Just a little two-shot starring Booth, Parker, and Sweets, among others. This takes place just after Booth returns from Afghanistan in the season 6 of my mind. Not spoiler-y. If anything I made up turns out to be true, it's not my fault! Thanks to those who read, review, and enjoy. Two weeks to go! Special thanks to my beta. :)

Disclaimer-I do not own these characters.

Booth was dropping off Parker at his mother's house on a muggy afternoon in September. The agent was awash in gratitude for simply being in the presence of his son again. He had just gotten back from Afghanistan two weeks ago and was trying to mentally collect every moment with Parker and file it away. Already the boy seemed older, less carefree, more…still.

"How was school, buddy?" Booth tried, glancing at Parker as he changed lanes.

Parker sighed with his whole body. "It was fine." An almost teenage answer.

"Well, do you like your teacher, Mrs. Morrey?"

"No," Parker pouted, tracing the outline of some mysterious shape on the passenger window.

"Why not?" Booth asked a little concerned. Usually Parker liked his teachers. This one Booth had never met, owing to his long absence in the desert.

"She makes me read out loud a lot. It's embarrassing." Parker folded his arms to close off this line of questioning.

"But you like reading, Parker…" Booth's mind raced trying to remember if this was really true. He read to Parker as often as possible, but the boy seemed to have a fairly short span of attention for it. He never wanted to read back to his father.

They pulled up to a red light, and Booth glanced down at the paper Parker was clutching. It had a red mark at the top, which from Booth's vantage point looked like it read 3/15. If that was a score, it didn't appear very good to him.

"What's that? A test?"

Parker crumbled up the paper hastily. He stuck out his lip miserably. "A spelling test. I did really bad."

"I didn't know you were having trouble with spelling." Booth frowned.

"Yeah, well you haven't been here," Parker responded grumpily.

Suddenly defensive, Booth cried, "You told me to go to Afghanistan!" He regretted the words before they'd even entered the ether. Parker had indeed encouraged Booth to go to Afghanistan, but he had suggested that his dad might save lives instead of merely identifying dead people and their murderers.

His son exhaled and looked out the window darkly. His hair fell in his face.

"Sorry," Booth apologized as he pulled up to Rebecca's. "Hey," he tried to force Parker's attention with the intensity of his voice. "I've really missed you. What do you say we spend the whole weekend together? I'll ask your mom."

Parker shrugged and flung himself out the door. Booth followed him up to Rebecca's, and they knocked together. As soon as the familiar figure of Rebecca filled the doorway, Parker pushed past her and ran to his room, casting off his backpack carelessly to the side.

"Hey, Parker…wow." She shook her head.

"Rebecca, can we talk for a minute?" Booth asked carefully. She nodded and invited him in for some tea, though she hardly seemed pleased at the prospect.

When they had sat down in the living room over steaming mugs of Earl Grey, Booth ventured, "Has Parker been doing all right in school?"

"Seems to be. His teacher hasn't mentioned any problems," Rebecca answered robotically, stirring Splenda into her tea with pursed lips.

"That's not what I mean. He said he doesn't like his teacher, and he got this terrible grade on a spelling test. He doesn't want to read aloud. Says he's ashamed." Booth glowered more at the situation than at Rebecca. Nevertheless her face soured even more at his outburst.

Booth's stomach was churning up his late lunch with unpleasant volcanic rumblings. He set the tea down untouched. He hated tea, really.

"Yes, well, he's always struggled a bit with spelling and reading, but it's true it's gotten worse lately. I've been a little concerned," Rebecca sighed.

"Then why didn't you tell me?" Booth interrupted anxiously.

Rebecca scowled and continued without responding to his question. "The school offers some basic testing…I've been thinking about pursuing it. Parker's been down." She said this pensively, but suddenly turned on Booth. "You would know all of this if you'd been around."

"Don't start, Rebecca," Booth warned. "No school tests. I don't trust that place. It's a public school. I'll consult my own expert."

"What at the FBI?" Rebecca got up, shaking her head. "They have child psychologists there?"

"I know just the person," Booth insisted. A plan was formulating in his head that he would see to completion come hell or high water.

Angered, Rebecca chided, "Seeley, do not get one of your friends involved. We'll get the testing done at school. Do NOT bring the FBI into this!" she emphasized.

