Sanity and the Lack Thereof

"How bad was it?" she asked when they closed the front door. Tempe was alarmed.

"What?"

"The first time I brought Greg home, Daddy and Uncle Fred took him to the shooting range. He came back pale as milk. He proposed that night. Three guys broke up with me the week after I brought them home. Seeley's learned not to bring them home, but Jared's not so clever. I think in total it's been five who have come home and four left early. The remaining one broke up with him on the plane ride home. My parents are scary."

"Well, a little, yes." She was taken aback by Lucy's directness. She didn't even offer to drive.

"So, I'm sure she mentioned Rebecca."

"Yes."

"Did I hear the spinster story?"

"Yes."

"She told me that when I was twenty-two." Lucy looked over at her with a charm smile. "She means well, but I can imagine that she's the mother of all mother in laws. It doesn't surprise me that Lilah and I married before the boys. It wouldn't surprise me if Katherine married before the boys. I think Alice is crazy. In a good way."

"Booth – Seeley – he wants to get married. To someone, I mean. He just hasn't found that someone yet." Tempe stumbled out. Lucy pulled over.

"Okay. You call him Booth and you say he doesn't want to marry you, yet you're here at his parents house."

"Well- uh," she needed Angela. "The truth is that Booth and I aren't like that."

"You're not."

"And I don't want children. And I believe that marriage is an archaic institution that goes against a human's natural biological instincts." She was relieved to stop lying.

"Is that why you're not together?"

"Yes. No. No, we work together." Lucy waited. "We work together and we just aren't like that. He doesn't think of me that way. No matter what Angela says. And I don't think of him like that." Lucy nodded slowly.

"I think I'm beginning to understand." Tempe sighed.

"Good. I'm not really – good with people."

"Right. Well, I am. And since you're not asking my advice I'm just going to give it to you. Seeley is like Dad in a lot of ways. But he doesn't want a wife – or girlfriend, or life partner, or whatever – like Mom. I think it would drive him crazy. She needs to have her own life, her own career."

"Yeah. He was dating Tessa – she was a lawyer. And he was seeing Cam – my boss. She's an ME." Lucy pulled back onto the road.

"Was it her who was trapped in the car? The, uh, serial kidnapper thing?"

"That was Jack Hodgins, our entomologist, and me."

"Oh. I would have thought – but, I guess I was wrong."

"What?"

"That was one of the scariest experiences of his life. I thought then that he'd finally found someone. He has never been more frantic."

"What do you mean? How do you know?"

"He called me."

"He told you that?"

"No. But the fact that he called me tells me a lot."