Warning: Physical/emotional/sexual abuse. I ask that you do not read if these are offensive/upsetting topics for you.
Disclaimer: I do not own Bones or any of its characters.
Timeline: AU. Sweets is not dead. Will stick to the main precedents established in the show (accurate through season ten – I have yet to watch S11 or S12,) but Sweets' adoptive parents will have passed away much earlier.
Expected Update Schedule: Once a week at best.
The Flaw in the Foster System
It was an average – albeit slow – day on the Jeffersonian Institute's forensic platform. Dr. Brennan was identifying a decade-old set of remains from Limbo, Hodgins focusing on his latest invention, Angela painting peacefully in her office, and Agent Booth was nowhere in sight, probably struggling through a stack of paperwork in his office when a set of decomposing remains was wheeled into the lab by Dr. Camille Saroyan and a team of Jeffersonian interns. Immediately, the lab came buzzing alive, and the sounds of Dr. Brennan shouting orders to Wendell and gloves snapping on filled the room.
"Why was I not made aware of the body earlier? You know my disdain for the work of the FBI techs. I've made it very clear I prefer the field work done by myself and my team, Dr. Saroyan," Brennan scolded her superior, rolling her eyes and beginning her examination of the body as Wendell bounded up the stairs to assist her.
"Dr. Brennan, I'd appreciate if you lose the tone. I myself wasn't aware of the body until it arrived at the doors, but it appears to have been decomposing for two to three weeks now," Cam reprimanded her best forensic anthropologist.
"Approximately thirteen to sixteen years old, male, Caucasian, five-foot-eight or so, 135 pounds at first glance," Wendell rattled off his preliminary findings. Angela emerged from her office at the sound of all the commotion, and Booth was promptly called to give him a heads up that they had a case. After Cam took all the tissue samples she would need to run toxicology screens and assess physical damage to the body, particulates were swabbed, and Angela took notes on the tissue markers of the face, Hodgins set to work with his beetles to remove the skin, fat, and muscle within a few hours.
Once the bones were clean, Angela was able to work alone with the boy to put a face on his skull and a name to his face. She determined he was handsome – would likely have grown up to be very attractive – with a strong jaw, big eyes, a pronounced forehead, and just a feeling he had chocolate-brown hair and irises to match. She sighed while looking at his face. He was a sweet-looking, puppy dog-faced kid, who had likely done nothing to deserve what was most probably a violent, terrifying end. The thought of just a baby suffering at the hands of his attacker broke the artist's weary heart and tempted her to just lay her head on her desk and sob, but nevertheless, she ran the sketch through missing person's and found a match for a Chase Gregory, reported missing two and a half weeks ago by his mother. Dental records would later confirm him as the victim, and the purposeful damage to his skeleton would confirm that his case fell under FBI jurisdiction.
"Do we have an ID yet?" Booth called as he strode into the Jeffersonian's lab. "Yes," Angela hollered down from the platform, "Chase Gregory. Fourteen years old, passed away about two weeks ago." Booth sucked in a breath at hearing the age of their latest victim. As far as he was concerned, a teenager was still just a child, and there was something about seeing a little set of remains on the stainless steel examination table that always made his heart catch in his throat. Nevertheless, he swallowed his anger, frustration, and sadness back down and tracked down the address for the boy's family. After instructing Wendell to continue cataloguing the damage found on the skeleton, Bones ambled down the steps to Booth and the pair exited the lab, ready to go inform the family.
"Well, what do we know so far, Bones?" Booth inquired of his wife once the black FBI SUV had roared to life.
"The victim is fourteen-year-old Chase Gregory. Blunt force trauma to the head and the location of the body dump – a shallow grave in the Conway Robinson State Forest in Gainesville, Virginia, stumbled upon by hikers – indicate that this was a murder, and insect activity on the victim confirms that time of death occurred fifteen days ago. A number of defensive wounds can be found on his hands, arms, and feet, but it appears as though cause of death was a blow to the parietal. Cam is still working on the toxicology report," Bones concluded.
