So I had another chapter set to go. And then I decided it wasn't what came next. So here this is, Rebecca's point of view. But it's important, I promise. After this it's back to the regularly scheduled Booth/Brennan drama. For the most part. Lyrics from "I Hope You Dance." Please read and review!

Having your insides scooped out with sharp instruments was not the worst thing in the world, Rebecca discovered. Nor was having your unbearable oldest sister announce she could commute from Cherry Hill for three days a week to "help" out. As a favor, no guilt involved (right). Nor, even, was being diagnosed with Stage IV cancer and, when you pushed your doctor really hard, being told, "a year would be optimistic." (That was just bullshit you weren't going to believe.)

No. The worst thing in the world was chemotherapy.

She understood that it would be bad. Everyone said so. Dr. Nixon talked a lot about side effects, about how aggressive treatment would be. So did Dr. Harrison, the specialist in genetically linked ovarian cancer. So she prepared. She made Brent clean out the fridge and replace it with tons of organic food (from a market Temperance had recommended months ago); she cleaned everything and stocked up on anti-bacterials; she took a leave from her job even though she adored it. She Googled everything and knew that she would feel nauseous, maybe a little light sensitive. They'd already started her on anti-nausea medications. She would have migraines and be tired and be at higher risk for infections. When she and Brent arrived for her first day, she thought she was prepared.

It wasn't too bad at first. They did a lot of blood work to check her CA-125 levels and god knows what else, even a CT of her still-recovering abdominal cavity, then prepped her veins and rigged up the IV bags. All three doctors had walked her through the treatment, explained the cocktails of drugs and anti-side-effect medications she would be taking. She was prepared. They popped in a movie, Some Like It Hot, and she and Brent sat and watched as the drugs were silently pumped into her bloodstream. She was progressively sleepier as the drugs worked through her system, and pretty woozy when they went home. Not that bad. She headed straight to bed and Brent went to pick up Parker.

When she awoke a few hours later, it was an entirely different story. Her body was in agony; the incisions burned and her pulse raced and her stomach felt like someone was playing kickball inside of her. She made it to the bathroom and heaved. The contents of her stomach emptied themselves into a pungent, disgusting mess in the toilet. She'd never seen puke look this angry.

"Mom?" Parker called, running into her bathroom. His eyes widened but he maintained calm. "Mom, is everything alright?"

"Fine, Parker, I'm fine," she rasped, wiping her cheek. Her mouth felt so dry. And her head was killing her.

"Do you want Sprite and Saltines?" he asked. "I can get them."

"That would be great. And get Brent too, ok? Tell him I'd like the pills." To control nausea, she had been given an IV drip before starting the chemo and had been prescribed pills to take at certain intervals after the chemo. She was due for a dosage, thank god.

"Gotcha," Parker said, scampering downstairs.

He reappeared, a few minutes later, a worried Brent in tow. Brent helped her into bed, worriedly stroking her sweaty face, and Parker set the plate and glass on her nightstand.

"Here," Brent said. "The doctor said no more than two of these —"

"What are they?" Parker asked, crawling up on the bed.

"For your mom's stomach," Brent explained, handing her the pills.

"Do they have a name?"

"Um … Reglan," Brent read. "She's got another one for later, too."

"It's supposed to make me drowsy," Rebecca murmured, secretly hoping it would knock her out so she could recover in peace.

"So you're going to go to sleep?" Parker asked.

"Yeah, sorry honey," she said. She'd had so little energy to be with Parker these days, and she'd been hoping the chemo would go easy on her. No such luck. "You cool with doing all your homework with Brent? You can play a little Xbox then, or something." Brent and Parker looked at each other dubiously; Parker knew he was being bribed. But she couldn't help it. Parker and Brent couldn't talk about the deep stuff, anyways, the way she or Seeley or even Temperance could. Beyond that, they had a great relationship. Brent cared for Parker and was responsible and the fact that he still wooed her, chased her, even though she had a kid, said a lot about Brent.

But by the time she met Brent, when Parker was five, Park's heart was sold to the one and only Seeley Booth. When they married three years later, Parker had been such a holy terror at the thought of someone replacing his beloved father that she suggested codifying a joint-custody agreement, simply so Parker wouldn't be so consistently bratty to Brent. Give a little to save a little. Parker had been overjoyed to spend more time with his father.

She knew that was a good thing — Seeley was his father, and Parker was uncannily like him, after all — but it made things just a little more difficult than she would have liked. Brent was phenomenal with him, patient and caring and always ready to ride a bike or toss a ball, and Parker liked him, but always, always preferred Seeley. And since Seeley loved his Bones, Parker had modeled him and liked Temperance much more than he liked Brent. Coupled with the usual pulls of teenagerhood on an 11-year-old boy and sometimes it felt like she was losing her son, though.

