A/N Thank you all for the wonderful reviews from the last chapter. These have somewhat difficult chapters to write-since I have never done, and would never do, what Marianne Booth did to her kids. Getting into her head has been tricky, to say the least. So all the encouragement is very much appreciated.

I held up my hand. "Ok-let's calm down a second here." Both Bones and my mom looked like they were willing to tear each other's hair out.

"Maybe this wasn't a good idea, Seeley."

I sighed. "You want to go back to a pretend relationship, Mom? Because if you're not willing to deal with this honestly, then I'm not sure I can deal with you."

Mom sucked in a breath. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means what it sounds like. You wanted to come back and pretend everything was fine. We shared a horrific past, Mom. I can't pretend that never existed. Maybe you can, but I can't. I struggle all the time with being better than Dad, and some days I'm not sure it's working. You don't get to decide what the three us," I gestured at myself, Bones and Pops, "get to ask or what we want to know. They're here because I need to deal with all of this. I can't figure out if you haven't dealt with it, or don't want to, or you've dealt with it and don't care if I do. It may not really matter. Pops told me to let you know what's at stake-so here it is. If we don't deal with this, I don't think I'm able to have you in my life. Now considering you essentially threw your kids away years ago, that may not matter to you. I hate the idea of an ultimatum, but that's what this is. Work with me-with all of us-or walk away now. Your choice."

Mom was gripping the armrest, her knuckles white. "That does sound like your father."

"Marianne!" Pops stood up and turned towards. "Enough! He is not his father, and trying to make him feel like he is because you don't handle confrontation well says more about you than him. I've seen this boy grow up into a caring, generous, brave man-a wonderful father. Obviously not traits he inherited from his parents." He shook his head. "You think I wanted to raise two more children at my age? Not that I don't love both of them. But I was hardly ready to raise kids again. And maybe if you had let us know what was going on, my wife and I could have been better prepared. As it is, it came out of the blue."

Pops turned in my direction now. "I don't regret it, Shrimp. You were both good boys, and I'm proud of the men you have become. So don't think that was meant as an insult to you. It's just that your Grandma and I thought we were done with raising kids. It was just a shock to suddenly have children back in the house. That's all I meant."

I smiled. "I know, Pops. And you're right. It wasn't fair to put that burden on you and Grandma."

"No, Hank. It was not." Bones cut in. "However, I will say that you and your wife did an excellent job of raising him. He has turned out remarkably well, and your influence on his life has been obvious-you are both very good men." She glared at my mom. "Marianne, you agreed to talk about these issues. You were the one who approached Booth. I understand this is difficult and uncomfortable, but if it something you cannot handle, perhaps it would be best that you are not in your son's life. He is a very honest person, and he would not want a relationship based on dishonesty. And never compare his words and actions to his father's again. He has done everything he can to distance himself from that-in his work, his parenting, his personal relationships-in every way possible. It is insulting to him, and demeaning of those efforts, to compare him to his father."

Mom's head was down. And there was complete silence for several minutes. Finally she lifted her head-her face white and drawn. "All right. So what else was it you wanted to know?"

"Why don't you have a seat again, Pops?" As he sat back down, his hands shaking, I stared at Mom. "Getting back to the timeline I was talking about, after you left what happened? You said California-what did you do? And when did you decide to contact the neighbors?"

Mom leaned back. "I stayed with the friend I told you about for a while. A small cramped apartment, really. She was a dance teacher. We used to dance in the same company, but after breaking my hip I couldn't do that anymore. She had a boyfriend that owned a small nightclub outside San Francisco-he was willing to give me a shot at singing. It was OK-not exactly high end, but a decent enough place-the people who ran it as well as the people who tended to come in were nice enough. It gave me enough money to find a place of my own-not much bigger than where I was staying, but it was mine. It gave me place to think, to collect myself-to heal."

"And how much time passed before you made contact with the neighbors? Who exactly did you write-or call? Who responded? For how long were you writing them?"

"Seeley-"

"This is a part of it, Mom. Why you would contact strangers and not your family."

