A/N: You know, this happened with Foster Child too. I didn't realize this was going to be the last chapter until I wrote it, and it just kind of wrapped itself up. This fic is actually about ten chapters longer than I ever anticipated it being, so now seems like a fairly good time to bring it to a close. I won't bore you with my comments now, though... I'll save all my boring comments for the Epilogue. :) For now, enjoy the final chapter, and let me know what you think.

Alright already, we'll all float on
Alright, don't worry
Even if things end up
A bit too heavy
We'll all float on...

- Float On, Modest Mouse

"Agent Booth, you're on time," Sweets remarked as Booth let himself into the therapist's office on Friday afternoon, careful to catch the heavy wood door just before it slammed. The windows of the therapist's office were thrown open to catch the breeze, a cold snap having blown in the previous night and bringing unseasonably cool weather for August. Nobody was complaining—summer had burned on for far too long, and relief was welcomed with open arms.

"I was on time last week too," Booth said, less grouchily than he might have in previous sessions. Maybe it was the beauty of the day, or a relief of some other kind, but he did not feel nearly as irritable towards the therapist as he normally did. Sweets nodded.

"It's a good habit to have," he said, taking a seat in his chair across from the couch. Booth lowered himself onto the cushions gingerly, trying not to wince but betraying himself. Sweets frowned.

"Something wrong?" he asked. Booth waved him off.

"Nothing," he said, voice strained. "It's just my back, is all."

"Too much heavy lifting?" Sweets asked. He shook his head, settling into an awkward, slouched position that seemed to alleviate some of the pain.

"Too much sitting," he said. "Bones and I were testing out Lay-Z-Boy recliners during her lunch break yesterday. I think I got up and sat down one too many times."

"Bummer," Sweets said, letting the youthful phrase slip without much thought. "Your place or hers?"

"Neither," Booth said, a new discomfort flashing across his face that seemed to have little to do with his back pain. "It's, well… it's for my dad. He, uhm, you know, he could use a new one." Sweets's eyebrows shot up his forehead, eyes widened with curiosity.

"So you went to see your father?" he asked innocuously. Booth nodded.

"Yeah," he said. "Monday."

"How did that go?"

"It, uhm…" Booth's head tilted side to side, as if he was unable to decide. "It was okay. Not great, but, you know, not terrible. It was alright. Could've been worse."

"Did Dr. Brennan accompany you?"

"No," Booth said resolutely, shaking his head.

"Was that her decision or yours?" Sweets asked.

"Mine," Booth said. "I didn't really want her meeting my dad. Plus, I kind of needed to do it alone."

"Were you afraid of her judging you in light of your father's flaws?" Sweets asked. Booth frowned.

"You know, she asked me the same thing."

"That was surprisingly intuitive of her," Sweets said. "Was that the reason?"

"No," Booth said. "Well, yeah. No. I don't know."

"Maybe a little?" Sweets asked, holding his fingers about an inch apart. Booth scowled at him.

"I don't know," he said. "I thought about it, yeah, but that's not really it. I just… she didn't need to meet him. She didn't need to deal with that."

"You wanted to protect her from having to interact with him," Sweets posited. "You wanted to protect her from him, the way your mother tried to protect you." Booth ruminated on Sweets's words for a minute before inclining his head slightly.

"I guess," he admitted. "Maybe." Sweets tried not to smile.

"You know, Agent Booth," he began, leaning back in his seat, "there was a time not long ago when you would have argued with me about that until you were blue in the face."

"Yeah, well, things change," Booth said.

"What do you think has changed?" he asked. Booth groaned.

"Why do shrinks always gotta ask questions like that?" he asked. "Really, what is it with you guys? Everything's gotta be a question." Sweets did not suppress his laughter this time.

"That's what we're trained to do," he said. "We ask questions that make you look at yourself introspectively, that force you to reflect on your thoughts and behaviors and figure out what's really going on in there."

"But it's like you ask questions you already know the answer to," Booth groused. "It's irritating."

"That's the point," Sweets said. "When I ask you questions, I'm not doing it for my health. I'm not doing it to get information for me—it's to get information for you. When you answer my questions, it lets you reflect on the things you say and do; it lets you see yourself from a different perspective. I'm just a mirror, Agent Booth. That's all you really needed—a mirror to look into."

