Beautiful Boy 3/?

[nyre1]

Here is another instalment of Booth, Bones and Parker as they travel down the journey of friendship, family and love!


We both want to remind you that parts of this story are not for the light at heart. While there are no  depth descriptions of child abuse mentioned throughout this story the effect of abuse on a child is. Having backgrounds in child-psychology we hope to bring a realistic image to what Parker and his family are going through in this chapter and those to follow. We will try and include explications for anything that seems hard to understand.

Chapter 3

The next morning Brennan woke to the sound of her alarm clock going off like normal. It wasn’t until she climbed out of bed that she realized things weren’t normal after all. With wide eyes she turned and looked at Booth who was sleeping peacefully. He lay spread out covering both sides of the bed, so it was obvious they had been touching in their sleep. Glancing at the clock she decided she could let him sleep a little longer and padded into the kitchen to make some tea for herself and a pot of coffee for Booth when he did wake up.

Brennan had been in the kitchen for about ten minutes when she heard the sound of small bare feet walking on the hardwood floor. She turned and smiled at the messy haired little boy who was looking at her with sleepy brown eyes. “Hi, Parker…did you sleep well?”

Parker nodded his head as he rubbed at his eyes. “Yeah…do you got any cereal?” he questioned as he wandered over to the kitchen table and took a seat.

“Um yeah I think so,” She said before opening a cupboard and pulling out a box of muesli.  Biting her lower lip she put it back and turned to Parker. “How about pancakes?” she asked figuring the boy would not want the more ‘adult’ cereal.

This got a huge smile on the boy’s face. “Yeah!” he exclaimed practically bouncing in his seat. “Mom doesn’t let me have pancakes on a week day.”

Brennan didn’t want to cause a problem with Rebecca, but she knew the boy had to eat something.  “I think it’ll be okay this time since I did not plan on having a young person with me at breakfast this morning.” With that said she grabbed a box of pancake mix out of the same cupboard and went about mixing up the batter.

“Bones…why do you like working with dead people?” Parker asked curiously from his spot at the table.  “I mean isn’t that gross? I thought girls didn’t like gross stuff like worms and dirt and well…dead people.”

“I do not like working with human remains, I study the bones. It is Cam that works with the remains.” Brennan explained as she started pouring the batter onto a skillet.

Parker seemed confused by this and was quiet for a second before asking another question. “Then how come Cam likes dead people?”

Brennan was not sure how to answer this question since she did not know for sure why Cam liked ‘working with dead people’ as Parker put it. She figured it was a lot like herself in the sense that she felt drawn to the job and liked to learn about how people lived when they had been alive. She knew she had to come up with some sort of an answer for Parker thought. “I do not know for sure why Cam likes to ‘work with dead people’ since I am not Cam. I suggest you ask her some time.”

“I want to work for the FBI like my Dad.” Parker said with a smile. “I want to save people and do good things for the country.”

“Do well in school and get good grades, go to college and maybe do some volunteer work and you would make a great FBI agent.” Brennan said with a smile but part of her was confused. This was a completely different little boy then the night before who had refused to get clean and had begged to be a little boy again.  Being a scientist she knew everything was not back to normal, but it was nice to see.

Parker thought about that for a second and nodded but didn’t say anything more about it. Instead he looked to the pancakes cooking. “Can I eat?” he asked point blank.

Brennan noticed two of the pancakes were finished so she put them onto a plate and sat them in front of Parker. “Do you want jelly or syrup?”

“Syrup!” Parker exclaimed rather loudly smiling again.

Brennan helped Parker put the syrup on his pancakes and got him some juice to drink before getting her own bowl of cereal.

It was half an hour later that a fully dressed Booth came walking into the room. “Good morning!” he said with a smile as he went and kissed Parker on the head. “I see you’ve already eaten breakfast.” It was easy to tell since Parker appeared to be covered in syrup.

Parker nodded, “Yeah…Bones made me pancakes since she only had nasty grown up cereal.” He giggled and then moved to hop down from his chair. “Can I watch TV?”

Booth glanced at the clock noticing they had about forty-five minutes before they would need to leave so he could get Parker to his day treatment school and get to work on time for an 8:00 meeting. “How about you go get cleaned up and dressed and then you can watch TV until we need to leave to get you to school.”

Just the mention of school changed Parker’s whole demeanor. “I’m not going to school! I don’t go to school anymore Mommy said!” he exclaimed as he crossed his arms over his chest.

A little taken back by Parker’s outburst Booth tried to think of how to explain. “I think what your Mom meant is that you aren’t going to the same school. You’re going to be going to another school at least for a little while.”

