Author's Note- First fanfic ever! I apologize if this is OOC or such. I'm not a scientist, just a writer, so I can't promise any of the science actually is true or makes sense or anything like that. And obviously, reviews are appreciated! Thank you!

Splat.

A figure in high rubber boots and hooded jacket walked through the mud alongside a Virginia road. He or she seemed oblivious to the rain that fell heavily or the lightening that seemed to split the sky in two. The only sign of life around was a battered pick-up truck.

The anonymous figure pulled a shovel and a trash barrel from the bed of the truck.

About thirty feet from the road, the figure began to dig. The ground was thick with mud and slopped around the ankles of the anonymous person. Finally, a hole, six feet around by ten feet deep took shape.

With no care, the person shoved the trash barrel into the hole. Then he or she got to work. The barrel had to be covered. The hole had to be filled.

By the time the hole was filled in, the sky had gone from black to a hazy gray-pink and the storm had stopped. Before it had, the water soaked the ground and it no longer looked as if the hole had ever been there.

If no one could see that it was there, was it actually there?

Satisfied, the figure wiped his or her hands and returned to the truck.


"Booth, I can't believe they're giving me another intern. I'm perfectly happy with the group I have right now. I don't have the time to train a new person." Brennan sat across from him at their usual table at the Royal Diner.

"Maybe they think you're overworked. Or who knows, maybe they want this new person to learn from the best." Sweets started to open his mouth, but Booth quickly said, "And now is not the time for your pyschobabble, Sweets."

"Hey! I had to go through years of schooling to get this degree! It's not worthless." he protested.

"While it is kind of the Jeffersonian to want to lessen my workload, I'm doing fine right now. I don't feel as if I'm being stretched thin in my work." Brennan cut in. "Even with taking care of Christine, I haven't had one problem."

"Like I said Bones, they probably just want the new person to study with the best forensic anthropologist they have."

"Thank you, but-" She was cut off by the waitress.

"What do you three want?" the girl snapped in a heavy British accent.

"Whoa, whoa, don't talk to her like that!" Booth pulled out his badge. "I'm FBI."

"And I'm the queen of England." Her dark hair was pulled back in a French braid and streaked with bleach. Combined with her heavy eyeliner and black clothes, it made her look like a skunk.

"No, I'm really with the FBI." He glared.

"Good to know. Now what do you want to eat?" Skunk-waitress glared back.

Sweets glanced at her nervously. "I'll have the hamburger."

Nodding, the waitress turned to Brennan. "The garden salad, please."

"And you, FBI super agent?"

"Cherry pie."

"It'll be out soon." Turning her back, she stalked away.

"Head Doctor." Booth looked at Sweets. "What's up with her?"

"I'm a psychologist, not a mind reader."

"But you can profile people, can't you?"

"Not when I've only spent one minute in their presence."

Before Booth could continue, Brennan's phone rang. "Dr. Brennan." As the person on the other end talked, her face grew more and more somber. "We'll be right there, Cam."

Booth and Sweets both started getting up. "What's going on?"

"They found barrel of human remains partially buried off a highway in Virginia."

Just as they were about to get up, the waitress returned with the food. "I don't give a damn if you eat it or not, but you better pay for it." Her tone was still snappish. Sweets had enough sense to get out his wallet and throw a twenty on the table.

"Keep the change."

With narrowed eyes, she watched the three leave.

"I don't like that girl." Booth announced. Nobody disagreed.


Booth pulled the car up to the side of the highway where the rest of the Jeffersonian team was assembled. At first glance, it looked like a typical farm field, except for a half-buried blue plastic barrel in the middle of it. Cam was already standing over the barrel.

"We haven't moved anything yet." Cam told Brennan. "The farmer who owns this field saw the top of the barrel when he was out walking and went to investigate. When he got the top off, he found…well, he found these." She motioned to the barrel.

Inside was a jumble of bones. The flesh and tissue had somehow been stripped away, and the bones themselves were clean of blood and gore. Brennan reached in her hand and pulled out the skull.

"Judging from the size of the skull, the teeth, and the cranial sutures, I'd say this belongs to a female in her early twenties. I'll have to take the bones back to the Jeffersonian to confirm, but it seems as if we have one complete set of bones." She returned the skull to the barrel. "Where's Booth?"

"Talking to the farmer. We'll take the barrel back to the lab and take soil samples for Doctor Hodgins." Cam paused. "Your new intern can help you reassemble them."

Bones sighed, but before she could say anything, Booth walked over. "Hey. I talked to the farmer. He found the barrel this morning when he went out. He showed me his receipts- apparently he's been in Georgia for the past week visiting his granddaughter."

"Until I can get the bones back to the Jeffersonian, I can't rule anyone out as a suspect." Brennan told him. "I can't tell how long they've been in this barrel or how long they've been dead until Hodgins and I examine them."

"Maybe your new squintern will know something." Booth suggested with a smile. Brennan said nothing.


After quickly calling to check in on Christine, Doctor Brennan walked into her lab, where she was greeted by the sight of a young woman with a lab coat and a shock of short, dyed black hair standing by the lab table.

"Dr. Brennan?"

"Yes?"

"I'm Gloria. Gloria Ashley Gerard. I'm your new intern." Bones noticed that underneath the lab coat, she was wearing blindingly red pants and a shirt featuring strange-looking androgynous faces.

"Well, Miss Gerard. You can start by helping me reassemble this skeleton so Dr. Hodgins and I can determine the date of death for these bones."

"You can skip right to the dating part." She glanced at the table. "I assembled them right when they were brought in, it was pretty easy. It's the bones of one person only, female, in her twenties." She glanced back at Brennan's face. "But you already knew that."

"I did, Miss Gerard. And while I applaud your initiative, in the future, you should wait for me before touching the evidence."

"Yes ma'am. But…I can also tell you how she died."

Brennan was momentarily stunned. The bones had returned to the lab when she did; her conversation with her father about Christine had only taken ten minutes. Already this new squintern had managed to reassemble the skeleton and determine the cause of death?

"And how did she die, Miss Gerard?"

"Well, see this groove here? It's a knife wound. My theory is that her throat was slit and then while she was bleeding out, she was beheaded. If you look at the neck, the vertebrae are cut in half."

Brennan went to study the bones. Sure enough, the vertebrae were in pieces. Everything Gloria Gerard had described was correct.

"If that was how she was killed, when did the murder take place?"

Gloria smirked. "I was under the impression we needed Dr. Hodgins for that, Dr. Brennan."

Bones studied the new girl for a moment. She wasn't sure if she was pleased, amused, or just unsettled. She'd have to wait and see.