"Sweets, let me tell you something," Booth said, trying to sit up despite the taunt pain in his back.

"What's that?" Sweets asked, leaning forward in his seat. Booth cleared his throat.

"I'm man enough to admit when I was wrong about something," he stated plainly. "I don't like to, but when I'm wrong, I own up to it. And I…" Booth sighed, rolling his eyes. "I was wrong, about you, and this."

"Oh?" Sweets said without indication as to his feelings.

"Yeah," Booth said. "I was. I did need your help, because you were… right." Booth forced up the r-word like it tasted bad, then cleared his throat again and continued. "There was a lot of stuff I never really let go of with my dad, you know? And that kind of stuff just sits in you and rots. I didn't realize it was affecting me still; it's like it was so deep in me, I couldn't even see it. But now I see it, and I feel like if I can acknowledge it, you know, I can make it right. I can let it go.

"When I went to see my dad, he said he spent his whole life hating his father, right up to the day he died. I don't want to resent him like that, I don't want to breathe easier the day he dies, you know? He's my father."

"You love your father," Sweets said quietly. Booth nodded.

"I love my father," he said.

"It's very difficult to acknowledge that level of anger and resentment, that hate, towards somebody you also love very much," Sweets said. "To have such strong, opposite feelings about one person is very conflicting."

"Love and hate aren't opposites," Booth said.

"Then what is the opposite of love?" Sweets asked.

"Indifference," Booth said simply. "The opposite of love is not giving a shit. If you hate somebody, though… you can't feel that kind of fire towards somebody you don't care about. You almost have to love somebody, to hate them. When it comes down to love and hate, they're only a step apart, really. They're not that different. They're consuming, they're powerful, they shadow everything else you've got going on… the only difference is that one makes you happy, and the other doesn't."

"That's extremely insightful," Sweets said, and his face showed that he truly felt it.

"And for the record, I didn't hate my father," Booth added. "I hate what he did to us as kids, and what he did to mom… I hate his alcoholism, yeah. I hate a lot of things about him, but I don't hate him. I love him. Always will."

"It takes a lot to love someone unconditionally," Sweets said. "It takes even more to acknowledge that a person is separate from their actions, and that you can love them even in light of those actions. I think I owe you an apology as well, Agent Booth—I greatly underestimated your insightfulness."

"No, you didn't," Booth said. "I wouldn't have been able to see that without all these sessions. That's what let me see, you know, that I can love my dad and still hate what he did to us. I used to think it was all or nothing—love it all, or hate it all. That's what killed me, was feeling like I had to say everything was okay, when it wasn't. Like to love him, I had to love what he did. But I get it now—I don't have to. I just couldn't see it before. You helped me a lot, Sweets."

"Like I said," Sweets said with a knowing smile. "Everything that comes to light in therapy, you've always had in you, good and bad. Sometimes you just have to look in the mirror."

"Well, either way, thanks," Booth said. Sweets nodded, rising from his chair and walking around the side of his desk. He pulled out a sheet of paper from the bottom drawer, taking a moment to fill in a few blanks before signing off on the bottom. He walked across the room and handed it to Booth, smiling widely. Booth looked down—it was a clearance form, acknowledging that he was released from therapy and could safely return to work.

"I'm done?" he asked hesitantly. Sweets nodded.

"You're done," he said. "Take that to Cullen, and you'll be reinstated."

"I'm done," Booth repeated, a smile of dawning comprehension beginning to spread across his face.

"Well, you still have partners therapy with Dr. Brennan," Sweets said. "But as far as our one-on-one therapy goes, yes, you are done. You'll be back to work on Monday."

"Just like that?" Booth asked, rising from the couch.

"Just like that," Sweets said, punctuating the sentence with a snap of the fingers. "You're free to go now, Agent Booth. Have a nice afternoon."

"Thanks, Sweets," Booth said, shaking Sweets's hand. "Really, thank you."

"If you ever need to discuss anything, you know I'm here," Sweets said. Booth shook his head.

"Oh no, I've done enough 'discussing' for a lifetime, thanks," he said with a grin. "Oh, and Sweets?"

"What?" he asked as he held the door open for Booth.

"I uh… I'm sorry I said you were twelve," Booth said sheepishly. "I guess you're a little smarter than a twelve year old."

