked as she climbed onto his bed and sat next to his feet.

"I don't know. She said she needed to talk but she'd only do it in person," he said. Leonard decided that he wasn't going to lie to Joanna about her mother. He wasn't going to talk crap about her like so many other divorced parents do either. Joanna was smarter than her age implies and he knew that she knew what was going on.

"Good luck with that one," his daughter chuckled.

"That's more or less what I said."

"I don't know why she thinks she rules the world but she doesn't. She's such a bitch," the eight-year-old said.

"Language."

"I'm not wrong," she pointed out.

"No. Just watch your word choices," Leonard told her. Joanna nodded. "So, what are we doing today?"

"Well, we could watch movies and hang out. There's laundry but we can do that while the movies are on. And Miss Jim gave me the secret to her pancakes, so we're making those for breakfast."

"So, what's the secret?"

"I have to ask her if I can tell you," Joanna smiled. "Can I call her?"

He handed his daughter his phone. She didn't bother looking in his contact list, she knew Jim's number off the top of her head, which was actually comforting. If something ever happened to him, she knew who to call. Leonard smiled, "She's at work, so she might not answer right away."

"Yea, Bones?" Jim asked just as Joanna turned on the speaker function. His daughter gave him a look like he should've known that Jim would answer his calls on the first ring.

"It's Joanna, Miss Jim."

"The young Miss McCoy, how can I be of assistance this beautiful morning? Your dad's not sick again, is he?" Jim asked, he could hear the smile in her voice.

"No, he's fine. As a matter of fact, daddy asked for your secret pancake recipe," Joanna said.

"I did not. You mentioned it and I can't make 'em if I don't know what the trick is," he said.

"Hmm. Can we trust him, Miss McCoy?" Jim asked.

"I think we can. He's very trustworthy," his daughter said with a bright smile.

"Then you may bestow upon him the secret of Jim's world famous pancakes," Jim chuckled. "I gotta get back to work, sweetie."

"Okay. Be safe, Miss Jim," Jo said.

"Always. Later, Doctor and Miss McCoy."

"Bye, Miss Jim," Leonard and Joanna said in unison before hanging up the phone.

"Fold the orange zest from one orange into the batter," Joanna told him.

"That's the secret?" he chuckled.

"Yep. She said it's a life changer and she was right."

"You're eight, what do you know about life changing?" Leonard asked his daughter.

"I'm young in age and old in spirit. I thought you knew that already."

"Are you gonna go see her?" Jim asked. Joanna asked if she could see where Jim works, so the sheriff was showing her around the station while Jim hid the pictures and reports from the Wallace murder. As much as he didn't want to have this conversation, it was more comfortable than thinking about some of the other things on his mind.

"Why should I? She wanted out, she got out. I shouldn't have to run when she wants something. I mean, I would've run if she asked me to before but now… She doesn't own me."

"You sure about that?"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" he asked.

"Hear me out before you say anything," she said. He gave her a nod. "You were together for eleven… twelve years. There's a part of you, all be it a very small part, that still loves her. It's not something that you just turn off. Maybe you need to see her. Not because she wants you to but because the only way you can get any closure on the whole thing is by saying to her what you need to say. How you feel about her is not going away simply because you're ignoring it."

"I don't love her. Not anymore."

"Liar. She was your wife, Bones. She's the mother of your child. You have some love for her. That's why it hurts so damn much," Jim smiled. "You know I'm right."

"I don't have to like it," Leonard grumbled. How the hell did she know all that? Was it written on his face or something?

"I never said you did."

"What about Jo? I mean, cheating on me was bad enough but she practically abandoned Jo and I'm not keen on forcing my little girl to see her."

"I never said that either. Jo's a smart kid, ask her what she wants to do. If she doesn't want to go with you, she can stay with me."

"You'd do that?"

"Of course I would. We're talking about me getting to hang out with Joanna. We'll watch movies and paint our toes and plot her world domination. Like I would pass that up."

"Where's Joanna?" his mother asked when he walked into his childhood home.

After thinking about it for a few days, he decided that he should just bite the bullet and go to Georgia. It was going to bother him to no end if he didn't find out what was so important that his ex-wife had to see him in person.

"Hello to you too. It's Thursday, she's at school," he chuckled as dropped his bag inside the door.

"You left her alone?"

"I did no such thing. She's with a friend," Leonard said.

"What kind of friend?"

"The kind that's just a friend. A good friend but a friend none the less," he smiled. "Jo's fine. She said she'll call you when she gets home from school."

"Why didn't you bring her?"