“Yeah well I didn’t go to school when I was with Jonathan!” Parker stated in a snooty sounding way. “HE let me stay home and play with toys all day.”

Booths blood began to boil at the mention of his son’s abductor in a positive way. He hated it that the boy thought anything the man did was a good thing.  Just the fact that his son was talking back to him right now made him want to murder the man. “Parker you are home now and when you are home you will go to school.” He said firmly.

Parker glared at his father; “I’M NOT GOING!” he screamed at the top of his lungs and ran to sit in front of the blank TV set

Booth had seen this behavior in his son before, it had begun happening the month or so before he had been abducted. Sighing, he went to the full coffee pot and got himself a cup hoping the caffeine would wake him up enough to deal with his son’s behavior.

Brennan had been quiet throughout the whole conversation up until now. “Is he just going to sit there?” she asked curiously.

“Probably,” Booth said as he leaned back against the counter and watched Parker. “If we leave him be he’ll probably get up and go get dressed here in a few minutes. “He’s nervous about his first day at a new school, I don’t exactly blame him.”

“I see,” Brennan said as she sat her mug down in the sink. “I’m going to go finish getting ready for work. Do you need anything?”

Booth shook his head and smiled, “Thanks for everything Bones,” he gave her a kiss on the forehead before she walked out of the room.

-----------------------

As it turned out Booth was almost an hour late to work that morning and completely missed the meeting he was supposed to attend.  Parker had been a lot more difficult to get ready for the day then he had expected. When he had finally decided he would get dressed for school he then became defiant about changing out of a soaked pull-up, something Booth found rather ridiculous. The whole thing had turned into a shouting match between both Booth men.

It took Brennan suggesting another bubble bath and a reminder of baby gorillas for the boy to finally get cleaned up and dressed for school an hour after the whole mess started.

Now, here he was at work trying to explain without much detail of why he was late. Thankfully everybody understood that Parker was home and needing a bit more care then he normally would have. They had been with Booth through the whole thing and it seemed they weren’t going to leave him in a lurch now.

As he sat down at his desk to look through e-mails the phone began to ring. Groaning out of frustration he answered it. “Booth…”

“Seeley…hi” Came the voice of Rebecca.  “You got a minute?”

Sighing Booth leaned back in his chair. “Not exactly, I just got in.”

Seeming to ignore what Booth said Rebecca continued. “I was hoping you could take Parker again tonight. I have this work dinner party that I HAVE to attend.”

“We have a meeting with Parker’s new therapist this evening…” Booth reminded her.

Rebecca cursed under her breath, “we’re either going to have to cancel it or you’ll have to go without me.”

Booth raised an eyebrow, “You want to reschedule his therapy appointment so you can go to some dinner party?” he couldn’t believe she was saying this. It was he who hated psychology of any kind, but he was willing to talk to this kiddy shrink if it helped his son.  The whole idea that he brought his son to a treatment facility that morning made him furious. Not at Parker of course, but at the situation in general.

“It’s one session, I’m sure we can reschedule it for some time later this week.” Rebecca said as if it wasn’t a big deal. “You can come by and get him more clothes and things if you need to, you know where the key is.” With that she hung up the phone, leaving a stunned Seeley staring at the phone receiver.

He didn’t plan to reschedule the appointment if he had to go alone he would. After what had happened this morning he wanted to get to the bottom of what was going on with his son as quickly as possible.

--- --- --- ---

“Why did you become a medical examiner?” Brennan asked as she walked onto the forensic platform later that afternoon.

Cam turned to look at Brennan like she had lost her mind, “Excuse me?”

“Why did you become a medical examiner?” Brennan restated her question.

“I found the human body fascinating but had difficulty doing any type of work on a person when they were alive.” Cam answered still looking at Brennan strangely. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh it was a question Parker asked me this morning while I was making breakfast. He asked me why I like to work with dead people. I explained to him that I do not work with human remains but instead with the Bones. I also said that it is you who works with the remains” Brennan clarified.

Cam was still a bit confused by the whole question but didn’t ask any more about it until she really thought of something. “Are you telling me that Parker stayed at your apartment last night?”

Brennan nodded, “Yes, Booth as well.”

“Why?”

“They came over for movie night and Parker asked if they could stay and I said ‘yes’”  Brennan said with a shrug. “I did not see any reason for Booth to take an already sleepy Parker home when his overnight bag was with them.”

Cam understood that but continued her questioning. “But Booth did not have an overnight bag?”