"A little, huh?" Sweets asked sarcastically.

"Yeah, you know, just a little," Booth said, mocking Sweets's earlier motion and pinching an imaginary grape with his thumb and index finger as he walked out the door alone for the last time.

oOoOoOoOo

Brennan loved being in the lab on afternoons like this one. When the sky was a deep, saturated cloudless blue, the entire glass ceiling of the lab seemed too bright and too beautiful to be real. She knew it was completely irrational, but part of her felt as if she were being given a special treat—like under normal circumstances the sky wouldn't be this blue, the sun wouldn't shine this brightly, the world wouldn't seem so big. Instead of pondering the impermanence of such unreal beauty, however, she decided to simply soak it in and enjoy it for what it was. To, as Booth would put it, be one with the universe.

"Dr. Brennan?" She opened her eyes and looked down from the catwalk, where she was examining conchoidial fractures within a fifteenth-century skull that she believed to be Native American, possibly Calusa Indian based on the location of the find. A security guard stood just inside the automatic doors, a tall black woman standing beside him.

"Talia?" she asked.

"So you do know her, then?" the guard asked, and Talia gave him a sour look.

"I told you, we're friends," she said. Brennan nodded, descending from the platform down to where Talia and the guard stood.

"Yes," she said. "We are. Is everything alright?" she asked. The guard shrugged and left them alone, and Talia looked around before she spoke.

"Do you got a office or somewhere we can talk?" she asked. Brennan nodded, leading the way towards her office. She found it peculiar that Talia was not in her cleaning uniform; any time she saw her during the week, and sometimes on weekends, she was always zipped up in the starched blue blouse and skirt, white apron tied around her waist, reeking of Pine-Sol and a lemony zest.

Brennan let them into her office and shut the door behind her, effectively soundproofing the room. She often wished her office were not glass paned, so that she might be able to have personal conversations without the entire world watching, but her single request to Goodman for a remodel had been quickly denied. Best-selling author or no, the Jeffersonian was not willing to spend thousands of dollars constructing real walls. Buy curtains had been his parting advice to her. Talia sat on the couch, crossing her legs and bouncing her foot anxiously. Brennan took a seat in her rolling chair, turning it to face the woman.

"What's going on?" Brennan asked. "Is everything okay?" Talia started with a hesitant nod, then shook her head.

"I got laid off," she said. "Last week. Company was losin' money, said they didn't need so many cleaners anymore, cut about a third of the girls out."

"That's terrible," Brennan said, and she meant it. "I'm very sorry to hear that."

"Me too," Talia said. "Can't nobody get a job, economy the way it is. I was lucky to get that one, now I ain't even had it six months and it's gone." Her leg continued to bounce furiously, and if her tennis shoe hadn't been securely tied to her foot, Brennan thought it might go flying through the glass-paned walls. That actually wouldn't be so bad.

"Have you been to the temp agency downtown?" Brennan asked. Talia nodded.

"Day after I got fired," she said. "They ain't got no jobs, nobody got any. I looked in the paper, went down to the library an' got on the computer, asked around… all the jobs get snatched up 'fore they even get talked about." Brennan sighed, not sure what she could do or offer that would make the situation better.

"Something has to come up eventually," she finally said, feeling like that was the proper response of consolation. "What about Temporary Assistance for Needy Families until then? I believe you would meet the Virginia state requirements for that."

"Temperance, I been on TANF," Talia said, her voice strained. "I started it when Jakya was born, then went off, went back on after Shante, was off those six months I was in rehab, got back on as soon as I got out. It ain't like I don't work, I do. I never graduated high school, though—you can't make more'n minimum wage without a diploma, nobody gonna pay you more than that. Seven bucks an hour don't put food on the table, not for three people, four now."

"Isn't there a time limit on TANF?" Brennan asked. Talia nodded.

"Sixty months," Talia said. "Five years."

"Isn't Jakya five?" Brennan asked. Talia sighed.