"I can call Bones if we get stuck, right?" he asked worriedly.

"Of course, honey," she said. Honestly, it was sixth-grade math. He didn't need to call up Ms. Multiple Degrees. Oops. Doctor. Dr. Multiple Degrees.

She woke up several hours later, as Parker was padding past her door in flannel pants, clearly heading for bed. "Hey, sweetie," she called after him.

"Mom? Do you feel better?" He stood in the doorway, the light arcing behind him.

"A little," she lied. God, her head was killing her. And she could barely see straight. Her insides felt so dry. How was that even possible? "Are you heading to bed?"

"Yeah," he said. "I finished all my homework — it wasn't so bad."

"What do you have?"

"A worksheet on prepositions. And some math."

"And you've got a game tomorrow?"

"Yeah. Dad says he probably can't make it, but he said Bones and Sophie might."

"You talked to your dad tonight, huh?"

"Yeah. I wanted Bones to check one of my math problems."

"Oh. Well, maybe Brent or I can come."

"You'll have chemo. You'll be sick," he said matter-of-factly.

"Well, I'm going to try, okay, Park?" Since when had her kid been so perfect and understanding, anyways?

"Alright. Well, I should go to sleep."

"Wait —"

"Yeah, Mom?"

"Do you — want a story, or something?" They hadn't read together since Parker was six, and she had no idea what she might say.

"A story?" he asked skeptically. "Mom, I'm almost 12. And I'm a guy."

"Oh." Right. "Well, alright. Get some sleep, sweetie, okay?"

"Wait," he said. "I guess I could here one story."

"Great," she said, shifting so she was sitting up. "What do you want to hear?"

"Um. I don't know. Your pick," he said, sitting crosslegged at the foot of her sleigh bed.

So she told him about the pet rabbit she'd had when she was little, that Lisa had turned green. It was funny. Really funny, and she knew she told it well. He still looked bored, though. He was a little old for story time.

"How'd you meet Dad?" he asked suddenly.

"What?"

"I mean… I know how you met Brent — that baseball game. And I know how Dad met Bones, through work. But you and Dad …"

She pondered. She and Seeley had been together for a little over a year; she'd ended it when she was five months pregnant with Parker. The relationship had been in shambles from the minute she said she was pregnant. Seeley, despite his good intentions and white-knight tendencies, had been nowhere near capable of handling a marriage, though he said that was what he wanted; she hadn't wanted to marry him just because she was pregnant and, once she'd turned him down, the relationship became too bitter. He'd been stunned by her response and she was scared. She had stopped looking back years ago. They'd never told Parker much about the relationship — just that, in no uncertain terms, they wouldn't be together again.

"We met at a wedding," she said finally. "You remember my friend, Diane? The one with the cat you hate?" Parker nodded. "It was her wedding to Steve — they got a divorce when you were four or so. You dad knew Steve from high school, and I knew her from work, so we were at the wedding and he asked me to dance. We danced for the rest of the night and then he asked me out to dinner. He refused to kiss me until I said yes." And thus had started the most tempestuous, ill-matched, passionate relationship of her life. She'd been way too young; he'd been way too damaged and worked way too hard.

Parker laughed. "And that worked?"

"Yeah. He called me the next day and we out to dinner in Georgetown and walked along the waterfront. It was very romantic." It had not been, actually. It was freezing and his jacket didn't help at all, and then he got a call about a case and dropped her off alone. But her mother had always said kids needed a little romance about their parents.

Parker rolled his eyes. "Gross, Mom."

"Gross is how your dad met Temperance, hey now," she chided. "Work and a dead body and lots of bugs and an argument that nearly got them both fired?"

"Nah, that's not gross, that's just them," Parker smiled. "And the baseball game is you and Brent, too, by the way," he added diplomatically.

"Thanks, sweetie," she smiled. They had a really good kid, all things considered. He still looked like he was thinking a little too hard, though, so she prompted, "Something else on your mind?"

"Just… Did you and Dad ever … think about getting married?" Oh, damn. They'd had The Talk with Parker years ago; about how Mommy and Daddy both loved him but didn't want to live together, and Mommy would date other people and Daddy would engage in a massively screwed-up, prolonged courtship of the woman he worked with. "You…you don't have to answer," he said, backpedaling when he saw her hesitancy.

