A/N: Yeah, you knew it was coming. That didn't make it any less depressing for me to write. :( I miss Jamal already. We'll just have to see what happens next... anyway, enjoy, and leave a review with your thoughts!

When destiny calls you
You must be strong
I may not be with you
But you've got to hold on...

- You'll Be In My Heart, Phil Collins

Booth stared at Sweets sitting idly in the chair across from him, clicking his pen rhythmically and watching Booth with a look of concealed interest. He was trying to hide his smile, Booth could tell—it made him grind his teeth so loudly that he could not hear anything but the sound. His fingers itched to wrap themselves around something, preferably Sweets's throat, but he resigned himself to grasping the arm of the couch tightly with one hand and pumping the other into a fist.

"Agent Booth," Sweets finally said, clicking the pen once more and holding it to the surface of the yellow lined pad. "This is the third time you've tried to cancel an appointment with me in the past two weeks." He paused, waiting for Booth to jump to his own defense. When he did not, Sweets continued. "The more sessions you cancel and subsequently reschedule, the longer this entire process is going to take."

"I get that," Booth said, teeth still clenched tightly.

"What was your reason for wanting to cancel today's meeting?" Sweets asked, as if he didn't already know. Everyone knew. Brennan told Russ, who told Max, who threatened Cam that if she didn't give his daughter a week off she'd sorely regret it. Hodgins overheard the threat, and relayed the information to Angela, who left three messages on Brennan's answering machine before calling Sweets in near hysterics, demanding that he go talk to her friend since she wouldn't speak to Angela, or anyone else. He knew. He was just playing dumb, and that irritated Booth more than anything.

"Personal reasons," he replied vaguely. Sweets frowned.

"Agent Booth, nothing is too personal to discuss in therapy. That's the point of therapy, to discuss personal issues."

"Why don't you just mind your own damn business for once?" Booth blurted angrily. "You know, instead of asking stupid questions like you don't already know, instead of playing your stupid little mind games, why not just shut up and mind your own damn business?" Sweets bit his bottom lip, then scrawled a note or two before speaking.

"You're very angry right now, Agent Booth," he said delicately. "But you're not angry at me."

"Yes I am," he said adamantly.

"No you're not," Sweets insisted. "You're angry about the situation with Jamal, but not with—"

"Yes I am," Booth cut off, loudly enough to drown out whatever Sweets was trying to say. "I am mad at you, Sweets. Pissed, actually. And it's not because of Jamal and it's not because of her, it's because of you, okay? I'm pissed at you."

"Why is that?" Sweets asked, unaffected.

"Because you threatened to report me to the advisory board if I skipped another meeting," Booth nearly hollered. "That means I have to be here. Being here means I can't be there."

"There?" Sweets asked.

"With her," Booth said. "I can't be with her right now because I have to be with you, and she needs me a hell of a lot more than I need you. I should be there but I'm here and it's just… it's fucked up, is what it is. You're fucked up, Sweets."

"I see," Sweets said, taking more notes. If Booth's words had impacted him in any way whatsoever, it was well concealed. He had learned long ago not to let a patient's harsh words affect him. "Do you think that maybe you're projecting your anger over the uncontrollable situation with Jamal onto me, and that's why you find my compliance with the disciplinary terms of your leave, as you put it, 'fucked up'?"

"No," Booth said stubbornly.

"I think you are," Sweets said.

"I think you're a jackass," Booth replied.

"Agent Booth," Sweets said patiently. "Name calling isn't going to progress this session any faster, and it's not going to help us get to the root of the problem." Sweets watched Booth for a long moment; Booth stared unwaveringly at the microfiber pillow on the couch beside him.

"It's not right," Booth finally said. Sweets had to stop himself from releasing a sigh of relief.

"What's that?" he asked.

"Everything," Booth said. "This whole thing, with Jamal and his aunt taking custody. It's not right. Tem—Bones took better care of him than anyone in his life ever has. She gave him everything he needed, everything he wanted, and then they just yank him out and just…" Booth trailed off, breathing deeply and staring at the popcorn ceiling.

