As Parker and Booth finished dinner the conversation is slow. Booth pays the bill and they leave. As they walk to the car the sun is just starting to set.
"Does your mom know where you are?" Booth asks.
"Umm… yeah, well she knows that I am with you. I think."
"I'm gunna call her real quick." Booth pulls out his phone and punches some numbers.
"Rebecca, hey, umm, me and Parker need to talk about a few things, so I'll bring him home when we're done… no…yes Rebecca… no, I don't… no… I won't… I will… I don't know what time… yeah I'll talk to you later." Booth turns off his phone again as he gets into the car.
"So where are we going?" Parker asks.
"You'll see," Booth says as he slowly pulls out of the parking lot. They drive for about 45 minutes until they are outside of the city. Booth pulls onto a road that Parker wouldn't have noticed had they not turned onto it. When Booth stops the car he sits for a minute, a soft smile on his face. He looks at Parker then opens his door and walks to the back of the SUV and grabs a blanket. He walks to what seems to be a clearing in a small patch of woods. He lays the blanket out on the ground he sits on the blanket hits the spot next to him indicating for Parker to sit next to him. Once they are both seated, Booth lays back, Parker follows. When he looks up he sees a sky full of stars.
"You would think that being a sniper would be cool, at least I did. All through training I was the best, even better than some of my instructors, and that booth pissed them off and impressed them. I was a natural; the rifle felt so, so right in my hands. Pissed off some of the guys training with me, they had to work twice as hard as I did, but I was still twice as good."
Parker kind of chuckles at this, he was the same way, he was a great shot too. "But then you come to learn that shooting at cardboard and targets is nothing like shooting at the real thing." Booth pauses and looks at the stars for a few long moments. "General Mohammad Halim, 5'3, 180 pounds, walked with a slight limp. General Halim was in charge during 3 major battles. He was my first target. I'll never forget how long and hard I had to squeeze the trigger, or the sound of the bullet leaving my gun, or the way the gun recoiled into my shoulder. I'll never forget how he fell. The blood. The scream of his wives, they way they ran to him. I think one of them was pregnant, she looked like it anyway." There was a long pause. "I'll never forget how sweaty my palms were, even after I was back at camp. I had killed someone, and this person posed no immediate threat to me or anyone around me that I knew about. I took a life. I couldn't get over it. This person was gone because of me." Booth sighed deeply. "I didn't think God would forgive me, I couldn't even bring myself to ask him to. It wasn't until I got out and I was back home before I talked to him again. I had killed 49 men before I even talked to God about the first."
"Dad… did he… did God forgive you?"
"It was more of a matter that I had to forgive myself. Father Joe told me while I was in confession that I did what I had to do for my country, and that God understood that. But I was still holding on to the fact that I thought he abandon me out there."