Booth wasn't listening. He mumbled thanks for the tea and departed abruptly. He hurried back to his SUV and headed straight back to work.

On the way, he flipped on the radio, and his heart stopped at the sound of a child's voice. The boy sounded eerily like Parker. He had to be right around Parker's age.

Then a reporter chimed in: "Josh Stevens is an 11-year old suffering from Autism Spectrum Disorder. His parents first noticed the signs when Josh appeared overly attached to his routines and showed little interest in making friends at school…" The woman droned on.

Booth began to reflect in horror that Parker had recently become more withdrawn. He was having trouble in school, and in truth, he seemed to love his routines almost too well. Could it be that Parker was suffering from a serious, life-long handicap? Sweat leapt to Booth's brow, and he stomped on the gas pedal a little harder, his hands clenched on the steering wheel.

Lance Sweets was at the Jeffersonian, hanging out in Angela's office. He'd been spending a lot of time at the lab lately, as he'd sorely missed his friends these past seven months. Apparently everyone had missed each other, as the entire team save Booth was assembled, watching a video Angela and Hodgins had taken in Paris. They were all laughing, and Hodgins kept whispering sweet nothings en français into Angela's ear, while she playfully pushed him away. Her belly was slightly swollen to reveal her pregnancy. She was five months along.

Lance's phone rang, and he stepped a little away from the merrymaking to answer it. "Hello?"

"Sweets, why the hell aren't you in your office?" Booth demanded.

"Oh hey, Agent Booth. I'm fine. Thanks for asking. And you?" Sweets replied cordially. Unbeknownst to Booth, he was rolling his eyes like a teenage girl in English class.

"Booth!" Angela called toward the phone. "Get over here! We're watching home videos of Hodgins trying to get a Parisian snob to sell him a baguette by L'Arc de Triomphe!" Angela turned back to the group. "In about five seconds, Hodgins is going to blow," she informed them.

If Booth heard this address, he ignored it. "Sweets, I need to talk to you now! Where are you—the Jeffersonian? What are you doing there?"

"Um, I dunno," Sweets admitted meekly. It was 5:30 on a Wednesday, so it wasn't altogether inappropriate for him to be enjoying himself. But somehow he felt guilty.

"I'll be there in five minutes. Do not move!" Booth bellowed.

"Wasn't planning on it," Sweets murmured to the air. Booth had already hung up.

Roughly seven minutes later, Booth appeared in the doorway to Angela's office.

"Booth, glad you're here!" Hodgins called, beckoning him in. "Angela and I have decided to host a BBQ at our house this weekend in celebration of the team reuniting. Now we all know that you are the king of BBQ, so of course, you have to come and help cook. Bring Parker! We'll be bringing Jackie!"

"Who's Jackie?" Booth asked a bit derailed from his purposeful entrance.

"You know, the little Jack in Angela's belly."

"Awwww no, man," Booth complained, rolling his eyes.

"It's a boy?" Cam asked surprised.

"Jackie?" Brennan asked in amusement.

Everyone was talking at once in an attempt to discern if indeed Hodgela had learned the sex of their offspring without telling them and then proceeded to dub him Jack the Second.

Angela was shaking her head and put up her hands like a conductor to silence the chorus. "No, no. We don't know the sex. And we're not naming him Jack Jr. either, Hodgins," she chastised.

"But will you be there, man—at the BBQ? You've gotta be there!" Hodgins pleaded, ignoring his wife.

"C'mon Seeley, I'm bringing the beer," Cam encouraged.

"I will bring the whiskey," Brennan said, apparently trying to one up Cam in her effort to entice Booth.

"I'll be there," Booth agreed and pulled Sweets by the shoulder off to the side. "Can we talk?" he asked between clenched teeth.

Lance could tell Booth was in distress and allowed himself to be quickly led to Brennan's office.

"What's going on? Everything ok?" Sweets had a guess. Booth usually only got this way when something was wrong with—

"Parker," Booth stated flatly.

Yep, thought Lance.

"I think he has Autism Spectrometer whatever, Sweets! You gotta help him. You have to see him right away and get him into special classes and stuff so he'll thrive like Josh Stevens!"

"Woah! What?" Lance looked into Booth's eyes and saw true panic there—the kind of alarm only parents could work up when fretting over their children. The psychologist actually reached out and put his hand on Booth's shoulder to calm him. "Agent Booth, there is no way Parker's autistic! What's going on?" He gestured for Booth to sit.