"Does it remind you of being placed into your father's custody when you were fifteen?" Sweets asked. Booth's jaw set even as he refused to look at Sweets. "Your grandfather cared for you and your brother in ways your father never had, but when your mother was institutionalized, your father was instantly granted custody. Do you feel like the same thing just happened to Jamal, the injustice of being taken from a good home and placed into a bad one?" There was a long, tense pause between them, and Booth let out a loaded sigh.

"It's just not right," Booth said. "Just because someone has a title—a father or an aunt or whatever—doesn't make them the better parent. It doesn't mean it's better for the kid. It doesn't mean anything."

oOoOoOoOo

Seeley stepped out of the locker room showers, wrapping a towel around his midsection. Football practice had never seemed longer in his entire memory—not only did they do stadiums until two of them vomited, but they also ran three miles and did lunges across the field twice. Conditioning, coach called it. Conditioning for a tour in the Middle East, maybe. Not for a Junior Varsity football team.

He pulled his clothes out of his locker and put them on slowly, feeling his muscles strain with every movement. He knew he wouldn't be able to walk come tomorrow; he could barely lift his feet now. The three-mile bike ride home would be his true test of endurance.

As Seeley was suffering just the thought of having to pedal his bike up and down the Philly slopes, his attention was brought to the present by a familiar voice heckling him from across the locker room.

"What's the matter Seel, conditioning too much for you? Maybe you should try something a little more your speed, like, I dunno, the powder puff team!" He knew without looking who it was: Mark Foster. His elementary wall-ball nemesis had grown significantly over the past six years, and was now neck-and-neck with Seeley for height, and wider in girth. They shared a quiet mutual distaste for one another on the field during practice, but in the locker room with no coach to regulate their actions, it was a different story.

"Why don't you stick it up your ass, Foster. You like that, don't you?" Seeley said coolly, sending a chorus of Oooh's through the crowded room. Seeley smirked and Mark's features darkened, his chest puffing out.

"So does your mom," Mark uttered dangerously, and the room went completely silent.

It was no big secret what had happened to Seeley's mother—that they had moved to Pittsburgh three years ago, and Seeley and Jared returned without her. With two sons mysteriously motherless, people talked, and it wasn't long before someone had a friend whose cousin's sister's brother-in-law's aunt worked at a mental health facility in the Pittsburgh area and knew of a Booth woman having been admitted not long ago. Patient confidentiality was zilch, and both boys walked around their Philadelphia suburb with the shadow of an insane mother clinging to them like a scarlet letter.

Seeley jumped to his feet, fists balled up at his sides, face flushed.

"Don't talk about her," he hissed.

"Or what?" Mark taunted. "You gonna go crazy on me too?" In a flash Seeley, who was not as heavily built as a youth as in his adult years, was across the room and at Mark's throat, grasping it with both hands and slamming the boy repeatedly into the locker behind him. Mark threw wild punches at Seeley's face, and finally one of his fists made contact, sending him wheeling backwards. Taking advantage of his brief disorientation Mark jumped on Seeley, wrenching one arm behind his back and slamming his face into a locker door. Seeley nailed Mark in the gut with his free elbow, and when the boy was doubled over knocked him to the ground with a solid hook to his shoulder, throwing all of his weight and rage into it.

Everything went fuzzy, until Seeley realized that he was being forcibly restrained by his football coach, who was yelling something incomprehensible into his ear. He saw Mark Foster lying on the locker room floor, face bleeding, and saw a foot kicking him in the gut repeatedly. It took a few seconds for his brain to connect him to his own foot, and finally he realized what he was doing. He allowed the coach to pull him away, shoving him onto a bench and threatening him within an inch of his life to stay put.

