Title: To The Stars Through Difficulties 1/1
Author: Zucht
Rating: K+
Brief Synopsis: Closing her phone, she dropped it in her lab coat pocket, placed the file in her hands back on her desk and rushed from her office.
Disclaimer: Jake 2.0 and all related elements, characters and indicia © Roundtable Entertainment and Viacom Productions, Inc., 2003. All Rights Reserved. All characters and situations-save those created by the authors for use solely on this website-are copyright Roundtable Entertainment and Viacom Productions, Inc.
Disclaimer: Bones and all related elements, characters and indicia © Kathy Reichs and FOX Home Entertainment. All Rights Reserved. All characters and situations-save those created by the authors for use solely on this website-are copyright Kathy Reichs and FOX Home Entertainment.
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To The Stars Through Difficulties
A Bones – Jake 2.0 Crossover
Dr. Temperance Brennan had spent the afternoon in her office. After finishing the report on the first century Centurion skeleton she checked for an e-mail from Booth, e-mailed her publisher, checked for an e-mail from Booth, sent some notes to a colleague at a dig in southern Mexico, checked for an e-mail from Booth, sent in a requisition for supplies to the Dean's office, checked for an e-mail from Booth, called Angela to see if she was free for dinner and checked for an e-mail from Booth.
Pushing back from her desk she stood and stretched. Hearing a few new pops, she rotated her head and neck to relieve the stiffness that hadn't been there last year. Smiling at the signs of her own mortality, she picked up a folder and reviewed the preliminary results on the skeleton found in an abandoned coal mine near Thurber, Texas. As she was exiting her office, her cell phone rang playing 'Dem Bones'; a reminder for her not to allow Parker to play games on her phone. Seeing Booth's name on the CID she smiled and answered, "Hi Booth…"
"…Wait, speak up I can't hear you over the siren…"
"…Of course I trust you…"
"…You want what?..."
"…Alright, we'll be ready…"
"…Alright…"
"…Yes…"
"…Yes…"
"…Are you sure?..."
Closing her phone, she dropped it in her lab coat pocket, placed the file in her hands back on her desk and rushed from her office.
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"What are we here for?" Hodgkins asked.
Taking a deep breath, Dr. Temperance Brennan looked at her team assembled on the examination platform, "Booth is coming in with a body he wants us to examine quickly."
"Since when do we follow the orders of our fascist government?"
Looking him in the eyes, she smiled… slightly. "Booth asked us to do this as a personal favor. Something about this body disturbs him. He has earned my…" she blushed slightly "… our trust."
"Of course Sweetie." Angela put in with one of her trade marked smiles. "Did he say what was bothering him about the body?"
"No, and he has a few more requests. If possible try to hide samples…"
"I knew it; he wants us to cover up a government SNAFU."
"A what?" Dr. Zack Addy inquired.
"Situation Normal, All F…"
"Hodgkins." Was all Brennan had to say. "He'll explain later Zack. Booth wants Angela to pretend that she is my assistant, not an artist. He also wants Zack to pretend to be Hodgkin's assistant and read everything in the victim's wallet."
"No, I worked hard to get my doctorate."
"Zack," Angela said with worry in her voice, "Booth has never asked anything like this before." Looking intently at Brennan she asked, "He's scared isn't he?"
Brennan looked down and moistened her lips with her tongue before looking up at best friend. "I trust Booth with my life. He would never put… us in danger. Please, as a favor to me at least, respect what he is asking us to do."
"I smell a cover up." Hodgkin's said, with and intensely broad smile, while he rubbed his hands together.
Sidling up beside him, Angela placed a hand on his arm and leaned close to talk softly in his ear. "I know you're mad at me, just please don't take it out on Booth or Brennan."
Looking sheepishly down he muttered, "I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at myself for forgetting that you and your dad get together on Christmas day. My surprise trip to Paris should have been timed better."
Giving him a kiss on the cheek she whispered something in his ear that made his eyes bulge and sweat appear on his forehead. "Oh Baby, I'll be good I promise."
Zack looked uncomfortable and turned to look at the entrance as Booth came charging in with a body thrown over his shoulders. "Dr. Brennan, it looks like show time." He said flatly, hoping he had used the correct idiom.
She silenced the alarms that went off as he ran up the stairs past the security swipe, dropping his load on the examination table. "Alright people, I estimate we have ten minutes at the most." Clapping his hands together he encouraged, "Let's hurry it up."
Hodgkins grumbled, but he and Zack quickly stripped the body and rushed off to begin looking for particulars in the clothing and personal effects. Angela disposed of the bloody bandages in an unused medical waste container while Temperance began examining the body.
Looking around, Booth noticed one of the squints was missing, "Where's Cam?" He asked annoyed by her absence.
"She's attending a symposium at Harvard." Angela answered, as she started toward the entomology lab with blood and hair samples, glad that the relationship Booth had with her boss seemed to be over.