The agent plopped down on Bones' couch and put his head in his hands in utter dejection. "Parker's having problems at school. I've been away…I shouldn't have left. Now there's something wrong with my son! I should have seen this coming."

"You think something's wrong with Parker at school?" Sweets asked, feeling like he was listening to Booth underwater. It was difficult to adjust from the merriment of Angela's office to this serious and worrying topic.

"That's what I just said! Keep up, Sweets," Booth snapped.

"What's the nature of the problem?" Lance asked, almost reaching for his pen but then stopping himself when he saw Booth's face.

"Do NOT get all shrinky on me right now. I just want to know how bad it could be. Give me the worst case scenario."

"The worst case scenario is that you keep refusing to tell me what's going on so that I can't help put your mind at ease," Lance said gently.

"Ok, ok." Booth got back up and began pacing. "Parker's been really sulky lately, antisocial. He's been doing poorly on his spelling tests, and now he's afraid to read aloud in class. What does that mean?" he begged.

Sweets stuck out his bottom lip. "Well that could suggest a problem."

"It could?"

"Or not. Parker could just be going through a phase. There could be some other problem at school, like another bully or a girl. Something distracting him, making him easily embarrassed. And…"

Oh, here it comes, thought Booth. Something horrible.

"He could have just really missed you and be taking it out on you a little bit," Sweets said cringing in advance. He knew Booth did not want to hear that.

"But Parker's the one who convinced me to go!"

"I know, but I'm sure he only later realized how hard it would be on him to be without his father for nearly a year. He's just a kid, after all." Sweets gestured for Booth to sit again. "Booth relax. I'm sure it's nothing serious. Parker's a bright, lively, social, normal boy," he added the last part, not knowing exactly what he meant by that but wanting to make Booth feel secure.

"Sweets, I want you to evaluate him—you know, do what you psychologists do in these situations." Booth clenched and unclenched his fist.

"Agent Booth," Lance said in his clinical voice, "I'm not a child psychologist. I'm happy to recommend someone more qualified."

"No, c'mon, Sweets. How often do you get the chance to actually be useful to me?" Booth demanded.

"I'll ignore the hurtful implications of that," Sweets muttered, causing Booth to roll his eyes, "And I'll put it to you like this. You don't go to an orthopedic surgeon when you're going to have a baby. You go to an OBGYN. Sure psychologists share general training, some of which includes evaluating children, but I'd rather send you to someone who is a specialist."

"Sweets, I don't have the money for that…just, I'm asking you as a friend to do this!" Booth's eyes flashed with anger and desperation, making Lance feel worse and worse.

"Booth!" Sweets had finally cracked. "I'm not going to…to screw around when it comes to your son! Don't you understand that I want the best for you and him? Let me refer you to my colleague, Gloria Munez. She's the best child psychologist in the area, in my opinion. She can continue to work with Parker if there's a problem. She used to dealing with schools and IEPs."

Booth's face fell. It dawned on Lance that Booth would feel more secure knowing that someone who personally cared about Parker was involved in his assessment. Further, Lance couldn't help but wonder if Booth wanted to meddle in the assessment and imagined he'd have an easier time compelling Lance to obey his commands. Whatever Booth's logic, Lance was Booth's friend. He'd need to compromise.

Sweets offered, "Look. I'll have Gloria lead the testing, but she and I will do it together. Parker won't have to be afraid."

Booth looked up. "You'd do that?"

"Yeah, of course, I would. And don't worry about the money. Gloria will do it as a courtesy to me. She's a really wonderful person and an old friend."

"I don't want Parker to know that he's being evaluated. I don't want him to know that something might be wrong. It might give him a complex!"

"I don't think we could properly evaluate him at his age without standard testing, Agent Booth."

"I have an idea. See if Gloria can come to the BBQ this weekend. You can tell Parker that you and your friend need his help trying out some tests for kids or something. It'll be a more festive, less clinical environment."

Lance lifted a quizzical eyebrow. "Sounds crazy. But a concerned parent is the definition of crazy. I'll see if I can make something happen…" Booth started to grin. "But! I'm not going to lie to Parker. I will, however, make every attempt to make him comfortable."

Booth considered this. "Deal." He clapped Sweets on the back. "Good man!" he proclaimed. Lance shook his head.