The coach helped Mark to his feet and out of the locker room, the crowd of boys following him out the door. One boy strayed by the door, turning and giving Seeley a wary over-the-shoulder glance before shaking his head and leaving with the rest. Seeley was alone, with only the pounding of his heart and Mark's words to keep him company. You gonna go crazy on me too? Seeley tasted blood on his lips, and brought his fingers up to his face; his nose was bleeding, probably from when it had been smashed up against the locker. He wondered how Mark looked.

Soon the coach returned, having deposited Mark and his friends elsewhere. He approached Seeley where he sat, as instructed, and took a seat on the bench across from his.

Coach Harper was everything one might expect a high school football coach to be—graying, sun-weathered, ruddy, and callous. He barked orders like a drill sergeant, occasionally ripping the baseball cap off of his fat head and throwing it into the grass, grinding it into the dirt with his heel when he was especially unhappy with his team's progress. At that moment he had the baseball cap but no grass to grind it into, but he looked livid enough to try. His jowls quivered as he narrowed his eyes at Seeley, as if trying to read something in his face.

"Coach, I'm so—"

"No you're not," Coach Harper said with a sharp shake of the head. "Sorry I stopped you 'fore you killed him, maybe, but you aren't sorry you did it." Seeley didn't argue, staring down at the floor underfoot. Blue, white, blue, white, patterned like a checkerboard up and down the length of the room. The blood from his nose made little splatter marks on the tile. "What the hell got into you, huh?"

"Nothing," Seeley said.

"Bullshit, nothing," Coach Harper spat. "You're a good kid, Seeley, but you looked ready to kick Mark Foster to death. That wasn't nothing—that was something." Seeley looked up at the coach and was surprised to see that, rather than looking angry, he looked genuinely concerned. Seeley muttered something incomprehensible, and Harper told him to speak up.

"My mom," Seeley finally said. "He was talking about her." Harper nodded in understanding; he knew the stories just as well as the kids did. He sighed in the way only aged men can, resting his hands on his knees.

"Look," he finally said, and Seeley did. "I don't know what happened to your ma, kid, but if it's what they say, I'm sorry. I really am. My mother was a saint, lost her four years ago, God rest her soul. It's damn honorable to fight for your ma's name, kid. Damn honorable. But what would she think if she saw you kickin' the shit out of some idiot in the locker room, huh? What would your poor motha think of her son then?" Seeley didn't say anything, but chewed the inside of his cheek, eyes reverted to the tile floor again.

"I get it," Seeley finally said, nodding his head.

"So do I," Coach Harper said. "Trust me kid, I do. I know your life ain't peaches and cream over there with your old man, but you gotta get it together. You can't haul off and slug whoever crosses you funny, that ain't how life works. Maybe that's how your old man does it—" Seeley looked up suddenly at the Coach's words, but now Harper was looking down the line of lockers, to the dented one where Seeley's face had met metal. "—but that's not how it's s'posed to be. You gotta keep yourself in check, kid. You gotta do better." Seeley swallowed hard, setting his jaw.

"Okay," he said. "I will."

"I got your word on that?" Harper asked, putting his hand out. Seeley shook it, nodding.

"Yeah," he said, boy and coach both rising to their feet. "Yeah, I promise. I'll do better." Coach Harper nodded, satisfied.

"Good. Now go clean yourself up, looks like Foster musta got in one good hit before he went down." Seeley touched his bleeding nose, flinching at the radiating pain it caused.

"How is he?" Seeley thought to ask. Coach Harper seemed to resist the urge to smile.

"Let's just say he won't be gettin' a girl anytime soon with a mug like that," Harper said. "I'll see you tomorrow at practice?"

"Yeah," Seeley said. "Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," Harper said, tipping the brim of his worn hat at Seeley and lumbering towards the door. As he pushed it open, he turned back towards Seeley, who was mopping his face with a wet paper towel.

"Hey," he called out. Seeley looked up.

"Yeah?" he asked. Harper paused, then smiled.

"Your ma would be real proud of you, kid. Real proud."