"Booth," Tempe inquired, not looking up from the body, "why did you bring him here?"
"I was surveying the site of a possible weapons drop when this guy drove up. I thought the drop was on…" He stopped for a moment to collect his thoughts. Shaking his head he continues, "He beat the crap out of eight suspected terrorists." Booth said with awe and uncertainty in his voice.
"These wounds look like the rest were out to get revenge."
Looking at her, he tapped the table, getting her attention so she was looking in his eyes he stated: "Every wound he has, he received before he attacked them."
"That's not possible. The three gun shot wounds in his legs alone would have disabled him. The one in his shoulder would have prevented him from throwing an effective punch. And the knife wound on his fore arm, he must not have any blood left."
"That's one thing that's weird about this guy, there just wasn't enough blood. You saw the bandages… He just didn't bleed enough. I know; I've seen enough gunshot wounds to know… What's with the computer screen?"
Looking away from him she frowned at the scrambled images, stepped over to the computer and punched a few keys. "I don't know." She jumped as her cell phone made a loud pop and started smoking in her pocket.
Booth's cell phone reacted the same way, painfully; it was in his hand at the time.
Returning from the Entomology Lab, Angela stepped beside Brennan and asked, what was wrong with all the computers.
Before she could answer they heard a helicopter over the building and a dozen black suited armed men stormed the area. "Freeze!" A dark man with said with authority. "NSA."
Booth's gun had appeared in his hand pointed at the nearest man. "FBI!" He said stepping protectively on front of Temperance.
"Forensic Anthropologist." Brennan stated loudly with her hands raised, "No gun."
Booth raised his hands and let his gun slip around and hang on his finger. "I am Special Agent Seely Booth, the FBI liaison to the Jeffersonian Institute, why are you here?" He addressed the dark man obviously in charge.
"I am Special Agent Kyle Duarte, NSA. You have one of my men here."
"The only people in this lab…"
Agent Duarte cut him off, "We followed you, Special Agent Booth. Where is the man you brought in here?"
"Booth," Tempe cut in, stepping beside him and crossing her arms, "brought a body here for us to examine. That is what we do."
Agent Duarte looked her straight in the eyes, neither flinched. "Never the less, we will be taking him and every piece of forensic evidence that you have collected." Glowering he added, "For National Security, that is what we do."
"Why, we thought he was on our side?"
"Miss…?"
"Dr. Temperence Brennan, forensic anthropologist." She answered coolly.
"Dr. Brennan, our agent…" He was interrupted by a hurried, bespectacled young woman in a white lab coat; it was obvious from her long, curly, brown hair that she had arrived in the helicopter.
Temperance judged her to be about her own age, although she would never allow herself to be as flustered as she obviously was.
"Where is he?" The newcomer asked while looking down at her PDA's screen.
Without waiting for an answer, she turned, seemingly to follow some reading on her PDA to the exam table.
Temperance glanced at the PDA's screen and was impressed with the line drawing of a man's body, seemingly reading vitals.
"Oh Jake." The newcomer worriedly muttered. "What am I going to do with you?" Whipping off her lab coat she covered the lower half of the body with it and leaned close to his ear. "Get up you big faker."
Temperence crossed her arms and frowned, then she noticed that the computer screen on the desk next to the examining table had unscrambled into a blue screen with one three inch high word in black: 'TRADITION'.
"No Jake, we're not in Seattle this time." The new comer said, and then added softly, "We are not alone."
Temperance and Angela exchanged confused looks as the computer screen changed to a deep purple with the word 'TRADITION!' in scarlet and underscored.
They watch her brush his hair from his face with a tender touch and gently stroked his cheek, "You are being such a baby." She said as she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.
Once again the screen changed, this time to jet black with the word 'TRADITION!!!!' in rotating rainbow colors.
Angela stepped forward and placed her hand on the young woman's shoulder as she leaned down and kissed him fully on the mouth. "Sweetie," Angela began, "he is gon…" she was cut off as the body's arms wrapped around the woman and returned her kiss, passionately.
The background noise of Booth and Hodgkin's bickering with the NSA agents silenced in a heart beat. Temperence had her hands full as she tried to support Angela's suddenly nearly limp form.
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Morning found Dr. Temperence Brennan sitting in her office, numb. She had sat there all night, unmoving. The events of the previous day hadn't prepared her for this.
It wasn't the fact that the NSA had spent three hours searching the lab for every particle of evidence. They had removed everything: clothes, security tapes, blood, bandages, specimens, hair, skin… A team had come in and vacuumed and cleaned the area. Booth's suit and vehicle had been confiscated. Everything that had been collected or had fallen off of the man, Zack had identified as NSA Agent Jake Foley, had been removed.