It wasn't a very long drive to the boy's home, and by the time Booth had been filled in on what the case consisted of, they were already parking in the house's driveway. It was a nice house – the family clearly wasn't overly wealthy, but certainly the parents had respectable careers. They approached the white, two-story house and knocked on the door, and it swung open to reveal a very exhausted, although pretty, blonde woman with red-rimmed eyes. Those eyes popped open first with confusion when she saw two people she didn't recognize on her doorstep, but then clouded with horror when they introduced themselves as being from the FBI and the Jeffersonian Institute.
"Mrs. Gregory, we're sorry to inform you that the Bureau found your son's remains earlier this morning in a forest. We are so sorry for your loss," Booth announced quietly, turning up his charm and compassion to break some of the worst news she'd likely ever hear. Despite Booth's best efforts to extend their condolences sincerely, the woman broke down instantly, sobbing as she absorbed what she'd just been told.
Brennan, having no time for hysterics but also having empathy as a mother herself, placed a hand on the grieving mother's shoulder and said, "Mrs. Gregory, we need to discuss this with you. Ask a few questions to see if you can lead us to his murderer, have access to his room, computer, and cell phone to see if anything was out of the ordinary."
"Of course," she replied, ushering the agent and doctor into her home. "And please," she added, "call me Hazel." She plopped down heavily into a recliner and Booth and Brennan took a seat on the couch opposite her.
"Okay, Hazel, where is your husband?" Booth hoped to start off with an easy question, noticing the ring on her finger and family photos of Hazel, her husband, and Chase on the wall.
She shifted a bit in her seat before answering, "Oh, Ricky's just at work. He's a pretty important financial advisor, so he's always working and I got to take a less-strenuous job as an elementary teacher."
"So does that mean Chase was here alone a lot?"
"Well, not really. Sure, Ricky worked a lot, but he tried to come home early and do work from home whenever he could. Even if he couldn't spend a lot of time with Chase, he wanted to be around him. He loved his son," she emphasized, then continued, "and I'm only a teacher, so I could be home every day when he came home from school."
"Do you have any other children? Friends that Chase brought home often?"
"No other children," she started, and both of their hearts broke at the thought of this woman losing her only child, "but Chase was a popular boy. He played football and wrestled, was in lots of clubs, got stellar grades, always nice to everyone he met. I just can't imagine who would want him dead," she cried at the end.
"Don't worry, Hazel. We'll find out who did this to your son," Booth promised her sincerely, standing up to leave. Brennan thought better of investigating the victim's room for now – the mother was clearly shaken, and she could easily come back within a few hours with her team and an agenda.
Just then, the three adults heard a rattle from the upstairs. Booth and Brennan looked at each other, both immediately losing their trust in the seemingly innocent mother they had just spoken to. "I thought you said nobody lived here besides you, Chase, and your husband, Mrs. Gregory," Dr. Brennan locked eyes with the mother.
"Nobody does," she started immediately, "probably just the dog making noise!"
"That didn't sound like pawprints," Booth stated as he and Brennan made their way to the stairs, Hazel following helplessly behind. "Really, it was just the dog. We have a huge, clumsy retriever, probably just getting into trouble like always," she tried again, more in attempt to convince herself than to convince the people in her home.
Nothing had made a sound since they heard the first noise moments ago, but Brennan was drawn to Chase's room anyways, her impeccable memory indicating that that room was the source of the noises. Once inside, she stopped and listened carefully, silently finding the boy's laptop and handing it to Booth, as it was considered evidence anyway. Then, she heard a sound once more: this time, like something rubbing against a floor. Booth fell in step behind his brilliant wife as she approached the closet and went to open it, only finding the door to be locked with a deadbolt as she heard more muffled noises.
She turned to Hazel, eyes blazing and voice hard, as she demanded, "Where are the keys to this door?"
Hazel, growing more anxious and upset by the second, with tears streaming down her face, shouted, "I don't know! There's nothing in there anyway!"
Luckily, Booth's military and FBI training had paid off well, and he was already kneeling at the door, working the lock when the two women finally turned to look at him. He was picking the last pin, and suddenly, the lock popped open and he hurriedly opened the door and flipped on the dim overhead light, flinching at the ripe stench coming from the small room.
In the back of the closet, behind a hamper, a rack of clothing, and piles of shoe boxes and other knick-knacks, huddled together, and clearly scared, Booth had found two dark-haired little boys cowering underneath his stare.