She twisted her hands in her lap and nodded. "I wrote Mrs. Wisnoski about a month after I left. I gave her a rough idea of why I left. I told her I was worried my husband would kill me if he found out where I was, so I asked her not to tell anyone where I was. I didn't have a schedule when I wrote to her. Like I told you, I crossed the country so I moved around a lot. I usually let her know where I was when I moved. She'd send letters saying how you guys were doing. She was really the only one I kept in touch with. I contacted another couple of neighbors, but that was just once or twice-they didn't really respond, so I stopped contacting them. I never called anyone-I stuck to letters. It seemed safer somehow."

I rolled my eyes. "Right. So you spent your time bouncing around the country singing-writing the occasional letter to make yourself feel better about leaving. Nice."

"Seeley-"

"No we've been over that some and we'll go into it later." I leaned forward. "So here's my next point on the timeline-Reggie."

Mom suddenly tensed up. "What about him?"

"Seriously? Like where did you actually meet him, when did the two of you become involved, when did you meet his kids-the whole thing. All you basically said was that he was your piano player and when he opened a club, you joined him-and then 'boom', you're getting married. You want me to be thrilled about a new stepdad, but how much do I really know? About anything?"

Mom nodded. "Fair enough. We met at a club in Houston about ten years ago or so-maybe a little more-he was playing the piano and I was filling in for another singer who'd just had a baby. He asked me out a few times, but I refused. I wasn't ready to let another man in my life-I'd been on my own for a long time, so I'd gotten used to being independent, and I certainly didn't have any faith in being in a relationship with a man. I'd gone out with a man here and there, but I never let it get serious. We did hit it off though-we spent a lot of time talking. When that gig was up, he said he had a more permanent job in Chicago and suggested I might want to see if I could find something there. I said I'd see. I eventually ended up there and looked him up. Everything just sort of went from there."

Bones leaned forward now. "By that I assume you mean a romantic entanglement-or did it refer to meeting his children? Because you appear to have left out those details."

Mom sighed. "None of those happened right away. We'd probably known each other at least a year and a half before I could even talk about what happened between me and your dad. He listened, Seeley. He actually listened-which is more than your father ever did. And he didn't blame me. I spent years taking the blame for every little or big thing that went wrong. It was just so-freeing-to know someone else could say to me 'it wasn't you.' After that we did start dating. I'd met his kids at the hotel sometimes-the job he had was playing piano in a bar in a hotel-so they knew who I was. Regardless of what you thought, I didn't jump into acting like their mom right away. It took a while to get really serious-and neither of us wanted to introduce me as any kind of mother figure if it wasn't going to be serious. When we realized that it was definitely was serious, we started spending more time all together. They were great kids, Seeley. And maybe a part of it made me feel like it was a chance to start over. So when Reggie wanted me to join him at the club in Atlantic City, I didn't even hesitate."

I stared at her. "Start over. Like your past, including your kids, didn't exist. That kind of start over?"

"No-a chance to be the kind of mom I couldn't be to the two of you."

"Marianne," Pops said. "You could have been that kind of mom if you'd made an effort. If you'd contacted them, or me-something. Even if you worried about my son, you heard from Mrs. Wisnoski, so you knew that they survived. They would have eventually moved away from him anyway-college, military, whatever. You passed up those chances. You. Not me, not Seeley, not Jared, not Reggie and his kids. You."

Bones chimed in now. "Which brings up another question. Why wait until now to reinsert yourself in his life? You had years to reestablish contact-why didn't you?"

I'm going to go ahead and break it up here and pick that up again in the next chapter.

To some guest comments comparing Marianne to Hannah-I think that they have the same sort of personality traits. They both tend to be shallow and self-centered. In this chapter Bones refers to Booth wanting honesty in relationships-I think he would have learned that particular lesson after Hannah, where he was busy playing "perfect boyfriend" - that was not an honest relationship. (And we all know how well that worked out.)

No idea if the timeline for meeting Reggie fits, but if HH can mess with timelines, so can I… I figure that gives her time to get into a serious relationship, but still have the kids be, as she put it "at an age where they still needed a mother." Plus I don't think Reggie would have invited anyone to join him at a club he owned. It could be long-time friendship, but my feeling is they would be romantically involved at that point. All Marianne said was they'd been together for "quite some time". Yeah, that's not vague or anything…

Used Houston because I used to live in the Houston area.