"No, no, it's just …" she smiled sadly. "I … I guess I always figured you wouldn't ask that question, since you never knew us any other way? That was dumb of me, wasn't it?" He shrugged, awkwardly, and she wondered how to phrase it. Seeley was nowhere near the edgy, short-fused, angry guy he'd been; she was nowhere near the melodramatic, inconsiderate spitfire she'd been.

"Yeah, kind of," Parker said, shaking her back to reality. "It's … it's just not something I can talk to Dad about. He just says how much he loves everyone and it worked out for the best for all of us."

"I believe that too, Parks," she said.

"I know. You're way happier with Brent than you were with Jeff or when it was just us," he said, twisting a bit of the quilt in his hand. "I was just wondering, that's all. It's stupid."

"No, it's not. It's important, I get it," she said lightly. "Well…Park, you have to remember, your dad and I were very different back then. It sounds so silly… but it's true. I was twenty-three, and I still had school left and needed to get a good job, and my mom was sick. … And your dad, he had just come back from the Army and … it all moved pretty quickly, and at one point, I just kind of said, 'This is too much, too soon.' I couldn't be all of it at once, not yet. And neither you could he, not yet."

"So that's why you didn't get married? Because you got pregnant?"

"No," she paused, trying to figure how to frame this. "Your dad did ask me to marry him, when we found out about you. But I didn't want to rush into things. I didn't want to say yes just because I was pregnant. I loved your father, and he loved me, but … when you're dating, and you're trying to figure out who you're going to be with forever, you have to go through other people. You have to try being in a relationship, and try making things work, and get a little bit older and a little bit better at being a grown-up, so when you meet the person, you're ready for them. And your dad and I, we learned a lot from each other, we really did. And part of what we learned is that neither of us was ready for the whole thing. And that helped us both, knowing what went wrong and what we needed. It got us ready for Temperance and for Brent." She smiled, liking the way all that sounded. "Plus, we got you and — God, Parker, you're probably the best thing that happened to either of us." It was true. Seeley, especially, had changed after Parker. Gotten it together. He'd been in shambles, getting it together, enough to keep her happy. But Parker … Parker had changed Seeley, completely. Lit a fire in him. Given him something to fight for again. Made him less angry. Parker needed to understand that.

Parker seemed satisfied. At any rate, he just smiled and looked more at peace. "Do you think you'll be better in the morning?" he asked, standing to go to bed.

"Positive, babe."

Tuesday was worse, though. She could barely move, and asked Brent to take Parker to Seeley's. It was easier, and she spent the night puking out her guts. And that was the least of her symptoms.

"Am I supposed to feel like a Mack truck just ran over me and then backed up to make sure they finished the job up?" She asked the nurse weakly on Wednesday, after she could barely get out of bed. The nurse nodded grimly.

Seeley came over to pick Parker up that evening for the rest of the week, and she quickly asked, "How bout we change halves?"

"Halves?"

"I want the tail end of the week. I'll be feeling better."

He nodded. "Sure. Parker probably can come over here some afternoons, too. How are you doing with everything — groceries? Things?"

"We're fine. Brent's stocking up before he goes in Friday."

"Brent's going in Friday?"

'Yeah, he's got a shift, Seeley." Brent was the second-in-command at Coast Guard Station Washington; part of that required being on base one weekend a month. It happened.

"You can't just stay alone while he's out on the water."

She shrugged. "I'll be fine."

"That's bull. You can stay with us."

It had been years since she'd gotten truly riled up at something Seeley Booth could say, but that did it. "Knock it off, Seeley," she hissed. "I mean it."

"At least consider it?" he asked, backpedaling a bit. "Seriously. I'm sure the doctor won't like you staying alone."

"Lisa's coming down Friday through Monday. I'll be fine." He looked at her skeptically, clearly torn between respecting her wishes and going on his savior-complex schtick, and she added, "Really, she is. If you want, I can bring her over and you guys can chat."

He looked horrified. "No thanks."

She smiled. "Yeah. She and Sarah are alternating weekends with me. I think Brent would take extra shifts just to avoid them, but he doesn't want them thinking he's a deadbeat." She smiled, but it was really more of a grimace.

"Oh, yeah — why don't they like Brent? They hated me for not marrying you." Never mind it had been her determination that prevented that wedding.

"They hated you for not marrying me, not because of who you are. They still think I should have married you, not him." She rolled her eyes. She loved Sarah and Lise, but sometimes they made no sense.

"I never thought I'd say this, but they make the Keenan Criminal Element seem like a walk in the park some days."

"See? I'll be fine this weekend," she pursed her lips and started to yell for Parker.

"Wait — one thing, before Park comes down," he said quickly, looking around furtively.

"Yeah?"

"Well — you know how we considered sending Park to private school in kindergarten, and then in third grade?"