Brennan nodded, “No he does not generally keep that type of thing in his car. Plus it is easier for a grown man to adapt to sleeping in a different environment without his own personal belongings. He simply slept in his underwear and went home to change before going into work.” She then thought of something. “That is if he had the time. I do not think he left the apartment until almost 9:00.”

“Right…” Cam said deciding this conversation wasn’t going anywhere. Brennan did not see how personal having Booth and his son stay the night was. If it had just been Booth after working late, or even for a sexual encounter (something she was pretty sure wasn’t happening but then again she didn’t know everything) that would have been different. But having Parker there changed things.

Still in her own world thinking about the events of the morning, Brennan left the platform and headed out the door of the building entirely.  She then hopped in her car and drove to the Hoover building to talk to somebody.

Lance Sweets looked up when there was a knock on his office door. He was rather surprised to see Dr. Brennan standing there.

“Dr. Brennan…come in.” he said with a small smile. “Is everything okay?”

“What is the significance of wet pants?” Brennan quickly asked not realizing what she said didn’t make any sense.

Once again somebody was confused by something the Doctor had said that morning. “Huh?” Sweets asked confusion evident on his face.

Brennan sighed in frustration, “Parker…why would he want to have wet pants.” She repeated as if the young psychologist should have know what she was talking about from the beginning.

Understanding a little more, Sweets walked to sit in his normal chair while Brennan sat on the couch. “I’m assuming you mean wet as in urine.”

“Yes,” Brennan said. “He had urinated in his pull-up during the night and this morning he refused to change into dry pants. He wanted to put his clean clothes over the wet pull-up.” She explained confusion evident on her face.

Seeing that it was important for Brennan to understand this, Sweets smiled a little. “It is not abnormal for boys Parker’s age to want control over something. It is even more normal for a boy who has gone through significant trauma, like Parker has, to want that control. He could sense changing his pants was something the adults wanted him to do so he chose that thing to take control of and refused.”

Brennan let that information absorb and nodded her head in understanding. “I understand that but what should Booth and I do in that situation?” She didn’t realize as she was talking she was pretty much making up her mind to help Booth with Parker. It was obvious she wanted to be somebody who helped him rehabilitate after his abduction.

“Did he end up getting clean?” Sweets asked curiously. When Brennan nodded he continued. “Well what worked?”

“Booth yelled at him and Parker yelled back for a while and he finally just did it.” Brennan said making a face. “I personally do not find this a productive way to solve this problem.”

“It takes practice to work with a child and not get into a power struggle with them. What I suggest is see what works. Some kids work best with positive reinforcement such as letting Parker have a certain privilege if he does what he asks in a reasonable time frame.” Sweets explained and continued when Brennan seemed to understand. “Another is negative reinforcement meaning a privilege is taken away.”

“So positive would be he could get an ice cream cone after school and negative would be he could not watch TV before bed that night?” Brennan asked making sure she understood. She really wanted to get this right.

Sweets sort of nodded and sort of shook his head. “Yes, those are examples but when working with kids it is best to make the privilege or consequence about the initial problem. For example if Parker refuses to get clean in a reasonable time frame a good consequence would be that he has to wake up early the next day in order to give him more time to get ready. A positive reinforcement would be he gets to pick out his clothes for the day rather than his parents doing it for him.”

“I see,” Brennan said beginning to understand. “I will talk to Booth about this, thank you.” With that she stood up and left quietly much like she had come.

Sweets watched her go and shook his head. He hadn’t even got the chance to ask why in the world Brennan was with Parker Booth first thing in the morning.

--- --- --- ---

It wasn’t until later that afternoon that Booth was able to get away from the Hover building and head over to the Jeffersonian. He had wanted to come earlier so he could talk to Bones about his frustrating phone call with Rebecca earlier that morning. As he walked into the lab, he passed by a few of the Squints with only a nod in greeting before walking into Bones’ office.

“I don’t even know what I saw in her, she’s a completely selfish bitch.” Booth exclaimed as he started pacing in front of her desk. Deep down he knew he wasn’t making any sense and that Bones would have NO idea what he was talking about, but right now he needed to get his feelings out.

Bones looked up from her desk at her partner wondering what he was talking about “Booth…?”

Booth continued to pace back and forth, running his hands through his hair. “Rebecca, she could care less about Parker’s treatment. She cancelled coming to our first real therapy session with his shrink so she could go to some work dinner party.”

“Booth didn’t you stress to her how important this initial meeting is? It will set the tone for all of his future treatment. This doctor will be giving you both a plan to follow when he is at home too.”