"You seein' it now," she said gravely. "I got four months left on TANF. After that, they cut me off. Where I gonna get money from then? How I'm'a pay for a place to sleep, food, electric, if I ain't even got a job? An' my credit's so bad, shit, they wouldn't give me money if it was fallin' from the sky." Brennan mimed Talia's sigh, leaning back in her seat and running a hand through her hair. While five years sounded like a long time to be on welfare benefits on paper, in reality for someone in Talia's position, a lifetime of welfare wouldn't be enough, not to give her and her children everything they needed. Poverty, Brennan knew, was the great equalizer of all civilizations—there wasn't a culture in the modern world that didn't experience some degree of poverty, and it seemed that the wealthier they became, the greater the gap between the haves and have-nots.

"Do you want me to see if there are any positions open in the museum that you might be eligible for?" Brennan asked. Talia nodded slightly.

"I'd appreciate it," she said. "But that ain't the favor I come to ask." Talia leaned forward in her seat, not staring Brennan in the eyes but seeming to search her face for something she knew was there but could not see. She swallowed hard, and Brennan subconsciously mimicked the action.

"What did you come to ask?" Brennan asked slowly. Talia pressed her lips together, staring down at her clasped hands, then up at Brennan. Their eyes met, and she saw a fierce intensity in Talia's that took her off guard.

"Do you love Jamal?" Talia asked. This also caught Brennan by surprise, and it took a moment for her brain to wrap around the question.

"I, well," Brennan said, stumbling over her words. "I do care very deeply for…"

"No," Talia said, standing up suddenly. "That ain't enough. You gotta love him. You gotta say you love him with everything in you. I gotta know that boy be your world, your heart, that you'd do anything for 'im. That you'd give yo' life for 'im. You can care about 'im all you want, but I gotta know you love him. Do you? Do you love him?" Talia's words rang through the silent office, and Brennan was struck by their poignancy, but more importantly, their fire. She stared down at Brennan hard, as if willing her to crack beneath her gaze. Brennan chewed the inside of her cheek, inhaling deeply and letting it escape in a slow sigh. Her tongue darted out onto her lips, wetting them before she spoke.

"Yes," she said, voice wavering. She cleared her throat and continued. "I love him, very much. Much more than I wanted to at first. Why?" Talia nodded in a satisfied way, as if Brennan had given her exactly the green light she needed to make her request.

"I knew you did," she said quietly, sitting back down on the couch and leaning in on her elbows, looking down at the floor. "I knew you loved 'im, almost as much as I did. Could see it in the way you said goodbye, can hear it in his voice when he talk about you. You gave 'im everything he ever need, not 'cause you had to but 'cause you wanted to. You want everything for him, everything the world got to give. I want everything for 'im too—but I cain't give it to 'im. You can."

"Talia, what are you asking me?" Brennan's voice cracked as she posed the question, understanding good and well what the question—the offer, really—was. She felt her chest tighten, and struggled to pull in a deep, calming breath. Talia blinked back the moisture in her eyes.

"Temperance," she said, "I want Jamal to live with you. I want you to adopt him."

"What?" Brennan coughed.

"You love him," Talia said. "You can give him everything, everything I can't. With you he got the world—with me, he got nothin'."

"He's got family with you, Talia," Brennan said quietly, in contrast to Talia's increasing volume. "You're his aunt."

"You don't think you his family too?" Talia asked, almost angrily. "He love you just as much as family, whether he say it or not. And you love him too, just like yours. You made him your family when he ain't had nobody—I'm askin' you to do it again."

"Talia, I—"

"They asked him to be a jitterbug," Talia blurted, interrupting whatever Brennan was about to say.

"Who, what?" Brennan asked, having no idea what a 'jitterbug' was, or who Talia was talking about.

"The gang, the gang that be around where we live," Talia elaborated. "They came up to Jamal last weekend, asked if he wanna be a jitterbug for them."

"What's a jitterbug?" she asked.

"They find kids, boys, 'bout eleven or twelve, right at Jamal's age. They give 'em money, send 'em down to the store or to another house, make 'em buy guns for 'em. That way can't nobody trace it to the one who bought it, 'cause it's just a kid."

"A… a gang member asked Jamal to buy guns for him?" Brennan asked, too shocked and repulsed to fully comprehend the explanation. Now Talia was truly crying, and Brennan tossed her a box of tissues from the corner of her desk.

"He gettin' older every day," Talia wept. "I cain't protect him no more. If he stay with me, if he stay in the ghetto, they just gonna swallow him up. Temperance, I don't wanna see 'im die." Talia wept into her hands, and Brennan screwed her eyes shut tight until white lights popped in front of them.