The computers had been wiped of all memory. Once Angela had recovered enough to do so, she had spent the night drawing every person who showed up to claim the body. She and Zack had only been able to identify three: the agent Kyle Duarte and 'the body' as agent Jake Foley. A photograph that had been in agent Foley's billfold had helped Zack identify the woman as Diane Hughes.
When the NSA had left, her lab was wrecked, the computers all needed reprogramming, her team was in shock and Booth kept muttering about some guy named Lazarus.
No… None of these reasons were the cause of her numbness; her book was gone. The latest book that she had written was gone. The book she had spent the last month final editing, was gone. She had a copy of it, sort of; just not the final draft. She had been going to send it to her publisher after she had re-written the dedication to include the squints. It should have been so simple, she had already notified her editor that it was ready. Now what was she going to do…
A knock at her door barely registered with her consciousness, but the face that stepped in front of her shocked her into anger. "What are you doing here?" She scowled at the woman standing in front of her.
Nervously the new comer smiled and fidgeted, "I am Dr. Diane Hughes, we uhh…, sort of met yesterday."
"I remember." Disdain evident on her face as she stood. "Now is not a good time for a visit, my lab is a wreck."
"I uhh… understand," Dr. Hughes shyly looked down. "Last night I found an attachment on an email." She picked up her briefcase and pulled out her laptop computer. Placing it on Temperance's desk, she turned it on and spun it around so Temperence could read the screen. "I thought you might like it back."
On the laptop's screen were the first paragraphs of her completed and edited novel.
"What did… I mean how did you…" Temperence fought for, clarity of thought.
"Can we just chalk it up to an unusual occurrence?"
Temperance arched an eyebrow and crossed her arms, letting her silence convey her lack of agreement.
"Ok… Would you believe our hacker knows that I'm a big fan of your books?" Biting her lower lip, she looked at the floor before adding, "He didn't want to erase it, so he sent it to me."
Shocked, Temperance just stood there as Dr. Hughes pulled a cable from her briefcase and connected her laptop to Temperance's. A few key strokes and the novel was once again in her possession. Sitting down she started scrolling through pages and chapters. Looking up, she saw that Dr. Hughes still stood there. "Thank You." She said after a minute's pause.
As the young woman was closing her repacked briefcase, Temperance just had to ask, "How did he access my laptop? It was turned off at the time."
Smiling, she leaned forward, "You know I think this is your best book yet. I can't wait to buy it when it hits the stands."
"You read it?!"
"I didn't know what it was when I opened the file. After I had read the first paragraph I couldn't stop." Stopping, she took her glasses off and rubbed the bridge between her eyes. "I know I must have raster burn this morning."
Looking her in the eyes, she squinted and asked, "Just who are you?"
"I am Dr. Diane Hughes; I work for the NSA."
"No, I mean…"
Interrupting, Dr. Hughes laughed, "I know what you mean Dr. Brennan. The questions you have I cannot answer…" Stopping she mouthed the word, 'Classified'.
Picking up her briefcase, she cocked her head, gave Temperance a genuinely warm smile and turned to leave. Pausing in the doorway, she turned, "Oh, about the love story in your books – trust me, the doctor and the agent – it can work out… wonderfully; ad astra per aspera." With that said she practically skipped out.
Waiting a moment, Temperance followed Dr. Hughes; she stopped at the front door. Dr. Hughes was hurrying into the arms of agent Foley as he stood beside the open passenger door of a nondescript sedan. The radio must have been on, because she saw him spin her in a short dance before helping the laughing and smiling doctor into the passenger seat.
After the car vanished out of the parking lot, she turned and walked slowly back to her office, thinking. The events of the past 24 hours played through her brain. She thought about what had been said and concentrated on what had been avoided in her conversations. She remembered the 'should have been dead' agent and his paramour, the good doctor. Stopping at the doorway of her office she allowed the enormity of possibilities to sift through her imagination, she looked out over the lab and felt an understanding of the loneliness that his life must be like; then she smiled. Stepping in, she closed the door and sat at her desk. Opening her laptop, she opened a new file and started typing notes for a new novel:
Raster Burn
A novel of impossible love in a mad world
Dedicated to the nameless of the NSA, may we never forget their dedication or know their sacrifices.
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A/N: Please Review – I accept anonymous reviews
A copy of the lyrics to the song 'Dem Bones' is available at:
www(dot)kididdles(dot)com(slash)lyrics(slash)d009(dot)html
For more information about Thurber, Texas go to:en(dot)wikipedia(dot)org(slash)wiki(slash)Thurber,Texas –
Ad astra per aspera – (Latin) to the stars through difficulties.
raster burn - 1.Eyestrain from staring at a computer screen for too long; this can happen sooner with a poor quality display or have a glare on the screen. 2.Damage to a computer screen caused by leaving it on for long hours without a screen saver. 3. Watching television for too long. 4. Staring at any illuminated display for too long.
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