4:30 AM was early by anyone's standards. Or late, depending on what time you woke up the day before. A few years ago in college, Gary would be just going to bed at this hour. But now his head was still foggy with sleep and the caffeine from the cup of coffee he'd had before he left from his apartment had yet to take effect.
The path was deserted, lit only by the orange light of a low, tired moon and most of the joggers wouldn't be here for another hour yet. But this, Gary thought as he tied the laces of his tennis shoes, was worth getting up for. It was as though everything was just waiting to come to life. The air was crisp and inviting. The gray light of dawn cloaked the world in the promise of the coming sunrise. The chorus of songbirds filled the air and with his German Shepherd Schlotzky, a retired cadaver dog, by his side, he was reminded that he was not, in fact, alone in the universe.
With Schlotzky trotting along side him on a leash, Gary made his way down the path, one foot in front of the other, relishing the adrenaline rush that was beginning to pump through his veins.
Gary could usually count on Schlotzky to be a good dog. Like most German Shepherds, he was large, but easy to train and was, for the most part, obedient to commands.
But this morning, the German Shepherd almost ripped Gary's arm out of its socket. His nose was to the ground.
"Schlotzky!" he called, but the dog took off into a dense thicket of trees.
"Crazy damn dog," he mumbled. He heard a familiar bark less than 500 yards away.
"Schlotzky!" he called again, but the dog would not move from his spot and continued barking, not in a ferocious, threatening way; more in a 'Hey, look what I found!' way.
"Schlotzky?" Gary called again.
And then he saw it.
The early morning moonlight was reflecting on glass.
Shlotzky pawed at the dirt surrounding it, and Gary dug as fast and as furiously as he could.
Schlotzky whimpered.
There was a flash of chrome. Then red.
"Is this a…car?" Gary wondered aloud.
Gary dug his cell phone out of his sock and turned it on, poising the blue light that came from it over what he now realized to be a windshield.
He swallowed.
Two skeletons were huddled together. It was the kind of thing you only saw on horror movies. Only…this was real. Very real.
The blood was now rushing to Gary's head and pounding in his ears as he dialed 9-1-1.
"9-1-1," a steady woman's voice answered on the other end of the line. "What's your emergency?"
"Uh, yeah, I found something. Actually, my dog found something. And I'm trying very hard not to scream like a little girl."
*~*~*~*~*
He never thought he'd be here.
When he'd asked, he certainly never thought she'd agree.
Normally, he wouldn't be caught dead in this place, and he knew she was only interested in places like these from a purely anthropological standpoint. He hadn't been here since his grandfather's funeral fifteen years ago, and he never intended to go back. He'd considered the place to be earth's equivalent of hell. Which was ironic, considering the fact that a massive crucifix towered over his head and images of saints covered the windows.
But today, he couldn't imagine being anywhere else in the world.
Organ music played softly in the background. The pews were filled with family and friends, and thankfully one person in particular did not decide to grace them with his presence today.
That was the last thing they needed.
He was certain that the only woman in the world he could ever imagine spending the rest of his life with was waiting at the other end of the aisle. In a few short moments, they would be bound together forever.
The familiar chords of The Bridal March sounded on the organ. Everyone gasped.
'God, she looks beautiful,' he thought as her father walked her down the aisle.
"Do you, Temperance Brennan, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, from this day forth, until death do you part?"
"I am extremely uncomfortable committing myself for eternity," she protested using air-quotation marks, "which does not exist, to someone in an archaic ritual that can be annulled in forty-eight hours or dissolved by divorce papers at any given time."
He chuckled.
"Is that a yes or a no?" the priest asked.
"Just say 'yes,' baby," her father whispered from the front pew.
"But she doesn't love him!" Angela cried from her spot behind Brennan. "Sweetie, you can't marry someone you don't love."
"Yes I can! I can divorce him if I don't like it! People do it all the time!"
"Then you don't love him?" shouted a familiar voice from the back.
"NO, SHE DOESN'T!" the wedding party replied together.
A loud buzzing sound rang out through the chapel.
And Sully woke up alone in his bedroom with the light of his cell phone alerting him to a new incoming call.