"Please," she heard Talia say, just beyond her eyelids where the rest of the world was. "I need this. He need this. I can't…"

I can't raise a ten year old
criminal, the system will turn
a hood rat, gonna be ugly but
he needs you and
you'll be the best parent Jamal ever had
make mistakes and learn
That ain't fair and
you're better than a good foster parent, you're
not thrown away, because there's nothing wrong with you
make a wish,
we already have and I tell you
all that glitters is not
worth kicking
Bye doc
did she ever get past the
hurt so much, but
make a wish
she sent me for stamps and
come back on Sunday or
will you forget him?
you oughta be glad about
ending up pretty a'ight when
this might have never existed so
look in the mirror, and
wish to wake up.

oOoOoOoOo

The following July was just as hot as the one before it. Brennan felt sweat creep towards her brow as she lugged two gallon-sized containers of Neapolitan ice cream from the back of Booth's SUV to the picnic bench they had set up with a vinyl "Happy Birthday" tablecloth and weighted balloons on each corner. A pile of presents overtook one of the benches, and her father sat on the other side, watching a group of children, plus a few adult additions, battle for the basketball. Brennan set the ice cream tubs on the table, and Booth followed shortly behind her, carefully laying the large sheet cake to rest.

"If we don't eat soon, everything's going to melt," he observed, and Brennan nodded, taking a breath and wiping her forehead on the back of her wrist. Booth pecked her cheek as he walked past her, towards the basketball court to round up the kids. Brennan turned around and saw a worn ragged Oldsmobile whip into the parking lot, taking a space closest to them. Two girls jumped out of the car and ran out towards their cousin, while a tall black woman struggled to carry two oddly-shaped packages without dropping either of them. Brennan met her half-way, taking one of the gifts in hand.

"Thanks," Talia said, taking the other in both hands and walking alongside Brennan towards the picnic table. "I hope we ain't hold y'all up…"

"No, Booth was just going to tell everyone the cake was on, you're right on time," Brennan said, smiling as she glanced across the grassy stretch and saw Booth trying to break up the heated sports-induced argument between Hodgins and Sweets. No matter how much anthropological training she had, Brennan did not think she would ever fully understand men and sports.

"Good," Talia said, greeting Angela, Cam, Russ, Amy, and Max as they reached the table. Max jumped and guiltily hid the lighter behind his back, giving his daughter a sheepish grin. She rolled her eyes and proceeded to unbox the cake, which was covered in icing basketballs and proudly proclaimed, Happy 12th Birthday Jamal! in sticky orange icing. She heard the stampede of children rushing towards the table, and vaguely heard squeals of "Cake!" over the uproar.

"'Scuse me, 'scuse me, move!" she heard Jamal grumble as he fought his way towards the front of his group of friends, which had grown considerably since the last year to include many from school, as well as his young cousins. Brennan gave him an admonishing look as he reached the front.

"Move please, I meant," he said, trying to conceal his crooked smile.

"Dad, you want to light the candles?" Brennan asked her father, who beamed and acquiesced. Two neat rows of flames floundered in the summer breeze, barely shielded by the wall of onlookers crowded around the table.

"You better make a wish quick, or they're going to get blown out for you," Booth observed, standing just behind Brennan and wrapping his arms around her waist. She rested her hands on top of his, leaning back into his chest and sighing contentedly.

"I'm thinkin'," Jamal said, biting his lip and frowning slightly as he gave what was apparently a large amount of thought to the wish at hand. Brennan hoped that maybe, one day, he might never have anything to wish for at all. She knew she didn't.

"Okay, got it," he said, bouncing in place and gripping the edge of the table like it might blow away too. He shut his eyes and was still for a moment, moving his lips vaguely as he sent whatever wishes he had up to the heavens. Satisfied he opened his eyes and leaned forward, taking in a deep breath and blowing out the small flames blinking over the cake.

Wisps of smoke unfurled like blossoming flowers, and Booth and Brennan both found themselves following them with their eyes as they floated skyward, particles floating further and further apart into the abyss until they were only traces in the sky, and then became the sky, turning into infinity.

She looked down at the same moment Jamal looked up and smiled at her, and she felt like infinity too.