A/N I had actually planned this story as a one-shot, but some comments made me start thinking about a continuation. Mainly-what conversations would he have with his mom? I do believe Booth would eventually forgive her-but I also think she would need some really good explanations and in depth conversations (which we never got in the episode) before he could do that. So everything after the first chapter is mostly A/U-with maybe some canon references mixed in

Again-don't own Bones or anyone in it (but is it wrong to want to own Booth?)

My gratitude for FaithinBones for encouragement to keep writing and posting fanfiction.

It was three months after my mom had gotten married, and Bones and I were playing with Christine one Saturday morning when my cell phone rang. I groaned-I really didn't want a case right now!

"Booth."

"Seeley?" My mom's voice came through the line. She sounded a little hesitant, which made me feel a little wary.

"Yeah?" I answered cautiously.

"I was hoping we could get together and talk about..things."

I was silent for a minute. I knew we needed to clear the air about a lot of things and I needed to get this anger out of my system, for the benefit of my whole family as well as myself. Bones was looking at me, frowning a little. She was probably wondering who it was-she knows the way calls about a case sound-and this wasn't it. I mouthed the words 'my mom' to her, and her eyes widened. She knows how tense a situation it has been between me and my mom.

"Seeley?" My mom sounded even more unsure this time. "I just thought…."

"Yeah, Mom," I replied. "I think you're right. We need to talk."

We agreed to meet at the diner for lunch, and I hung up. I just stood there for a minute.

"Booth?" Bones was looking at me worriedly. "Are you all right?"

I look at this amazing woman I'm sharing my life with-the woman currently holding our daughter in her arms. I sometimes find myself amazed that two people with such screwed up backgrounds managed to find each other, fall in love and start a family. And I realize Mom was right- we DO need to talk and I need to be able to let this go. To be the kind of man Bones and Christine deserve-and they deserve better than a bitter, angry guy.

"Yeah, Bones. I'm OK. I'm meeting my mom for lunch. We're going to talk."

"Do you want me to come with you? We could get Max to watch Christine, or she could come with us."

"I think I need to talk to alone first, Bones. I love you for offering, but I just think-I don't know-that it would be better if this first conversation I do by myself."

I'm sitting at the diner, staring out the window, wondering exactly what I'm going to say to Mom. I mean I know how I feel about things, but I'm not sure I know where to start to explain it to her.

But I need to figure it out, because she's walking in right now. She sees me and walks over and gives me an awkward hug.

"How are you Seeley? And Temperance and Christine?"

"We're all fine. How are you and Reggie?"

"We're both fine-he says 'Hi' by the way. I'm glad you came to the wedding and got to meet him and the kids. It meant a lot to both me and Reggie."

I can feel my jaw clench and I have to force myself to relax. "Yeah, he seems like a nice guy, Mom."

Mom stares at me for a minute. "But you're still angry at me."

"Yeah, Mom, I guess I am."

"Seeley, I can only imagine how you feel-"

I take a deep breath. "No, Mom, I don't think you can. Not really."

"I'd hoped that you were OK with me getting remarried-you did come to the wedding-."

"Mom, it wasn't about the wedding. I'm fine with the remarried part. What I wasn't OK with was the 'oh, by the way, there's a second family I've been part of for a long time that you knew nothing about.' How did you think I would feel about that?"

"I wasn't trying to hurt you Seeley. Really I wasn't. I-"

We were interrupted by the waitress at this point who took our orders and left.

Mom started speaking again. "I just wanted to share some of my happiness with you. You're my son and I wanted to include you."

I shook my head. "You didn't include me in any part of that family until you decided to get married. You can't think that's right or fair, Mom. You left me and Jared with Dad, and neither of us were included in your life until now."

"I feel badly about that, Seeley. And I did think about you every day. I swear I did." Mom looks practically near tears now.

I swallowed. "But you didn't get in touch after Jared and I grew up and were on our own. Even when, if you did contact us, there'd be no threat from Dad. Trust me, I get that you needed to get away from that bastard. I do. I suspected he might have ended killing all of us if we had stayed with him. But you left us there with him Mom. You left us and went out and found another family. You can't expect me not to resent that, Mom. You just can't. It's like you just figured you'd waltz in and everything would magically turn into some fairy tale-you can merge your two families and everything would be fine. Did you tell Reggie and his kids about me and Jared?"

"Yes, Seeley, I did." Her voice was shaking. "I did-I let Reggie know pretty much right away about my kids and how proud I was of them. I told him everything, including why I couldn't go back."

"Well, good for you and Reggie," I said sarcastically.

She flinched. "I suppose I deserve that. But whatever else you might think about me, I never stopped loving you. You have to believe that."

I sighed. "Why do I have to believe that, Mom? The only reason that I can tell that you came back was to tell me you were getting married. Would you have come back at all if you hadn't?"

"I-I like to think I would Seeley." Her answer was quiet, tentative.

"But you don't know. You may never have known you had 2 grandkids. That doesn't bother you at all? Or would Reggie's kids have been better replacements for your own kids."

"Of course not!" Now she's the one who sounds angry. "His kids were never 'replacements' as you call it for you and Jared. Never. I cried more than you will ever know, not being able to see you or your brother. I worried about you all the time. I was so glad to know you survived and turned out OK-"

I gave a short laugh. "OK? I killed people in the army, and I worry all the time about my temper being like Dad's. Jared was a drunk for a while until he got himself cleaned up. Neither of us was OK , Mom. Not for a hell of a long time. We are now, thank God, but you have no idea how long it took us to get there, not to mention how much we screwed up before we got to OK."

"And you don't think it was the same for me, Seeley?" Mom's face had gone white-I had no idea if it was because she was upset or mad or what. "It took me a long time to recover too, you know. I wasn't in any shape to deal with much of anything. Well, Reggie helped me with that. And his kids did too. I never meant to make you resent me-I just thought, well, maybe I wasn't thinking. Maybe you're right Maybe I did hope for a fairy tale ending. But I meant what I said, too. I did want to share my happiness with you."

I rubbed my forehead and sighed. "I think we maybe should have talked a lot more when you first showed up. And that's my fault. Maybe-maybe we should talk about that. I can't promise I won't be angry for a while, Mom. It hurt. You announced this whole other family and expected me to just be thrilled about it. Truth is, I resent it. You want me to be honest about it-well there it is I feel resentful and unworthy, like me and Jared weren't good enough. It's going to take some time to get past this. Can you understand that?"

Mom nodded slowly. "Yes, Seeley, I can understand that. But we can keep talking about this? Because I want to be in your life. Yours, Temperance's and Christine's."

"I'd like that too, Mom."

OK-I planned one chapter, but this one went longer than I planned, and I still haven't really touched on some stuff I wanted to. Plus, I believe it's going to take more than one conversation to fix things between them. So apparently, I've created a multi-chapter fic without meaning to! LOL Let me know what you think. Also, if anyone has any ideas of possible conversations between Booth and his mom, I'm all ears. I know what I would like Booth's mom to have said in the show, but maybe there's something you'd like her to explain.