Bones (c) Kathy Reichs and the makers of the show, etc.
Chapter 1:
Dr. Temperance Brennan sighed and stood up from the table, easing the crick out of her back. The forensic anthropologist had been working on identifying the remains of a skeleton found in a bush two days before, but after hours of poring over the rotting corpse all she had discovered was that it was a male, between the ages of six and ten, roughly 148cm in height.
It was almost impossible to identify the body, or give an exact height, because it was missing the head, hands and feet, eliminating the simple identification methods.
Brennan pulled of her gloves, brushing auburn hair away from her face impatiently, and checked her watch, surprised to see it was nearly nine p.m.
"Angela?" Tempe called out, "Zack?" She was not expecting an answer, and receiving none, she grabbed her bag and left the museum.
Brennan had just pulled up outside her apartment when her cell phone trilled in her bag. She answered it, retrieving her keys at the same time.
"Brennan," she said as she crossed the empty street, shivering slightly in her thin brown jacket.
"Bones, you'd better get here quick."
"Booth?" She stopped outside her door, keys in hand, not noticing it slowly start to rain. "What is it?"
"We've found another one." She could almost hear her FBI partner run a nervous hand through his hair.
"I'll be right there. What's the address?"
It took her nearly quarter of an hour to find the building, by which time the rain had gotten heavier, soaking her the minute she left the shelter of the car. She saw her partner's hunched back inside his coat and hurried over to him, shrugging her shoulders inside her jacket, wishing she'd thought to bring an umbrella.
The building surrounding her were dilapidated wrecks; none of them looked to have been occupied in a long time. FBI agents milled around, moving automatically to let her through, used to her presence by now. They had come to accept that wherever Booth was working on a case, she would surely follow. The area was surrounded by police tape that she had to duck under to reach Booth. The red and blue lights on the cars flashed, illuminating the surrounding abandoned buildings.
"Booth," she called over the sound of the rain drumming on the ground, and her partner glanced round at the sound of her voice, worry creasing his forehead. Booth was only a few inches taller than her, but stocky and solid, a comforting bulk in his FBI issue jacket. His short dark hair, usually neatly combed, was slick and tousled from the rain. He flashed her a worried smile, only a shadow of his usual enthusiastic grin, and as she joined him she could see why.
The boy lay behind a large bush, already starting to decompose. Blood pooled beneath the body, but like the first dead boy they had found, he was missing his head, hands and feet.
The rain was already washing away the blood surrounding him, leaving nothing but a dark red stain in the dirt.
"Oh my God." Tempe heard herself say, momentarily forgetting to focus on the details and seeing the dead boy, before she mentally shook herself. She had a job to do.
"Better call in the team," Booth muttered, but it was more to fill the heavy silence than to give her advice, she knew, because she was already dialing.
"Zack?" she said, grateful that the rain was beginning to lessen and she could talk at a normal volume. "I've got something you should see..."
Seeley Booth shivered, watching his partner examine the body. He could tell it had started to decompose, but that was it; anthropology was her field, not his. The head was missing, but even so, the size of the body meant it couldn't be older than seven or eight, and Booth felt sick to his stomach as he thought of his own son, and how he would feel if the body was his…but that was impossible; Parker would be safely tucked up in bed by now, and Booth would see him at the weekend as planned, he would make sure of it.
He was startled out of his thoughts by Bones snapping commands at the agents and forensic experts trying to help. By now Zack and Hodgins, the field 'squint squad', as he called them, were milling around, asking questions and trying not to get in Bones' way. Zack talked non-stop about the possible causes of death, but he could tell Bones was hardly listening. Her young assistant probably also knew; despite the fact he was utterly clueless about most things involving living humans, he could always tell when she was ignoring him.
He was good at waiting; he had to be for both this and his previous line of work, but his feet had gone numb and after a few hours he was wishing more than anything for warmth and sleep. He checked his watch. It was after midnight, and finally there seemed to be signs of the investigation coming to an end.
"OK, Zack; get the body back to the lab for further investigations." Booth glanced up at the sound of Bones' voice.
"What's going on?" he asked her. "You done your thing, Bones?"
"Yes," she replied, the exhaustion clear in her voice, "and Booth?"
"Yeah?" He fell into step beside her.
"Don't call me Bones."