"She didn't want to come and I wasn't gonna make her. This is hard enough on her and right now, I think forcing her to talk to Lyn isn't gonna help. When Jo's ready to talk about her mother, or to her mother, then she can. Now, can I have a hug from my mama, or what?"

"Hi," she smiled and pulled him into her arms. "You look well."

"Were you expecting me not to?" he asked with a smile.

"Maybe a little."

"That hurts my feelings, mama," Leonard chuckled. "I'm good. I like where I work. I have friends. Jo's happy."

"Come sit and tell me about it," his mother ordered.

"Yes, ma'am."

"I can't believe you're actually here," Jocelyn said from across the table at a café near their old house. He decided that meeting her on neutral ground was the best bet. That and his mother would probably hurt his ex-wife if Lyn even thought about showing up at the house.

Leonard stared at the woman he used to love more than life itself and he could admit that she looked good. Her long dark hair was pulled out of her face, she was wearing just the barest amount of makeup on her flawless skin. It was almost unfair how good she looked. Some part of him wanted her to look like crap for the nine months of bullshit she put him through before he moved, as petty as it sounds.

"You needed to talk, talk," Leonard said after a minute.

"You don't have to be mean."

"You don't have to pretend to be nice," he pointed out. They sat in silence for another long moment, just staring at each other.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry about what I did," she told him.

"Which part? The part where you were unhappy but didn't say anything? The part where you fucked another man in my bed? The part where you blamed it all on my dead father and our child? The part where you caused so much trouble at the hospital that I lost my job? The part where you tried to take everything that wasn't nailed down? Or the part where you washed your hands of our daughter? You're gonna have to be specific, Lyn."

She stared at him for a minute with those big brown eyes that used to drive him crazy before her features softened. "You're right. I did a lot of fucked up things. And I know that nothing I say will fix that but I am sorry. I don't know where it all got… When did this become us? We used to talk all the time and then we just… didn't. I don't know where that happened."

"After my father died, I buried myself in work and only came up for air when Joanna needed me. You… you stopped coming home, at least mentally. Your head was more at work than mine was. I should've said something but I was grieving and I didn't notice until it was too late. The space between us just grew. Now here we are," Leonard sighed.

"It was good, the first decade. It was good, right?" Jocelyn smiled.

"Yea, it was. Sometimes I miss it. I think maybe, just maybe, we could go back there. Then I remember what happened and the nostalgia's gone."

Damn Jim. She was fucking right and it annoyed the hell out of him. All the time she spent talking to him and Leonard didn't realize that she was reading him as much as he was reading her until right now. As far as his blonde friend was concerned, he might as well be an open book. There is a part of him, a tiny part, that does, and will more than likely always, love Jocelyn in some way. He'd been in denial about it before but sitting here with her made that feeling almost impossible to ignore. Then Leonard reminded himself about what Jocelyn did to Jo and the warm and fuzzy feeling went away.

"You don't call her. You haven't even asked about her," he said, she knew exactly who he's talking about.

"She's okay. I know she's okay because you wouldn't let her be anything else," she said.

"You don't even want to talk to her."

"Would she actually talk to me?"

"Probably not," Leonard admitted.

"I didn't just give up custody of her to be mean. She was always your little girl. I gave birth to Jo but anyone with eyes and half a brain knew who took care of her. I figured that giving up custody would be better than dragging her through a fight. I've worked too many cases where one parent rips the kids from the other and I didn't want that for her. I didn't want to keep you from her. I also know that you wouldn't keep her from me unless she asked. So, while it's true that Clay doesn't like kids, my decision had nothing to do with him and everything to do with her. You were always the better parent. I took enough from you, I wasn't gonna take that too."

"I'll tell her that but I'm not promising that it'll help," he shrugged.

"I know. I messed up a lot of things and the two people loved more than anything got hurt the worst. I can apologize until I'm blue in the face but it wouldn't make much of a difference. All I can do is let you live your lives in peace and hope that we can at least be civil with each other."

"You have no idea how much I want to yell at you right now."

"I do. You're pissed, rightfully so, and you wanna yell but you won't. You're too much of a gentleman. Something I took for granted."

"You weren't the only one who took things for granted. I wasn't paying attention."

"You tried to. You just couldn't do everything on your own. I was so wrapped up in myself… that's not on you. Don't think for one second that it was."

"I'll try," Leonard shrugged.

"I guess that's better than nothing. How is she?"

He smiled, "She's good. She uh... Well, she learned how to milk a cow."

"No way."

"I didn't believe it either but there are pictures."