"Yes. And we decided that paying for college is more important than paying for elementary school." The trust fund. Shitshitshitshitshit. She'd signed off on it, of course, but she hadn't liked it. Who wanted their 11-year-old to have more money than they'd make in a lifetime?

"Well, Bones' friend Angela has a daughter who'll be Soph's grade, and Angela's starting to pick a preschool and kindergarten for her oldest kid. And she and Bones want to send the girls to school together, so they're thinking private. And there's that trust but he shouldn't spend it all on … motorcycles … or something. Plus, Bones pointed out that he's kind of a … you know, a kidnap risk, with my job and all. Anyways. What do you think about transferring to a private school for next year?"

She shrugged, trying not to meet his eye. "His friends are all going to Deal next year and then on to Wilson. And kids from Wilson seem to do fine. My friend Anna's daughter Madison got into Dartmouth from Wilson."

"Yeah, but he's already not being challenged, and he's smart but he doesn't actually like school, you know? He likes school stuff because it's something for him and Bones to do, weird as that sounds. So I'm concerned that he won't stay on top of everything from here on out, once classes get bigger and he gets girls on the brain and his sports commitments up. D.C. public schools really aren't that great, especially with his attitude toward school. And he's Parker, he'll make friends."

She shrugged again; those were all very true. And she was honestly too tired to fight him on stuff like this anymore. "There are tests, right? And interviews?"

"Yeah, a few rounds. They start soon — Bones is on top of all that."

"We should ask him."

"Ask him what?" Parker said from behind her.

"Park —" she whirled. "Dad and I were talking … about maybe sending you to a different school, besides Deal next year."

"Why wouldn't I go to Deal?"

"Well, it's a big school, too many kids, not enough money," Booth explained. "And Angela's nuttier than a Snickers bar and already looking at schools for Joe and Talia, and Bones wants to send Sophia to school with Talia, and they're looking at private schools. And we were thinking you might like to go to school with them 'cuz they get to do some cool stuff. Like, Sidwell, you can go to China with the school for part of the summer."

"China? For the summer? Would you let me go?"

"Yeah, probably, once you're old enough." Seeley didn't look too thrilled about that one, either.

"What about my friends?"

"You wouldn't move, so you could still see them on weekends and after school and stuff. And you'd make new ones."

He shrugged. "Would I get to stay on my hockey team?" Most of Parker's closest friends were on that team, which recruited from a much larger swath than their school district.

"Yeah. Of course. They have a better soccer program than your other school would have, too."

"Oh. Then I don't really care where I go to school, I guess. China, though?"

"Yeah, bub. China."

The two of them left then, headed toward the perfect house of trust funds and acceptable homework help and an adorable baby sister and organic soy milk and the dog Parker absolutely loved more than all four parents combined. To the place where Parker had been slowly developing a whole complete life separate from hers — a process that the last few weeks had seemingly accelerated.

And of course, Brent then got called down to an incident on the base and she was suddenly, horribly alone with her thoughts and her empty nest.

Uncontrollably, she found herself recalling her relationship with Seeley. They'd split for a number of reasons; the ones she'd used at the time were his job, his control issues, his maniacal desire to not discuss anything remotely personal, his instinct always to run toward the danger, not away. She knew that he, in retrospect, viewed their relationship romantically: She had guided him toward Temperance, the love of his life. God bless the broken road and all that crap.

That was not one of the reasons they broke up, though. Obviously. She flipped through the book, recalling stories and wondering if she'd told Parker them. She wasn't Bones, but she had many, many stories she needed Parker to know. And she didn't necessarily want Seeley telling them to him after she died.

She knew it was silly and dangerous, to be thinking about her own death. It wasn't impending; if she died, it wouldn't be for a while and she'd have advanced warning. And considering the possibility was probably bad for her treatment and recovery. She didn't plan on it happening in the near future, either; that would leave Parker full-time with Seeley and Temperance. Temperance was still a little odd around the edges, and Seeley still had that annoying tendency to get shot, or kidnapped, or tortured. But it was sort of impossible not to think about it. It being the way her son would remember her.

Padding upstairs, she found the pink-leather-covered journal her niece Courtney had given her for Christmas last year — one of those generic $14.99 at Target types. She remembered the last episode of Dawson's Creek (she had cried way, way too much) and Jen's video to her baby daughter. She wasn't there yet; a video would be morbid. But. She had this feeling. A just-in-case feeling. She wouldn't tell anyone about this until it was a foregone conclusion. That was different. It was more like … memory insurance. She titled it THINGS YOU SHOULD PROBABLY KNOW AND I FORGOT TO TELL YOU, dated it, and began to write.

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