“Of course I did, but it doesn’t seem to matter. She also wants me to take him again tonight. I mean I’m fine with that, I love to spend time with my son, but she’s totally giving up responsibility.” As Booth said this he flopped into a chair and sighed. “It’s like she doesn’t want him anymore or something, Bones.”

She look at her Partners’ face, really looked at it for the first time in days. She had known this man for over five years. She had never seen him this disconsolate. She knew he would give, had given up many things for Parker. Booth had taken a bullet for her, if Parker’s Mother was not going to help him then she would. It was what Partners did for each other. “Booth I’ll go with you.”

“I just don’t get it Bones…” Booth paused when he realized what his partner has said. “You’ll come with me?” he questioned, his distraught look beginning to brighten a bit. “You…who hates anything psychology related will come with me to a therapy session that quite frankly has nothing to do with you?” as he said this he realized it might sound rude. “I mean unlike our sessions with Sweets, that obviously has to do directly with you…with us.”

“Booth the therapy sessions for Parker are entirely different that those we have with Sweets. Sweets is just prying, these are to help Parker deal with a horrific trauma. There is no comparison. Parker did not deserve what happened to him, nor did you as his Father. Do you remember once telling me it took a village to raise a child and asking me to be your village? Well I still am. So if it is ok with you I would very much like to go with you”

Booth smiled at this and got out of his chair. "I would be honored if you would come with me," he said going around to give her a kiss on the head. "I just hope Dr. Harseny doesn't give us some crappy mumbo jumbo. I just want to know how to fix my son. No father should ever have to clean up after his son in the ways we have in the last day." he was still having issues with his son's lack of toileting.

She smiled up at him thinking about the baby gorillas. “I know Booth, and your right, but just don’t expect too much right away. Remember it is probably going to be a marathon not a gallop.”

“Sprint…” Booth said with a slight laugh. “It’s not gallop but sprint.” He then added. “And you’re right I just have to pay attention to the small things.”

“So what time do we have to leave?”

Booth glanced at his watch seeing it was almost 2:30 in the afternoon. "We should actually start heading there now. The appointment is at 3:00 before we get Parker from his class."

“Oh, ok.” She walked over to her coat rack retrieving her coat and purse. Side stepping Booth as he tried to help her put her coat on she couldn’t help but smile at their old song and dance. “Booth I am quite capable of putting my own coat on.” Sometimes comfort came from routine.

Booth held his hands up in surrender and stepped back. "Okay...sorry for trying to be a gentlemen." he teased as they headed out of her office and with a wave to everybody else they excited the building and headed to his SUV. "We are going to have to go pick up more things for Parker after we get him." he said not realizing he was adding her into that part of Parker's care as well. It was just that he felt comfortable with how things were the night before, the three of them all under one roof. It had been both fun and heart-wrenching but even so it had been the best he had felt in a long, long time.

As she slid into her seat she thought about what Booth had just said. He had said ‘we’ as in he and I. What did he mean by that? As she continued to reflect on his comment she began to wonder if she wanted it to mean a we, as in him and her, or just a figure of speech?

After driving for a second Booth spoke up. "So Parker's shrink is named Dr. Harseny. Thankfully he's the normal shrink-ish age." he said thinking about how young Sweets was. Even though the man was more than just their therapist now days, he still had trouble thinking about how young he was. "He seems cool enough from when Rebecca and I talked to him before they discharged Parker from the hospital."

“So I guess you haven’t seen this Doctor since Parker was in the hospital? Did he give you any ideas of what to watch for in Parker’s behavior, or what Parker’s treatment might include?

Booth nodded, "He mentioned that girls who have been..." he paused to take a deep breath "...sexually abused normally internalize their feelings while boys in the same situation are known to lash out. He also mentioned that he may regress and appear younger than his age. He said this because they have already experienced some of both things while he was staying there."

“Booth I know it’s hard for you to think about Parker being sexually abused, no parent wants to know that has happened to their child, but I think it’s important for you to begin to accept the fact that it happened. There is no magical way to go back and undo what has already been done. But I think maybe your acceptance that it did happen may make it easier for you to deal with the consequences. Didn’t you mention to me once that one of the sayings from your Gambling meetings was to take everything one day at a time? Well I think that is very good advice here don’t you?”

"You're right Bones...like always." Booth smiled at the woman next to him as he pulled into the hospital parking lot and found a parking space. "Let’s get this over with."

“Right beside ya Booth," she said and smiled joining him in front of the SUV as they walk together into what was going to a rather confusing journey.